"Y'know. I never considered her mother."
"Considered whose mother?" I asked Matsuda as I overheard the duo's conversation.
"Rias Gremory's mother. She may be here to see her daughter and that got me thinking… What if she's even hotter than her?"
"How would that be possible?" I responded. "I mean, she has to be 20 years older than her, at least. Surely that radiant beauty must have faded off by now."
"Says the guy whose mother is up there with Rias and Akeno on the scale."
They have a point. I wasn't entirely honest with that last statement. If devil genetics are anything like angel genetics, I'm sure she's probably a mirror image of her daughter.
"Y'know," added Motohama. "I always thought the absurd amount of hot transfer students recently was because of Makoto's 'personality,' but you forget Rias also attracts the ladies as well. She might be assembling a team of beautiful ladies from around the world!"
That isn't far from the truth.
"That doesn't make you any less suspicious, though!" Matsuda commented to me.
"I still don't know where you get these ideas…"
"I know, right?" Aika said, "These boys just don't know when to stop daydreaming…"
She then grabbed my arm and adjusted her glasses.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"So, your fingernails are cut short…"
"And that's significant because…"
"Well, I heard that it helps for a boy to keep his fingernails short whenever he's active."
"What!? That's absurd!"
"I knew you were suspicious!" Matsuda exclaimed.
"Active in what?" Asia asked.
"Do not answer that, Aika!" I responded.
Irina suddenly interjected.
"Hey! Don't be spreading malicious rumors about Makoto! He's too pure for that kinda stuff!"
Matsuda and Motohama's tone suddenly shifted to a joyfully obedient tone.
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Anything for you!"
Of course they would listen to the cute new transfer student.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey, if you are planning to be active, I can get you protection."
After Xenovia said that, my face slammed back onto my desk.
It was not long after that I began hearing a clamor from the hallway and camera flashes.
I walked out into the hallway with Aika, Asia, Irina and Xenovia. Yuuto was already out there. Suspiciously, there wasn't being followed by a groupie like he normally was.
"What? Is some celebrity on campus?" I asked him.
"Apparently it's some witch doing a photoshoot."
We followed the crowd into the foyer. Aika had gone ahead of us, and we later found out why.
"Is that Serafall Leviathan in a Magical Girl Milky Spiral Seven cosplay!?" I exclaimed.
"Man. I haven't seen a cosplay that good in a while!" Aika commented, her glasses glistening as she adjusted them. "I've been watching it with someone for a contract. It's pretty good, but it's been going downhill since Season 3, the last three episodes weren't even canon!"
"I heard they're planning to get back on track with the upcoming Season 4."
"They'd better."
Saji, along with several other Student Council Members moved their way in front of Serafall attempting to dispel the crowd.
"Everybody get back to class! We can't be making a ruckus on Observation Day!"
"C'mon! That's BS!"
"Bye, Milky!"
They slowly began to disperse, continuing to bicker as they went back to their classrooms.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you can't be wearing that. It's against Dress Code."
"What? This is my uniform!~" Serafall retorted to Saji.
"Are you, by chance, a parent or relative of someone here?" he asked.
"Should I tell him?" I asked Yuuto.
"What's going on, Saji?"
"Found you, So-tan~!" Serafall exclaimed as she noticed Sona walking up. "I see Makkun as well! I can't believe I finally get to meet you in in person."
Sona turned beet red as she gravitated towards her like a magnet, even redder than Rias was earlier. "Please stop calling us that…"
"Good grief," I muttered. "Nice to meet you too!"
"Hey, Serafall!" Sirzechs said as he walked in with another red-haired man carrying a camera.
"Ooh! Zeoticus-chan!" she exclaimed "Could you get a picture with me and Makkun?"
"Absolutely!" the man said.
She put one hand on my shoulder and flashed a peace sign with the other.
"Cheese!~" she cheered.
I smiled slightly awkwardly as he shot the picture, and the instant camera printed a copy.
"Sirzechs-chan, you have a pen?" Serafall asked.
"Absolutely," he said, apparently not caring that he was addressed as "Sirzechs-chan," as he passed a pen to Serafall, who proceeded to sign her copy of the photo and passed it on to me.
It was signed "Levia-tan~"
"Thanks…"
"The White Dragon Emperor is a VIP any time~!"
"Well, it's a pleasant surprise to see you here, Lady Leviathan!" the other man said.
"I know. So-tan was such a meanie and didn't tell me about today! I was ready to use my wand to glitter through the entire Khaos Brigade~!"
"Please don't glitter…" Sona commented. "You'll take the entirety of Japan down with them."
Those are quite the maou-gical girl powers. I'd kill to see an anime of that.
"What's wrong, So-tan? I thought you missed me! I was expecting us to embrace each other in sisterly love while calling out each other's names! Or is it more than sisterly love?"
"Please, sister… I… I can't let you just come in here with that outfit and acting like a magical girl!"
"But I am a magical girl!"
"And here I thought Sona and her sister had a falling out," I commented to Saji. "Looks like it's actually the opposite."
"Yeah, with how much Lady Leviathan is doting on the Class President, you would think that she is the little sister, and not the other way around."
Eventually, Sona began to burst into tears and ran off and Serafall began chasing after her followed by Saji.
"Good grief… The Demon Lord, ladies and gentlemen!"
"Don't worry, she's always like this. The other Demon Lords aren't much better when they're off the clock, either." the cameraman said to me, chuckling, with Sirzechs nodding in approval.
"Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier. I am Rias' father, Zeoticus Gremory."
"Pleased to meet you!"
"If you'll excuse me, I got to get to my dear daughter's class. Me and my son plan to have dinner with you, I hope to see you then!"
"How the hell did you get her autograph!?" Matsuda asked, "We were all run off by the Student Council!"
"Well… I happen to be a friend of hers!"
"Yeah… I bet it's with benefits too…" Motohama muttered.
"For the last time, I'm not the type of guy to just have casual…"
I didn't finish that sentence as the room began to be filled with eager parents.
Goodness, this is starting to feel like Elementary School.
During class, we forgoed the typical lecture in favor of an arts and crafts project. The teacher said it was another form of communication. I still don't see what this has to do with English, but whatever.
We were all given a block of polymer clay and we were asked to make it into "whatever comes to mind."
The problem is, I'm the type of guy usually with nothing on my mind. That makes that particular task a bit troublesome.
The amount of eager parents surrounding us wasn't helping. At least my mom isn't-
Oh wait, there she is. She managed to escape the Counselor's Office.
Shoot. This is bad. I gotta think of something. Even Matsuda has gotten started. Either that or he's just pretending the clay is a boob.
The only thing that was on my mind was Serafall. She was so odd. I thought Demon Lords were supposed to be intimidating, but I just saw one of them roleplaying as a magical girl. And Rias' father said that the other Demon Lords are like this as well.
Now that I think about it, Sirzechs isn't the Demon Lord type either. I was just playing video games with him last night. I wonder what the others are like.
And there was also that thing Sona said about Serafall being able to blow Japan to kingdom come if she did so much as "glitter." To think someone as childish as her could be that deadly…
"Wow, Fujiwara! Nice work!"
I looked at my clay as I heard the Teacher say that and I had turned it into an impressive figurine of Serafall in her Milky Spiral Seven costume. She was even doing the "Milky Milky Spiral" pose. I've seen figurines that cost serious money that didn't look nearly as good.
How the hell…
I remember learning that using magic comes from the mind, but I didn't know that also carried over to arts and crafts.
"You got her autograph and you made that figure?" Aika said. "You must be more into that show than I thought."
I shrugged.
"I have once again drawn out the hidden talents of one of my students," the teacher wiped away a tear. "I love my job."
Then the class became an auction house.
"I'll give you ¥100 for Milky!"
"Get out of here with your broke ass! ¥1,000!"
"¥5,000!"
"Milky is mine! ¥8,000!"
Then somebody casually dropped a bunch of bills onto my desk.
"¥100,000"
Riser Phenex was carrying the figure he had bought off me as we walked down the hall during the Lunch break.
I've become quite the budding entrepreneur. This is a proud moment.
We approached where Ravel was talking with a young woman until she noticed us.
"Big brother! Is that-?"
"Yes. I got this figure of Lady Leviathan that Makoto made himself!"
"Amazing!" she exclaimed. "I've always wanted a Levia-tan figure! Thank you very much, Makoto!"
"It was nothing," I said, chuckling.
"Pleased to meet you, Makoto." the woman said. "I'm Lady Phenex, Riser and Ravel's mother. Riser said he wanted to come see how his little sister is doing. I'm here to make sure he isn't actually trying to hit on Lady Rias again…"
Riser nervously chuckled. "I told you mother, I'm over it…"
"Right… Because all those photos you still keep of her don't have anything to do with that."
There was then a flash of blue light and Serafall jumped out.
"Uh, Serafall, you can't just teleport in public like that…" I commented.
"Oops! My bad! I just lost track of where So-tan ran off to and I heard someone's making sweet merchandise of me!"
Riser pointed to me and Ravel showed my figure.
"Ooh! This is the best one yet! No company has even come close to this quality! You should be my official merchandiser!"
I chuckled. "I'm sorry. I don't even know how I did it."
"Well. If you can figure out how to duplicate this, call me. There's definitely a valuable proposition in there for you!"
She then bolted off, probably to continue searching for Sona.
Rias was flipping through channels on her TV in her bedroom until we found a murder-mystery program we both liked.
I was sitting next to her desk. The reason we had retreated back here is because… well… the relatives were starting to get embarrassing.
I was initially curious about the video my mother had made, since I was still curious as to how the heck I made that figure of Serafall. Though, she still seemed to be more interested in Asia.
After watching it, I'm even more confused…
Then Rias' father connected his camera, much to Rias' protest.
Rias, both in the film and in person, was looking incredibly flustered. Even I was getting second-hand awkwardness.
"Let's get out of here…" I said to her.
"Very much, yes."
Even then, we could still faintly hear the chatter from downstairs.
"Oh, look Ria-tan is raising her hand to answer the question!"
"Good lord. How much have they drank?"
"This must be a new level of hell…"
"And you came from hell!"
She got a chuckle out of that.
"I'm sorry you had to see such an uncool side of me," she said.
"Hey. I'll always think you're cool. I know those who would kill to have a friend like you."
After a loaded silence, she said, "By the way, my brother said something to me that you ought to know…"
"What is it?"
It was then that Asia came in the room.
"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting anything, but watching them is getting too much!"
"You're welcome to join us," Rias said to her. "Have a seat on my bed."
"Thank you, President!"
The scene we were currently watching was particularly creepy, but then there was a jump scare and Asia suddenly clung to Rias, who was still quite enjoying it. Meanwhile, I was still glued to the screen, trying to piece together who the killer was.
However, a completely different mystery suddenly turned up.
"Everyone! Get downstairs!" Mother said, "Something's happened!"
We followed her all the way down to the basement and into the armory, where something was missing!
One of the cases had been broken into!
"Ascalon is gone!" Mother exclaimed.
"Did you have any idea who took it, Lady Gabriel?" Rias' father asked.
"No. I just went down here to see if there was anything I wanted to show you two and I saw it was gone…"
"Do you think it's the Purist Faction again?" Xenovia asked.
"No. They currently don't have a leader." I said. "They're too scattered to pull a stunt like this right now."
"I was about to tell you, Makoto." Rias said. "My brother told me the Khaos Brigade is planning to make a move on the conference here. This may have something to do with this."
"How so?"
"When Milcom Amon exchanged his servant, he said that 'Both the Church and Underworld's conferences are in danger.' He clarified that he wasn't involved and he doesn't know exactly who." Sirzechs explained. "All he said was that he overheard plans of an attack."
"What are we going to do?" Asia asked.
"I'm meeting with someone this weekend," I said. "She may have an idea."