The Nekoshou's Wolf

by Curiosity44

Reborn into DxD 20 years before Canon, Hei, a human orphan, must rise with his own will to the top, overcoming Devils, Angels, Fallen, Gods, a loli dragon, and most of all, the felines in his life as he spreads the name of his legacy, the Legacy of Lupa, a legacy of assassins. Come Join Hei on his journey as Lupus, the Nekoshou's Wolf. AU world. FUCKING READ THE WARNING

7. 6: Resolve to Love, Holidays, and Gold

AN: I can't get a feel on you guys and gals. I get plenty of views but no reviews. Was it something I said?

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Disclaimer: I don't own any original content; I claim no ownership of DxD or HxH content. With that said, I sure as hell wrote this fic so don't steal my shit.

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Chapter 6: The Resolve to Love, Holidays, and Gold Colored Friends.

Hours passed, the earth turned, beings woke and went to rest, and the world went on, unaware and uncaring for those dealing with their demons.

But in a certain room in a certain pocket dimension of sorts, a couple was safe in each other's arms, holding their demons at bay with the others presence.

For they both held them, some old, some new, but present they were.

A young man, for no matter what a birth certificate might say, this was no boy, slept peacefully on his back.

His lithe and powerful form of corded muscles at five feet tall with just barely shoulder length raven black hair and wine-red eyes was an eyeful for anyone interested in the male form.

Even while young, he looked years older and could have made a living in the male model industry.

And laying on top of him while wrapped in his arms as if to shield her from the world itself, was a definition of beauty.

A young woman who could no longer call herself a simple girl, laid on his chest with a blissful expression.

Midnight black hair fell down her skull with a silky shine that draped over the young man's chest in a wild spray.

Beneath her lids hid two golden irised eyes with slit cat like pupils.

Her young frame did nothing to hide the growing assets more fit for a young woman a few years her age.

She stood at a height of 4'9 with a figure that could make teenage female models green with envy.

The two seemed to blend into each other, like a painting of the finest quality, the two high quality subjects seemed to only build each other to higher heights while placed together.

Like a match made in heaven, or perhaps fate?

Whichever it was, anyone who gazed upon them in this moment would have the same thought.

'They were meant to be together.'

And it was at this moment that the young man's eyes fluttered open.

*Line Break*

'Hm…how long was I asleep?'

I blinked my eyes a few times while I slowly came back to myself.

I felt extremely comfortable and there was this pleasant warmth spread along my chest.

I unconsciously pulled it closer into me to enjoy that feeling of comfort more.

"Mnn….~"

A pleasant sound came from the warmth and my eyes snapped open, only to widen at what my eyes saw.

'An angel.'

That thought was met with internal laughter after I realized what I first thought. If it was known I would probably get slapped for calling her a lesser being like an angel.

For the cat was supreme.

Kuroka's peacefully sleeping face was unconsciously rubbing against my chest with a soft purr and a small trail of drool at the corner of her mouth.

She had this goofy and incredibly happy smile on her face as she dreamed.

It melted my heart.

I moved carefully to adjust myself and grabbed an extra pillow to put behind my head and prob me up a bit without disturbing her rest.

Then I just looked down at her form seemingly trying to blend in with my chest and ran a hand through her hair.

Her long and soft midnight hair.

Is it wrong that I was having a strong possessive feeling at this moment?

It felt like I just wanted to be the only one in the world who could see this scene, to see her so adorable, at peace, and defenseless.

It was just a sudden feeling, and I knew I would never control her against her wishes, but I knew it deep inside.

She was mine.

And I was hers.

I chuckled at that thought.

'What have you done to me Kuroka?'

I was reborn into an anime world thought to be fantasy.

Had the memories of my past life from the moment of my birth.

Spent four years trying to figure out what world I was in and what power I had.

Spent an additional five years learning the art of assassination from one of the greatest human legacies in the world.

And spent two more years going through hell that could make hardened military veterans pale and run away from with sadistic but loving cat teachers and sisters.

I was the new Lupa, the big bad wolf who took hundreds of lives and strikes fear into the hearts of mortals around the world.

I was Lupus, the rising star of the mercenary guild and a rapidly gaining recognition black market brand.

But for all of that, I wanted to be hers.

I wanted to belong to her just as I wanted her to belong to me.

I shook my head with a wry smile.

'Love is blinding.'

So many over history fell from high pedestals due to love.

Love was poisonous and blinding.

But looking down at that smiling face on my chest made it worth it.

If love was poisonous, I would just build up my tolerance till I was immune.

If love was blinding, I would work my other senses till I could function perfectly without it.

Because when you cut through the negatives, and have your feelings reciprocated in turn by another, love is euphoric and beautiful.

Love fuels love like oil to a flame, they build off another to reach higher and higher heights.

And it's when that tower of love begins to crack and collapse that many fall to despair and depression.

Lust, stress, carelessness, boredom, so many things can lead on astray.

It makes love all the more deadly, because of all the smaller things that hover around it.

But there are ways to offset such dangers.

Trust, Faith, Support, Care, the willingness to think about your other before yourself while they do the same.

It can last into eternity or be a single night of passion.

Which you choose is up to those involved.

My thoughts churned as I saw her begin to stir.

'I don't know about eternity, but I think my choice has already been made for the foreseeable future.'

"Nyyyyyaaaa~."

Letting out a pleasant sound of bliss, Kuroka stretched her arms forward and arched her back in a way that did wonders for her growing assets.

Then she collapsed back down and blinked her eyes a few times as she looked up at me with her chin on my chest.

"Hmmm… Hei?"

I gave her a soft smile and continued running my hand through her hair slowly.

"Good morning beautiful. Sleep well?"

She smiled toothily and leaned forward to rub her cheek against my own.

"Hei~."

"Mn."

Her arms came up around my neck as my own secured her waist on top of me.

"Hei~."

"Mn."

She rubbed her face and head along my own, sinking her scent even further into my body.

"Hei~."

"Mn."

She faced me and I leaned my forehead against her own as my red eyes stared into her golden ones.

We stayed in the position for a moment, gazing into each other, feeling an emotion building.

"Hei."

Her lips whispered inches from my own and my hands moved up her back to gently cup her face.

"I'm here Kuroka."

Her eyes became heavily lidded as she took that final inch like a cat that had been stalking its prey and finally pounced.

There were no little sisters, no teachers or big sisters, there was no one to interrupt us this time.

Her soft lips enclosed on mine with a hunger that I happily fed.

Our lips locked, our bodies pressed tightly into one another, drowning in the emotions and feelings.

Her tongue cautiously poked out at my lips, and I responded in kind and opened my mouth to give her access.

*Mn~*

She moaned in content as she fed, and I gave.

But my instincts, trained to react instinctively over the years by my teachers, reared its head and I flipped her over and pinned her down much to her laughter.

"Nyahaha~."

She laughed against my lips as I pressed into her and dug her nails into my back.

We fed on each other for as long as possible until we we're forced to get air.

She looked up at me with messy hair and slightly swollen lips as I hovered over her and looked down.

""Wow.""

We spoke at the same time and our eyes widened before we both broke out into snickers.

I lifted a hand to her face and brushed away some hair from her face as she rubbed her face into my hand and stared into my eyes soulfully.

I bent pack down and planted buttery kisses along her lips, making her giggle and squirm in joy.

But there was something I needed to tell her.

Something that needed to be said.

Said before we could go any further.

I bent down by her ear and whispered.

"Kuroka."

She bit on my ear.

"Yes Hei?"

I knew this could have a drastic effect on things, but it needed to be said.

I brushed her hair away gently from her cat like ear and spoke softly.

"You need a breath mint."

Kuroka froze against me.

The moment seemed to come to a halt, the very air stilled, and in the next her reaction was summed up very simply.

"NYA!"

"Oof!"

A foot slammed into my chest and flipped me over onto my back at the edge of the mattress as she pounced and mounted me before grabbing my robe and shaking me back and forth.

"Hei! You don't say such things to a lady!"

I was being shook back and forth and I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Hahaha but…..you….didn't….brush….your….teeth….last….night..!"

I didn't want to ruin the moment, but she tasted like puke.

She stopped shaking me and stared with angry and intense narrowed cat eyes into me, and I very carefully did not move a muscle.

She punctuated her next word with a great amount of intensity.

"Bathroom."

My finger unconsciously lifted and pointed at a door to the side of the room.

Her eyes didn't leave my own, but she saw the sign.

"Move and you die."

I gave a nod, and, in a flash, she moved and disappeared into the bathroom.

I breathed again when she was gone and shook my head.

'Holy shit. That was as frightening as it was arousing….yeah…gonna keep that little bit of info to myself.'

Despite her warning, I did get up and move to my utility belt to remove one of my voice changing candies.

They were created to change you voice, but they were also flavored and worked as a breath mint.

The small things in life you know.

The flavor was random each time, but it stayed as actual candy flavors and didn't give you something like paper or oil or something.

I hopped back on the bed and sat cross legged in my robe while sucking on it.

'Hm… chamomile? Not bad.'

I bit down on it and crushed it, getting the flavor around my mouth and getting out the taste of…stuff…

*Slam*

I rose a brow at the bathroom door which Kuroka slammed open.

She stood there looking slightly refreshed, her hair was less of a mess, and she didn't have any drool marks on her cheek, but her eyes were glued on me.

I raised a hand in greeting.

"Yo, feel better?"

She started stalking forward, because that was NOT simply walking, and kept her eyes trailed on me with her slit pupil narrowing.

I felt a cold drop of sweat falling down my back and leaned back slightly.

"Kuroka?"

She didn't respond until she was at the edge of the bed.

"Don't move."

I felt slightly nervous under her gaze but did as she asked.

She crawled on the bed before prowling toward me and coming right into my lap where she took her seat with her chest facing my own.

Her hands came up to my face and cupped my cheeks.

And then her voice finally came out.

"Hei."

"Yes?"

"We are not leaving this bed until I'm satisfied."

"We do ha…."

I trailed off as her eyes came inches from my own and swallowed what I was going to say.

"Right, as you wish."

Her mouth formed a predatory smile that was all teeth.

"Good."

And then she pounced.

*Line Break*

"….."

"Ah~."

"….."

"Mnnnn."

"…."

"Hei."

"….."

"Hei."

"*sigh* yes Kuroka?"

"Why do you look like a corpse?"

I shot her an annoyed look and she smiled cheekily back at me.

"Don't start with me girl."

"Nyahaha~."

We were sitting in the hot spring, soaking and relaxing in each other's arms.

Except I was clocked out with my head against the stone wall with tired bloodshot eyes and numerous scratch marks around my body that were already healing from the waters effect.

And Kuroka was glowing with energy and sitting sideways on my lap while kicking her feet in the water.

The hungry cat sucked me dry, metaphorically, of energy.

We did nothing beyond first base and heavy patting, but she just never stopped.

When I tried to placate her so we could rest I got scratched.

In the end I just gave her what she wanted till she was satisfied.

"You are satisfied right?"

She tilted her head and continued kicking her feet slowly.

"Hm… for the moment I guess. I feel like I have 11 months of catching up to do. I should have just jumped you when you couldn't move back on that first day."

I sat up and put my elbows behind me to look at her.

"You have been thinking about this since back then?"

She shook her head with a giggle.

"Nya you wish! But no, I don't think I realized just how much I wanted you until I woke up this morning. We have been together since that day back then when I knew you fell for my charms~."

She waved a hand through her hair dramatically and I just rose an eyebrow at her with a small smile.

"Hehe, but since that day, I've been attracted to you. You were handsome, strong, funny, and you smelled rrreeeaalllyyy good."

I tilted my head at her.

"You have said that a few times, I still don't get what you mean."

She shrugged and leaned her shoulder against my chest.

"I think it's a Nekomata thing, I don't know how to describe it other than it being your scent.

Some of the other villagers noticed it and they have been eyeing you….damn old cats…they should stick to their age range and leave my prey alone!"

She growled at the last sentence, and I tried to suppress a bubble of laughter.

"*pft* so I'm your prey?"

She extended a claw and placed it on my chest over my heart while staring at me with a predatory smile.

"You disagree."

Rather than back down, I matched her smile and leaned forward, pressing her claw into my skin and drawing a drop of blood.

"And what happens if your prey has teeth?"

She lifted the bloodied claw to her tongue and licked it.

"I'm sure I can find a way to appease you."

I smirked and leaned forward to catch her lips as she giggled against my lips.

The tiny wound on my chest already healing.

Various factors combined in that little play, and it meant something to both of us that I could feel no threat and complete trust despite her action.

Something she understood wordlessly and made her hunger reignite.

My eyes turned mischievous though.

'I think it's time to take the initiative here.'

I leaned forward farther and let go, dropping her into the water.

She sputtered and squeaked in surprise.

"Nya! Hei!"

At her indignation I just laughed and joined her in the center of the hot spring as I bent down to capture her lips.

Our war of lips began its second round, a war that would go on for many more years to come.

*Line Break*

Once we were clean and dressed in fresh clothes, we sat down to eat a meal curtesy of a very kind Joy panda maid that had Kuroka wide eyed, but I waved it away.

"We can discuss what this all is later, it's not very important."

I waved a hand nonchalantly while Kuroka raised her hand like a kid in school.

"Yes, student Kuroka?"

"Sensei, I think this is a very important topic."

"Duly noted student Kuroka, we will get back to this topic in a bit, we have other things to discuss."

"Ok Sensei~ what do you need with this student~?"

I chuckled at her cheeky teasing tone before I moved my chair next to her as she almost naturally leaned into me with a smile.

I smiled back and rubbed my forehead against hers before moving back and with a gentle tone, I addressed the elephant in the room.

"Kuroka, how are you feeling, truly?"

Her smile dimmed a bit, and she closed her eyes as she leaned back into me, and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"At the moment, blissful. But I guess your referring to last night huh?"

"Mn."

She sighed and spoke.

"It's hard to say to be honest.

Most of the fear and horror at what I had done is still firmly in my mind. I don't think I'll ever forget those screams of the two I set on fire, or the look that man gave me as the light left his eyes, but it's not at the front of my mind anymore."

She grabbed onto my hand with her own and I squeezed her hand lightly in support.

She took another breath and went on.

"I think I'll be fine moving forward, that was just far too much stimulation that I didn't expect at all happening all at once.

The mix of the horror I caused and witnessed mixed with the threat to my life and how I reacted just all exploded in my mind at once and I had a really bad panic attack.

But you helped."

She looked up at me and a soft and loving smile came on her face.

"You helped me more than you know. Your soothing words and loving actions through it all sort of mix with the horror and fear and just sort of swallow them.

They are still there, but it's like this demon in my mind was contained in a bubble of the warm memories from you and it just shrunk in size till it was a small marble.

At my lowest moment, you made me feel safe.

Made me feel loved, more than I've ever felt before.

My father looked at me like an interesting pet, my mother was kind, but she gives off this….wrong feeling from her devotion.

It's a weird feeling of being loved as a person and treated as an extra dish of food in case he one day decided he was hungry.

And Shirone, my adorable and innocent little sister, is too young to give me such feelings. Not to say I don't love her, I would give my own life for her, but it's just different.

You make me happy Hei, and you drown out the darkness just by being with me.

When I think about what happened last night, it's tied into what you did, and I just don't feel afraid anymore.

But I think it will always be there."

My heart went out to her as she spoke, and I rested my chin on her head while she leaned into me.

One of the cardinal rules of my way of life is to never look your victims in the eyes, especially not on the first kill. It can do long term damage to someone, and it was a point my father taught me well.

I was just relieved to know my own panicked actions were able to help her.

"I'll always be here for you Kuroka, whenever you need me, just call for me and I'll come running. Can you do that?"

"Mn. I promise."

She kissed my chest lightly and I tiled my head down to share a kiss with her that brought a smile to both our faces.

We were silent for a moment before she asked a question.

"Do you remember your first kill Hei?"

I hummed at that.

I did.

There were technically two 'first' kills for me.

In my first life, before I died in that ambush on my second tour, I killed a few people in the firefight but I never really had the time to digest that back then since I died.

And in this life, my first kill was the job my father escorted me on after I registered at the guild.

"Yeah, I remember it clearly."

"Did it bother you?"

"Do you want my honest answer?"

"No, I want you to lie and be sarcastic. Of course, I want your honest answer."

I chuckled and flicked her lightly.

"Behave you.

An honestly, it didn't bother me.

I'll add that I was specifically trained for it since I was four, and my teacher had explicitly told me what could happen in great detail. He even showed me many pictures to make it clear.

And after all those anatomy lessons along with all the techniques and training, it just felt like the next step I was supposed to take.

Nevertheless, mine was not bloody and was done silently in less than a minute."

"How did you kill your target?"

I scratched my cheek and thought back on that job.

"It was a special job; I was requested to make it look natural. The client made a note that the target was highly allergic to bees.

So, I snuck into his office while a few employees were still there working, knocked him out, suffocated him in his unconsciousness, then injected him bee venom on his neck while leaving a dead bee on the floor.

I made the injection within seconds of his death, so his body was still reactive to the venom and his throat closed up.

Then I snuck out, met my teacher who was watching from a distance, and we went home.

I never really felt anything special about the moment aside from it being my first job."

She hummed at my answer, and I felt a bit self-conscious.

"Do you think that makes me a monster?"

She shook her head.

"Personally, I don't think so. I wasn't there, but it sounded like it was pretty clean overall. And like you said, you were prepared for just that for years.

I was trained for half a year by all four sensei's, but we never really went into detail about what I was training to fight.

Sure, it was mentioned, and I could understand what I would end up doing with that training, but it's different from how you were trained.

And while fighting and killing wild animals and magical beasts is one thing, just like you and Leone sensei said, taking intelligent life is another.

I'll never forget what happened last night, but compared to how yours went, mine was a really bad situation.

So, I can't say I would have acted any differently in your shoes."

She turned to face me and looked into my eyes while placing a hand on my cheek.

"And even if you were a monster, your mine, you can be my monster."

I laughed at that as we leaned in to share a kiss before rubbing cheeks affectionately.

"Haha, I guess that's another name to tag onto my growing list."

Hei.

Lupus.

The Reaper.

Mr. Lupa.

The Wolf of Nekoshou Village.

And now, The Cat's Monster.

*Line Break*

After a bit more playing around, I explained my abilities to a curious cat who almost mauled me for stalling for time.

And then I did get mauled for holding out on her with having such abilities the whole time I knew her.

Thankfully I was able to divert her claws before she did too much damage.

She might be stronger than me by her natural physique, but I was faster and much more skilled in hand to hand combat.

Still, I didn't actually hurt her, just gave her a couple flicks while pointing out where she had her guard open.

It was a fun little game and by the look in her eyes, it was going to be happening more often from now on.

I didn't go through all my cards with her, no one actually knows ALL the cards I have, it would be too much of a pain to try and explain them all.

I just told her the main points and used the ones around us for example.

It was the most versatile ability but didn't directly make me stronger like many other gears.

It was one that required a lot of thinking, training, and effort if I wanted to take it to its full potential.

She did squeeze a promise out of me to let her see my other hideouts though, and I just told her it would happen in time, we weren't in a rush at the moment.

And besides, we had more urgent matters to deal with.

Like certain cats that were awaiting our arrival back at the village.

Kuroka wanted to run, but I pointed out that would only make things worse, and she gave up and hid in my sweatshirt.

I didn't even know WHERE she damn found the thing in a brand new hideout!

I only brought enough clothes for us to have a single change.

And this cat….

She threw the sweatshirt on me and then half hid inside it as if that would make things better.

It was both adorable and hilarious.

While she was distracted though, I activated a spell card.

Spell Card #12: Leave – Teleport to a location previously visited.

Probably the most powerful movement card I have.

I've only used it three times since I activated my ability at four years old.

The first was to test it, the second was to see if I could move between dimensions from the underworld back to earth, and the third was the reverse.

And the thing is, it seems to be a unique form or teleportation.

The Nekoshou village has barriers against uninvited teleportation and my card to completely bypassed it without triggering a single alarm.

I scared the crap out of my sisters when they felt an energy signature just randomly appear in the village without warning.

And the teleport is instant, there is no build up.

The only requirement is for me to have been to the location before.

Due to that, I rarely use the card when I don't have to.

It's the fourth out of five movement type spell cards.

The first three I used a bit too much during my grief period, and the last one….

The last one is not needed anytime soon.

Hopefully.

The teleport took hold instantly and both of vanished from my hideout in New York, and a reminder I or anyone I designate can teleport through the block, to appear in the center of the village by the Sakura tree.

"""Nya!"""

I chuckled and waved my hand at the few villagers I startled.

"Sorry, my bad!"

"Hei!"

"Stop doing that!"

"It's bad for my heart, I only have five lives left."

I laughed at it, and they laughed in turn at my current look since I had four pairs of legs and a large bulge in my sweatshirt.

"Nya…you think they won't find me?"

Before I could answer her, a voice spoke up behind me.

"And who won't be finding who exactly?"

"Nya!"

Kuroka shivered against me, and I chuckled and rubbed the back of my head as I turned with a wave to Leone.

"Hey sis."

"Hey brat, you guys enjoy yourselves?"

I went to answer when a groundhog decided it was Groundhog Day and popped out of the neckline of the sweater and successfully slammed into the bottom of my chin.

"Oom!"

"Owie!"

"*Tsss* ouch that looked like it hurt."

I shot a dry look down at Kuroka while holding a hand to my chin.

'I almost bit my tongue off.'

She rubbed her head and looked up at me with pitiful kitten eyes that made the whole incident comedic, and I rolled my eyes and pointed my red chin to Leone.

She was laughing at us.

"Well don't you two just look adorable, you finally claim your prize brat?"

I went to answer before Kuroka beat me to it.

She beamed with a large smile and wrapped her arms around me under the sweater.

"Yup! He's mine!"

She said the second part while shooting dangerous looks to other villagers in the surroundings.

"Booo!"

"Hey share him!"

"He smells yummy."

"Give him a few more years and I would eat him up."

"*Hiiiissss*"

The last one came from Kuroka as she hissed at the others.

A few actually hissed back.

I looked at Leone with a helpless look.

She seemed to just find the whole thing hilarious.

*Thud*

I turned my head and my eyebrow started twitching at the sight of Yoru and Chloe on the ground laughing.

"Hahhahaha."

"Nyahahaha."

I was tempted to go kick them while they were down, but I wasn't actually able to move so well at the moment.

My attempts though seemed to make it even more hilarious, so I just gave up, picked Kuroka up, and walked away.

"Hahaha waits! Where are you hahaha going?!"

"Away from here! You guys are too loud!"

"Nya! Yeah, take me away from here Hei, quickly! Mush!"

My eye twitched harder but I did it anyway just to get away from the even louder laughter behind us.

"Did you really have to do that Kuroka?"

She gave me an innocent look.

"What did I do?"

"You started a cat fight with a village of centuries old, physically and magically powerful cats."

She tilted her chin up proudly.

"Damn straight I did! I'm marking my territory, they can bite my glorious ass for all I care."

"Oh? Don't throw out that offer so soon kid, this is a village of all women you know."

I paused as Yoru dropped down in front of us.

Kuroka blushed heavily at her words.

"I…uh…I'm…maybe?"

I stumbled and looked at her with wide eyes.

"Wait what?"

"*Pft*."

Kuroka blushed harder.

"Forget I said that!"

Yoru spoke up.

"Hey, no need to be embarrassed kid. Cats are curious creatures. Especially a long lived all female race like ours. Theres no shame in shooting for both teams, just make sure you bring along your mate or it counts as cheating."

Even I blushed slightly at that.

Kuroka and I matched eyes before looking away.

I did have sex in my last life, but I never actually tried a threesome before. And this world has…well…supernaturally gifted women.

I shook my head of those thoughts.

'Not the time.'

I turned to see Kuroka lost in her thoughts, and I felt my brow twitch and flicked her.

"Ow! Why?"

"Don't let your mind wander."

"But she said it was ok as long as you were involved!"

"I did say that."

"Yoru! Stop with that. Kuroka…. *cough* we can discuss that later.

I'm assuming you didn't drop in to make a young couple curious and confused?"

Yoru smirked at that.

"No but that's always a plus in my book."

She turned her gaze to Kuroka, and I understood.

"Hei, why don't you go run the course a few times and warm up, I want to try a new exercise in a bit."

Internally groaning, I nodded.

'She could have chosen something simple like 'hey kid, Ghislaine wanted to talk to you', but no, she still wants to make me run.'

I kissed the top of Kuroka's head.

"Sorry beautiful, this is where I throw you to the wolves."

"Nya?"

"Oi!"

I rose a brow at Yoru's before it clicked.

"Ah, my bad, I'm throwing you to the big cats."

Before she could respond, I slipped out of the sweater with ease, picked her up, and tossed her at Yoru before leaving.

"Hei! Don't leave me!"

"Make that a dozen laps Hei!"

I called out while running.

"Worth it!"

Yoru shook her head as I left and turned to the young cat in a sweater hanging from her grip.

"Eheheh um… I didn't do it?"

Yoru smirked at that.

"Nice try, but you're not in trouble this time kid."

Kuroka let out a breath of relief and Yoru set her down on her feet.

"But I think we need to have a girl talk, both about your new relationship with my little brother, and mainly about your first kill."

Kuroka shivered a bit.

She didn't know which topic made her shiver more, but Yoru had a gleam in her eyes.

It wouldn't stop her from attempting an escape though.

She pointed behind Yoru.

"Chloe sensei, don't do it?"

"Hm?"

The second Yoru turned her head, Kuroka took off running in victory, only to slam into a wall of soft flesh and bounce off with a sense of despair.

"Nice try kid, using Chloe was the right move since she's the only one around who can both sneak up on me and is willing to do it."

Kuroka got dangled by the collar of her sweater.

"Now, let's talk."

Kuroka wanted to cry.

'Hei, I will bite you when I get out of this!'

A distance away as I was doing a warmup stretch, I smirked at the chill down my back.

'Ah, the sweet feeling of retribution coming. That means I did a good job.'

*Line Break*

After our return to the village, things regained a sense of normalcy around here.

Well, normal in a sense anyway.

Four things happened in the following time.

First, Kuroka was now privy to my hideout, so she became a daily visitor among my home along with my sisters who didn't really care if I was in a relationship.

If they wanted to cuddle me while nude as they slept, nothing short of an ultimate class being was going to stop them.

It was funny how Kuroka tried though, much to everyone's amusement, even her own.

Thankfully, unless they got drunk, they don't all sleep pressed up against me every night.

It's usually just one or two of them since they do actually have their own homes.

The second change was that Kuroka started spending more nights in the village.

Despite her mother's wishes, Kuroka has begun to rebel more and takes Shirone before staying here.

Before now, she would usually return by teleportation back to her mother at night.

Either from one of the Nekomata villagers helping out, or through her mother coming by.

Shirone is much happier with being here though.

She sleeps over with the triplets usually, but she comes by to sleep with me and Kuroka sometimes.

I bribed her with candy to keep my hideout a secret from the others, especially the triplets.

It works every time, and the highest bidder gets her loyalty.

The third thing was that after Kuroka's first kill and the 'private' talks my sisters held with her, they decided to start upping her training.

They wanted her to begin practicing the senjutsu meditation process.

It would take many years before she could make it work without danger to herself or others, but it was a process that if she started now, she could at least learn how to control herself.

Nekoshou can apparently pull on natural energy unconsciously in extreme moments of emotion. The only reason it didn't happen during her first kill was because she was too young.

But females start puberty at eleven and that's when that little senjutsu trait becomes a factor as well.

So, they upped her training to match her preferences, which were youjutsu arts for illusion and poison handled by Chloe, and touki and kasha training handled by Yoru.

Leone is more of a master of energy sensing and suppression, which is something I have a talent in, and Ghislaine is about extreme survival and building the traits of a warrior.

She is a master at most weapon forms, even guns, though she says she prefers cold weapons.

Guns are too loud and smelly for her tastes, both are bad elements in the wild.

So Kuroka focused on magic, touki, and senjutsu meditation, while I was beaten up by all four of them and had the full package of survival, energy sensing and suppression, physical advancement to reach Touki, and string usage and poison resistance training.

I envied Kuroka sometimes….

As for me and Kuroka, we have become a lot closer than before.

That was the fourth thing.

We were always stuck together like glue when we weren't training since we first met, but now there was an added element to things.

We made a game of surprising one another with kisses when we weren't expecting it, and we have had plenty of make out sessions in secluded places.

We weren't being one of those in your face couples, but we still were very affectionate in public, which is pretty normal all told in this village.

Men aren't usually allowed near the village, considering there are over a hundred cats that all go into heat at different times in the year, so while Kuroka and I are the only male-female couple being affectionate, no one really minds.

Cats are free beings, and the Nekomata embrace that wholeheartedly.

Hell, if it wasn't for my sisters laying down the rules with an iron fist, nothing would get done around here.

So Kuroka and I were free to explore our feelings and embrace each other whenever we had free time.

It didn't really matter what we did, it just meant something special to do them together.

Whether it was training, going for a walk in the forest, taking naps cuddled up, jumping and swinging from giant trees, play fighting in the river, listening to her play the ocarina, attempting and failing to draw a portrait of her, kissing the air out of the other, or all kinds of things.

We were free, young, and in love.

But despite all that, we still were physically young and had no intentions to push things farther just yet.

It was an unspoken agreement between each other that didn't need to be confirmed by words.

The last week of the year was something really special for us though.

It started with Christmas, I wanted to show her something special.

Flashback:

Christmas tree in NYC, ice skating in central park,

"Where are we? Nya."

"Almost there, I think you will have fun."

"Grrr… I don't like the cold… or hiding my ears and tails."

I kissed the top of her head and leaned her into my chest.

"It's just for a couple hours love, besides you can use me if you get cold."

"*ppuurrr* that's right! Bring it on cold!"

I chuckled at her and guided the blindfolded Kuroka forward.

She didn't know what I planned; it was a spontaneous decision I made the day before when I saw the date.

It was Christmas eve day.

Now I wasn't Christian, and I was well aware than the biblical god has actually been alive in this world, but then again there are gods from every pantheon in this world.

But I didn't care, it was about the atmosphere and charm of the holidays.

I stopped after we reached the top of the stone path that moved through the lightly snowy landscape.

"Ok, you can take off your blindfold now."

"Yay~."

She removed it with a cheer and her eyes widened at where we were.

"Nya! I've never tried that before! It looks so fun! Come on Hei!"

She grabbed my hand and all but dragged me forward while I laughed at her exuberance.

I took her to the ice rink at central park.

It was early evening, just before sunset, so the rink wasn't too packed.

It was right after the afternoon rush and before the late evening crowd.

Kuroka was actually acting her age for once, considering she always acts years older despite her mischievous personality, as she dragged me toward the rink but then stopped and turned confused eyes on me.

"Hei, how do we get skates?"

I couldn't help but find her adorable in that moment.

I bent my arms down to lift her by her waist and threw her on my back as I kept walking.

"Nya?"

"Leave it to me beautiful."

"Mn!"

Her happy smile lit up my world.

Getting to the counter I paid for the two pairs of rentals.

I made sure to get Kuroka's foot size before coming, you never know how many feet have touched those measuring things.

I got hockey skates while Kuroka had figure skates.

I also made sure to spray a disinfectant and deodorant spray in the boots before we wore them.

Kuroka rolled her eyes at my actions.

"You almost done there you clean freak?"

My eye twitched as I shot her a look.

"Are you telling me you want to stick your clean feet in boots full of sweat and germs from others?"

Kuroka just scoffed and waved her hand through her hair in a royal way.

"Psh, as if germs could touch upon beauty such as mine."

I rose a brow at her and handed her the figure skates.

"Ok, enjoy that, I'm gonna clean mine."

She froze and coughed while sticking her fingers together.

"*cough* um… on second thought, please clean them…"

I laughed and gave her a quick kiss bringing back her smile before I did it.

Getting the skates tied was easy but seeing Kuroka try to balance on them was hilarious.

You ever see a cat on ice? It's hilarious.

Especially because she was so excited to get on.

"Hei!"

A frustrated Kuroka called for me and I calmly stood before her on the ice.

"Yes my dear?"

"Help me!"

I chuckled and extended a hand that she quickly grabbed on.

"Don't let go!"

"I would never."

She blushed slightly and stuck her tongue out at me.

We took a couple laps in each other's arms as I slowly guided her to learning how to skate.

"Nya, how come your so good at this?"

I wanted to say it was from my last life, but that would be a life.

My mind flashed back to…certain…. painful memories I wished to forget.

"Well… my sisters gave me perfect balance."

Kuroka tilted her head at me in confusion and I sighed.

"I'll tell you the same magic words that they told me back when I did the exercise."

I looked forward into the distance with dull eyes.

"If you can run in heels, you can run in anything."

Kuroka choked on her spit for a second before she burst into laughter.

"Nyahahahaha! Oh, that's gold! I hope they have pictures!"

I grimaced but shook my head with a small smile a moment later.

"It was hell was what it was. But I'll say this, for a guy, I could work it better than half of my sisters."

"But you only have four sisters?"

"Exactly, Chloe and Yoru are the agile type of predators and have a walk that can only be described as art manifested, but Leone and Ghislaine are more force type predators and would just slam their foot through the shoe."

The description was so spot on that Kuroka burst into laughter once more, except this time she lost her balance.

"Ah! Hei!"

"Wait! Kuroka don't grab the back of my...!"

Kuroka slipped and grabbed the back of my coat, making it the worst place for me to try and stay upright from so it just brought me down with her.

Thankfully I could maneuver my arm in the way to act as a buffer for her head.

"Ow…"

"Thanks love."

"Sorry."

I chuckled and sat us up but our close proximity on the cold ice in the middle of a winter landscape just set the mood and when our eyes met, we found each other leaning in instinctively into a tender kiss.

"*Whistle*"

"Yaa!"

"Theres the Christmas spirit!"

A bunch of calls sounded out and we broke the kiss with an embarrassed laugh from all the well-wishers.

I stood up and offered my hand to her.

"Care to join me my lady?"

She took my hand with a fake pompous voice.

"I would be delighted to good sir."

I lifted her up and we were off, laughing, cracking jokes, making jabs, and having a blast.

An hour later when it was time to go, Kuroka was already an expert on ice, she would make her fellows cats proud for conquering the unconquerable.

We turned in the skates, got back into our shoes, and went out of the area hand in hand.

I bought some hot chocolate for us, and we walked while leaning into each other.

It was already dark out, but the city that never sleeps was still bright with lights.

I smiled over at her.

"Come on, there is one more thing to see before we head back."

"Mn."

We walked the streets toward Rockefeller center and Kuroka's eyes lit up like stars at the sight before us.

The annual NYC Christmas tree was up and bright as the moon in the night.

"Hei! Wow!"

She was bouncing in excitement, and I was happy to let her experience it.

"Enjoy love."

She pounced on me and stole my lips before she snuggled into my chest with her back to me and my arms around her as we stared at the glittering tree.

We enjoyed the atmosphere and emotions for a bit before Kuroka broke it with a comment that made me laugh and secure my hold on her.

"I kind of want to knock off some of those big glass balls, I don't know why, it's calling to me."

"No dear, please don't get us banned from NYC."

"It's not like it's against the law is it?"

"If it isn't, the New Yorkers will kick us out themselves, don't mess with this city and it's holiday traditions. Or their pizza."

She tilted her head but still nodded so I sighed in relief.

"How about we bring Shirone next year?"

That got her face splitting smile back.

She tilted her head back to kiss me hard on the lips before pulling away.

"I'm already excited to see her face, she will love it!"

I chuckled and felt her excitement touch me.

"I'm sure she will, let's make sure she doesn't give into the same urges you almost did."

"Hey! I did not almost do it."

"You were unconsciously struggling in my arms with dilated eyes."

"….I'll make sure to hold her."

"Mn, that's all I ask."

We laughed and held each other as we found a place to sit and watch the glittering and colorful tree glow in the night air.

An hour later, we called it a night and headed home, but it was a night we wouldn't forget.

Flashback end.

And then on Christmas morning.

Flashback:

Christmas morning was one where I woke up with a bit of a surprise.

It was a surprise because the only body in my bed aside from my own was Kuroka.

There wasn't a single sister passed out there.

To be honest it worried me.

When something that happens every day without fail happens, you get a feeling of culture shock.

I sat up in bed with Kuroka sliding down my chest to wrap around my waist adorably.

"Nyuuu…"

Smiling down at her, I ran my hand through her hair and lightly scratched her scalp, making her unconsciously purr at the feeling.

She rubbed her head against my abbs with a blissful expression.

It was only then that I looked around the room and blinked.

'The fuck?'

The room was trashed.

Except I remember clearly going to sleep without it being that way.

My eyes trailed the destruction down to the floor where my eyes twitched.

I found my sisters.

In various states of undress, and completely nude in Yoru's case, were my sisters sprawled around the room passed out.

The heavy scent of booze hit my nose and I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

Wrapping Kuroka in the blanket like a dumpling, her arms coming naturally to wrap around my neck, I got up from bed to carry her out wearing just my briefs.

I gave up on wearing pajamas to bed, it's just not my style and cats don't like cloth getting in the way of skin-ship.

Once out of the room, I set Kuroka down on a loveseat and tossed a small fireball into the dry logs at the fireplace.

After the years with my sisters, I could at the very least make a simple two finger sized fireball. Useless in combat as it lacks power or speed, but very useful for everyday life.

I may not have described it well before, but the style of this hideout is half a giant rocky cavern, and half a home.

It has one large bedroom with a large bathroom, and outside the bedroom, the other amenities just blend halfway into the large cavern.

To the left of the bedroom door was a living area with couches and loveseats by a fireplace with a chimney built into the wall. Where the smoke goes, I have no idea, it's just weird pocket dimension logic.

To the other side of the door was an outdoor styled kitchen area.

And extending on that side was the fishpond, fruit tree, liquor and water springs, and a little ways off was the healing hot spring.

I could adjust the lighting and temperature in the whole hideout as I liked by a digital panel on the wall.

At the moment I had the lights dimmed as it was early morning, so Kuroka kept sleeping peacefully curled up in the blanket by the lit fire.

With that done, I moved into the kitchen to make some morning coffee.

It was always 50/50 with me between coffee and green tea in the mornings, I just went with whatever I was in the mood for.

Another cool thing about the hideouts was that the kitchen appliances were built to match what I recall in my memories.

So, I had the modern appliances of my old life, even though it was only 1999 in this world.

Teaching my sisters how to use them was one kind of hell I never want to experience again.

Try having four humanoid cats, stronger and faster than you, touching every goddamn thing that catches their eye at the same time.

I had more of a workout that week than I did in a month training with them.

Chuckling at the memories, I reached for a jar of coffee beans, slightly roasted them, ground them up, started the coffee machine, poured in the milk into the warmer and frother, and soon had the pleasant aroma of coffee moving throughout the kitchen.

I heard a couple groans from my bedroom and chuckled as they all stirred to life.

I made five lattes, Kuroka wouldn't be getting up just yet, just in time for my sisters to file out of the room like zombies with their eyes closed and letting out small groans.

They shuffled into the kitchen, bumping into each other a few times, and reached out desperate hands for a cup while sitting at the dining table in the kitchen.

If they were human, I would have given them aspirin, but they would clear out their hangovers in a bit once they could properly function to use senjutsu.

Whether coffee actually helps or not I have no idea, but it feels good.

I waited until they were all seating and sipping their drinks until I posed the question.

"So, anyone want to tell me what happened last night?"

Like kids who just realized they got caught by their parents, they all trailed their blurry eyes onto me before their eyes widened.

"Huh?"

"What happened?"

"Oh, for fucks sake, how much did we drink this time?"

"Mn."

They held hands to their heads and had various reactions so I decided to focus on the two who would give me more straight answers.

Unless she was in a playful mood, Leone spoke honestly, and Ghislaine didn't twist her words.

On the other hand, Yoru and Chloe would run people in circles in a good or bad mood.

"Sis, Ghis, care to shine a light?"

Leone turned bloodshot eyes on me and grimaced.

"Your liquor fountain was producing silvervine wine yesterday."

My eyes widened at that.

"Ah."

"Mn."

That explained a lot.

"How much did you guys' drink?"

Ghislaine was the one who answered.

"I stopped counting after we finished the first barrel."

My eye twitched at that.

The world record for a human is 42 liters in a day, which is around 11 gallons.

The barrels we had in storage holds around 32 gallons each.

My eyes trailed to the side where a pile of broken wood laid.

'There are the remains of at least three barrels in there.'

I decided not to question these women with thin waists that could drink enough to match a dragon.

"And what did you four do while drunk?"

Chloe surprisingly spoke up.

"We went out, I think? Right?"

Yoru nodded.

"A city somewhere."

I looked at Leone with a raised brow and she elaborated.

"Pretty sure it was Greece. Ios was the city I think."

"*sigh* please tell me you didn't pick a fight with any Greek gods?"

Yoru's eyes narrowed in thought.

"I don't remember. I remember punching some dude who came on to hard. Smelled a lot like grapes. There were a lot of cute nature spirits though."

Chloe snapped her fingers.

"Ah, I remember that one, it kickstarted a major bar fight."

Ghislaine tilted her head.

"Did I do something? I can't remember."

Leone scoffed and pointed a finger at her.

"You damn near led the bar fight. You were like a lion before sheep."

Yoru laughed and elbowed Leone.

"Don't call her out, I recall someone punching people through walls."

"Hey, you were the one shocking people for fun and seeing them spasm out and hit other people. You made that bar fight extend to include three others."

"Oi, don't act like you weren't having fun."

"I never said that."

I withheld a groan as the four bickered and rubbed the side of my forehead with my fingers.

'I really hope they didn't punch the Greek god of wine, parties, and madness in the face.'

I thought about what I just thought and looked at Yoru and gave her a thumbs up.

"Sis, good job. If there was any Greek god worth a punch to the face other than Zeus, it was that one."

She laughed and held out a fist I bumped.

"Damn straight, that dude was horny as hell, gave me the creeps."

I rose a brow at her.

"You do realize you four are extreme beauties, right?"

I got four punches for that before I could blink.

"Aw lil bro~."

"Charmer."

"This is why we keep you."

"Thank you."

I rubbed my arm with a dry look aimed at them.

"How about you thank me without giving me a numb arm next time."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"You can handle it."

Leone and Ghislaine kept their silence, but they were laughing.

I rolled my eyes at them.

"Well, whatever, I expect someone to help Joy clean up that mess you made, how the hell I didn't wake up when you did it, I'll never know, but for now come by the fire."

Their eyes lit up at that.

"Oh yeah, we were doing that this year right?"

"Yeah, I almost forgot."

I waved a hand behind me and let them talk while I moved to the living area, put my cup down on the side table, picked up Kuroka, sat down, and placed her bundled form across my laps.

She adjusted herself and curled into my form with a sigh of pleasure.

Her head rested against my chest as she rubbed her cheek on me and purred softly.

I smiled and kissed her forehead, getting a small smile from her, and picked up my mug before relaxing and drinking slowly.

The warmth and crackle of the flames made a nice harmony with the dim lighting, the soft chair, and Kuroka's warm body cuddling with me.

My sisters trailed in soon enough carrying bags under their arms.

They cooed when they saw us.

"Aw~ they are too cute."

"That's diabetes in a picture."

"Mn, they are good mates."

"I'm pretty sure that's why we went out last night."

The others turned their eyes to Chloe who shrugged.

"What, you can't say the rest of us didn't want some lovin~. I had an itch to scratch."

The others chuckled and didn't deny it.

They had their own fun, both the destructive kind and the satisfying kind, but the ladder didn't need to be discussed.

I rolled my eyes at them as they spoke and got comfortable on the seats.

"Nyuuuu…"

Kuroka mumbled and woke from the noise while stretching out her form with a few satisfying pops before she blinked her eyes and looked around.

But the way her arms naturally came around my chest as she did so made me smile.

"Nya?"

"Good morning beautiful."

"Mornin~. Nyaaa~ I slept well."

Yoru piped up from her seat next to us.

"I bet you did. Hei's a great pillow right?"

Kuroka nodded without shame.

"Ya! I can't seem to relax without him anymore, it's addicting."

The girls chuckled at that while I rolled my eyes.

"The pillow has a voice you know?"

"Yeah, but it's not needed."

"Nyaha it's not our fault you're comfortable."

"Yeah brat, get over it."

"Mn."

My head hung low.

'I'm the Lupus… men and women shake in fear of my name… and I'm a glorified body pillow to them…how did I reach this point?'

While I questioned life, Kuroka patted my head consolingly.

"It's ok Hei, your very useful."

My head hung lower.

'Love…I think you're missing the point…'

The others sniggered at me, and I raised my head to shoot them a dry look that they turned away from with innocent whistles.

There were jokes and jabs thrown around for a little while until we got to the main event.

Joy came over and gave me a bag I asked her to bring, and the girls brought out their own bags.

""""""Merry Christmas~!""""""

We all called out while holding up wrapped gifts.

And then we burst into laughter.

"Nyaha saying that was just as funny as I imagined."

"Hahaha I've never celebrated Christmas before."

"As if we would celebrate a holiday of those stuck up religious angels without a good reason."

"Here, here! Those bastards proclaim their holy words and smite anyone who disagrees with them."

"Eh, that's pretty much most religions, and they have calmed down in the last few decades."

"Yeah, I heard the archangels have been trying to reign in the lower ranks to keep the peace."

"Can't really blame them, the peace has created a balance, it's much better than the chaos over a century ago."

"True that."

I coughed and got their attention.

"*Cough* if you all don't mind?"

The chuckled and apologized.

"Right, my bad."

"Sorry~!"

"Back to the gifts."

"Yeah, we don't have to care about the religion, it's about the festive atmosphere."

Kuroka nodded.

"Everyone likes presents."

""""Here, here!""""

I rolled my eyes and we got going.

Gifts were exchanged with much fanfare and laughter.

Some were serious, some were jokes and pranks, and others were random items.

I used some cards to give out special gifts.

A lot of my cards came with multiple items per card, so I was able to divide them up.

I gave out 1 card they could all enjoy, 7 cards that were split between all of them, and finally 1 card that was unique to each of them, for a grand total of 9 presents to show how much I cared and loved them all.

I went full Santa mode this season because I wanted to.

#36: Spa Beauty Treatment – A relaxing day at the Spa being treated by specialists for all your beauty needs. 1 use – 12 hours.

This was a card that couldn't be saved and only used or wasted, so I told them about it and said they could use it when they wanted, I got tackles instead of hugs for that one, so I didn't know how to take it.

Even Kuroka was ecstatic, I didn't know why a spa and beauty treatment made them happier than extending their life span, but I didn't question it.

Women.

This was a card for them all to enjoy.

Then came the 7 item cards I gave to all of them.

#29: Witch's Rejuvenation Potion – Each pill makes you physically younger by one year. You will retain all knowledge and memories. Beware, as you will die if you take more than your age. One vial contains 100 pills.

This card had a lot of meaning to me, as it was not only the ticket to immortality, but it was also the card I couldn't use on my father because he denied it.

The girls understood that and while very thankful, they gave me warm hugs and soft thanks.

Thankfully for my heart, they were already long lived and were happy to extend that number. Apparently, I made life look a lot more interesting for the future.

At least that was what they said in a joking tone, but I didn't know if that was true or not.

I gave them each a bottle with 40 of them, if they wanted more they could ask and I would give it to them, but I did want to save a stock if I could.

I had 300 left in storage.

I can't grant immortality to everyone, so I would save it for those closest to me.

Plus, if it became known it would cause a serious issue, so it was best to only give them to those you trust explicitly.

#11: Book of V.I.P Passes – You can enter any establishment with these passes. Book of 100.

#12: Pre-Order Vouchers – Write the name of any commercially available product on a voucher and you'll be guaranteed to get it regardless of its scarcity (You still have to pay). A book of 100.

I've been saving up these books of coupons for years, I have over 500 of each.

I only used #12 a bit considering how useful it was and used #11 for only a few things so far, mostly jobs.

I gave them each 20 of both.

The next two were something I could have saved for myself, but I had a little bit of a protective streak and wanted them all to be safe.

#52: Paladin's Necklace – Anyone wearing this will reflect spells cast upon them by others and be able to undo spells placed on others by touching them. 10 uses. Only takes effect when actively worn. Defense max's out at 2x the wearers max energy output.

#53: Sacrifice Armor – Renders ineffective any attack by a weapon. Beware, as it will randomly break sometime within the first 50 attacks. All attacks of all levels done from all sources stack with a max of 50 hits in total being blocked. Defense max's out at 2x the wearers max strength output.

The necklace is a small thing. It's a thin silver chain with a shield and sword symbol hanging on it. I have a total of six of them from over the years, so it's one for each of us.

You can wear it indefinitely until it's used. It's an automatic guard toward spells, and you can also cure another of the effect of a long term spell by touching it or them.

The limit is set to 2x the wearers max energy output. In technical terms, it means if I had an energy rating of 100, It could block a spell at a rating of 200 at max.

On the downside, it will take effect even if it's a spell at 5 units.

That can be offset by just taking off the necklace, but it's still there.

So, the larger an energy pool one has, the more it can defend against.

The second item, the armor, is not actually a full armor.

It's a piece of armor, specifically a black leather bracer with a glowing green gem on the end.

The bracer is thin enough to go under clothes, comfortable, and made of a breathable, flexible, but still strong material.

The gem is meant as a warning. When it blocks an attack, it will vibrate slightly to warn the user, and when its ability ends, the gem will vibrate hard before going dull.

As for the limits of the armor, it's based on 2x the wearers max strength output. That means the more force you can output, say bench press for example, the more weight you can push, the greater the effect of the armor.

Unfortunately, the armor is very random, it can last a total of 50 strikes or a single one.

Both items have their weakness's, they are not overpowered and game breaking tools, but they raise the wearers' chance at living, and that's all I can ask for.

If it can stop a hidden blade or a hidden spell before they take effect, it can save your life.

And the stronger the wearer becomes in both areas, the greater the defensive effect of both.

I never needed either item so far, but as I get into higher category jobs and get closer to the supernatural world, I decided to start wearing them with the coming year.

Now we can all have one.

I do still care for the village and the young triplets and Shirone, but I only have so many items and I know that my sisters and very likely Kuroka and I will be fighting while the young ones are not.

My sisters are the leaders of this village, I will get involved in combat one way or another, and Kuroka…. I have a feeling she wouldn't be inclined to being sidelined.

Despite her playful and mischievous personality, she trains just as hard as I do, and if canon is anything to go by, she was ultimate class before even hitting twenty years old.

Let's see how things go now that I made an impact.

The girls loved the matching necklaces, the silver chain and symbol was very stylish.

The bracers were also well received, none of them had an issue with wearing it under their clothes.

But of course, they wouldn't wear it during training or sparring, no need to waste a lifesaving card like that.

The next two items were simple but useful.

#62: Night Jade – A jewel "blessed" by the Devil. When danger is about to befall its owner, it will warn the holder. 5 uses.

#48: Levitation Stone – A stone about one carat in size that levitates. It can levitate one person and receives energy from sunlight. 1 stone per card.

#62 was an interesting one.

When coming out of the card, it took the form of a dark green, almost black jewel.

But then, when placed over your skin and pressed into it, it melts and becomes a tattoo over the designated area.

The tattoo comes with an innate understanding of how to turn it on or off. While on, it works as functions, and when off it does nothing but looks like a visible tattoo.

I tested the one I had for myself, and it became a howling wolf head on my right shoulder. When I used it, I could feel that I could make the tattoo smaller or larger, so I chose to cover my shoulder with it.

It had the same tribal design of my Lupus symbol.

As for #48, I can attest to just how useful and fun using the stones are. The girls have more than once asked for one, and I told them I'll do it at some point.

Now they all had one.

I did have to remove one of the two stones I used, but I would be getting another one the following week when the new year came so I didn't mind.

Finally, after the beaty treatment, vouchers, coupons, fun items, and lifesaving tools, came my final gifts. One unique for each of them.

#44: Chameleon Cat – An endangered species. It can transform into any animal. However, its mass remains constant, so it will be a tiny elephant or a large hamster. 1 cat per card.

#69: Miniature Mermaid – A mermaid small enough to fit in your hand. A comfortable living environment puts her in a good mood, and she will sing with her beautiful voice.

#7: Miniature Dragon - A dragon small enough to fit in your hand. It will obey your commands and will eventually learn to talk if raised with love.

Each of these cards create living constructs.

I never used #44 before, but I used it this time to give it to Kuroka as a pet and possibly a familiar. It has all the characteristics of an intelligent living and breathing cat, except when it dies, it will just turn into particles

When Kuroka opened the box and saw the small cat inside, she squealed and kissed me hard before scooping up the cat and hugging it to her chest.

The happiness she was exuding made it worth it in my book.

I had enough cats in my life as it is, so I never used it, but if she wants a pet, it's all hers.

Plus, it's a great familiar since it can turn into any animal out there, even if its mass stays the same.

Yoru and Chloe promised to show her how to do the familiar binding later on.

The second one was a gift to Chloe.

I had found that Chloe was someone with a love for soft music. Contrary to her strong sadistic side and her love for poison, she actually really enjoyed just mellowing out to soft music.

#69 was perfect for her home, she can have soft music every time she comes back.

Plus, she was probably the least likely of these girls to eat or poke at a half fish type creature.

It could be kept in a large fish tank and be very happy considering its smaller than a hand, and its voice can fill up a large space.

It's magic.

#7 is for Yoru.

I really wasn't sure what to get her but having a tiny pet dragon that can eventually learn to speak would be a fun little gift for her. She likes to build things up from scratch.

Plus, the dragon will take whatever element its first given as its element.

So, when Yoru gave it some electricity, it became lightning based.

#57: Tome of a Thousand Tales – A book that shows you a different story each time you open it. If you want to stay on the same story when you put it down, use the special included bookmark.

#38: Plastic King – Recombine the parts of this 1:1 scale model kit to build any kind of vehicle. Fully functional, fuel not included.

#57 went to Ghislaine.

She has a strong reading hobby despite her straightforward type of speaking that doesn't use more words than she needs to express herself.

She's very to the point.

But she loves to read.

To go out into the wild, set a camp, make a campfire, roast some food, and just pull up a book to enjoy the day.

So, I gave her #57, a book of a thousand books.

And finally, I gave #38 to Leone.

Contrary to the first three girls who got living constructs, and Ghislaine who got an ever changing book, Leone was a different breed.

She is a more action orientated girl.

She does prefer the slow things in life.

So, I got her #38, one I hadn't used so far.

It can make any vehicle out there, and if I know my sister as well as I do, it will end up being one hell of a custom motorcycle.

The thanks I had gotten from my gifts ended up with all of them dogpiled on top of me, which also meant Kuroka who was attached to me got dogpiled.

Or I guess it should be catpiled right?

We grabbed a large blanket, and all cuddled up by the fire.

I wasn't the only one to give out gifts, but I definitely gave out the most.

The girls exchanged gifts between each other, exchanging all kinds of things.

As for myself, I got various stuff.

Clothes was the simple stuff.

But my sisters being my teachers and everything, I ended up with weapons and gear.

From Chloe I received a set of a dozen poisons with various uses, and thankfully their antidotes. The face she made when she told me I was immune to all of them made my hand twitch as I held them.

From Leone, I got a box of 100 holy bullet rounds.

My eyes widened in surprise at that.

These bullets were mainly owned and made by the church, and while the church was corrupt, they had an unspoken agreement to keep them within the church.

The only way to get them was to have a connection on the inside.

She shot me a wink when I gave her a surprised look.

From Ghislaine, I got a pair of dragon tooth daggers.

It was a lesser dragon, but it was personally hunted by her years ago and she sharpened its teeth into sharp blades that were sharper than steel.

From Yoru, I got a tome on Touki.

Apparently, I was approaching the required mark and she gave me the tome as a gift to encourage me to push harder.

And finally, Kuroka had gotten me a sweater she made by hand.

It was an inside joke from all the sweaters she stole from me since we met, and I loved it.

It's not like I was stingy with my funds, but Kuroka wanted to make something from her without my help and some of the villagers helped teach her how to knit.

It's safe to say I praised her and kissed the stuffing out of her.

But things didn't end there, my sisters had surprised me.

"We were saving this for your birthday brat, but no need to wait the few days."

"Yeah kid, this was a pain to make."

"Mn, I got the materials."

"We all worked on this one."

They gave me a box and my eyes widened at what was inside.

Placed neatly inside we two very beautiful silver pistols.

"We know you go through pistols too often."

"So, we thought to make you a weapon that could at least hold out for a while."

"Mn, the materials should be able to handle a few years of use."

"I even added in the string."

They had a point, I did go through pistols a lot.

I'm quite rough with them, and I never went a day without doing at least an hour of shooting if I could help it.

Sometimes when I get lost in the zone I could shoot for hours.

Not to mention I use them in spars to block blades.

I had a preference for Desert Eagles, so I had bought many of them before.

I was actually planning to go out and buy more in a couple months, so this came as a nice surprise.

The pistols in the box were similarly designed to the Magnum Research Desert Eagle, but they were silver all over with black slip guards on the handle.

There was a grill along the top and bottom of the gun that could be used with my style of blocking slashing attacks.

Each gun was heavy, heavier than my usual guns but nothing to my current strength and speed.

They were made of a material found in the underworld with parts from magic beasts.

My sisters put their heads together to make these bad boys, and I was ecstatic to go and try them out.

I'm sure I'm weird to be more excited about getting new guns than other things, but that's just me.

Furthermore, the pistols had a clip that could be pulled out to show an extremely thin but strong and sharp wire on it.

According to Chloe, as long as I anchored it properly, it could cut the roof off a moving car.

The only issue was that it had to be manually done, and there was only so much wire she could fit into a large pistol.

But the wire could be coated with poison in advance, so I could set an ambush if I ever got trapped in an enclosed space like a building, or if I wanted to set a trap for prey, but there were easier ways to set a trap.

The main thing about it was just how durable the damn things were.

My sisters weren't kidding, I could see these last a few years even if I was rough.

More than that though, I doubt it.

I didn't play nice.

All around, it was a fun Christmas experience, even if we just took what we wanted and ignored the rest.

But that's just how cats are.

And of course, we spent the second half of the day with Shirone and spoiled her rotten with sweets and attention.

Flashback end.

*Line Brake*

In contrast to those two days, my birthday and new years were a quieter affair.

My birthday was celebrated only among us six, I didn't like making a big deal of it.

I did make a special request to Ghislaine though.

I asked her to help me with one of my designated cards.

Specifically, one of the most insane cards in my deck, maybe the most insane one.

#1: Patch of Forest – The entrance to the giant forest called the "Mountain God's Garden" where many unique endemic species live. You may collect whatever you can carry in a bag from the forest but many of the inhabitants will try to eat you.

24 hours access before immediate ejection. You may leave at any time by saying "Exit Forest".

Designated card #1.

I had only used this card once in my life at four years old.

I was only there for two hours before making my exit in a hurry.

To describe its effect, I can only say that it's as if a massive self-sustainable pocket dimension with its own ecosystem and organisms.

As for what lives in it.

I think I know where God got his inspiration for it.

You ever seen the anime 'Toriko'?

That should give you a decent idea.

I almost died in a single visit.

Now years later, much stronger, and with my wilderness survival teacher, I was ready to make a new expedition.

Ghislaine readily agreed with a wide excited smile.

The journey was not easy, even for her, but the results were something that would gain me an ally for the rest of my life.

It would be years in the making, but a wolf king would rise in this world.

When we got back, Ghislaine shared a smirk and decided to keep what happened a secret.

The others didn't appreciate that, but when we brought out some of the beast meat we caught, they laid off.

Man, woman, or anything in between, anyone can be appeased through their stomach.

And these cats were carnivores.

*Line Break*

New years

New year's was the simplest of the four events. The whole village celebrated new years as a big festival only for them.

All the villagers brought out their best skills and various Yukata style dresses and made it a really festive affair.

They set up booths around the village for everyone to enjoy.

Goldfish scooping was hilarious.

The poor goldfish were shaking in terror from all the cat eyes staring at them like prey.

It's safe to say I was banned from the shooting booth.

The food booths were salivating.

These cats had lived for centuries and perfected their favorite recipes.

Ghislaine was spit roasting a large bird and making Yakitori.

Others made Kuurage, Yakisoba, Takoyaki, grilled squid on a stick, grilled corn, candy apples, cotton candy, and many others.

The triplets and Shirone were running around with stuffed faces for hours.

Even Kuroka had been on cloud nine.

The sisters had never gotten a chance to enjoy such festivities before due to their family situation.

Their mother hadn't even shown up for any of the holidays.

But I doubt either of them really got sad about it with how much cheer and joy was spreading around.

And of course, I was running my own booth.

Leone had raided my hideout for the best and biggest bluefin tuna I had and was running a booth for sashimi.

Even though I shot her a stink eye, she just stuck her tongue out unabashedly and claimed the fish for her stall.

So, I used my advantage, I still had meat left from my trip with Ghislaine on my birthday.

I was able to turn a few killed beasts into cards and put them in my free slots, so I took one of them out for this occasion.

A crab pig.

With a height over 2 meters and a length of 4 meters, this big boy was a beast.

It took eight bullets on the exact same spot to finally pierce its skull, after the first shot, the beast never gave me a clear shot of its eyes, they had a decent amount of intelligence.

But now I had the carcass of a high class delicacy meat.

Combining the sweet flavor of crab meat with the light sweet fat of pig meat, it brings about an exquisite harmony.

It's meat tastes rich, lightly seasoned, and a lot like top grade crab, hence "Crab" Pig.

I cut it up into thin bite sized strips and grilled them by the hundreds like making Takoyaki. But as fast as I grilled them was as fast as they disappeared.

Two dozen pairs of cat eyes were staring intensely as my hands moved, and the second it touched the ready plate, it was like a storm of claws and hands moved until one mouth started chewing blissfully while the rest returned their eyes to me.

It was one of the most nerve wracking situations I have been in so far.

And that's with all the experience from living around these cats for over 3 years.

They could raise the intensity when they wanted to.

*shiver*

But the meat was well received, I even beat out Leone's booth in popularity with her 'stolen' fish, much to her annoyance and my smug smile.

Aside from the food, the other girls dealt with entertainment.

Yoru had gotten her hands on fireworks, Ghislaine had built a stage, and Chloe had led a group of dancers.

I even managed to convince Kuroka to get up on stage and play a few tunes for the festive atmosphere on her ocarina.

Wearing a black yukata not all that dissimilar form her canon appearance but with much less skin showing and with obvious less mature physical traits, she performed a few Celtic festive songs that was joined by a few other musicians.

To say I was captivated by her glowing form was an understatement. It was like a flashback to the first time I saw her play in the forest surrounded by fireflies and glowing flora.

The reception was amazingly positive, and they all cheered for her, letting me see the rare bashful and happily embarrassed side of her.

I gave her a passionate kiss and spun her around as she giggled in joy.

As for myself, I was egged on into doing a show, so I put one on for speed shooting.

With my lovely assistants throwing up dozens of fireworks, I loaded tracer rounds into my new pistols and shot at a fast but still visible to audience pace.

The tracer rounds moved like lasers through the night air to pierce each firework without error and light up the sky.

In a way, it was like I was decorated the night sky wherever I pointed my gun.

There were loads of cheers for my performance, but I personally believe it didn't hold a candle to Kuroka's performance.

The festival continued long into the night with everyone eating, drinking, and dancing to their hearts content.

I fell asleep around 3am with my back to the old Sakura tree while sitting in one of its branches, and had Kuroka pressed up into me, with Shirone pressed up into her, and a blanket covering all of us.

All in all, it was one hell of a new year's.

*Line Break*

Those four, technically three, events in one week was a lot, but it was special nonetheless and we gave it our all.

Kuroka was on cloud nine for days after it, so I counted it as a big win in my book.

Even the village seemed to be glowing with joy even days after the festival.

According to Leone, it was one of the best they had had in decades.

But aside from those four main points I started out describing, there was one other change that came with the new year.

I finally began doing gold rank jobs.

With Kuroka much busier with her training, I had more time to get out and start up the assassin engine again.

I was already taking a break after my 'grief' period, and before taking Kuroka on that silver rank mission, I had only done a handful of others in between just to test a few things out.

So, after my 'technical' long break from work, it was time to restart the grind.

Gold rank jobs were a different ballgame from Silver rank.

Silver ranks were the ones that you could find everywhere in the world.

Bronze ranks were small time, single target contracts.

Silver involved groups of thugs, low class mafia, low grade research agencies, and all kinds of missions.

That's not to say that Silver ranks are easy. For the average hitman, taking out a warehouse of over thirty thugs with automatic weapons without damaging the cargo is not an easy task. And that's just a single example of what kind of jobs you have to do.

But Gold rank is where you enter the high rollers.

These are contracts made by the rich and powerful, the ones who hold political, financial, and/or literal firepower.

They have veteran soldiers, veteran mafia members, government agents, and all kinds of high stakes events.

And unlike silver ranks, there were not as many of them.

There were still a lot, but you would likely have to change cities, if not countries to reach them as they come and go randomly.

And the clients can reject a mercenary by their job record.

That's why a strong reputation and low failures are a big deal.

One of the other points that make Gold rank jobs so different is that the jobs are usually not single day types.

For Silver rank, the targets are lower grade and there are usually a lot of information to use. Either supplied by the client or the guild.

Gold rank targets are a different ballgame. Not only do you have to do your own research, but just getting a shot at your target could take days, weeks, or months.

It's for the above reasons that the quota to upgrade from Gold rank to Steel rank is actually only 120 successful jobs.

From Bronze to Silver took 20.

From Silver to Gold took 200.

And from Gold to Steel takes 120.

But even for the top percent of assassins, hitmen, and mercenaries, fulfilling that quota with a low failure rate is one hell of a job.

If they survive that far and are good enough at their job, they might complete it within 5 to 10 years.

For those that space it out and take their time, it could take up to 20.

Gold is where the top percent congregate and sort of just stagnate.

Steel is where the true 1% of elites reach.

And from that 1%, only around half push for the supernatural world.

That's why the number of guild members who are at the Ruby, Emerald, and Platinum ranks are so rare.

If they were that powerful, they would just join a faction instead of working solo with the guild.

But for someone like me, being solo is exactly what I want.

With the coming of the new year, I decided to remind people of the name of Lupus, and that I had no plans to slow my insane speed anytime soon.

Within the month of January, three Gold rank jobs were completed without error.

The first one had me chasing a CIA agent who went rogue.

It took me five days to track and pin the agent down.

A 5'5 blond woman in her mid-thirties.

I trailed her undetected by using energy suppression and tagged her car.

She was staying in an upscale hotel with a lot of security, so I simply waited for her to leave and confirmed that she was in the car before I detonated the bomb.

#41: Crazy Bomber – A tiny untraceable bomb. Smaller than a thumb and can fit in all kinds of places. Whatever surface it sticks to will cause the bomb to blend in and hide. No matter what, it won't detonate until the user chooses to. Power scales with total energy pool of the user when formed.

This was an interesting card.

The bombs it makes are set to the max output of the total energy pool I have when I make it.

So, I used the one I made when I was 4 years old for this mission, and the car went up in flames in seconds.

Really cool stuff.

The second job I took required me to break out my sniper rifle.

At a range of 1200 meters, I took a shot from the roof of a building to the office window of a corrupt board member while he was in a meeting.

After confirming the head shot, I packed up my rifle into a briefcase and simply walked away casually.

To get that shot though, I had to break into secure files and get access to the targets company email account.

Then I combed through them to find the next specified meeting at a specified location that I would be able to work an angle at, and I had my window.

The third job was for a snatch operation.

One government had their operative taken by another, and they wanted a third party to snatch the prisoner and get it to a courier who would get the target out of the country.

That would require a bit of effort on my part.

All I knew was the target would be moved between two points on a specific day and time.

So, I had to find the route the transport would take.

Getting the target safely out of point A or B was too difficult.

I could still do it, but it would be a lot more dead bodies and lot more attention on my name.

The bad kind of attention.

But it's not a big deal.

My job was to be a surgical knife, not a hammer.

I found the transport route from interrogating an agent for passcodes to the database.

Then I set an obstruction along the main route, forcing them to take the pre-planned detour route.

Then on that detour, I had a remote operated truck pull out of a narrow pass to ram the armored transport vehicle the target was in.

To do this I had to set cameras and motion sensors to get the timing just right.

And finally, using one of my cards, I remained underwater by an exit pipe, shot through the locks on the armored vehicle, secured the target by shoving another item down his mouth, bagged his head, and got the hell out of there before they started shooting into the water.

It seems like a lot, but the actual action was less than five minutes.

As for the item I used.

#4: Breathable Bon Bon – Taste the exquisite taste of fine chocolate and gain the strength to breathe in any environment for 6 hours. Box of ten.

A delicious chocolate candy, great for all occasions, especially when you're not in your normal breathing environment.

One delivered target, and one more completed job for me.

Of course, the government I took the job from tried to 'erase' the evidence, but I erased their eraser.

It comes with the job; you just have to expect any government agency that hires a third party for something that could create political tension between two nations to double cross you in the end.

For the greater good and all that crap.

I swear, most of the time, it's the criminals who have more honor than the governments.

Most of the time, you do a job right, and no one touches you in the underworld.

Anyway, it was a great start, but between my own training and dedicating time to Kuroka, I only managed to squeeze in three jobs in January.

Even for me, I realized just how much of a challenge that kind of schedule is.

Gold rank jobs just aren't things I can do consecutively like Silver ranks.

With that in mind, I decided to take a new kind of job for February.

Security and Protection.

That was what it was listed under anyway, but it's not the mafia kind of protection.

The job was listed by the Russian mafia, specifically the Vasilinov family.

I have no idea how it was in my old world, but in the world of DxD, in the year 1999, the Russian criminal underworld has a simple but complex system.

Against foreign threats, they stand united to expel anyone from Russia.

Without those threats, they all work for their own gains.

Guerilla warfare between the rich and powerful mafia organizations is very common.

And having money and influence in Russia buys you a lot of freedom as long as you know which hands to shake and who to stay out of the way from.

The Vasilinov family was built from scratch by a woman named Vladilena N. Vasilinov.

And she was one hell of a package.

I read her file with an eyebrow raised in surprise.

Before joining the mafia, she was a captain in the Soviet Army, air assault troops, also known as the VDV, paratrooper and a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. A fine marksman and sniper, she received the nickname "Balalaika".

She was burned during her time in the war, the cause was not listed, and it caused parts of her face, neck, and upper chest to receive extreme burn marks that scarred over.

Years after the war, a mission went sideways and her and her team were made the scapegoat.

She went underground and entered the criminal underworld, using her team of soldiers loyal to herself to start up a mafia family.

It's actually quite impressive the way she manipulated and moved pieces, taking over one small group after the next and ruthlessly grew her power until she became one of the pillars of the criminal underworld.

And now she issued a job to the mercenary guild.

One for the protection of her and her staff in a casino in one of the richest cities in Russia.

The job called out to me, figuratively of course, and I was honestly curious why she asked for a mercenary when she had her loyal soldiers.

Which led to this moment, the moment in which I stood before her in her office, wearing my usual combat uniform of my mask, cloak, and black combat gear.

It had been five minutes since I walked in, and the only things to move in the room since I stood a few feet away from her desk while she stared at me and smoked a thin cigar, were her eyes and the uneasy movement of the two hired dumb muscle guards at the door, and the breathing of the single soldier standing to her side.

We were observing each other silently.

Her eyes roamed my form with a blank look, and I took in her appearance.

Just like the intel stated, she was horribly scared from burn marks, but somehow, she pulled it off and made it work.

She was a tall woman with long blond hair tied up behind her head with two trails in front going down to past her breasts.

She wore a form fitting red suit with a military coat over her shoulders but not worn.

She looked like the definition of a badass bitch.

And I recognized her face.

On the outside, I made no move or twitch, but on the inside, I was banging my head on a marble fucking wall.

'What the fuck is wrong with this world? Why am I seeing anime characters wherever I go?'

Sitting before me was none other than the picture perfect image of Sofiya from Black Lagoon.

And the background she had in this world was VERY similar to what it was in that anime.

In other words, don't cross this bitch.

Still, that was a world of humans, this is one where humans are on the bottom of the food chain, and I had been training to fight those predators up above.

Do I want to offend her? No.

Am I going to bend over for her? Fuck no.

But the raw mana coming from her made want to take this job no matter what. It was at least double, if not more, of what I had and it was just sitting there, unused.

It was the perfect and rare fat sheep, so I was willing to put up with a bit to make this work.

Which is why the next scene happened.

"Is this a joke?"

She sat back with a condescending look and spoke in Russian, a language I was fluent in thanks to my language school card.

I tilted my head and spoke back in clear Russian with a deeper voice thanks to the candy in my mouth.

"Did you not post a job to the mercenary guild?"

She blew out some smoke.

"I did. And I was informed the Reaper had accepted it. So where is he? All I see is a child or a dwarf in front of me. Where is Lupus!"

She slammed her fist down on the desk at the end but I didn't flinch.

I rose a hand slowly and noticed the two in front of me didn't even twitch, but the two thugs behind me did.

I could hear their shuffling, smell their sweat, and see them without having to turn around.

In such an enclosed space out of active combat, my energy sensing could see every twitch anyone made.

I reached into my sleeveless shirt pocket, casually exposing my right shoulder that held the large howling wolf tattoo as well as the two gleaming silver pistols in their holsters around my ribs.

Vladilena and the man next to her narrowed their eyes at that.

This was all just a show to confirm my identity.

Out of my pocket, I pulled out my guild ID card and tossed it on her desk.

The man beside her moved to pick it up first and examine it before handing it to her.

She looked it over for a minute before looking back at me.

"So, I'm really supposed to expect your Lupus?"

"I am not here to discuss my identity with you, I am here to do a job. If you decline to activate the contract, please do so and I shall leave."

I felt as much as saw the two behind me growl angrily at me, but the two in front didn't react.

"Hm… perhaps I will activate it. But first, I don't trust those I don't know. Remove your mask."

I made no move for a moment and the two guards behind me decided her words were as much an order to me as it was to them.

They moved forward at the same time with a hand outstretched toward my shoulders.

My mask didn't move from facing her.

*Bang* *Bang*

The two men behind me paused inches away from my shoulders and fell back with bullet holes between their eyes.

My hands moved like a blur to remove my pistols, aim behind me, fire, and re-holster.

There was silence for a moment before the door to the office burst open and a dozen men charged in with machine guns aimed at my back.

I was getting annoyed with this game and about to make my annoyance shown when she finally called it off.

"отступить!"

She yelled for them to stand down and every gun was lowered.

These weren't her soldiers, but no one crossed her orders in her mafia family and lived to tell the tale.

She waved her hand.

"Every out, and someone clean up the mess."

Four of the men grabbed the two dead bodies and carried them out before shutting the door.

With it just being the three of us now, she chuckled and blew out more smoke.

"Got nerves of steel on you huh? Not even a twitch. I can respect that.

My apologies for the little show but I like to know what I'm paying for."

She gestured with her hand and the man to the side moved over a chair before grabbing one for himself.

I inclined my head slightly to him and he nodded back.

With all of us seated, she got to the point.

"Very well, the contract is now activated, until completion, your mine understand?"

"As long as it is within the contract perimeters, then yes, understood."

She grunted in approval and went along.

"Good, your sharp, I'll need that for this mission."

She grabbed a folder and tossed it to me.

Opening it up, I saw columns of pictures and files on another mafia family.

"As you know, the Russian underworld is never at peace. Everyone wants more in these parts, greedy swine who can't wipe their own asses unassisted.

The ones who bled and sacrificed to get where they are don't create chaos unless challenged.

It's these fuckers who are causing me problems now, the swine who always want more."

I skimmed through the file and saw the image at the top.

The man really did look like a pig.

Saggy cheeks, double chin, greasy hair, and a large nose.

Igor Krum was his name.

"Hm, so the Krum family is trying to take you out?"

She grunted and blew out some smoke.

"The Krum family is a mid-class group at best. The problem is that Igor Krum inherited a lot of money from his deceased parents and has a lot to throw around.

And at the moment, I'm stuck in a bit of a pickle."

She moved some papers to show a map on the desk.

It was outlined in lines to show territories.

"The red is where the Vasilinov family territory is. At the moment, we are at a cease fire with the surrounding three families, but it's a temporary one that will be broken when one side see's a weakness.

For that reason, I have my men stationed at crucial junctures to make sure we are the not the weaker prey that gets targeted first."

I picked off from there.

"And now that your forces are spread thin, a hyena thinks it can take a bite of the lion?"

She smirked at me.

"Da. This swine had tried to woo me once before and I punched him in the jaw hard enough to knock loose a few teeth.

He is a petty child who holds a grudge and has the greed to do stupid things.

I have received intel that he is moving his men into place to raid my casino sometime in the following week during open hours. He wants to make it public and show that he is the one attacking me.

I also don't know if he has hired any support with his funds.

Unfortunately, he chose a moment where I am most vulnerable. The men I have in the casino are hired hands, grunts who have only been in the underworld for a few years.

They have no steel in them.

But you do."

She eyed me appreciatively.

"I still dislike not knowing your face, but the strong have a right, and I have my code.

Show me respect and I'll return it.

Despite my little show, you didn't disrespect me, you held you cool and reacted when needed. For that you have my respect.

And your reputation holds great merit for you.

But tell me, why is your file so clean? The only failures you have are from misinformation that the guild admits to, or when a client tried to cross you for revenge. I don't like clean files."

I shut the folder I was reading and looked up at her behind my mask.

"And I don't like living targets."

The smile she gave at my answer was wide and full of teeth.

*Line Break*

The casino was open from 6PM to 3AM.

The contract was only active for one week with me having to watch over the casino during active hours.

If nothing happened, I was to remove the mafia head.

I asked why I shouldn't go straight for the target from the start, and it was apparently a reputation issue.

It was already known on the streets that the Krum family wanted to make trouble, so the Vasilinov family had to meet them head on as the stronger group, or they would be seen as weak.

After beating them, then they could kill the head.

It's honestly a lot of annoying politics but I have my contract and I'll do what it says.

I'm to protect the casino and Vladilena.

There was average security, but they were untrained thugs with guns mostly.

They can get stuff done, but once combat started they were the point and spray fire type.

Useless basically.

I had to be on the floor during active hours, and Vladilena was quite adamant that even if I kept my mask, I couldn't be looking like I did, which I could understand.

So here I was, dressed in a fine Canali black suit, with a dark red shirt, wine red vest, black slacks, and dress shoes.

On my wrist was a Jaeger LeCoultre silver Swiss watch, and around my neck hung the silver chain of my Paladins necklace with the sword and shield symbol hanging.

The suit was tailor made for me by a client who had hired me in the past in Italy.

They were so thankful for my crisp work that they offered me a VIP status should I ever need to come back.

And considering I would hit puberty soon; it was likely that they would come in handy.

Of course, my mask stayed firmly on my face, I had no desire to publicly show it just yet.

Overlooking the casino from the overhang only available to staff, I stood and watched the staff move around preparing for opening time.

The first floor of the casino was a massive space decorated heavily with a rich and luxurious feel.

The lighting was bright but cast a warm golden glow over the surrounding.

The floor was polished marble and red velvet carpets.

Artistic designed architecture decorated the walls and fine statues stood out among the area.

The tables were spread out and not a speck was out of place.

It was truly a high class casino.

"What do you think?"

Vladilena came up on my side.

I knew she was coming; I just didn't mind.

She was dressed in a beautiful red dress with a dark fur half coat or scarf, I couldn't tell the difference, wrapped around her shoulders with her hair tied up.

She really did make her scars work for her beauty rather than take it away.

"You don't half ass things."

She chuckled at that and blew out some smoke from her thin cigar.

"Thank you, the security might be for par, but I personally picked the staff. I have a reputation to keep after all, and they give me their all."

I hummed at that, and she gave me a look over with an appreciative eye.

"Ho~ so you do have a suit after all. You clean up nice Lupus."

I chuckled.

"Getting you off my back with seeing your tailors was not easy, I told you I had a suit."

She laughed in amusement.

"Indeed, I was having fun making the feared Reaper so uncomfortable, but it seems you have good connections in Italy. Canali?"

I hummed in acknowledgement before changing the subject.

"I assume this is your nest in case its needed?"

She eyed me from the corner of her eye and nodded.

"Someone did their homework, but yes, this is where I'll be if needed."

"I see, it would be interesting to see the fabled Balalaika in action."

"The feeling is mutual Lupus."

We stood in comfortable silence for a moment, eyes roaming the floor below, before she asked something that surprised me.

"Tell me Lupus, do you know the true powers of the world?"

For the first time that night, I turned my masked face to look at her fully.

"Do you?"

She smirked.

"I had a feeling you were not so simple. I just wished to give a warning, we do tend to receive guests from that world from time to time.

Everyone enjoys having fun after all."

I processed that and nodded.

"I see. I'll handle it if needed."

She narrowed her eyes at me.

"Can you?"

I didn't hesitate.

"It depends on who exactly arrives. If I can, I will step in. If not, I'll mention it. I was hired to handle a mafia family attacking, if other things arrive, I can step in, but my main priority will be my targets."

She looked back down below with reminiscing eyes.

"The mission always comes first huh? Haha, very well. Do what you can, here, take this and inform me if needed."

She handed me a small radio transmitter for my ear, and I nodded and put it in.

It was probably traceable so I'll just leave it here rather than take it with me.

It's not unexpected to think the supernatural world was connected with high class locations like this. I know of quite a few people among them who would love to play around and party.

Not to mention the raw mana buried inside her.

I'm sure she was approached by one or two supernatural's in her time looking to recruit her, but considering she was still human, I can see where those offers ended up going.

She wasn't one to bend the knee, she made others bend their knee's.

*Line Break*

The days passed one after another.

I already told the girls I would be out for the week, so I was staying at the guild hotel in the city.

I didn't really need the room; I was trained to be able to operate on minimal sleep when needed.

I could operate with full functionality and sense awareness on 2 hours of sleep a day, and if needed I could stay awake for up to three days before I crashed.

It's not as simple as doing nothing while awake but being fully functional in an active environment while sleep deprived increases the stress and difficulty tremendously.

But if anything, I get a bit snappier when I sleep 2 hours a day.

Not enough to affect my performance, but more in my responses.

Which is why I kept silent for the most part.

Even if I knew the enemy coming would do it during active hours, I had to make sure they didn't try to 'set the stage' so to speak during inactive hours.

It had been three days so far and everything was quiet, or as quiet as a high class busy casino could be.

Slot machines, endless chatter, exclamations of surprise/anger/joy, piles of chips moving around, wheels spinning on the crap tables, automatic card shufflers, and a band playing soft jazz in the background.

Hundreds of sounds all mixing together to create this mixture called 'casino noise', and it's something I learned to deal with after the first day.

'It's no wonder humans can barely hear shit, they have so many damn loud noises that they can't hear anything in a normal environment without cranking up the volume.'

I paused after that thought and chuckled.

In my last life, I was no better than them.

In this life, I learned early on how to hear and how to continue enhancing your sense of sound.

It's a major difference.

None of the five main senses is inherently stronger for a human, there are incredibly things you can sense with all of them.

But humans grow up in an environment where they actively dull their senses, so they don't even know what their missing.

*Crash*

"Who the fuck do you think your questioning dipshit?!"

A rising commotion broke me from my thoughts, and I turned my masked gaze toward a table on the ground floor.

A blackjack table had drawn a crowd.

A chair was knocked over, chips and cards had been sent flying, and a young looking girl in a gothic Lolita dress was grabbing the dealer by his collar and screaming in his face.

"To young am I fucktard?! How about I shove my foot so far up your ass, it comes out your throat! Will you think I'm too young then?! HUUHH!?"

My eye twitched at the sight.

I recognized that face and voice.

Years ago, when I had some time away from my teacher, I used card #46: Memory Helmet to help memorize all the memories I could recall of DxD in my past life.

It wasn't much to be honest.

I didn't watch past the first season, and everything else I knew was from fanfiction, so I had no way of knowing how accurate things were.

But still, I wrote down what I could recall, and used the helmet to memorize it without the chance of forgetting it.

And memory works in funny ways.

By recalling the name and some details, often times the face that I knew of from fanart and other sources automatically gets recalled along with the name.

It didn't work with Kuroka on first glance because she was too young.

But for this character, it was a perfect match.

She had blond hair, blue eyes, a curved mouth with a fanged tooth at the corner of her mouth, wore a Gothic Lolita attire, which consisted of a black Lolita dress with white frills, a large black bow on the front, and a green jewel embedded on the collar, white thigh-high socks, and black shoes.

And if her appearance and…unique…way of speaking didn't confirm it, I only had to focus my energy sense on her to feel the cursed holy feeling of a fallen angel.

I jumped down from the overhang and landed in a corner unseen before I tapped the radio in my ear with a finger.

"I'll handle this one, back off security."

My voice cut through the radio chatter and it grew silent for a second before they responded.

"Aye sir."

The three security guards approaching the girl backed off as I approached and nodded to me.

They didn't know me, but when Vladilena tells them to listen to my orders explicitly if I step in, they didn't choose to test her.

A second voice came over the coms.

"Lupus, do we have our target or a 'special' guest?"

"A special one ma'am, I'll take care of it."

"Understood, do what you need to."

She didn't speak after that and I reached the scene.

"M-ma'am, m-my apology..."

"Screw your apologies you jackshit little bitch! All you had to do was deal me the fucking cards but no! You gotta fuckin fuck with me huh?!"

The fallen looking like a gothic loli was still shaking the poor dealer when my calm voice broke in.

"Ma'am."

"What!?"

She turned fierce eyes on me before pausing.

"Who the fuck are you supposed to be?"

I inclined my head slightly and extended a gloved hand.

"Ma'am, would you like to join me at the VIP tables? I'm sure a woman of your grace would be willing to forgive this poor man for his offenses, right?"

The fallen froze and unclenched her hand before the man shot me a thankful look and quickly scurried off.

"Ma'am?"

I called out again and she coughed.

"*Cough* Yes, I could. I see someone can finally appreciate this lady as she is. You may escort me."

She lifted her head up proudly and stuck out her hand to mine.

I kissed the back of her hand and we walked off with her hand in my elbow.

I signaled to the guards to clean up the mess and they respectfully nodded.

She saw it and looked at me questioningly.

"You the manager or something?"

I chuckled at that.

While I wore my mask with the suit, I didn't exactly look as young as I did in the cloak.

After all, I might be physically 11, but my size was still a mark above what one would expect at 5'1.

I could have passed for a short man or some other kind of being.

"Something like that. My apologies my lady but I didn't catch your name."

She laughed haughtily and puffed out her nonexistent chest.

"Be honored. My name is Mittelt."

I nodded slightly to pretend to acknowledge it.

"It's an honor Ms. Mittelt, you may call me Lupus."

"Hmm… Lupus huh? Simple but I like it. And no need for Ms., just Mittelt is fine."

"Understood Mittelt, ah, here we are."

I guided her to a quieter section of the floor where we had a VIP section for high rollers.

It wasn't used as much considering the casino also had VVIP rooms for the real big shots.

But it was a way to appease the high rollers so they think their special and keep coming back.

I guided Mittelt to a highchair and circled around the side to the dealer part of the U shaped table.

"What game would you like to play tonight Mittelt?"

She hummed with a small smile.

"Blackjack."

I nodded and picked up the deck and began to shuffle.

At the same time, I signaled for a waitress to take her order.

"I'll take a Moscow Mule."

The waitress gave me a look discreetly and I nodded before she went off.

Mittelt was too happy to notice.

If one didn't know her or could feel her energy, she truly did look like a child.

Which is funny considered I was physically a child.

While we waited on her drink, I started some small talk.

"So Mittelt, are you native to the city?"

She chuckled and smiled.

"What do you think Lupus?"

A trick question for men everywhere.

"I believe you are not Russian; you don't seem to have that depressed or cold air about you."

She laughed at that and signaled me to go on, so I did.

"I don't believe you are from the US; you don't behave like one of those uncouth barbarians."

A semi jab at my past American self, but it's not inaccurate.

She laughed more and gave me expectant eyes as I shuffled the cards.

"Europe for sure, going by your beauty I would assume Scandinavian ancestry, so perhaps Sweden?"

A neutral answer and going by her wide smile, it was a good answer.

"Ha! I like you Lupus. Finally, a gentleman who treats a lady as they should be without leering at me."

She didn't answer the question, but I knew she was happy with it.

I wasn't going to press either.

"It's my pleasure my lady, ah, here is your drink."

The waitress brought it over with a smile and left before I began dealing the cards.

It was just us playing, but she was enjoying herself.

We made more small talk on random topics and got friendly with each other.

"So, Lupus, what exactly do you do around here?"

"Aside from accompanying ladies such as yourself for a quiet game?"

She giggled and nodded.

"Hm… it's best to say I handle security and 'Special' guests."

To punctuate my words, I loosened up on my energy suppression just a tad before reeling it back in.

It's a cool trick Leone taught me.

Let's say you suppress your energy to 10 units but you have a pool of 200 units.

If you act fast enough and release 100 units before reeling it back down to 10, it gives off the impression that your much stronger than you are without actually having to show it.

It's a bluff so to speak, similar to a fake detective flashing a badge before someone can see the picture.

But it works, and her eyes widened a bit before narrowing.

"I see, and what would a human such as yourself do to a 'special' guest such as myself."

Her energy began rising and I calmy waved my hand.

"I would give her VIP care and satisfy her."

She paused before reeling it back in with a smile.

"Haha, you got some steel balls on you Lupus, I like that, you interested in having some fun?"

I chuckled and bowed slightly.

"I am honored my lady, but I'm afraid my heart is taken."

She deflated a bit before giving me a wink.

"It's ok to sin once in a while you know~."

I pulled back the humor a bit.

"I agree, but sinning of the heart is not something I wish to partake in."

She pouted but relented.

"Fine. Spoilsport. I can at least respect a man who can value their partner, lust isn't my main area anyway."

I nodded and extended a hand.

"I may not be a partner, but I can be a friend if you wish."

She looked at me curiously.

"You can sense what I am and still wish to be friends? With a higher being?"

I chuckled at that.

"I'll consider it my good fortune. Besides, people always seem to underestimate the little guy. You never know when one of them might just have bigger fangs than those looking down from their pedestals."

I hinted at something I caught just the iceberg of a minute ago.

It seems I wasn't the only one holding secrets close to my heart.

Mittelt narrowed her eyes at me, seemingly seeing through the mask to stare into my eyes for a few moments before a fanged smile formed on her face and she shook my hand.

"Hahaha, your interesting Lupus, I like that."

Then her hand tightened on mine to the point it would have broken a grown man's hand.

"And friends don't go sharing secrets…right?"

I chuckled and squeezed back getting a slight widening of her eyes at the strength of a random human.

"Of course, consider it mutual respect for a fellow wolf in sheep's clothing."

She chuckled and eased up to shake normally.

"Very well, be honored to be within the rare members of this beauties friends."

I internally sweat dropped at her word choice.

'Did she just say that she has no friends?'

Considering she was here alone for fun; it might have been a possibility.

"Not many you trust out there?"

She huffed and took a drink.

"If there's one thing life teaches you, it's that you never truly know how much worth someone puts on trust till their interests cross with yours."

I hummed at that; it held a decent amount of wisdom to it.

Before I could go on, my radio buzzed.

"Lupus, we might have another 'special' guest. You mind checking out table #74 and confirming. I'd rather not step on toes if I can avoid it."

I lifted a finger to my radio to reply.

"Understood, I'm on my way."

"So reliable~."

I rolled my eyes at her tease at the end before facing the curious eyes of Mittelt.

"My apologies, it seems someone is making a scene, would you like to wait here?"

She chuckled and hopped off her chair.

"Nah, let's go see how you handle someone else. Will you woo another lady in front of your new friend?"

She looked at me with a large smile and I chuckled and held out my elbow for her to take and we were off.

It didn't take long to reach the area, where a familiar scene was happening except with slight changes.

"You fucking cheater! I saw you put that goddamn card in your sleeve! Be a man and fight me!"

I looked at Mittlet with a raised brow and she seemed to understand even through the mask.

She was trying to hide her laughter behind her hand.

"Hahahaha… that's just ironic and funny. Can't use the suave gentleman card on this one."

I shook my head with a wry smile and looked back.

Instead of a small loli in a gothic Lolita get up, it was a young teen with slight muscle tone shaking a grown man as his personal bodyguards tried to pry the young teens hands off the man.

And it was definitely a man; not a lady for me to woe as Mittelt suggested.

I sighed and signaled for Mittlet to wait while I walked forward.

"Come on! Fight me if you have the balls to try and cheat me you bastard!"

"Let go you damn brat! Do you have any idea who I am?!"

Within a few feet, I sped up dramatically and appeared next to them like a ghost, grabbing the teen and tossing him back lightly without knocking him over while picking up and placing down the other man just by grabbing his shoulder.

"Wha?!"

"Hey!"

I looked at the teen first and pointed my finger.

"You. Shut up for a second."

"Oi!"

Then I turned to the man who was giving me a dirty look with his bodyguards ready to step back in.

"Sir, we apologize for this incident, how would you like to be moved to a different area and be given a few concessions as an apology?"

The man scoffed at me.

"And you can give me that brat?!"

I nodded calmly and pointed to the sides where eight security guards had approached.

The man's eyes widened.

"I can. These fine men will show you to your area. Of course, we shall perform a 'security' check to make sure there is no issue. You're in good hands sir."

The man seemed to collect himself when he realized I wasn't talking air and nodded imperiously.

"Ha! Good, I'll be expecting big payment for this offense."

I nodded.

"Of course sir, please."

At my gesture, the guards created an escort for him, and he walked away with a large smile followed by his two goons.

"Oi! That bastard was cheating and you're going to give him recompense?!"

I turned to the angry teen who marched up to me and held up a calming hand.

"Relax. The fool thinks he can cheat in this casino? He is being escorted to an interrogation room. He will be 'repaid' in full."

The teen stopped up short at that and blinked before it got through his head, and he started laughing.

"Hahaha! That's what that bastard gets. So, who the hell are you? You look strong to be able to toss me like that, want to fight?"

I sighed and shook my head.

'Why did I have to run into this meathead?'

Mittelt chose that moment to walk up and make things worse.

"Oi Lupus, you done with this worm?"

"Huh?! Who dares call me a worm?!"

The teen turned and looked down at the shorter Mittelt before he scoffed.

"A stupid crow thinks they can push me around?"

Mittelt stepped up like a cat having its tail stepped on.

"Who the hell does a baby bat think he is to call someone of my beauty stupid?! Huh fucker?! You want to die?"

"Who am I?! I'm Sairaorg bitch! And I'm gonna fuck you up!"

I sighed even more.

Yeah, standing before us was a young, much weaker, and much smaller Sairaorg Bael, the so called future strongest youth of his generation.

He had a good stance, and I saw some noticeable calluses on his hands, but I doubt he had been training all that long so far.

But even so.

'Why the hell did these two decide to pick tonight to come to the same exact location in both earth and the underworld….I'm not being paid enough for this shit.'

The two were ready to come to blows and the air was distorting slightly from them releasing the weight of their energy pools, in other words flexing, when I came between them again.

"Would you two please calm down."

I flicked Mittlets forehead lightly and put a hand against Sairaorgs chest to push them back.

"Oi!"

"Hey!"

"Lupus! What the hell? Your supposed to back me up here!"

"You want to fight human?! You can join her side! I don't care!"

I released a trace of killing intent as their voices were shouting and echoing off my already tired brain from having minimum sleep for three nights, and they both paused.

Killing intent is different from easing up on suppressing your energy pool.

Every supernatural learns to suppress their energy before entering earth or they could affect others just by their presence.

Supernatural beings are literally a higher species than humans.

So, they learn to put a cap on it for lack of a better term.

It's the basic version of what Leone taught me.

Very few every actually take it to the next level and work to erase their presence by energy suppression like me.

Just as energy sensing grows with time and effort, energy suppression does to.

However, those born with massive energy pools rarely ever find the interest to take the time to hide their massive signatures.

It's increasingly difficult to do when you start with a lot of energy.

Reincarnated low class devils don't have the kind of reserves that can affect people, so they have time to learn the basic methods before it's too late.

On the other hand, killing intent is different.

Killing intent is literally bred through killing.

One who has never killed will never understand the true intention to take life.

It doesn't cause a physical force like releasing your energy, but it causes a mental force.

One that all animals have.

It's the instinctive feeling of a predator staring at you with thoughts of killing you.

Of course, there are many factors in place such as how you performed the killing, your mental state such as if you were mentally insane, and how skilled you are at understanding how to transmit 'intent' on a pure level.

The two most common intents people generate is killing intent bred through taking life, and pure love generating from those who truly love with their being such as mothers to their children or lovers at the height of their passion.

There are others, but they are very rare.

Anyway, killing intent is a strong element for an assassin, and it can cause a weaker prey to freeze.

My teacher and father had taught me how to use it, by using it on me.

I recall watching Naruto in my last life, and I always cringed at the way characters seemed to freeze up under killing intent. It always annoyed me to see them act that way.

But when my teacher used it on me, I understood.

I understood what it feels like to be a sheep before a wolf.

Of course, my teacher never truly tried to scar me, but he left a strong impression.

And I honed my intent through taking each life individually.

Every bullet I shot had my intention wrapped around it, and I've witnessed many targets freeze for a second before the bullet hit them, something they or those around them never realized, and then they were falling over dead.

I usually keep a tight lid on it as I was trained to control my emotions, but the combination of events let a trace slip out.

Mittelt didn't blink beyond a raised brow, but the young Sairaorg looked at me with excited eyes.

"Anything you want to say Lupus?"

"Oho! You are strong! Let's fight man!"

I managed to stop them from fighting, by making them point their focuses on me.

'….I think I need some sleep, this was an error in judgement.'

I retracted the trace of killing intent like a fat guy eating a twinkie.

"Please relax you two and look at where you are, we have no reason to fight and can sit down for some drinks and fun games, how about it? Drinks are on me?"

I held out my hands peacefully and spoke with a calm voice.

*BOOM!*

"Oh for fucks sake! What now?!"

The doors to the casino blew open and in rushed two dozen men with automatic weapons.

They ignored the guests and aimed at the security guards who were not trained to handle this type of situation.

I felt my eyebrow twitch at the sight and held a finger to my ear.

"That them?"

My radio buzzed as Vladilena responded.

"Yup, time to go to work Lupus. Need an eagle in the nest?"

I sighed and replied.

"Negative, I'll deal with it."

"Understood, I'll keep watch. Let's see what the might Reaper can do."

My finger dropped from my ear.

I focused my mind and began analyzing my prey.

"Oh, bad guys! Let's go have some fun!"

My hand came down on his shoulder and squeezed.

"Stay."

He looked at me indignantly.

"But!"

"STAY."

At my firm commanding voice, he shut his mouth and grumbled but did so.

I gave Mittelt a look, but she was already sitting with a drink in hand.

"What? Don't worry, I'll stay here. You go have fun."

I shook my head at her and left them behind.

(AN: Both of these songs work well. Play either song you wish. Blue Stahli - I am the beast / Ninja Tracks - Antigone Falling)

Dealing diplomatically with a high class devil and a low class fallen with a surprising secret? That's a pain in my ass.

Dealing with a contract and killing? That's what I was trained to do.

My steps were calm and measured.

Bullets flew around, guests fled out of the way to the safety of the sides of the floor as they weren't being targeted.

This was a Russian mafia skirmish, they only cared about erasing the other family and taking over the business in question.

A table near me exploded and sent wooden shrapnel into an unfortunate guard.

'That looked like it hurt.'

I ignored his screaming body and stepped over him.

My hand reached up and unbuttoned my suit jacket, revealing the gleam of my silver pistols.

My advanced energy sense began to spread forward in a fan shape.

7.62mm rounds traveling 670 meters per second with a firing rate of 600 rounds per minute.

My senses could see it all happening, it was an overwhelming amount of information, but I had already surpassed human limits in this area a while ago.

I had to ignore all the information I didn't care for.

This was no sharingan that let me see bullets moving in slow motion, but it let me 'feel' when a bullet moved through my fan, giving me time to adjust my position.

If I was forced to do this in a perfect circle, my area would shrink dramatically.

My eyes roamed, taking in each hostile, my sense felt all the ones behind cover.

43 targets.

I studied them all, knew where they would step, where they were about to aim their muzzles, how they were communicating between each other, and traced it back to their team leader.

And then I moved.

Like a blur beyond the human eyes ability to trace, my hands found the handles of my pistols and pulled them out, firing at the exact second I fully extended.

Two bullets traced through the air, wrapped in killing intent, spinning between bodies and obstructions, squeezing through a hole in the wall to hit the head of the team leader who had frozen for a split second before the bullets even reached him.

Like a rabbit before a wolf.

As he fell, my guns turned to each side, each bullet with a purpose, no wasted movement, striking true within the heads of each target.

They wore body armor so targeting the heart was pointless.

But that left their limbs and heads open.

Eight targets were struck, their bodies falling to the floor, but I had already moved on.

Three men opened fire at me, I crouched to the left as the bullets sailed over my right and raised a single gun to fire three times, each shot hitting true in an eye or mouth.

More bullets flew my way and I rolled behind a statue seconds before I grabbed the outstretched arm of the statue, spinning, and returning fire.

My bullets aiming for calculated locations.

One man was shot in the right leg, causing him to jerk and fill his ally behind cover full of holes at the same time a second bullet him between the eyes.

Ducking under cover, a hail of bullets trailed over my position.

I bent low around the obstruction and inches off the ground, my pistol horizontally positioned, shot three shots, hitting the feet of three separate targets.

Three more bullets followed to hit the faces of the fallen over bodies.

I dropped a mag on one pistol as I slapped the butt of my gun against my waist where extra magazines were waiting just as I used the other to fire on approaching targets.

Their numbers were under half of what they started with by this point, from my own work and lucky shots from guards armed with pistols.

I moved with a purpose, taking calm calculated steps.

Step right, shoot with left hand at 9 o'clock with a 67 degree angle.

Step left, shoot with right hand at 3 o'clock with a 42 degree angle.

My arms moved in concert with my mind.

I felt where I wanted to shoot.

I envisioned where I wanted the bullets to go.

I intended for them to die.

Years of training in various forms, the voices of my father, of Ghislaine, of Leone, they all blended as one in my mind as my bullets moved like heat seeking missiles to reap the lives of each target my guns muzzle landed on.

Approaching a pillar, a foot was partially visible, I shot it with my left, the target bent over in pain as his head was exposed, I shot him with my right.

9 targets remained.

Five pulled up tables to make a shelter.

I moved around the side like a ghost, my finger reached for the clip on the handle of my gun and pulled out the extremely thin and sharp string.

I kicked off a pillar, dropped down behind a target as the wire swung like a chain to wrap around his neck just as my muzzles pointed and fired two shots each.

The four targets looking forward fell as the one I strangled clutched at his neck.

My designer shoe launched out and slammed into his chest, decapitating the man and retracting the string back into the gun in a second as I stepped out of the way of the falling blood.

I moved on.

4 targets left.

They just caught up with the lack of orders on their coms and turned to see the dead bodies.

Their eyes widened as .50 AE bullets pierced the necks of two of them and blew it out the other way to spray on the remaining two men.

Their eyes widened further in shock and donning fear as I approached.

My masked visage growing in their eyes as they trembled.

"The…"

"Reaper..."

*Bang* *Bang*

My energy sense scanned around me in a cone shape spinning like a sonar, I couldn't afford a full 360 degree scan.

There was no movement.

Dead and dying lay all around me, while I stood in a circle of death without a speck of blood on my suit.

The entrance was destroyed, and smoke was still coming off from a slight burning part.

My gun moved and shot a fire extinguisher on the wall, spraying foam on the fire and putting it out with a noticeable sizzle.

My eyes roamed my work emotionlessly before I nodded to myself and holstered my guns.

Brushing off my sleeves, I walked calmy back to where I came from.

The whole gunfight lasted minutes, it was over before people knew to breath.

But it was at that moment I missed one thing, I relied too heavily on my energy sense and ignored outside threats.

A sniper was trailed on me from a window just outside of my range.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as my instincts screamed.

*Bang!*

My heart skipped a beat.

I paused my steps and looked down.

There was nothing there.

I looked over my shoulder to see a window painted with blood from the outside.

My radio buzzed.

"The wolf was saved by the eagle~, how poetic. Good job Lupus, I'll handle clean up."

There was a teasing quality to the first part, but the second rang out with all the command and pride of a commanding military officer.

My finger pressed to my ear.

"Understood, I'll handle our 'guests'. And ma'am?"

"Yes?"

"Spasibo."

"Pozhalovat'."

I continued walking and loosened my collar with an annoyed scowl forming on my face.

'You over relied you moron. How many times have they told you, how many times have they said to not cut off your other senses? Listen to your instincts, not just your brain.'

Sairaorg rushed at me like a kid hyped on sugar.

"That was fucking awesome man! Holy shit you gotta fight me righ... OOF!"

I was already annoyed and didn't feel like dealing with him.

My hand lashed out faster than he could react and hit his neck, knocking him out.

He slumped and I grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him along.

'The guy has insane amounts of energy in him, suited to a high class devil, but he is not trained enough to use it, he is still young compared to the Sairaorg from canon.'

I dragged him past a shot up bar when a voice called out that made me pause.

"*cough* excuse me sir, are you done with that?"

I looked over and felt a new headache forming.

A young man, looking maybe 17 or 18, had a pale body littered with bullet holes as his head rested on the bar top.

But his glowing red eyes were open lazily and looking at me while his hand was pointing behind me to the dead bodies.

"Er… yeah?"

He grunted and pushed off the bar lightly.

"Good, they owe me for ruining a perfectly good suit."

He stretched his hand and my eye twitched.

The spilt blood of those who died traveled along the ground like a snake and gathered at the young man.

Thankfully the distance and way he did it kept the guests still at the sides of the room from seeing it.

The blood flowed above his hand and began forming spheres of floating blood.

"Hm… a lot of type B among them, oh, a rare O was in there, lucky me."

He grabbed a sphere and started drinking it as it poured down his throat.

His wounds rapidly closed up and bullets ejected from his flesh.

"Ah~ that's better. Such rude people I tell you."

My eye twitched harder.

My free hand flew out to grab the back of this guy's collar and I continued on, dragging two bodies behind me casually like an everyday thing.

"Hey…ah fuck it... to lazy."

The new guy just let me drag him while he lazily floated spheres of blood to his mouth like candy.

It was this sight that Mittelt saw as she was in the same place with a few empty cups.

She rose a brow at me and applauded.

"My~, your one scary human you know that. Did you even miss a single shot?"

I ignored her question.

"My lady, would you like to accompany me to the VVIP room for drinks on the house?"

She smiled wide and hoped off her chair with a flourish.

"I would be delighted good sir. Are you bringing the trash with you?"

"The trash has a name…eh…screw it…trash is fine, oh A+ is always sweet."

We ignored the backseat commenter in his own world and walked on.

The security guards poured out and moved past us to deal with the now much cleaner but still disgusting mess as it lacked blood.

It seemed that Vladilena pulled back most of the grunts, so they didn't die in vain.

As I passed a certain area, my eyes behind my mask trialed to a certain table, where someone was actually still sitting.

And old man in a fine suit, with an eyepatch, was looking at me with interested eyes.

I took one look at him and his eyes lit up with excitement.

"No."

I turned and kept walking.

My hands were full, and I was not dealing with shit at that level right now.

The old man's shoulders slumped in depression.

I guided Mittlet along to a private room a single flight of stairs above, with a certain someone commenting 'ow' as his body hit every stair but didn't attempt to stop me, with lavish decorations and a professional gambling table built into a very comfortable cushioned booth.

Mittlet happily hopped into one side while I tossed the two troublemakers into the other side.

"Your very rough in a gentle way if that makes sense."

My eye twitched heavily under my mask as Mittlet burst into laughter and pounded the table.

"Hahahaha."

"Can you please not say misleading things like that."

The young teen looked at me confusedly before it clicked, and he had an epiphany.

"Ah, my bad, well whatever."

He went back to poking his spheres of blood and I shook my head.

"I think I need a drink this time."

Mittlet perked up from her laughter.

"Ooh~! What are we drinking this time?"

I shrugged and loosened my color further.

"I don't know, something from my personal collection."

That just made her more interested, and I shook my head with a chuckle.

'She's just a ball of energy isn't she? Must have been starved for friendly connections.'

I moved to the side out of direct eye line and called out my ring before directly summoning a card to my hand.

At this point, I didn't even need to summon the binder, as long as the ring was activated, if I knew exactly what card I wanted, it could just appear in my hand.

I crushed the card and a crate popped up in front of me.

It was one from my free slots.

After realizing I would be in the Nekoshou village a while, I put together a collection of bottles of the magically enchanted liquor bottles from my warehouse into a single crate and carried it with me in my free slots.

Mittlet heard the sound of a crate hitting the floor and looked over with an interesting look, but Sairaorg chose that moment to wake up.

"Uuurg... damn my head. And why does it feel like my back was dragged up a flight of stairs?"

The young teen absentmindedly commented.

"Because it was."

"What?"

"Shut up baby devil, your voice hurts my brain with your low class words."

"Wah?! Bitch I'm a high-class devil!"

"Like I give a shit fucktard!"

The two began bickering and I rolled my eyes before grabbing three bottles to fit the situation and shut the crate.

Then I used a spell card.

Spell Card #33: Recycle - Allows an item converted from a card to be changed into card form once more.

A very useful card for things I want to keep in storage long term, but I try not to use it often.

This crate is one of the few exceptions.

The crate was turned back into a card and stored back through the ring before I moved back to the table, grabbing a tray of glasses and ice in my off hand.

"You want to go bitch?!"

"Bring it you dumb fuck piece of trash!"

"Would you two shut up for a second, you're not helping my headache."

I stood at the dealer side of the U shaped table and put the bottles and tray down.

"You! Why did you knock me out?!"

"Ooh~, I've never seen that label before."

"*sniff* hm... strange, I've never felt this hunger for simple alcohol before."

I turned to Sairaorg first.

"You were making a scene, we can fight some other time in private, take a load off man, your desire to fight is reeking of desperation."

He looked depressed at that, and I turned to the sniggering Mittlet.

"Mittelt, please stop riling him up and be civil. I brought out some drinks you most likely haven't had before."

And I turned to the last one.

"Before I answer that, can I get a name?"

The guy nodded.

"Staz."

I nodded but didn't recognize the name.

He looked approximately 16 to 18 years old. He had medium length black hair, that reaches just below his eyes in a straightforward style, chalk white skin, which is almost pale, and bright red eyes with dark circles underneath them as a sign of fatigue. Also, most notable were his razor sharp teeth.

"Hello Staz, you can call me Lupus. And to answer your question, these are enchanted liquors, so you're most likely reacting to the mana in them."

"Ooohh, interesting."

"…"

Sound more interesting you bastard!

I shook my head and popped the bottle, letting a strong aroma out along with a jet of flames that had two of my three viewers eyes widening.

"Um… is that supposed to happen?"

"I'm curious and scared, is there a word for that?"

"Anxious perhaps?"

"Oh~ yeah, that fits. I'm anxious but it's like seeing a car crash in slow motion, I need to see what happens."

I scoffed at their worried looks.

"Don't be daft, this is some of the best liquid you shall ever taste."

I poured the slightly glowing amber liquid into four whiskey glasses before dropping in a large cube of ice into each and passed them around.

Each of them eyed the glass warily for different reasons.

"To new meetings and friendships, Mittlet the lovely beauty…"

A scoff sounded out that her sending death glares, but I went on.

"Sairaorg the fighting maniac…."

Mittlet scoffed and he shot her a look.

"And Staz the incredibly lazy…pretty sure he's a vampire."

He shrugged and nodded.

"Nosdarovia!"

"""Cheers!"""

We all sipped our drinks and all their eyes widened while I sighed in pleasure.

A flame left my mouth on the exhale while the three of them coughed out a bit of smoke before they all sagged in pleasure.

"What the hell is this stuff?"

"Whatever it is, it just gave me a great buzz."

"Hm…. It actually affected me…"

I smirked at their reaction.

"Welcome to the joys of Firewhiskey, it burns like fire on the way down, makes you cough smoke or breathe fire like a dragon, and then hits you with a calming spell and soothes all your nerves and pains."

The three of them nodded in agreement at the description before taking another sip and trying to breathe out fire.

Sairaorg coughed out smoke three times before getting it, Mittlet twice, and Staz got it on his first try.

"There you go."

I breathed out another wave of fire when Mittlet narrowed her eyes on me.

"Wait a second, how the hell are you doing that?! You're wearing a mask!"

Sairaorg seemed to be hit with an epiphany.

"Ah, I see. The mask is really your face! You're some kind of Russian Yokai right?"

Three pairs of eyes turned to look him with deadpan looks.

"Er…not right I guess?"

We all turned away and ignored his past words.

Staz answered the question though with a bored tone only betrayed by the smile he had as he sipped more liquid.

"It's an illusion."

Mittelt's eyes widened before she gave me the stink eye and I held my hands up placatingly.

"Hey, I only do it to mess with people because it's fun."

"It's no wonder I could never catch you drinking before even though your glass was emptying! I thought I was just that drunk!"

We all laughed at that.

"My apologies my lady, would you ever forgive me?"

She hummed and looked up with her haughty tone.

"Show me your face and I'll think about it."

I hummed back.

"Hmmm… perhaps I will, perhaps I won't. It's a lot of fun to see you guess though."

"What's with the mask anyway? I wasn't gonna ask before, but you got me curious."

I turned to Sairaorg and nodded at the fair question.

"Well, I began wearing it years ago to hide my identity in the underworld. The way to become strong from the shadows is to make it to the top without catching the eyes of the strong.

For without strong backers, your nothing but prey, resources, or the seed of a future enemy to be squashed."

All three nodded.

Staz and Mittlet right away, and Sairaorg a bit slower but with deep eyes like he had his own issues.

"He's right."

"Damn straight he is, it's been that way for thousands of years at least."

Sairorg sighed.

"Yeah… I'm coming to realize that myself these days."

He said it in a low tone but all of us have enhanced hearing and caught it. We shot him looks but didn't pry.

Mittelt threw an ice cube at me that I dodged with a flourish.

"Ma'am, I know I'm hot but no need to cool me down."

The other two laughed at that.

"Oh, shush you! Were friends, right? I want to see whats under there!"

I hummed at her request and removed a cigarette box from my jacket before making a small fireball and inhaling, through the mask, and further aggravating Mittelt.

I blew out a cloud of smoke as if the mask wasn't there.

"Hmm… maybe. How about we share some stories, get to know each other a bit. Trust isn't built in a day after all."

She looked thoughtful of that idea and the other two seemed interested but apprehensive, so I tried a different approach.

"Or perhaps…trust could be built in a moment."

Three pairs of eyes turned to me, and I elaborated.

"Let's say I could enforce a pact of silence between us, would you all be interested?"

"Ho? And how would you manage that?"

"You have a way to bind all of us?"

"You do realize your human right?"

I chuckled at their reactions.

Honestly, I didn't know why I felt like doing this, but I was exhausted, and these three were interesting without being closely tied to any faction, even Staz the vampire I never heard of.

If that guy was had the energy to actually be involved in a faction, I would eat my shoe.

I reached my hand into my jacket pocket, where my ring flashed, and card appeared.

Spell Card #7: Trade - Establish a trade between two parties. Goes into effect immediately and will be fulfilled immediately on completion of the agreement.

This is arguably my most powerful card, at least in the top five, and it comes in two forms.

The first form is direct trade where I use it and as long as I verbally set a deal in motion that is agreed on by the other party, it goes into effect. Of course, it has to be a real deal, I can't just make something silly and witty during combat that screws over my opponent.

The second form is a contract form. It generates a physical contract that can have details written down to show all involved parties.

I crushed the card in my hand and a rolled up parchment appeared which I removed from my jacket.

I made the process seamless, so it didn't look odd.

Placing the scroll down, I explained.

"What I have here is a very rare blank contract artifact. I'm sure you have heard of similar items over time?"

Mittlet and Sairaorgs eyes widened while Staz just shrugged.

"Holy shit! Do you know how expensive those things are?!"

"Yeah! I was told that other races tried to copy devils contract ability, but the cost was always too high for the payoff."

"It's not that hard, you just have to kill an elder dragon and harvest it's parts along with a few herbs that grow once a century or two."

We all turned to give Staz deadpan looks.

"What?"

We rolled our eyes in synch and I went on.

"Right, well unlike the restriction of devil contracts, these little babies are much more open ended. 'What' can be traded is much more open to discussion.

So, you guys up for a 'trade'?"

Their eyes gleamed in interest and the drinks started flowing.

Contrary to my enhanced body and poison resistance, Staz's constitution and abilities, Sairaorgs devil constitution, and Mittlets long life and fallen constitution, we were all pretty tipsy after the first bottle.

Enchanted liquor is not like normal liquor.

It's not just the cool effects that make it special, but the fact that they can get anyone drunk by the inherent magic in it.

Even gods would be affected by some of the stronger stuff.

The drinks went down, the contract was filled out, and our security was set.

To test it out, I told Mittlet my favorite food was Sushi, which is true, and then I dialed a random number and had Mittlet try to tell the random person my favorite food.

The words that came out of her mouth made us all laugh.

"Hbgun…"

"Ijjhavbn…"

"Ssssllllaashshisdfie…!"

"You think you can drunk dial me you bastard!? I am not having sex with you!"

She hung up and threw it at me.

"It really works! I couldn't say it!"

After that we all tried it out for ourselves and pissed off a bunch of people with spam calls.

In my tipsy state, I accidentally asked my caller about their cars extended warranty and they were not amused.

The contract stated that each of us couldn't share any information we each deem as a 'secret' with anyone aside from the four of us unless we gave explicit permission to do it.

It was a way to guarantee our secrets were kept.

The contract also states, pointed out by Staz, that in the case where we are mentally controlled, under an illusion, or having our minds read, that we would temporarily forget any 'secret' of each other.

There were a lot of powers in the world, so it's important to cover our bases.

It also actually helps in case we need to make sure we are actually ourselves and not someone pretending to be us.

All we have to do is say a small 'secret' and if it works then it's us. If not, then it's not.

For that purpose, we just shared each other's favorite food and called it a secret for clarification checks.

Honestly the process of making the contract was a lot of fun.

I even shared some of my special cigarettes with them.

They were cinnamon flavored this time and had an effect to create twice as much smoke as a normal cigarette while also making the smoke more condensed.

Which led to a war of who could make the better effect.

All in all, it was a fun couple of hours, and we all learned a great deal about each other.

Sairaorg, similar to canon, had a really shitty childhood.

Born as the eldest of the new generation of Bael, he didn't have the Bael clans' power of destruction.

Due to that, he was passed over as heir for his younger sibling and he was ostracized by the clan along with his mother.

His father was included in kicking them to the curb for being useless.

He dealt with verbal and physical abuse until he was eight, and then him and his mother were banished to the edge of the Bael territory where even mid and low class devils would get some fun from abusing little Sairaorg.

His mother loved him dearly, but she was weak.

She told Sairaorg that if he didn't have the power of destruction, then he needed to find another way to grow strong or his future wouldn't be bright.

He took his mother's words to heart and did the first thing he could think of; physical training.

He trained day and night to make something of himself and it began to show.

He was 13 years old, but he was already jacked like a teenager wrestler.

Thankfully devil physiques grow differently from humans, so he doesn't look that young.

He came here tonight to blow off some steam.

Mittlet was another can of worms but her's was actually a simple story.

She had lived a very long life.

Unlike angels who had fallen to become fallen angels, Mittelt was born a fallen to two fallen parents.

The fallen are similar to the devils and can procreate, except fertility rates are still quite low.

she was born toward the tail end of the great war, and while she didn't participate, she witnessed a great deal of fighting.

Her parents had died in that fighting, leaving her alone in the faction.

But Mittelt was a survivor.

She hid and ran as a child, and she learned a valuable lesson.

The strong, whether from her faction or others, tend to ignore the bottom rung unless they have special abilities.

The largest amount of numbers are among the two winged ranks.

So rather than act like most of her species and to their very best to kiss ass and stand out to the higher ups while trying to make a name and boost their ego, she did the opposite and sunk into the background.

And it proved to her benefit as she could be relatively free.

Not to mention, she was not a two winged fallen.

I smirked as she revealed her secret and brought out her wings and showcased three pairs of wings.

She was a six winged angel after centuries of lowkey training.

She just combined her wings into a single pair and suppressed her energy to make her seem weak and unassuming.

And she hid it even better by wearing a gothic Lolita dress, which she actually enjoyed, and firing off curses like an Irish sailor getting into a barfight with an English sailor.

No one took her seriously or wanted to deal with her.

Which was the purpose of it all.

When I asked her why so many are stuck as two winged even after centuries, she just scoffed and said they were morons, lazy bastards, or just had no talent.

But they still flocked like moths to a flame when any fallen with one more pair of wings then them call.

In her words: "Let the morons flock to those stupid idiotic bastards, I don't need to be involved in all that stupidity."

As for Staz, well, he has an even shorter and simpler story.

He was an Ancestor Vampire, the last of his kind.

Mittelt literally spat out her drink on him in surprise, but the guy was too lazy to even reach for a napkin until I handed him one.

The vampire species used to be a much higher ranked faction during the great war, but they were inherently evil and bloodthirsty.

Not all of them, but the majority, especially the leaders.

The angels led a 'holy' raid to eliminate all the ancestors and while taking heavy casualties, they thought they stamped them all out.

The vampire faction had shrunk to being a mid-rank faction with only a high-class level being king.

So, to meet someone claiming to be one was a shock to the poor fallen heart; and gave me and Sairaorg a great deal of laughter at their expense.

Staz's story was simple.

He was a lazy vampire without much of an urge for war.

Unlike his fellow kind, he just wanted to rest all the time.

So, he found a nice, deep, and dark cave somewhere remote on earth, and went to sleep during the beginning of the great war.

The guy literally slept through the war, got up to take a couple walks and a snack, and went back to sleep for centuries.

Then, to his great misfortune, a few months before, a construction company decided it liked his location and began drilling into the earth.

One of those drills happened to piece his left leg.

Safe to say a few of those workers went missing, not that they knew what they had actually done, but it was just bad luck on their part.

Seeing his home of many centuries destroyed, he decided to take a walk and see how the world changed.

Which was beyond what he expected.

He ended up at the casino just wandering and looking for something to do when his chest got turned into a beehive by gun shots in the crossfire of the fight.

Finally, we reached myself.

I told a simplified version of my story, explaining how I was the heir to the line of Lupa, an underworld assassin legacy.

I didn't mention specific names, locations, or anything to do with the Nekoshou, that wasn't my secret to tell, but I told them the overview of my Lupus life.

Surprisingly, Mittelt and Sairaorg had both heard of it for different reasons.

For Mittlet, she shivered and mentioned that she had met one of the Lupa's two centuries ago. That one was a terrifying woman who preyed on mid class beings for a while before vanishing.

She was one of the few Lupa's who gained the attention of the factions, but no one was ever able to find her.

For Sairaorg, he surprisingly heard of the name Lupus from a different angle, it only hit him now while he was looking at the howling wolf symbol on the empty liquor bottle.

Apparently, the underworld has a newspaper, except they have a dedicated section toward interesting humans in the earth's criminal underworld.

It serves a few purposes but it's mainly for entertainment purposes.

Such as devils laughing at human mafia's killing each other.

But it also serves as information as it mentions big time human underworld businesses on the rise.

The devils are big on finding rich clients and looking for special humans to recruit into peerages, so they pay attention to the section of the weekly newspaper.

And apparently the name Lupus had gotten some coverage as a human underworld merchant on the rise.

Sairaorg read it in passing, but the memory clicked with the symbol in his drunken state and he called me out on it.

Of course, I had no issue admitting it, I did it for money and connections after all.

Even a god of death has to have some interests, and high quality liquor always seems to be a solid interest among long living species.

Finally, I did remove my mask after much teasing.

Mittelt was ready to take my head off from how much I messed with her, and Sairaorg had a red forehead from slamming his head on the table every time I led them on.

Only Staz didn't really care since he can recognize me by the signature of my blood, whatever that means.

Mittelt's reaction was funny when she finally saw me.

"Hey handsome, how about you let me buy you a drink and show you a good time?"

We all laughed at that, and I reminded her I was both taken, and that she was drinking MY booze.

All in all, the four of us became good friends that night.

It's amazing what good liquor, card games, a bit of a massacre, some good food, telling your life story, and a magic contract can do to bond new acquaintances together.

The three of us also made it VERY clear to Sairaorg we had zero intention of joining his peerage.

It wasn't an offense to the guy, but none of us felt like becoming devils.

It was around 3AM when we closed up.

The casino was closing so it was time to call it a night.

"See you around Hei! You two losers."

"Call me for that spar Hei. Staz, it was a pleasure. Mittelt, it was an experience."

"Bye."

I chuckled and waved them off as they all disappeared in respective teleportation circles.

'Man, I'm excited to be able to do that.'

I already knew the theory, so it was just the power I lacked.

Then my eyes gleamed.

'I shouldn't lack the power for long.'

Grabbing the last bottle of Firewhiskey, I put my suit jacket back on and successfully stumbled my way from the 2nd floor to Vladilena's office on the 3rd floor.

If I tripped over air a few times and was forced to destroy a security camera for…good causes… no one was around to see it.

*Knock* *Knock*

"Come in."

Opening her door, I walked in a straight line that had a few curves on it to her desk while she looked on with a raised brow.

"Had a good time Lupus?"

I calmly placed the bottle of her desk and sunk into the guest chair with the grace of a sitting elephant.

"I handled it."

Her mouth twitched into a smirk.

"I can see that, whats the bottle for?"

I waved a hand.

"A gift. I really don't need more at the moment. Fair warning, that's enchanted liquor, it can get a dragon drunk with enough of that stuff."

Her raised brow was joined by the other.

"Oh?"

She picked it up and took a look.

I print my own labels with fancy print but all it has is the name, age, alcohol content, and my symbol.

She scoffed at the sight.

"40% and it would get a dragon drunk? This is Russia, we mix 40% with babies milk bottles."

I choked on a laugh and shook my head.

"No, it's enchanted. It's only 40% alcohol, it's not meant to kill your liver, but to enjoy it."

She gave me a thoughtful look before turning around to grab a glass from the shelf behind her and pour herself a drink.

While she did that, I lit up a cigarette and took a pull.

"Would you stop smoking through your mask? You're hurting my eyes with that crap."

I chuckled and ignored her.

It's been three days and I already had my fun messing with her and some goons with the joke.

She gave the glass of amber liquid a sniff and nodded appreciatively before taking a drink.

It goes to show that I earned her trust by the fact she didn't stop to question if I was poisoning her.

It actually made me have more respect for her, she is worth befriending.

Her eyes widened as it went down but she didn't cough a single time.

She just breathed out deeply and smoke left her lips much to her amusement.

"Well, I admit that burns real nice going down and the calming feeling is almost addicting. The smoke trick isn't bad as well."

"Heh, first time I've seen someone resist coughing. If you do it right, you can breathe fire for a second."

She rose a brow and took another sip.

"Oh please, you should meet with some of the Russian generals. Those old bastards are pretty much drinking rocket fuel. They have a special cemetery for the ones who couldn't handle their drinks."

She said that with a smile and I honestly couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

I shook my head fondly and blew out some smoke before getting to business.

"So did we get them all?"

She lit up one of her thing cigars and grunted.

"Just about. You weren't kidding about your skills Lupus, that was some beautiful work to watch."

I raised a hand in a loose salute.

"Thanks for the save."

She smirked.

"Anytime. But you did nice sweep of his men, the vice guild leader was in that group as well. Good tactical skills for going after the commander before the men."

"Cut off the head and the body bleeds."

She raised her glass to that.

"Da. Now, before I close your contract, I need you to go finish that pig. Once he's dead, your job is done, and you can head out.

Or if you wish you can stick around for the rest of the week, you did wonderfully as head of security during your time here."

I scoffed at that and held up my hand.

"Pass. I take every job seriously, but I do have things to do."

She chuckled and took a sip.

"Shame, can't blame a gal for trying."

I shared in the humor until she tossed me a file.

"His last location confirmed as of two hours ago. Go get em Lupus."

I nodded and finished my cigarette before putting it out in the ash tray.

Then a thought hit me, and I removed a card from the inside of my jacket before putting it on her desk.

"My direct line. Give me a call if you have more work, you have been one of the more pleasant clients I've dealt with Ms. Vasilinov."

She eyed it and sent me a smile.

"The feeling is mutual Lupus, and I might just give you a call for more of this whiskey if it's on the market."

I smirked under my mask.

"It's not, but that's what having friends are for."

She laughed at that and raised her glass as I walked away and waved over my shoulder.

She was one badass woman alright.

*Line Break*

"No! Stop please! I'll give you wha…*Bang*..."

My eyes scanned the room once more before I holstered my guns.

I stood in the bedroom of the pig who was the cause for this mission while his hallways were decorated with dead goons.

Ms. Visilinov's men were already entering inside to clean up and strip the place of valuables.

But for the moment, I stood alone as a feeling of euphoria filled my being.

More energy than I ever felt before filled my veins and flowed into the center of my being, entering deep into my energy pool and expanding it.

The contract was settled, and the hidden side of the contract was filled.

It would do nothing but make Ms. Vasilinov feel more tired than usual, but thanks to the fire whiskey, she should just assume it's due to the enchanted drink.

Her mana would recover slowly over the course of six months to a year as the cost of the transfer on her end, but as she isn't a mage, it won't affect her life.

It's just that I couldn't make the same deal with her again until she fully recovers unless I wanted diminishing returns.

I on the other hand would permanently have my energy raised.

The feeling was as amazing as always, but never to this level before.

I breathed deeply behind my mask and put a hand against the wall to steady myself.

The energy was condensing inside me, breathing new life into me and pushing me beyond the human limits.

I could see it through my energy sense, like a small flame had been fed oil.

My flame burned bright and strong, and it crossed the threshold into low class beings.

"*Fuuuuuuuu*."

I hot breath left my lungs before I felt something deep inside me shatter.

A pressure began pressing out from my body on the surrounding area.

My eyes snapped open under my mask as my red eyes flashed.

Pure vitality flowed through my veins, and I knew exactly what it meant.

Acting quickly, I did what I was taught by Yoruichi and began feeding my fresh mana into my veins to stave off the cost of using my vitality in such a way.

My body began to calm down after a minute and the pressure decreased back to normal as I reeled it in.

I stood tall and calm on the outside, but on the inside I was shouting in victory.

'FINALLY! I finally unlocked touki! Haha, all it fucking took was for me to cross the energy barrier! No fucking wonder I spent all these goddamn years training and never unlocked it! I was still stuck by human limits!'

I never complained or gave up, but I couldn't help the frustration of never unlocking Touki after all these years. Yoru did her best to reassure me I was on the right track, but without getting this boost in mana, I would have probably taken another two years before I could force my way through.

There is a balance that needs to be met for certain things.

Energy, body, and mind need to be in balance.

But now I did it.

My body was past the human limit and my touki took it a couple levels beyond that. And my will was made of steel. And my energy was low class level, approximately around 1,200 units.

Vladilena was really one hell of a fat sheep.

She had at least 800 units, twice as much as me with the collective mana of my teacher, myself, and a few small trades I made.

"S-sir?"

A voice broke me from my thoughts and I turned sharply to look at a pale and sweating man who worked for Vladilena.

"Yes?"

"I-is everything a-alright? A couple m-men collapsed."

I rose a brow at his words.

'Was the pressure from my touki being released to much for average humans? Hm... I'll test it out later.'

I turned and walked past the man through the door as he gave me a wide berth.

I crouched by a fallen man and checked his pulse.

"They will be fine, it must have been a sound grenade, the frequency knocked them out."

"R-right, *cough*, that makes sense sir, we will take care of it."

I nodded to the guard and stood up to walk away.

'Nice on the spot bullshit, I wonder if high frequency sound grenades are even a thing in 1999. Eh, who knows.'

My steps paused on the way out as a painting caught my eye.

[The Cook and the Cat, Théodule-Augustin Ribot 1864]

I reached out and took it off the wall before cracking a small smile under my mask.

"Feel free to tell Ms. Vasilinov I'm taking this, I'll send her a text. Goodnight gentlemen."

"Understood sir."

It wasn't a stupidly expensive painting, but it was a rare one, still, I doubt she would mind.

I walked off with the smile still on my face and a painting under my arm.

When Vladilena got the message, she just shrugged with a laugh and sent the job completion notice to the guild.

I turned into an alleyway and summoned a card to my hand before crushing it and vanishing.

Another Gold rank job done.

Chapter end.

Omake: Don't Drink and Go To Tattoo Parlors.

It was just an average Thursday for the world, as five friends got together on a nice night to share some drinks and stories.

Except the friends meeting were not average, and the booze being drunk was far from average.

There really must have been a joke somewhere about a human, a Nekoshou, a devil, a fallen angel, and a vampire entering a bar.

Because if there wasn't one, it needed to be made ASAP.

The five friends, four original and one included in soon enough, got wasted on enchanted liquor while grumbling about their lives.

"D-damn b-bastards! I…I… I'll *hic* show em! I'll show em *hic* all! W-who am I showing *hic* what again?"

"Waaahhh! I just wanna stab him! *hic* Fuckers keep….they keep….looking…um.. down. Right! Those fuckers keep looking down on me! I wanna stab him! *hic* but I can't! Because no stabby or I get busted as all powwy and shit! Grah! *Crash*"

"*bang* *hic*"

"Y-you even gonna s-say anything…um…stzz?"

A blurry red eyed ancestor vampire turned to look at his fellow buddy.

"Don't kill my high man. *hic*."

"HHhheeeeiiii~! Why…why…why are you…just..so…fluffy?"

"Er…love…I am not.. fluffy."

"Of course you are! Fluffy..and…and…hard!"

"Love…easy with *hic* your hands. We are *hic* in public."

"Whoooo caaares~! Its…uh…more… fun! Yeah, it's more fun!"

A drunk Kuroka eyed a hammered Hei with a strong flirtatious look as she straddled his lap in a private booth.

"Yeah! *hic* Get some!"

"S-shut up ya fucker! I need some l-lovin to!"

"Wha..? Wo! What *hic* ….Mnnnnn!"

A hammered Hei and head glued to the table Staz looked on wide eyed in their haze at the sight of the smaller Mittlet grabbing Sairaorg in one intense kiss.

Hei ignored the grinding Kuroka on him to meet eyes with Staz.

Their haze slightly cleared for just a moment as the two brought up their hands and clapped politely.

Mittelt threw the much larger Sairaorg back as he floundered like a beached whale as she stood triumphantly.

"Bah! Momma takes what she wants! *hic* Come on! I want a tattoo! *hic*"

Mittelt jumped out of the booth as the others looked on as she swayed.

Now in a normal state of mind, the idea of getting a tattoo drunk sounded like a terrible idea.

However, while one WAS drunk, it sounded like a kick-ass idea.

Which is why Hei wobbly got up before regaining his balance with years of honed skills.

Wrapped a drunk and affectionate Kuroka around his back with similar years of honed skills.

And grabbed two lazy bastards by the closest body part in reach and dragged them off after Mittelt.

A drunken Hei called out to Kuroka.

"*hic* Love…grab my..uh..wallet..left pocket."

"Hmmm….OK~."

Hei began to laugh suddenly and twist.

"Not that p-pocket! Ah! You know *hic* perfectly well that is NOT my…wallet."

Kuroka drunkenly laughed in his ear.

"Sooooo~? Nyahahaha."

It took a bit off effort on many fronts for Hei to get his wallet and throw some cash at the barkeep before he dragged the still fish eyed beached whale and lazy vampire out of the bar by their foot and collar respectively.

It wasn't till he caught up with Mittelt's wobbly form standing outside a tattoo parlor that he dropped them.

"Wah?! When did inside...*hic* become outside?"

"*hic* dragged."

Mittelt ignored them and pointed at the tattoo parlor dramatically.

"C-come on! Destiny *hic* awaits!"

She flying kicked the door with all her gothic Lolita frame and almost snapped the door much to the surprise of a tattoo artist.

If they were surprised by drunks coming in, they didn't show it.

Hei would later question the genius or stupidity of someone putting a tattoo parlor next to a bar.

He went with both.

The five of them got matching tattoo's that night.

Nothing crazy or large, but it was the location that was an issue.

For five beings of varied races all got matching ass cheek tattoo's in one night.

And it took days before they all realized it happened.

The joys of being drunk and getting a tattoo were always short lived or long lived depending on what the result was.

The result for them was short term chaos and violence followed by long term acceptance and laughter.

Just another Thursday in the life of the five friends.