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Shin yawned as he stood in the kitchen. Today was the day that Rias told them they would all be going into the mountains to train. When asked why the mountains, Rias mentioned that she had a place where they trained regularly. Of course, when Shin and Sophia asked if they could go, Rias agreed, happy that she had extra people to help them with training.

Shin glanced out the window and saw Asia getting knocked to the ground. The girl had a small bruise on her cheek as she shakily got to her feet. He walked to the sliding glass door and opened it. He leaned against the doorway and sipped his coffee.

"Come on, Asia. Get back up," Sophia said. She wore a white shirt and volleyball shorts. In the light of the sun that had barely gotten up, she looked ethereal. The way the light shined off her made her look even more beautiful than the moon itself.

"I- I'm trying," Asia said, barely managing to get on her hands and knees.

"Maybe you should try dialing it back a little. She might be more durable than a human but she's not Issei. She hasn't received as much training as he had," Shin commented.

Sophia sighed. "Maybe you're right."

"Wait! No! I can get up!" Asia said, forcing herself to her feet. Not even a second later, Asia fell down on her butt. The girl had a defeated look on her face. She looked down at the ground and looked as if she were going to start crying.

Sophia's gaze softened as she walked over and helped the girl to her feet. "Hey, hey. Don't cry," Sophia said, patting her on the head. Her big sister instincts kicked in. She brought Asia in for a hug, calming the girl down. "Come on. Use [Twilight Healing] and fix yourself up."

Asia sniffled and nodded, healing her wounds and bruises.

"I'm not getting better at all," Asia said, looking down at the ground.

"I disagree. You're improving vastly. I think if you were to go pick a fight with anyone at Kuoh except for the Devil Peerages, you'd be able to beat them up," Shin said.

Vivi appeared next to Shin and slapped him upside the head.

"Ow! What the hell!?" Shin cursed.

"Is that really how you comfort a girl?" Vivi asked.

"That's how Onee comforts me," Shin grumbled.

"Tossing aside Shin's lack of comforting skills, he's right. You may not see it because of our vast gap but you have improved. And let me let you in on a little secret," Sophia said. She leaned in and whispered something into Asia's ear.

Asia's eyes grew wide and stared at Sophia in shock. "Really?" she asked.

"I'm no prodigy. My own great-nephew is better than me at fighting," Sophia said, crossing her arms. There was no jealousy in her gaze. Only pride.

"Your Great Nephew?" Shin asked.

"He's also in the Grigori. He has a pretty fucked up history. His dad began abusing him so Onii-sama hid him with Azazel after he tried to murder him," Sophia answered.

Shin let out a whistle. His phone buzzed inside his pocket. He pulled it out and saw 5 messages from Akeno, 1 message from Issei, and 3 messages from his older sister. Shin sighed and opened Akeno's message first.

[Shin! We're here outside ur house. Where r u?]

Shin's eyes squinted three times as he read the message over and over again. Akeno knew L33T speak? That was new.

[We're in the yard. We'll be out in a few]

Shin hit send and turned to Sophia. "That's our cue."

Shin pulled a bottle of water out of his pack and drained it instantly. It had been a while since he had gone on a hike. He glanced over to Issei, who was panting heavily. The man was carrying the luggage of three women and himself.

"I don't know whether to commend him or be disappointed," Sophia said, watching as the peerage ascended the mountain. Ran barked in agreement, feeling comfortable in Sophia's arms.

"Ran, would you like to ride with me?" Akeno came up on Shin's right, smiling at the Inugami.

The small dog growled and nuzzled herself further into Sophia's breasts. Sophia looked down at Ran then felt the need to give Akeno a smile of victory.

"Come on before we get left behind," Shin said. He walked past the two.

Sophia and Akeno glanced at each other. Sparks flew between them for a few seconds.

"Come on! Don't make me splash you two!"

The two looked up and saw Shin a distance away from them. They sighed and followed after him.

Shin's eyes widened. This was a training ground? This was no training ground. This was a vacation home. Rias glanced at Issei and Shin's agape mouths and felt satisfaction welling up inside her. The Gremory Mansion was a large mansion located atop one of the mountains near Kuoh. The area was cloaked with demonic magic and hidden from the sight of regular humans.

"Close your mouth you two. You'll catch flies," Rias said.

The party walked into the mansion and dropped their bags off. While Rias's peerage went to go get changed, Shin, Sophia, and Asia made their way up the stairs to find their rooms.

"HEY!"

The three heard Rias yelling. "I already assigned rooms to my peerage members. Shin, you can bunk with Issei and Yuuto! Their room is at the end of the hallway! Akeno and Sophia are bunking and Asia is with Koneko!"

The three nodded and went to their respective rooms. Shin opened the door and saw a bed with two futons on the floor. Shin set his bags down and slid down to the floor. Ran hopped off Shin's shoulder and began sniffing around the room.

"You're going to take a breather?" Vivi manifested in the air above him. She floated over to what she assumed was Kiba's bed and sat down. She bounced up and down a little. "Woah! Yuuto has a water bed!" Vivi poked the mattress and smiled when she heard the sloshing of water. A smile crept its way to her face.

"Come on, Vivi. This isn't our house," Shin said, giving her a deadpan expression.

"What are you doing anyway?" Vivi asked.

"Breaking into the wifi network," Shin said. "Rias is probably already outside and I don't want to bother her while she's doing group training. Sophia is letting Asia rest before we go continue her training and I'm going to call my sister."

"Well, if you need me, I'll go keep an eye on Issei," Vivi said.

"What of me, Master?" Ran asked. Black fire swirled around her form as she changed to her human form.

Shin looked up at her. "I won't be long. After this, you and I are going on a little trip into the woods to find a place to train Asia to use her powers. Sophia and I are thinking of teaching her how to smite and I might teach her a spell or two."

Ran nodded and took a seat next to her Master. Vivi was long gone and the sounds of screaming could be heard outside. Shin sighed, knowing that Vivi had just doused Issei in a gallon of water.

He unlocked his phone and searched for a contact.

Onee

(+69) 3473-2473

The phone rang for a few seconds before it clicked.

"Yellow?"

"Onee," Shin said.

"Ara, Shin-chan! How are you?" Akane said cheerily.

"Is that young Shin?" another voice could be heard on her end.

"Lady Jingwei! Let me talk to Shin! It's been a while!" she hissed.

"It's been 1 day, my Contractor," Jingwei replied.

"Well for me it's been forever! Don't you have to meet with Lady Nuwa? It's the whole reason we're in China anyway!" Akane said.

"You're in China?" Shin asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Mom sent us to Lady Nuwa a few days ago because she and Dad are in the Vatican handling something. Honestly, I don't know why they sent me here to Lady Nuwa," Akane complained.

"Probably because you're supposed to take Mom's place as her Champion one day," Shin joked.

"Ugh, don't even remind me. Anyway, how are things? Issei sent me a picture of Akeno's resume. Did you give her the go-ahead?" Akane asked.

"Yeah. She's raking in customers like no tomorrow," Shin said, chuckling a little.

"That's good. We can use her demure and seductive body to steal all the customers away from Vincent's, those fake Italian Pizzeria fucks. By the way, where are you?" Akane asked.

A comical drop of sweat dropped from Shin's forehead at the mention of the pizzeria.

"I'm with the Gremory Peerage. We're at one of Rias's mansions in the mountains to train. They have a Rating Game in a few days against-"

"Riser Phenex. I heard."

"So the world knows about this?"

"Well… um, sort of?"

"Sort of?" Shin raised an eyebrow.

"Anyway, how is Ise-chan coming along? I wanted to be there to beat him into the ground for training too. I can get results. Just look at how you turned out. Raring and ready to fight Strays!" Akane said, skillfully diverting the subject.

"I don't know about that but I'm getting by. Ise's actually improving really fast. I think by the end of this, he'll be on par with some of Rias's peerage members," Shin said.

"That's good," she replied.

"Oh! I wanted to ask you something," Shin said.

"What is it?" Akane said.

"Have we met Riser Phenex before? He appeared in Rias's clubroom the other day for their arranged marriage. And before he left, he looked at me and asked if we met before. I thought that was weird," Shin said.

There was no response. All he heard from the other end was his older sister's breathing and the wing flutters of Lady Jingwei. He waited for a few seconds before opening his mouth. "Um, Nee?"

"Huh? Oh, no. I don't think we've ever met anyone named Riser Phenex. Huh?"

"Onee?" Shin asked.

"Sorry, Shin. I gotta go. Lady Nuwa is almost here and I need to get to her. You know these Seven Great Gods. Old as hell and stickler for punctuality," Akane said.

"Eh? It's only Old Lady Nuwa though," Shin said.

"And I don't wanna get hit in the head with slippers! Gotta go! Love you, Shin-chan! Just remember Onee will always light up the sky for you!" The call suddenly cut off.

"Onee? Onee?" Shin called. He sighed when he heard the line going dead. "Well, that was weird."

He felt Ran's head fall on his shoulder and saw her snoring lightly. "You said it. Guess I'll take a short nap while Asia and Sophia are resting up."

Akane sat on one of the benches at Hong Kong International Airport. A red blush was all over her face. Jingwei sat on her head, snoring lightly. Akane grabbed the fluffy bird god and hugged her tightly, burying her blushing face in her feathers.

"What's wrong?" Jingwei asked sleepily. Her feather tufts flicked, rousing her Contractor out of her embarrassed state.

"I still haven't told Shin yet," Akane said into her feathers.

"He'll find out. Besides, I think he'll have a good reaction. At least it won't be like how your parents reacted," Jingwei said.

Akane lifted her head from Jingwei's feathers and let her go. The bird flew out of her arms and resumed her perch on her head. Akane sighed. She was right.

"The Flight for Shanghai is now boarding!"

Akane looked towards the gate. "Come on, Lady Jingwei. Time to enter your human form. I did get 2 plane tickets after all," Akane said.

Jingwei nodded and transformed into her human form. Her human form was that of a young girl around Akane's age. She had rich brown hair, similar to oak wood, that faded into a celestial blue. Her face was heart-shaped and her eyes had an imperial gaze to them. She wore an elegant white robe with golden outerwear around her waist and shoulders. Her robe split at the middle, revealing black biker shorts underneath.

"Come on! We don't want to keep Lady Nuwa waiting," Jingwei said, holding her hand out. The action garnered the attention of male travelers as her breasts jiggled from the motion.

Akane sighed before grabbing her hand and pulling herself up.

Shin walked down a dirt path, followed by Sophia and Asia. Their destination was a nearby creek that Rias had told them about before they left. The creek was within the bounds of the mansion's magic barrier, allowing them to be able to train in peace.

"Um, Shin? Why aren't we training with the others?" Asia asked.

"Because your powers are still too volatile to be around other Devils when using them. And besides, I don't want to interrupt their training so we'll be doing your training at the creek," he responded.

"And it'll give us a good chance to catch some fish. It'll be good training for you to be able to shape your light, after we do some exercises, of course. Tomorrow, we'll be resuming your hand-to-hand training," Sophia said, patting her on the back.

Asia grimaced but said nothing. The two were only doing this with her best interests in mind. And she had to admit that they were right. In a world where she was constantly a target, learning to defend herself wasn't a bad idea. At least, she wouldn't have to constantly rely on others to save her. Perhaps even one day, Asia could save Issei. The thought made her blush.

"Having a nice fantasy about your prince?" Sophia teased.

"S-SOPHIA!" Asia said, turning red.

"Prince?" Shin asked.

"Oh, nothing. Just some girl talk, right Asia?" Sophia winked.

"Well, anyway, we're here," Shin said, pushing past some shrubbery.

The light of the sun hit their faces as they stepped onto the shoreline of a creek. The creek was crystal clear with a rocky bed. Fish swam through it, sliding between the plant life that made their home on the rocky riverbed. Shin walked to the edge of the shoreline and dipped a finger in the water. "Perfect water. If only it were summer," he said.

"Yeah, this place would be nice for a swim," Sophia said.

"Alright, Asia! Today, we'll be focusing on teaching you magic and your angelic abilities," Shin said, getting up.

"Magic? Like yours?" she asked.

"No, I can't teach you mine. It's something taught to you by a Loci or a God," Shin said.

"Oh, then…?" Asia had a confused look on her face.

"I'll teach you something different. First off, let's have a refresh on what you know about angels," Shin said.

Asia beamed. This was what she was waiting for. Everything she had learned in the abbey, she would put to use here. Of course, any clarification or mistakes she made would be corrected by Sophia, who was an Angel herself.

"Angels are servants of… our Heavenly Mother." Asia had to catch herself. Her encounter with the being they called God had opened her eyes to the deity's actual gender. "They reside within an ethereal paradise for righteous and devout souls called Heaven, which consists of seven levels. The greatest of these Angels are the Seraphs with Four Great Seraphs or Archangels being at the top. Angels have the ability to wield and control divine power to perform miracles and combat Devils."

"Right, you got the basics of angelology down," Sophia said. "Shin, can you and Ran set up the dummies while I explain to her the powers she's been learning to control?"

"Yeah," he said. Shin whistled and ran appeared in a burst of black flames. She stood behind her master with a serene expression on her face. Several training dummies levitated behind her. "Come on, Ran. Let's set these target dummies up."

"Of course, Master," Ran said, dropping most of the dummies on him.

Sophia smiled at the interaction between familiar and master. She turned back to Asia and summoned a violet magic circle. "Alright, let's continue where we left off these couple of days. You're aware of what an Angel's Divine Power comes from yes?"

"God," Asia answered.

"Err, close but not so," Sophia said. She rotated the outer ring of the magic circle before tapping the middle. A hologram of her and Asia's body's were projected into the air. "Angels generate their own divine power. Their divinity isn't as potent as a deity's but they're still strong enough to poison dark entities like vampires and devils."

Asia nodded, following along with her explanation.

"Now, look here," Sophia said, enlarging the projection of Asia. "Watch your eyes."

"Huh?" She became temporarily blinded when the Asia projection emitted a bright yellow light. "What is that?" she asked.

"This is your Divine power. Angels have their divine powers measured at birth… at least back then they did. Fallen do that to their Nephilim children to measure their initial powers. The old way of doing it was by measuring your luminosity, which is the light you see now. Good for you that I have this device here and I already measured your luminosity," Sophia said, closing the projection. "Another way to tell is by the number of wings you have." Two pairs of black wings with a slight violet tint at the tertiary feathers unfurled from her back.

"Ne, Sophia. Why are your wings different from other fallen angels? Their wings are just black. Yours are black and purple," Asia said.

"Oh, these? They're a sign of my heritage," Sophia said.

"But I thought only the Four Great Seraphs had colored wings," Asia said.

Sophia smiled. "My dad was an Archangel before he fell and became… you know. And by extension, the more I grow into my power, the more wings I get until I have all 12. I am… by classification, a Seraph Class Fallen Angel but that's on paper only. If anything, I'm more of a high-low to mid-class fallen. I'm nowhere near as strong as a Seraph, hehe."

Asia caught on to what she was saying and nodded.

"Anyway, look at your wings," Sophia said.

Asia raised an eyebrow but did what her teacher said. She unfurled her pair of wings and brought her feathers up to look at them closely. "So the silver tint on my wings is… a sign that I can become a Seraph too?"

"That's right. Most Angels can only gain a max of 10 wings. Those with tinted feathers can gain 12," Sophia answered. "But that dream's still far away. For now, we need to focus on your ability to defend yourself and focus on your divine energy. That little lesson was to give you a scope of just how much divine power you have running through that little bodus of yours."

Asia nodded with a newfound determination.

"Remember that you're in a volatile state right now. If you lose control of your powers, you might hurt people around you, especially a certain little Red Dragon," Sophia winked at her.

Asia turned red and her halo glowed brightly.

"Hey, Soph. We're done," Shin said, dusting his hands.

"Alright, let's get started. For the past couple of days, we've been learning how to contain light within our body so it doesn't come out whenever your emotions run haywire. Now, we're going to push it out of our body in the most basic attack Angels can use," Sophia said.

"You need us to stand back?" Shin asked. Ran nodded, sensing the divine power growing within Sophia's body.

"Yeah, just stand over here with us."

The two moved over to Asia and Sophia's side.

"Now, watch closely. I'm going to gather the divine power in my body and focus it into my hand," Sophia said.

Asia nodded and watched with rapt attention.

Sophia raised her palm. A bright whitish-yellow stream of light particles gathered at the center of her hand. After a few seconds, she released it as a flash of white light at the dummies. In an instant, the light died down, leaving a conic scorched path and a series of blackened and incinerated dummies.

"That is called smiting. It's one of the most basic angelic attacks. It involves gathering an immense amount of divine power into our hand and releasing it as a wave of light that burns everything in its path," she said, lowering her arm. "This is what we will work on today. We're going to take a break from hand to hand and focus on you directing the divine power in your body."

Asia nodded.

"Are you ready?" Shin asked.

"I am! Sophia is a good teacher and I think I can get this! Just watch me, Shin-san! I'll do my best!" Asia said, smiling with her hands clenched in determination.

Shin smiled. She's like a puppy, Shin thought, seeing a pair of doggy ears and an excited tail appear on Asia.

"Well, why don't you give it a shot? After we can get you to fire about five of these, we can move on with what Shin is going to teach you," Sophia said.

Sophia stepped off to the side with Shin and watched as Asia raised her hand. The girl had her eyes closed in concentration.

"She's trying hard," Shin said.

"She has a talent for this," Sophia said, crossing her arms and smiling in pride as she watched light gather rapidly into Asia's palm. "Still, she could do it a little faster."

Shin nodded. A flash of white light exploded from Asia's palm, burning the ground and dummies in front of her.

"So what were you going to teach her?" Sophia asked.

"How to refine her magic control. Some spells. Maybe my mom's fighting style that she taught us," Shin said.

"Really? Your mother's fighting style?" Sophia asked.

"I feel like she would meld into it. Issei's more of a brawler so trying to teach him how my sister and I fight would be harder and time-consuming. Besides, most of these techniques are geared towards eventually using a sword," Shin said.

"You want to teach Asia to use a sword?" Sophia asked.

A blast of light caught their attention. The dummy that Shin and Ran looked like it had seen better days.

"Yeah. We're training her completely from scratch. At least with Issei, I had Rias's base to work with. With Asia, she's completely blank," Shin said.

"She's not even part of your family," Sophia said.

"Yeah but… she lives at my house and I'm sure Kaa-san and Tou-san wouldn't mind her. She might as well be now," Shin said.

"I did it!"

The two looked up.

Asia had a bright smile on her face. "Look!" she said. She sounded like a child who had just discovered something new about the word. Her innocence was infectious and even Ran, who was stoic around people who weren't close to Shin smiled.

Asia raised her hand and gathered light into the middle before releasing a single ruinous blast of light. The ground was blackened from the attack but the effects of it could be seen on the dummy. The dummy's metal chassis was glowing. It had become nearly molten just from the heat.

"Good! Good! Now you can use it against live targets," Sophia said, clapping.

"Oi, you're going to make her use it on living things?" Shin asked.

"Well, maybe animals or during spars. I'm sure the Gremory Peerage can take it," Sophia said. She nudged Shin's ribs. "Welp, it's your turn. I'll take a small break. Besides, I've been teaching Asia everything so far and you said you wanted to teach her how to use more magic. Go ahead."

Shin nodded and walked over to the nun, who was engrossed with the small but growing concentration of light in her hand. She raised it to the sky and fired another blast.

"Having fun?" Shin asked.

Asia nodded, beaming at him.

"Good because I'm going to be taking over for now. We're going to learn how to use magic," Shin said.

"Magic?" Asia tilted her head.

"Yup. We won't go overboard today. Today, we'll just be learning some basic spells. Unlike humans, you can use your divinity to cast magic while we humans have to create formulas in order to produce and manipulate the energy around us to produce phenomena. The source code that controls the natural phenomenon of nature and energy exchange," Shin said.

"Eh? F-Formulas? P-Phenomenon? E-Energy?" The terminology did not agree with Asia's brain and the girl adopted a confused look.

"Basically, we make circles and shapes to do things like this." Shin raised his hands and moved them in an intricate circular motion. An intricate geometric pattern appeared in front of him, eliciting an eyebrow raise from Sophia. A circle, encased in another circle with intricate magic runes of Celtic origin, was wrapped by a square. Shin moved his fingers around, creating another square. When he finished, there was an elaborate magical formula in front of him that looked like a drug addict's chemical high.

All this time, Asia stood, watching in awe as Shin created the most elaborate magic circle for a mere demonstration.

"What can that spell do?" Asia asked.

Shin looked surprised. "Um, I just made this as a demonstration. The runes etched into this don't actually do anything," he said. The elaborate sigil disappeared.

Asia frowned.

"But if you want, I can show you." Shin raised his hand. A triskelion formed in front of his hand and spun rapidly. A beam of energy fired from it and reduced a small rock to bits and pieces.

"This is a Celtic spell I learned from my dad called Radiant Explosion. I have other magic like the ones I learned from Vivi and some I learned from my mom. But the ones from my mom will be hard to show since I didn't bring any spell tags with me," he said, lowering his arm. "For now, I'll be watching you draw magic circles using your divine power and then I'll teach you how to use Fire Ball."

Asia nodded but then looked at him inquisitively. "Um… I forgot how you drew the magic circles…"

"You don't have to draw that super complicated one. I just did that to demonstrate," Shin said, laughing. "Ran! Bring me my notebook!"

Ran appeared next to him and handed him a small journal. Shin thanked her and opened it. When I said we'd be drawing magic circles, it'll be related to the fireball spell. This…" Shin pointed to a simple circle with some symbols inside of it. "Is a basic circle for fireball."

Shin sat on the porch, sipping a can of soda. Today had been a most productive day. Asia managed to get the circle down within an hour and even harassed him into teaching her about charm gear. Sophia was truly a bad influence on the girl. The two were currently in their rooms, no doubt either sleeping (Sophia) or buried in his journal (Asia).

He looked over his shoulder upon hearing footsteps.

"You look like hell. What happened?" Shin asked.

"Well, training today was super harsh. It felt like Buchou was channeling her inner Sophia. I did blow a hole in a mountain today," Issei said.

Shin raised an eyebrow. "So that's what that explosion was."

"Vivi also dumped a gallon of water on me to motivate me," he added.

Shin let out a bark of laughter.

"What about you?" Issei asked. He saw a cooler next to Shin and reached inside, pulling out a can of Pepsi. "Seriously, we only have off-brand stuff in Kuoh. Buchou is a life-saver."

"Well, I taught Asia some magic and Sophia taught her an angelic technique. She's really taking to it. I'm gearing towards teaching Asia how to use a sword to defend herself," Shin said.

"A sword? Asia?" Issei raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. She's a blank canvas and besides, it's better than her learning how to wield a scythe from Sophia," he said.

Issei shivered. Asia wielding a scythe sounded far more terrifying than Asia using a sword.

"Well, at least she can use magic," Issei said. "I have to boost just to use my own demonic power."

[Who needs Demonic Power when you have mine. A dragon's power is superior to that of a Devil's.] Ddraig interjected.

"But I wanted to do something cool like shoot lightning from my fingertips or make massive balls of fire," Issei lamented.

"I mean, you have a dragon living in your girlfr- I mean left-hand. I'm sure you'll be exhaling an inferno some day," Shin said.

"I heard that. Anyway, have you heard from Irina lately? She hasn't called me for the past… two days," Issei said.

"She's probably mad at you after… that one call we all did together and you suddenly blurted out that you almost lost your v-card to Senpai," Shin replied.

Issei grimaced. Irina being mad at him was the last thing he wanted.

[Who is this Irina?] Ddraig asked.

"She is Issei's gi-"

Issei slapped Shin's mouth shut. A bright red blush overtook his face as he glared at his best friend. "I told you we're not like that! Just because we talk to each other-"

"A lot," Shin said, removing Issei's hand from his mouth. "You talk to each other a lot. Ever since I got Irina's cell number all those years ago, you two have been texting and calling like long-distance lovers."

"Shut up!" Issei said. His face resembled a Red Dragon now more than ever. "MOVING ON! Buchou said that she might ask you for help in training me tomorrow."

"Really? Well, I got some ideas that involve-"

Shin's phone buzzed as he received a new text message. He sighed, thinking it was his sister or parents, and pulled it out.

Iri-chi

+39 477 3426435

Irina? He thought as he read the message. He took a sip of it while reading and immediately did a spit take.

"What? What happened?" Issei asked.

"Nothing, just another one of Onee's business schemes," he said, wiping his mouth. I… I did not expect that... from her of all people.

"Anyway, just tell Rias I have a plan if she's still awake."

"What kind of plan?" Issei asked.

"A foolproof plan that will surely force you into your Balance Breaker."

[]

Nuwa

One of the Seven Great Gods and the Strongest God of Shenzou. She is the Mother Goddess of Creation and Sentience.

Residing in her lofty abode within Tian, she holds a great influence over the Gods and Buddhas of China.

And none dare oppose her. For it was Sentience that assisted in the defeat of the Law of Entropy. And now, she watches over Shenzou in her retirement.

[]

Vincent's

A rival restaurant to Hatch Potch.

It is run by a certain Corsetti.

While the parents of the Faulkner kids don't mind, the eldest daughter has engaged in a cold war with the Italian owner.

Well, let's get on to discussing the chapter!

But before that, let me introduce my sponsor, Another_Jojo! Please go read his fanfiction, Highschool DxD: Alternate. I highly recommend it. It's funny and interesting and has a fembo- I mean a normal guy that was thrust into the DxD world and toys around with very very very cool concepts.

Anyway, moving forward, yes, I dedicated an entire chapter to training Asia. Why? Because it lets me do some world-building and explain magic. I hope you all didn't mind. I was inspired by how the Ancient One from Doctor Strange demonstrated her magic and took a page from her book. And about Asia learning how to use a sword, this was something I've been planning for a while. She won't use it unless she's defending herself which is... approximately 60% of the time. I don't want her to be a damsel healer like in canon. She doesn't really learn much in terms of combat until... the later volumes if I remember correctly? I want her to be able to defend herself without overly relying on others to fight her battles.

Another thing is phone numbers. Irina and Akane's phone numbers all mean something! Let's see if you can figure out what they mean. Please include it in your reviews!

Which brings us to the end! We just breached 10,000 reads and I am super happy! Please keep reading! Tell your friends, family, husband, wife, cat, dog, hell even your pet plant! Please leave a review and also follow! I need those to survive.