"Did you really think I would be put down so easily?"

He rose, weathering every blow, and broke through their formation with a groggy, but sure leap. He took in deep breaths, blood caking the side of his face.

"I've already made my wishes clear to the family: I desire and hold claim to my own life!" He dodged a punch, got hit on the shoulder, and countered with his own.

"What meaning is there in doing your responsibilites when it cannot grant you freedom? The freedom to direct the course of your life, to see the compass clutchedfirmly in your palms?" He caught a blow with both of his hands and delivered a swift kick to the attacker.

"Though I be destitute as a result, I shall triumph, for I shall start at the bottom. From the bottom, I shall work hard, following the dictates of my heart, and ascend to the top in full force!" He reeled from the force of a blow to his face, but he held firm, even as he was again tackled.

"By no means am I irresponsible. Every day, I will be faced with the possibility of want. For that, I shall work twice as hard here, putting my whole heart and soul, rather than half of it in that constricting cage. Because I know that I am at least free." Katsuragi roared a primal cry, and swept the closest man's leg from under him.

Even with all his efforts, the men were inexhaustible. Mio watched with trepidation as two pulled out some sort of weapon from their sinister coats.

She shut her eyes.

"Be strong and proud Mio. For one day, you will use that pride to face every obstacle in your path. But remember, you must not let your pride make you look down and disregard the smallest things. A mighty tree always has to start as a lowly sprout."

"Daddy. . ."

She let her hand fall, and she felt her hands brush against the flat surface of some rocks. Mio looked down, and with a grim-set face, grasped the object and hurled it with some force at the closest man.

Thwack! The stone connected surely with the man's head, and he went down, hard.

"Aoyama-san?"

Katsuragi looked with surprise at where she'd stood up from behind the bush as she hurled yet another, and another.

Thwackl Thwack! Thwack!

"Excellent! Always knew you had a mean arm."

Thwack!

"Ow! I'm sorry-"

"What are you waiting for idiot?" She ran over to where he stood, still dripping with sweat, his clothes torn. All around them, the grunts were beginning to rise from her barrage. She grabbed her arm, and together, they ran.

"I've never . . . ran so far so soon. . . in my life . . . " she collapsed, her back against his front. Uttering a yelp of surprise, Katsuragi caught her, but not without unbalancing himself, and they both fell down in a heap on the grass.

"Gr . . . aren't . . . you going to scold me?" She heard him murmur tiredly into her hair. "For . . . 'exceeding the space allotted to knights' . . . " Each one could feel the other's heat radiating from the other.

"Today . . . is the last and only time I'll allow it." she huffed, before allowing the cool afternoon breeze to wash over their prone bodies.

They passed thus in silence, two bodies settling on the other's warmth. It was some time before Katsuragi spoke. "Aoyama-san, I have to apologize again." He paused, waiting for her response. Hearing none, he continued: "Hearing you say those things to me before, I think it shifted my gaze a bit. To date, I have been somewhat irresponsible when it came to my family. I was just so tired of them deciding everything I did from the very start . . . But then you came along; you taught me so many things. So many experiences – I only hoped for more to come. It was . . . liberating for me, to say the least. But then – that night . . . " His voice trembled.

Mio spoke now, clear and inspired, "I also, admit to having learned many things from you. Some bad, some audaciously so – but some good as well. I learned how it could be to follow the dictates of your heart and bve free, unbound by concern for image and status. To realize the ripeness of life, to discover its precious value . . . yes, there are many things I thank you for."

It was a strange thing, for as Mio stopped, Katsuragi responded, as if promptly replying to her in a duet only these two souls shared. "I realized that there are times for play, and there are times when you have to work. I've seen the value of putting your entire self into a cause, not just for mere survival, but for the posterity of experience . . . "

"Like both sides of a coin," she finished for him. "I saw the truth of valuing your time in life, not wholly devoting one's time to thankless duties. For my part, I realized the value of joyful freedom."

"And I, of the necessity of sacrifice for the sake of duty." Her free hand sought his, and those fingers laced together. Aoyama Mio had a proud blush on her face as she turned to look at her knight's face, so near . . .

"Are you sure that it is what your Daddy would have wanted, Aoyama-san?" He whispered, gaze clear, steady, but warm in their depths.

"Yes, and I know that he wouldn't have had it any other way." She shut her eyes, waiting for the inevitable touch.

-Of the feel of her flesh touching his, in that briefest instant in both their shared lives, each having bared their own selves to and accepted the other's-

A wild rush of wind, and Mio saw no more.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

For Katsuragi Keima, Capturing God of many women (Aoyama didn't count), that moment was an entirely different one. It had been Hellish to be forced to kiss a girl for the sake of a contract – for the second time in a year - yet he'd done it nonetheless.

The runaway spirit's appearance, on the other hand, was an entirely different, but still Hellish matter. It was black as soot all over, with red gleaming eyes where its head should have been. It was a swirling, vaguely humanoid mass, and as it was forced out through the girl's purest feelings of love, it desperately grasped with gaseous tendrils at the things in the Real.

"Must. . . have more . . . need to make it mine . . . "

It's voice echoed in that secluded place, and it was all Keima could do by grabbing Mio's unconcsioucs form and dragging it gently to another place.

"Damn! Where is that she-devil when you most need it!"

The thing's tendrils multiplied, and it shot them out in random directions, wiggling, seeking something-

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Hakua sat cross-legged on the dusty ground, using her scythe handle to idly scribble out practice magic-runes on the ground. After each symbol was completed, the runes glowed impotently, before the devil would frown and scrub it clean.

It had taken two weeks – a manageable time, but far longer than it had taken the previous target. She'd undestood greatly when the commoner had mentioned the resurfacing gap consideration – which mollified her in showing how exactly he'd taken to heart her various explanations on how the Runaway Spirit capture worked.

But still – it was quite a long period. (had there been a bet, she would've surely won this time. ) Hell did put a condition of a whole month using the Love-Love Method before it would have been treated as time wasted, which meant that the commoner was well within his rights to continue thus. But it was still quite a long, arduous grind, with all of her magics put to his disposal, his ruse.

And then there was the commoner to consider: Katsuragi Keima, who had yet again violated her preconceived notions of what a normal human should be, as he dared to dabble in unknown magics that weren't his own and using it exclusively for the contract – were it not for the stacks of games she'd once seen on shelves in his room, she would have guessed him to be some sort of ascetic. The man had many aspects, and as she'd seen before, was capably of wearing any mask "if it suited him".

"Do you doubt the power of a God?"

Great, she was dwelling too much on things like these again. Her old instructors had always commented on how she always over-thought things, to the point that she would always have "above-average" instead of "excellent" scores during impromptu spars between the young devils. In those Hellish duels of magical acuity, it was the quick-thinking and instinctual fighters who triumphed most. It was not a frustrating quality for her, because she took pride in being the best at what she could do, but it still rankled her pride nonetheless.

"In a combat situation with a powerful Runaway Spirit, you have no time to make a long plan at the onset. You have to create new scenarios, spin up better plans in your mind as you fight. You do not always have the luxury of time out in the mortal realm."

She knew and understood all that. That was the reason why she always took frequent re-scans with her skull ornament on the target, to ensure the spirit's level hadn't exceeded her expected preparations for it. She had many different battle plans floating around in her mind for each type and level of Spirit, and she assured herself that it was indeed enough, if for whatever reason a shift in the combat conditions would occur and she would have to adjust. Hell, she hated that word.

Though she had been so easily knocked out of commission during the preliminary mission . . . Wait, don't dwell on that!

Just then, a wave of intense, swirling invisible energy washed over her, and her attuned senses picked up on it immediately: it was the horrifying stench of Old Hell, signifying the release of the Runaway Spirit. As Hakua stood, her hands poised on her scythe, her skull ornament beeped a desperate call: "Level 3, level 3 spirit . . . "

Should she port, or should she fly as normal? How soon would level 3 spirits act to find another host?

According the various texts she'd read over her years in the Academy, Runaway Spirits could theoretically amass a sizable amount of negative energy, turning itself into a focus for the kind of energy it had taken in.

"'It coincideth thus, and beware: the energies of heedless pride will make them invincible . . . of unspeakable terror will make it incorporeal . . . ' " She couldn't believe she was muttering old lessons. No time! Must make it to the commoner to neutralize it!

It was certainly a formidable-looking Spirit, Hakua found, when she spied its tendrilled form towering over the ruins of the temple like a misbegotten Japanese forest demon. Hakua's sensors immediately picked up on its condition, that is to say, it was still weakened from its release.

Uttering a word mortals were forbidden to hear, Hakua ripped open a small portal to Hell under her feet, out of which streamed out the energies she would use against a Spirit of this magnitude. With expert ease, she traced ten runes all around the circle, stabilizing the portal and binding it to her.

Some of the Spirit's tendrils shot towards her, and she coolly sliced them apart with her scythe. Hakua watched with a certain detached, yet determination of purpose as the thing looked down and saw her for the first time.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

It boggled the mind, thought the Capturing God as he lay watching Hakua beside a tree with an unconscious Mio in tow, that the she-devil could be so . . . so masterful when it came to things under her jurisdiction for the first time.

Sure he'd guessed at the amount of power she held in her repertoire: she was handing out illusionary spells, conjuring soild, black-suited simulacrums out of her raiment, and using invisibility cantrips left and right; but now, he was looking at a different Hakua.

Her purple raiment coiling menacingly around her, her scythe held to the side and her left hand glowing many shades of red, Hakua looked almost like the sorceress-heroines he'd captured in his life as the Capturing God. No, not almost – she exceeded that image, and were it not for the stubborn part in his soul, he would have rightly feared a creature of that caliber.

The Spirit roared, raising its tendrils to strike, and Hakua just batted them aside, and seemed to be goading the creature on with her unintelligible words. The circle below her spike in intensity briefly, before a barrage of neon-colored missiles shot out from her pointed finger, battering into the Spirit's body with some sort of mystical hiss.

No matter what the Spirit could do to menace her, Hakua stood her ground and when it attempted to engulf her with a mass of tendrils at once, she uttered something, and suddenly a shield of pure fire surrounded her and repelled the tendrils, and the Spirit howled in pain.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

The brute was trying to escape! "By Ancient Styx, be you bound by these chains!" Invisible whips of energy whipped out from her hands, seeking the fleeing Spirit and encircling its maddened form. It suddenly stopped moving, bound by Hakua's cantrip.

Hakua consulted her sensor again, it had yet to be weakened sufficiently for capture. If she cast another cantrip, she would risk releasing the brute from the binding. What do I do?

"Think Hakua. Don't let your mind freeze up on every occassion of change. Learn to flow with it, and guide the situation's course back into your favor."

It was then that she remembered her own embarrassing weakness to instant porting, and so she found her answer – however a gamble it might be. Channeling the energies below her and suffusing her entire body with it, Hakua took a deep breath and cleared her mind of all external thought.

She shut her eyes, pointing her fingers and uttering that risky cantrip – a literal spacebending spell that would swap hers and the brute's body's positions in real time.

A rocking sensation followed her spell, followed by the familiar dizziness that came from instant-teleportation. She found herself in midair, facing the spirit who was spinning confusedly in place at her own position. Hakua shook her head, forcing her mind to focus on the task at hand.

The binding spell had broken, and it was only a matter of time before it would deign to escape. But she knew it wouldn't, she had placed it right on top of her own depleted magic circle, out of which still flowed the energies of Hell.

Just as she expected, the Spirit spent some time after recovering from its own disorientation feeding on the meagre energies that were left, and Hakua took it as her queue to start winding up her big spell to take it down for good.

A blast of unbridled magical force hit the spirit straight on, and then after a cry of defeat, it finally started regressing to its initial stages.

After confirming with her eyes on the spirit's critical conditions, Hakua summoned the Sealing Container, that innovation on the part of Hell's scientists designed to specifically capture the Runaway Spirits.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

To Keima, it looked like a jar. Was that really where she'd be capturing that spirit? It looked so small and unreliable, and even though he'd seen that the spirit had shrunk some, it was still quite big – too big for that flimsy jar.

Yet slowly, the spirit was being dragged by some strange vacuum into the jar, and Keima watched with detached amazement as Hakua in a businesslike manner, held out the jar in front of her as she turned her eyes to the side.

Eventually their eyes did meet, and there were so many things that passed in that moment. Was some sort of respect born in that relationship? Was there some sort of change in perception at all? Was there in fact, a change at all? When Hakua pulled away first, Keima did the same, and they each wondered about that and many things besides, too.

He looked down, and to his horror found his hand firmly placed on top of Mio's breasts (however unremarkable they were) and withdrew it as if it was a red-hot pot.

"Dangerous, dangerous," he muttered as he pulled out his cleaning cloth, already putting it to work scrubbing his PFP clean. He looked up at Hakua, who had sealed the spirit inside without a hitch. Huh, capture complete then?

All's well that ends well, right rightamirite?

Oh damn it! I thought I'd already gotten rid of you! Shut up and go back into my empty delusions!

Ididntevengettodoanything mu~~~~

Don't pop out for no good reason! I'm already doing what you ask!

Butits stillnot enough

. . . .

Hah~~ Oh well, I still have an eternity Ican wait for as long aspossible

"Next time let's play eh, nii-sama? I am pleased . . . for now."