Welcome to the first full chapter of Hellfire.

On with the story!


Past

Ichigo trudged his way through the dimly lit town in the wee hours of the morning, before Yuzu even got up to make breakfast, or his father to prepare for the day's work.

He was already 18. Not quite the age of majority yet in Japan, but he had been taking care of himself for a while. So why would that be any different now, especially since he had graduated from high school just a week ago?

It had been three years.

Three years since he had first become a Shinigami, a protector of the balance between the living and the dead. Three years since he had gone on a near suicide mission to rescue Rukia, the one who had brought him into that strange, wondrous world. Three years since he had gotten involved in a war between Gotei 13 and a megalomaniac leading an army of Arrancars. Three years since he had sacrificed his powers to defeat said megalomaniac, and ensure the safety of his family, friends, allies, and the world, and in doing so, doomed himself to a life of normalcy.

And it had been a painful three years.

The lack of interaction with Gotei 13 was understandable. For one, he couldn't exactly see them anymore now that he had lost his powers.

A problem easily remedied if they used Gigais, but with Soul Society in the state it had been in after the whole Aizen debacle, he knew that he couldn't expect his Shinigami friends to have the free time to come down and visit him, not when there was so much work to be done.

It certainly hurt that none of them, not even Rukia or Renji, had made the effort to try, as far as he knew anyway, but at least, he could still understand.

What he couldn't understand was the way that everyone else had been treating him since then.

His friends, Uryu, Orihime, and his best friend since middle school, Chad, the ones who had stuck with him on his suicide mission to Soul Society, and then to Hueco Mundo, and even Tatsuki, Keigo and Mizuiro, who had known about that side of the world when Aizen had almost killed them, had taken to ignoring him, quickly breaking up any conversations they were having when he approached them, directing mournful and pitying looks at him when they thought he wasn't looking, the former three taking off to take care of any Hollows without so much as a glance towards him.

It was as though they thought that he would fall to pieces at the mere mention of what he had lost.

Kisuke, Yoruichi and Tessai…they had been fine at first, but after his first visit to Urahara Shoten after the battle with Aizen, he had overheard his father on the phone with Kisuke, telling him, and by extension, Yoruichi and Urahara Shoten's employees, to leave him alone and not remind him of his loss. Since then, they had been avoiding him as well, though they had been more welcoming as of late.

Too little, too late, though.

And presumably, that was the same reason the Vizards never came around either.

His father…what he wouldn't give to just break the dumb bastard's nose.

He and his father had never been all that close, even before his mother's death. He was the momma's boy, and his sisters were daddy's girls.

Still, he thought that his father would at least help him with the PTSD that he had inevitably developed in the aftermath of a war that a then 15-year-old had no business even knowing of, let alone fighting on the frontlines. Or maybe help him with the gaping hole that had been left in his heart and soul in the wake of Zangetsu's and his Inner Hollow's disappearance after using the Final Getsuga Tensho. If he had known of the ultimate technique that would drain Ichigo of his powers in return, then surely it was reasonable to believe that the guy had used it before, and had to deal with the same crap that Ichigo was going through?

But no, instead, the bastard had decided to pretend that nothing had happened. That Ichigo hadn't just finished fighting a nearly all powerful megalomaniac hellbent on destroying the world's order. That he hadn't just revealed that he was actually a former Shinigami Captain in disguise, causing Ichigo to question the very basis of his existence. That Ichigo didn't have a piece of his soul ripped out of him.

He was probably the one who had convinced the rest that he knew what was best for Ichigo, and that Ichigo should never have to be reminded of what had happened ever again.

Bull. He probably just didn't want to have to explain himself to Ichigo.

Then again, this was the guy who thought that jump kicking his son every fucking morning since he was 9 was the best way to wake him up. Ichigo really shouldn't have expected much from him in the first place.

And the one whose actions really hurt him the most was his little sister, Karin.

He and his little sisters, tomboyish Karin and sweet Yuzu, were always close, especially after their mother's murder. His father was a complete idiot, so Ichigo had to be the one to raise and nurture them, doing everything from waking up at 6 in the morning to make them breakfast and making sure that they reached school on time to taking care of all the household chores so that they wouldn't have to come home to a pigsty and helping them out with their schoolwork, at least until Yuzu was old enough that she wanted to take care of some of the chores herself, which Ichigo had reluctantly agreed to, just the simple ones, and making sure that she knew what she was doing lest she injured herself, and eventually, she took over the full job once she was tall enough to use the stove without a stool and knew how to use a knife properly. Even then, he made sure to take care of some chores when he felt that she was too overworked.

In Karin's case, they had an agreement that they needed to keep any boys away from her, working together to chase any of those idiots off. It was pretty easy, considering that his orange hair made him look like a delinquent, something that had caused him no end of troubles for years. When he had caught Karin staring longingly at a group of boys playing soccer in the field, he was the one who helped sign her up for the town's local soccer club, letting her enjoy her newfound hobby.

It helped that he and Karin were the only ones in the family who could see ghosts, back when his father had done a good job of pretending that he couldn't, and Ichigo thought that they were especially close because of that.

So, it had really hurt when after losing his powers, Karin decided that it was a good idea to listen to their father for once and blatantly ignore him, running off to spend more time at Urahara Shoten than she did at home, where Ichigo usually was after school.

He had overheard his father and Kisuke talking about how Karin's powers seemed to have been getting stronger ever since his vanished, and figured that knowing how to defend herself from Hollows would help, since the fallen souls would surely be attracted to large reiatsu signatures like hers.

Still didn't stop the sharp pang of pain that pierced his heart the first time he had caught her entering Urahara Shoten, a place that he no longer had any business frequenting, no thanks to his old man.

At least he still had Yuzu, but even his sweet little sister, while not limiting her interactions with him like everyone else did, treated him like he was made of cracked glass.

Eventually, he had enough of all the pity, the secrecy, and decided that he was going to leave once he had graduated.

Why not? He was responsible enough to take care of himself. All of the good universities were located in other, more distant parts of Japan in case he ever wanted to pursue further education. He knew he could get in any of them. He had graduated 2nd best out of his year, after Uryu, and boy, hadn't that been a shock to the rest of his schoolmates. His sisters were all grown up already, though he still worried for Yuzu a little, but he knew that Karin and their father would take care of her.

And it wasn't like he was needed, wanted, anymore here.

And so, Ichigo had spent the past 3 years planning his departure, renting his services to the school's sports clubs, raking in a substantial amount of money for living expenses, working on a few skills like cooking that would help in getting him a part-time job in case he was ever strapped for cash, or wanted to start university, because wow, a good tertiary education in Japan cost a pretty penny, getting a driver's license the moment he turned 18, because he never knew when he might get tired of just letting his legs do the work, or of public transport, getting his passport in order in case he wanted to leave the country to travel for a while.

By the time graduation rolled around, Ichigo was more than set to leave, and that was exactly what he was doing right now.

He made sure to leave a note for his family on his desk, telling them where he had gone, and that he wasn't sure when, if, he was coming back.

This was it. The start of a new chapter in his life.

And Ichigo froze, sure that it was about to meet an abrupt end when he caught sight of 3 figures waiting from him in the street up ahead.

Kisuke, Yoruichi, and surprisingly, Uryu's father, Ishida Ryuken, a Quincy, a friend of his father's and the director of the town's only hospital.

Crap, had they caught wind of his plans somehow and were going to stop him?

Still…it was already too late for him to turn back, and he did not want to.

Ichigo maintained his pace, until he reached the three.

"…Well, I wish I could say I was surprised to see you leaving, Kurosaki-san, but I'm really not. I am, however, honestly surprised that it took you this long." Kisuke said as Ichigo stopped in front of him, a sad smile visible on his face.

"You knew I would leave?"

"Oh yes, for quite a while now. I would like to think that I'm a better judge of your character than say, your father."

Ichigo bit down a retort, but couldn't suppress his bitter thoughts.

If Kisuke was such a good judge of his character, then why couldn't he tell how much their treatment hurt him?

Kisuke seemed to see right through him.

"We wish we could say that we had a good reason for listening to your father, but we don't. We apologize, Kurosaki-san. We truly believed that he would help you through this difficult period rather than completely ignore you and rope everyone else into doing the same thing as well. We only realized what was really going on just a few days ago, during your graduation, and you were already dead set on leaving."

Ichigo recalled his graduation ceremony, when Kisuke had suddenly offered an invitation to his shop after avoiding for 3 years.

Evidently, his bewilderment had not gone unnoticed.

"We have already failed you once, and have no intention of doing so again. Rather than convince you to stay in this painful place, we decided to support you instead." The shopkeeper said with a sigh.

"Really?" Ichigo asked with a deadpan tone.

Kisuke and Yoruichi, he could see, but Ryuken, the no nonsense single father?

The retired Quincy turned doctor seemed to detect Ichigo's skepticism and explained.

"I personally am of the opinion that you are still too young to be wandering off on your own, but unfortunately, I have firsthand experience of the futility of trying to argue with any orange-haired person named Kurosaki."

Ichigo's eyes widened at the implications of Ryuken's words.

"You…my mother…" Ichigo croaked out, but paused when Ryuken handed him a card.

A debit card, from one of Japan's largest banks.

"It's the card for a bank account your mother opened in your name when you were born and deposited money in every month until her death, meant for your university fees. It's been in my care since then, considering that your father never had much of a head for money. There should be enough to pay for an undergraduate degree regardless of which university you choose to attend. The PIN is your date of birth. I trust you won't carelessly spend it?"

Ichigo accepted it with slightly shaking hands.

There was no way in hell he would treat it carelessly. He would never do that to his mother's memory.

"As for me, I've taken the liberty of hacking into the Basic Resident Registers Network and creating a new identity for you! Wouldn't want your plan to go awry because your family filed a missing person's report, would you?" Kisuke spoke up, his usual cheery attitude returning.

"You? Hack the government's database?" Ichigo asked incredulously.

"Why, I'm offended, Kurosaki-san! Just because my computers look outdated doesn't mean that I'm not savvy with modern technology! Here's your new registration card, driver's license and passport. Give your old ones to me. I'll drop them off back in your room." Kisuke exclaimed as he passed two more cards and a passport to Ichigo, who removed his real cards from his wallet, passing them to the shopkeeper, and slotted the new ones into their places, including the debit card Ryuken gave him before dropping both the wallet and the new passport back into his backpack.

"Oh, one more thing! Here." Kisuke suddenly remembered and passed something to Ichigo.

"A cellphone?"

"Unlimited calls and messages, and able to connect from anywhere in the world! Do call every now and then. We wouldn't want to think that you had gone off and died in a ditch somewhere!" Kisuke said, keeping his tone jovial, but Ichigo could detect the hint of genuine concern.

"Got it."

Ichigo accepted the phone and slid it into his pocket.

The shopkeeper took a step back, prompting Yoruichi to take his place.

The Goddess of Flash and her onetime student stared at each other in awkward silence for a while before she drew him into a tight hug.

"Stay safe out there, you hear?" She demanded of him.

"Of course. You know me."

"Yes, and that's exactly why I can't help but worry." Yoruichi drawled as she pulled away from the hug and gave him a business card.

"What's this?"

"The contact details for a real estate agency based in Kyoto, but with operations all over Japan. I know the boss, and she's agreed to knock down the price for you if you ever get tired of wandering and want to settle down somewhere. Just don't expect anything too fancy though. They still have a business to run."

Ichigo blinked. First Kisuke has a knack for modern hacking, and now Yoruichi has a human friend? Will the wonders never cease?

Then again, they had been hiding out in the human world for over 100 years, and Yoruichi was a notorious wanderer, though she tended to do it in the form of a cat. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised.

"Thanks." Ichigo said to all three of them.

"Of course, Kurosaki-san. Now, you might want to get going before anyone else notices that you're gone." Kisuke said jovially.

They were about to leave, when Kisuke stopped and turned back to regard Ichigo with a serious expression.

"By the way, Kurosaki-san, did you leave your Substitute Shinigami badge behind?"

Ichigo blinked at the shopkeeper's odd expression and the equally odd question.

"Er…yeah. Why? Should I have brought it with me?"

It was a bit risky, but Ichigo thought he was stealthy enough to sneak back into his room and take the now useless trinket with him without his family noticing if it was important.

He had figured out its secret a while back, when he had nothing to do but ponder on Ukitake's words, and did not begrudge the white-haired Captain for it.

Ukitake Jushiro could not have reached the top ranks of Gotei 13 by being a nice guy, and he had worded it so that Ichigo would be able to figure out its purpose if he thought on it enough.

Ichigo had to wonder how many Substitute Shinigami before him did not enjoy the same privilege.

He had almost slipped the thing into his backpack before thinking better of it and using it as a paperweight to keep his note in place.

He didn't want Yuzu freaking out over his unexplained disappearance just because a gust of wind blew it under his bed or something.

"No, no. Quite the contrary. It's a very good thing you didn't bring it with you. Wouldn't want to give Central 46 an easy way of tracking you. I think they've already interfered enough with your life." Kisuke said very seriously.

Ichigo frowned, before his eyes widened in understanding.

Ah, so that was why his Shinigami friends hadn't been coming around.

He should have figured that Soul Society's main governing body had something to do with it.

Rukia and Renji had once jokingly told him that killing off the council of miserable old bats was one of the few good things Aizen had done during his coup d'état.

Maybe that hadn't been as much of a joke as he had thought at the time.

Usually, the more boisterous of Ichigo's Shinigami friends would probably still have risked it, but the more rational amongst them probably stopped them.

With the state the war with Aizen had left Soul Society in, the last thing they needed was a civil war, and Ichigo would have felt horrible if one had broken out because of him.

At least, he felt better knowing that some of his friends weren't dumb enough to just trust his father's word.

Ichigo nodded in gratitude to the shopkeeper, who smiled back.

"Good luck, Kurosaki-san, and do stay out of trouble."

"I don't go looking for trouble. It comes looking for me." Ichigo immediately quipped back.

With one last good-natured smile, they parted and went their separate ways, Kisuke and Yoruichi heading back to the shop, Ryuken presumably off to begin his day at the hospital, and Ichigo towards the train station, not entirely certain of where he was headed.

He figured that he would just pick a line and ride it until he got hungry, or tired.

Not knowing what awaited him was part of the fun, after all.


Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni, the esteemed Captain Commander of Gotei 13, let out a low groan of frustration once he was sure that the other 12 Captains had left the meeting hall.

The topic of their most recent meeting, ending just a few minutes ago, was of course, Kurosaki Ichigo.

Genryusai let out another groan.

The damn boy didn't even have his Shinigami powers anymore, and he was still somehow managing to cause headaches for him.

Then again, wasn't it the boy's very personality that had endeared him to so many of them in different ways?

Shihoin Yoruichi had entered Soul Society to inform them that the boy had decided to leave his town behind a few hours ago, and made sure that the relevant parties, i.e. the Captains, Lieutenants and the friends that the former Substitute Shinigami had among their ranks, knew exactly why.

Genryusai felt a surge of anger, causing the temperature of the surrounding area to noticeably rise before he absentmindedly reined in his fluctuating reiatsu with contemptible ease.

He had always known Shiba, now Kurosaki, Isshin to be an irresponsible, complete and utter fool, but even he hadn't thought that he was this much of an imbecile.

And now his son was paying the price for that.

If he ever got the chance, Genryusai made a note to remember to conk the fool on the cranium with his cane.

And he was not the only one who held that opinion.

Hitsugaya Toshiro and Matsumoto Rangiku, who had both served under Shiba Isshin while he was still in active service, looked like they had lost any remaining respect that they had for their former Captain.

The Captains of the 6th and 13th Divisions had to physically restrain their Lieutenants to stop them from marching down to the human world and giving the boy's family and friends (a term that Genryusai used loosely, for he did not believe that the fools who could betray the trust of someone with as much personal loyalty as Kurosaki Ichigo deserved such a moniker) a piece of their minds, or maybe just a royal beating. They themselves, as well as several others, looked like they had half a mind to do just the same.

Unfortunately, Central 46 managed to catch wind of the boy's departure, and had ordered Soifon to send out the Onmitsukido to capture him and bring him back immediately, no doubt so that they could keep him under observation and move to detain him permanently if he ever showed any signs of regaining his former powers.

Genryusai let out a third groan.

Why, oh why, did the Soul King have to implement the council of power hungry fools? Did he not have faith that Gotei 13 was capable of running Soul Society by themselves?

…Well, maybe Aizen Sosuke's recent rebellion hadn't exactly inspired much confidence, but Central 46 had been taken in by his façade just as much as they had!

Now, Genryusai was many things.

Old, grizzled, cynical, rigid in ways that even Central 46 and the Four Great Noble Clans could not compare, but he did, above all else, honor his debts.

And all of Soul Society owed Kurosaki Ichigo many a debt for stopping several conflicts that they could not by themselves.

(And just why they needed to rely on a then 15-year-old child to solve their problems for them, Genryusai simply could not understand. Maybe the elder Captains shouldn't have been so stingy with the usage of their Bankais?)

So, while he wouldn't risk a civil war by opposing Central 46 directly, he could, however, help the boy from afar, such as ordering Soifon to dispatch the most incompetent members of the Onmitsukido she could find, and telling Hirako Shinji, the newly reinstated Captain of the 5th Division, to contact the Vizards who remained in the human world to waylay them.

"Live, Kurosaki Ichigo, so that one day, we can repay our debt to you in full."


Present

"No! No way in hell that's true!"

"Of course it is! This is how all Devils, natural or reincarnated, learn to fly!"

Ichigo was presently having an argument with his new…King…while half-buried in dirt at the foot of a cliff in Serafall's personal territory in the Underworld.

It had been about a week since he had been reincarnated into Serafall's Queen, and he was slowly adjusting to life as a Devil, which started with working to be able to be exposed to sunlight without feeling like a dried up prune.

After that, Serafall brought him down to the Underworld, via a dimension-traversing train of all things, located in an underground station beneath the town in which her mansion had been constructed, completely inaccessible to humans.

It had been a pleasant surprise to find that the part of the Underworld that the Devils live in was not that much different from Earth, bar the purple sky, the false moon, the lack of a sun and additional land mass in place of oceans.

He had been expecting a pit of fire and brimstone, much like the place where he had defeated Kokuto at had been, inhabited by barely civilized soul-devouring monsters in human guises. Was that discriminatory?

Instead, he found out that the Devils' society wasn't much different from that of humans', though Ichigo thought that it resembled Soul Society's social structure most.

The Devils were ruled by the Four Maous, Sirzechs Lucifer, formerly Sirzechs Gremory, Serafall Leviathan, formerly Serafall Sitri, Ajuka Beelzebub, formerly Ajuka Astaroth, and Falbium Asmodeus, formerly Falbium Glasya-Labolas.

Ichigo supposed they were the equivalent of Soul Society's enigmatic Soul King.

After becoming a Devil, he had regained his ability to sense reiatsu, or at least gained a similar ability, and thus was able to sense that Serafall was hiding a tremendous amount of power within that tiny body of hers.

She possessed enough reiatsu to match the Captain Commander, and Ichigo got the feeling that that wasn't all of the power she had.

He still couldn't get the incomprehensible, chilling, ethereal sensation that he felt when he first laid eyes on her out of his head.

If one Maou possessed that much power, what about the other three?

On a side note, the reason for the repeated use of 'formerly' was because the Maous were not allowed to bear their former Clan names out of fear of a single Devil gaining too much power, and were thus no longer eligible to be the next heads of the Clans, despite being the only child of each of their Clans at the time of their ascension.

Originally, before the Great War between the three Biblical Factions, there were Seven Maous, but Belphegor and Mammon perished a long time ago under unknown circumstances, and their thrones removed, the Belphegor and Mammon bloodlines falling in prestige while the original Devil, Satan himself, mysteriously vanished long ago, and was presumed dead, his own bloodline, which had consisted solely of the first Maou himself since he never had any progenies, ceased to exist, leaving only Lucifer, Leviathan, Beelzebub and Asmodeus as the remaining Four Maous.

Said remaining Four Maous would then perish in the Great War, leaving their thrones empty for a short while before their wildly incompetent kin tried to take their place, which resulted in the civil war of the Devils between the Old Maou Faction and the rebel faction, now known as the Current Maou Faction, which lasted for years, ending in the rebel faction's victory and resulting in the ascension of the current Four Maous, and the formation of the Devils' council which advised the Maous.

At the bottom of the Devils' hierarchy were the Low-Class Devils, the lowest social class among Devils which all non-Clan affiliated Devils and Devils reincarnated from non-Devil beings, except Ichigo himself, automatically fell into. He likened it to the same social status that the residents of Rukongai had in Soul Society, which was to say, next to none.

Next were the Middle-Class Devils. They were Low-Class Devils that had been awarded a chance for promotion through their merits and successfully passed the examinations required. They were the equivalent of the non-seated and non-nobility ranks of Gotei 13, acknowledged and treated better than Low-Class Devils, but still looked down upon by the more arrogant of the High-Class Devils.

The status of a Devil could be raised through their achievements, mainly in three categories: contracting with humans, military accomplishments, and the Rating Game, which was a competition between two Devils with peerages, and apparently the Devils' national pastime. Other achievements could count as well, if they were significant enough.

The first method, granting avaricious humans their desires in return for a price (not their souls these days, thankfully), was considered the slowest, unless the humans they formed contracts with had considerable influence, like a country's president. However, all Devils these days inevitably start out from there.

The second was the fastest method, but extremely unlikely, because the Devils were currently in a period of uneasy ceasefire with their main enemies: the Fallen Angels of the Grigori, and the forces of Heaven, consisting of the Angels and the Church, and any notable accomplishment in combat would also likely shatter the fragile peace and start another war.

The third method was considered the modern method, which was to participate and achieve high rankings in the Rating Game, which Ichigo learned was started to be a substitute for war so that Devils who had never participated in actual combat could hone their skills in a controlled non-lethal environment and hopefully not get killed in the event that they ever have to fight an enemy to the death.

The next class after Middle-Class was High-Class, which was what all Pure Blood Devils affiliated with the 72 Pillars, the Devils' 72 main Clans, and the Extra Clans, the bloodlines of exceptionally powerful Devils who weren't originally part of the 72 Pillars. They were the rank equivalent of Soul Society's nobility, and from what he had been told, the power equivalents of seated Shinigami from the 20th Seat to a Lieutenant of average skill, though talented and/or experienced ones possessed powers that were above even that.

All High-Class Devils, whether by birth or by promotion, were required to enter the Devils' capital, Lilith, and touch a monument which would register them as a King, and then given a set of Evil Pieces so that they could start their own peerage.

Ichigo thought it was rather strange that they didn't just create a King Piece like they had with the other chess pieces, and had said as much to Serafall.

The usually carefree Leviathan grew incredibly serious and said that she would explain it to him when she was sure that there were no eavesdroppers around.

And finally, after High-Class came the rarely awarded Ultimate-Class. They were the undisputed strongest Devils, bar the Four Maous themselves. In other words, the equivalents of Gotei 13's Captains. Like how no Devil was Middle-Class by birth, there were also no Devils who were Ultimate-Class from the beginning. Every active Ultimate-Class Devil earned their title through their own merits, the oldest of them having participated in and fought on the frontlines of the Great War and/or the civil war, and the more recently promoted ones mainly through the Rating Games. The top 10 rankers of the Rating Game were all Ultimate-Class Devils, with the current 7th ranked being the highest-ranked Reincarnated Devil, and the top 5 rankers apparently never having moved from their positions since the start of the Rating Games, each of them said to possess power equivalent to the original Four Maous.

Ichigo wondered why Serafall seemed to uncharacteristically grimace when she talked about the top 5, and wondered if it had something to do with the topic of the King Piece.

There were exceptions, like the peerages of the Four Maous, which Ichigo was told were not allowed to participate in the Rating Games, whether as part of their liege's peerage, or as the King of their own.

Instead, they fought in exhibition matches against other Devils of higher classes, and depending on how well they performed, would be given a class.

For example, Sirzechs Lucifer's only Knight, who Ichigo had been utterly stunned to learn was the Okita Souji of the Shinsengumi, a legendary figure in Japanese history, fought against his own peerage's Queen, Grayfia Lucifuge of the Lucifuge Extra Clan, the direct servants of the original Lucifer, and also happened to be the only one among the Four Maous' peerages to have become Ultimate-Class without going through the same process, having fought alongside the rebel faction led by the current Four Maous after defecting from the Old Maou Faction.

While the legendary samurai's skills and considerable power hadn't been able to win against his Queen's overwhelming power and experience, he had performed far better than almost any other Devil would have, and was thus immediately promoted to Ultimate-Class.

Similarly, the rest of the Maous' peerages had undergone that process, and soon, so would Ichigo.

But before that, he needed to get used to his new body and powers first.

The first thing he and Serafall had done once they had arrived in the Underworld was to pay a visit to Serafall's parents, Rune and Sanna Sitri, in their mansion in the territory of the Sitri Clan, which was apparently about the size of Japan's largest island, Honshu.

Even if the Underworld had much more land mass than Earth, it was hard to believe that a single Clan controlled that much territory, when you considered that a good part of the land belonged to the Fallen Angels, and the part belonging to Devils had to be split up among the Maous, several dozen Clans, high-ranking Devils and whatnot.

Apparently, having a Maou for a daughter reaped quite a number of benefits.

Rune Sitri, the current head of the Sitri Clan, was a rather young man with black hair, ice blue eyes, a lithe structure not unlike Uryu's, even having spectacles that reminded Ichigo achingly of his estranged friend.

Sanna Sitri looked like how Ichigo pictured Serafall would look like if she were to age her own body to her mid to late 20s, with black hair and violet eyes.

Shock was a bit of an understatement for how they reacted when they learned that Serafall had finally gotten her Queen, and it was the same individual who had laid waste to a good portion of the Nine Circles of Hell four years ago.

Rune fixed Ichigo with a stern gaze, and unlike what he had thought, courtesy of his past interactions with Byakuya, the first thing he said was not a haughty order to not do anything that would bring shame to Serafall's, and by extension, the Sitri Clan's, name, or a demand to know why he had annihilated the first three Circles of Hell like he had been expecting from a Clan head.

Rather, it had been a simple question.

What did he think of Serafall?

Ichigo didn't miss a beat when answering.

"I personally think your daughter is certifiably insane."

There was an awkward silence for a moment when no one said a thing, or even reacted. The three Sitris simply stared at Ichigo blankly.

Then, Rune snorted and burst into a fit of uproarious laughter, which Ichigo could not ever picture the overly serious and straight-laced Uryu doing, Sanna dissolved into giggles, and Serafall shot him a mock offended look.

He must have made a good impression on them, for Rune proceeded to clap him on the shoulder and proclaim that he approved of his daughter's choice.

He apparently thought that Serafall needed someone who wasn't afraid of calling her out on her shenanigans, who was not him or Sanna.

Scolding their children for misbehavior was exactly what parents were expected to do, and Serafall had heard enough of his and Sanna's admonishments that she did not even take them seriously anymore.

They stayed the night, during which Ichigo was asked to choose a portion of Serafall's massive territory to control, as was the tradition for peerage members, and he fumbled around for a moment, utterly bamboozled that he was actually being freely given land, before settling on a remote mountainous area that looked like it could provide some decent peace and quiet, something he suspected that he would be needing a lot of if he had to deal with Serafall's insanity on a regular basis, and the next morning, they departed for Lilith so that he could be formally introduced to the Maous and the Devils' council, this time accompanied by several Devils in identical black suits, probably bodyguards for Serafall, though why someone as strong as she appeared to be needed so many bodyguards who were all undoubtedly weaker than she was.

Serafall had changed out of her Mahou Shoujo outfit in favor of a much more formal dark green shirt and black skirt, giving her a much more mature appearance unbefitting of her childlike body.

That just went to show how important this meeting apparently was.

The capital of the Devils' was massive, easily matching Seireitei in size, but was definitely much more technologically advanced than the Shinigami's citadel that appeared to be perpetually stuck in the Edo period.

Several modern family homes and shops formed multiple residential districts around a cluster of high rise buildings in the center of the capital, which appeared to be the industrial district.

The sight of the closely compacted skyscrapers actually reminded Ichigo a lot of New York City, where he had visited and stayed for a week during the year between his departure from his hometown and his first meeting with Serafall.

The two of them disembarked from the Sitri Clan's private train at a train station in one of the outer residential districts, where they were promptly greeted by shocked gazes from adult Devils, and excited shrieks and squeals from the children, much to Ichigo's confusion.

He could understand the shock. The adults probably weren't expecting to see one of their rulers in public, especially not up close, and in the company of an unknown man.

But the children's reaction? He just couldn't understand.

That was when the kids ran up to Serafall with pens and paper, begging for an autograph from 'Mahou Shoujo Levia-tan', which she gleefully complied with and even posed for photos with them.

Ichigo began to get an inkling of the reason why kids were so excited to see her, which was confirmed when Serafall told him that she was the main character in a tokusatsu TV show, extremely popular amongst children.

He was starting to wonder if he would ever catch a glimpse of sanity in this suddenly maddening world.

Once the children's excitement began to die down, they departed for an underground train station, where they boarded a private train that led them straight to a platform in the basement of the largest building in the capital, which was where important meetings between the Maous and the council took place.

The meeting took place in a conference room on the top floor of the building.

The moment he stepped into the room, he took notice of three of the men already waiting there.

The first was a lanky young man with green hair and tired jade-colored eyes, slouched over a table like he was in the process of falling asleep.

The second was another young man, this one with jet black hair, sharp grey eyes, wearing a mysterious smile on his face.

The third was a rather effeminate young man with shoulder-length crimson hair and green blue eyes, a gentle smile on his face as he engaged the second man in conversation, though they halted when he and Serafall stepped into the room.

All three of them looked like they were Ichigo's age, but considering that Serafall fought on the frontlines of a civil war that took place centuries ago and still looked like a teenager, he knew that their physical appearance was not a good indicator of their actual age.

But, that wasn't why Ichigo's attention was drawn towards them.

It was because of their reiatsu that he could sense. The three of them possessed reiatsu on the same level as Serafall's, and all of them felt like they were still purposely suppressing their true power.

And then there were the mysterious sensations Ichigo felt while near them. Similar to Serafall's, fleeting and incomprehensible.

The first sensation felt as though he was standing in the eye of a tornado, safe from the raging winds around him, but uncomfortably aware of the painful death that awaited him if he made the wrong move.

The second felt ever-changing, as though the world itself defied the laws of nature to bend to his whim.

The third terrified him. It felt like a dark void from which there was no escape once pulled in, a void that utterly annihilated anything and everything it touched.

It was then that Ichigo knew that he was looking at the other Maous.

Falbium Asmodeus, Ajuka Beelzebub and Sirzechs Lucifer.

He also took note of the other Devils in the room, likely the men that made up the council, each of varying age, but compared to the Four Maous present, they might as well have been specks of dust, unnoticeable and uninteresting.

Serafall formally introduced him to them, and while the three other Maous greeted him amicably, Ichigo noted that the councilmen, who reminded Ichigo not so fondly of Central 46, were extremely stiff and overly polite when addressing him, not to mention looking like they wanted to be anywhere else but there.

He later learned from a giggling Serafall that they were all afraid of her.

She was considered the most volatile of the Four Maous, something that didn't surprise Ichigo at all, and someone that she actually reincarnated herself must be someone special, for the only member of her peerage up to that point had been the Legendary Beast King of the Earth, Behemoth, and they felt that if they insulted him, unintentionally or otherwise, they might incur her wrath.

But even more than that, they were afraid of Ichigo himself.

Putting aside the incident shortly after the battle with Aizen, before his powers had dissipated fully, where he broke into Hell to save Yuzu and ended up annihilating the first three Circles of Hell and severely damaging the structural integrity of the Fourth, an act that had utterly terrified the Devils, and apparently the Fallen Angels, who lived in the same realm as well, sending them into a widespread panic, there was also the aforementioned battle with the megalomaniac itself.

Serafall had worded it quite appropriately herself.

"Ichigo-chan (wow, it had taken an inordinate amount of effort to get her to switch to that slightly more acceptable way of addressing him), when you gained that ridiculous power to challenge that madman, everyone felt it. Most humans probably didn't even notice it, they are rather clueless in that regard, but the rest of the world? The moment you gained that power in the Dangai, it sent titanic waves of sheer power reverberating throughout the dimensions, so massive that it even caused we Maous down here in the Underworld to shudder and look around for the source in our immediate vicinity. Forget being in the same dimension, we actually thought that you were in the same room as us, before realizing the effect wasn't confined to just the Underworld. And when you unleashed that last attack, it honestly surprised us that the metaphysical walls between dimensions hadn't come crashing down around us, all of reality consequently cast out into a primordial sea of chaos and utterly annihilated. That was how powerful that attack had been. Well, I guess that also goes to show how focused and concentrated it had been as well, to be confined to only a single dimension despite its power. Then again, if it was still strong enough to be felt across the dimensional barriers even after being compressed like that…it must be incredibly strong, at least on the level of a God."

And though he had lost that power, he still possessed the potential to gain power of the same level. The fact that Serafall had to use something called a Mutation Piece, whatever that was, seemed to cement that in their minds.

They weren't used to having to deal with someone as powerful as he was become a Reincarnated Devil that the more traditional among the Pure Bloods generally looked down upon, and were torn between their usual condescendence and their fear of his power.

The meeting was soon over, with nothing being discussed other than what was expected of him as Maou Leviathan's Queen (it truly boggled him that Serafall of all people was in charge of foreign affairs and diplomacy), and that his test would be held in a month, with his opponent being Sirzechs's Queen, Grayfia Lucifuge, as Serafall had predicted.

The moment the meeting adjourned, Serafall rushed them over to her personal territory as Maou Leviathan, which, while not as large as the Sitri Clan's Honshu sized territory, was an incredible amount of land area for a single person to control.

She immediately got him started on his training, saying that they needed to rush if he wanted to win against the woman who was called the Underworld's Strongest Queen.

First, she tried to get him to tap into his reserves.

That much was no problem. He had so much reiatsu that he had trouble suppressing it.

It certainly looked and felt different, being pitch black rather than the light blue it had once been. No surprise, considering he was a Devil now.

Serafall seemed to be satisfied with that, so she went on to the next item on the list.

Getting him to tap into the power he had received from Hell four years ago.

Ichigo pointed out the flaw in her idea immediately. He had only used that power for about a minute, and it had been four years since then. He had absolutely no idea how to use it again. He hadn't even known that it had stayed with him, or that it had been steadily growing stronger while dormant inside him until Serafall told him.

Serafall smiled…and then threw a giant icicle that she had conjured at his head.

Ichigo yelped and hastily dodged the very, very sharp frozen construct that would have pierced his eyeball if he hadn't moved in time.

Before he could demand an explanation from Serafall, he had to jump backwards to avoid a frozen stalagmite that sprouted from the ground.

As Ichigo was forced to dance between many, many ice constructs sharp enough to tear through his flesh, and then some, Serafall made her intentions known.

From what she had observed of him, he was a very blunt fighter, the type that learned best through combat, hence why she had chosen to attack him out of the blue.

Plus, he had a tendency to only draw out his full power when he or someone dear to him was in mortal peril, like he had during his invasion of Hell, causing the realm itself to respond to him, which was why she was aiming for his fatal blows.

The scale of Serafall's attacks slowly escalated. What initially began as a lethal barrage of icicles quickly turned into massive animated ice constructs like golems and dragons that looked like they could, and most definitely would, kill him the moment they managed to land a blow on him.

He tried using the unarmed combat skills he had honed from years of forced delinquency, and while becoming a Devil had increased his physical capabilities to an impressive degree, enabling him to move at speeds that could match his first raw and unrefined attempts at Shunpo even without using the speed technique itself and to shatter Serafall's ice constructs with little effort, the speed at which they simply regenerated and the rate at which his King was churning out new ones, he was being overwhelmed fast.

His frustration began to surface when Serafall kicked it up another notch and converted the surroundings into a frozen tundra, basically turning the entire terrain into Ichigo's enemy.

Why…couldn't he fight back? Why was he so helpless against her? As it was right now…how was he any different from how he was powerless?

He had to fight back. It didn't matter how, but he had to fight back.

What he needed was…power!

Power to fight back!

FIGHT BACK!

At that moment, one of the massive ice golems reached out with its left hand to crush him, and at the same time, Ichigo felt something surge inside of him.

There was a certain feel to it, a feeling that, much like how he was intimately familiar with the feel of his own body, made him certain this something was very much his.

But, there was something else there too. Something that was only vaguely familiar to him, like he only had a passing memory that left only the faintest of impressions.

Something old.

Something powerful.

Something dark.

Something that beyond understanding.

It was…

Power.

When Ichigo came to, it was to see that the surrounding area, already turned into a winter wonderland by Serafall, had been completely flattened and reduced to a barren patch of land, without a single speck of ice in sight, and his King, her clothes torn and barely preserving her decency, looking worn out, but very happy.

And also, he could sense it. Something inside of him. A reiatsu that did not feel like his own.

It was old, incomprehensibly so, and so very dark, darker than even Ichigo's current Devil reiatsu.

It was small at the moment, but he felt that if he wanted to, he could draw out even more, much like he could turn a tap to get it to dispense larger volumes of water.

And most of all, it didn't feel like it was coming from Ichigo himself. It was certainly inside him, and he was drawing it from there, but it also felt like its source was elsewhere, yet he was still able to pull on it as though it was his own reiatsu.

What had happened? He couldn't remember.

They had to take a break so they could both recover their strength.

The first thing that Serafall taught him was that throwing out his power randomly was highly inefficient.

He likened it to how it would have been much less efficient if Ichigo had tried to fire off a wave of reiatsu from his hands rather than simply use Zangetsu to fire off a Getsuga Tensho.

It needed to be reshaped first, like simply compressing it to increase its power, converting it into fire, or even just thermal energy, or through the use of magic circles and calculations, power a spell.

Ichigo's only real technique had ever been Getsuga Tensho, which hadn't required anything more than throwing a compressed wave of his reiatsu, which Zangetsu had done for him, so the idea of having to mold his reiatsu first was foreign to him.

Ichigo would have preferred it if he had a sword. He had always used Zangetsu to use his strongest attacks, so it felt weird to try fighting without a sword in hand. Hell, it might even make things easier for him.

He told Serafall as much, and she thought about it for a moment before teleporting off somewhere before returning just as quickly, with a pristine western sword in hand.

She threw it rather haphazardly to him, causing him to play a brief game of hot potato with the sword as he attempted to avoid cutting his hands on the blade and grip the handle.

She remarked that it was one of the many gifts she had received at the current Four Maous' inauguration, but since she did not use swords, or did she have any desire to, it had just been sitting in her vault collecting dust for centuries.

On the plus side, it was forged by one of the Devils' best blacksmiths at the time, so it was a weapon of a quality that could never be achieved by human hands. The blade was made of Orichalcum, a metal that no longer existed on earth, but could still be found in small, isolated deposits around the Underworld. The rare metal naturally conducted supernatural energy, like reiatsu, making it a viable weapon for him. Furthermore, it had been infused with magic to prevent it from rusting or blunting, which explained its still pristine appearance despite centuries of neglect, and would save Ichigo the trouble of having to maintain it.

However, she also warned him that as well forged as it was, it was in the end still inferior to a Zanpakuto that was tailor-made to channel the reiatsu of its owner, and if he constantly poured an overabundance of his reiatsu into it, it would wear out and shatter one day, and there wasn't enough Orichalcum in all of existence to reforge it every time he broke it.

Still, she encouraged him to use as much energy as he could just once so that she would know what she was working with.

Ichigo complied and began to channel his reserves into the blade.

The silverish metal began to take on a black hue as it drank in his demonic energy, his reserves pouring out at a very alarming rate.

And it wasn't just his reiatsu pouring into the blade. The other reiatsu was pouring into it as well.

The blade crackled with energy as Ichigo continued to pump in his reiatsu, until he began to get worried about how much he had already channeled.

He estimated that he had already poured in enough reiatsu to unleash a Getsuga Tensho that could destroy an entire town. Maybe more.

And it had not even been 10 seconds yet.

If he kept going, he might lose control of it. And possibly damage the sword in the process.

So, he stopped, and took a look at the blade, which had turned into shining obsidian color, and the air around it had darkened by several shades. That was just how saturated it was with his reiatsu.

Ichigo swung the saturated blade, hoping to recreate something like Getsuga Tensho so that he would have some familiar ground to work with, aiming it upwards towards the purple sky to avoid any more damage to the surroundings.

His vision turned black for a few moments. Not because he had lost consciousness like before, but because the wave of black demonic energy he had released was so massive that it had completely encompassed his entire field of vision at the moment of release, and then some.

By the time he could see other colors aside from black, the massive wave had already travelled a good distance skyward.

And then, it burst apart with a deafening explosion that would have scorched right through the atmosphere if the Underworld had one, and caused Ichigo's ears to ring in distress, quickly followed by a shockwave that knocked him and Serafall on their asses, not to mention tearing up not just the surrounding area, but the entire land area for miles from the epicenter.

No way in hell something that big had gone unnoticed.

What the hell just happened?

Getsuga Tensho was nothing more than a wave of condensed reiatsu that cut anything in its path.

That was what he had been aiming to recreate.

It most certainly did not explode.

He looked over to Serafall, hoping that she would have an explanation, only to find her alternating her gaze between the massive black clouds of ash that had appeared in the sky, the shattered surroundings, and then him.

Then, she grinned widely, looking like she had just won the lottery.

Ichigo really, really did not like that look. It spelt nothing but trouble for him.

Still, she did provide him with a plausible explanation.

Her theory was that when Ichigo hadn't just received a simple power boost from Hell. The realm had granted him a multitude of abilities.

He probably accessed it because he had been curious about what kind of powers Hell had given him, and thus, he got exactly what he wanted.

It made sense to him. When he received power from the Kushanada, he was able to instinctively use a blast of golden energy resembling Getsuga Tensho that defeated Kokuto in an instant. He thought that his Getsuga Tensho had just been influenced by the Kushanada's power, but…

But, at that time, his attack hadn't exploded at the end either.

Serafall laughed at him.

"Oh, Ichigo-chan, Ichigo-chan, you don't seriously think that a power granted to you by Hell itself would be so one-dimensional, do you? Why, you probably have a whole repertoire of abilities you have yet to discover! You just happened to use one of them this time!"

He definitely did not like the hungry look she gave him when she said that.

She proceeded to give him her evaluation of his power.

He already had plenty of it. With his massive reserves and the abilities given to him by Hell, a lack of power would likely never be a problem for him unless he somehow managed to completely exhaust his reserves.

Now, his control, on the other hand…

To put it frankly, during this one month of training they had, they would largely be focusing on his control.

In her words…

"Ichigo-chan, I've seen Grayfia-chan fight before. I even fought her for the position of Leviathan back then! She's strong, worthy of her title as the Strongest Queen, but if you don't learn how to put a lid on your power, you might wind up killing her, especially if you get into a pinch and end up using much more power than you intended! This is just a spar after all. She probably won't use her full power unless you give her a good reason to, and even then, your power is just that dangerous. And trust me, Sirzechs-chan would not be very pleased with us if you accidently killed his wife."

Ichigo blinked at the extraneous information. The current Lucifer was married to his Queen?

He didn't get much more time to ponder on that, because Serafall rushed him off to get started on training his control.

The simplest way to build up his control was simply to train to fly.

The bat-like wings that all Devils had were actually too small to support a Devil's body for anything more than short flights, but by strengthening them with reiatsu, or demonic energy, as Devils called it, they could be used for extended glides and complicated aerial maneuvers.

But, masterful control was needed to remain in flight using this method. Too little demonic energy supplied, and they would not be able to take off at all, or would just plummet to the ground midflight. Too much energy, and they would go shooting through the sky like a bullet.

They came to stop at the top of the cliff the foot of which they were now currently arguing at, and without any warning…Serafall kicked him off.

His memories of his fall were sketchy, but he vaguely recalled high-pitched screaming muffled by the sound of rapidly displaced air, and the surroundings moving past him so fast that they were a complete blur.

Then, pain when he landed on the ground, creating the crater he was now sitting in.

If this was really how all Pure Blood Devils trained to fly, he couldn't imagine how they could have survived so long.

"Well…maybe not all of them, but Sirzechs-chan, Ajuka-chan, Falbium-chan and I all learned how to fly this way!"

"What the hell is wrong with you Maous!?"

The other three seemed quite sane, especially when you compared them to Serafall, but was it possible that all of them had a screw loose somewhere in their heads?

How had the Devils survived this long under their leadership!?

"Well, enough talk! Get back up there and try again!"

"Are you insane!? Actually, don't answer that, I already know the answer! I just somehow survived a 100 meter drop and you want me to do it again!? You trying to kill me!?"

"Eh? But, Ichigo-chan, take a good look at yourself! You're not injured at all, are you?" Serafall exclaimed.

Ichigo blinked and looked down.

It was true. His clothes were tattered as a result of his brief bout with Serafall and the plunge just now, but his body didn't have so much as a scratch on it. Even the pain he had felt when he crashed had been rather light, and was already gone.

"What the hell?"

"Ah, come to think of it, I haven't explained the traits of the Evil Pieces to you yet, have I?"

"Traits…of the Evil Pieces?"

"That's right. You know how each chess piece moves differently on a chess board, right? The Evil Pieces are like that. The Knight Piece grants heightened mobility, which allows Knights to move and attack at high speeds. But because of that, their defenses are low, which makes them highly vulnerable to attacks that manage to connect. Plus, if you take out their legs, their speed drops to a normal level."

Speed fighters…that would basically be how he was in Bankai. Capable of fighting at high speed, but vulnerable to attacks once he stopped moving, as many of his opponents had demonstrated.

The time Byakuya stabbed his Zanpakuto through his foot to stop him from moving and then shooting a hole through his shoulder with Kido came to mind.

"Next is the Bishop Piece. It grants increased ability with magic, so they are capable of using a huge variety of spells, or overspecializing in one category that they attain new heights with it. But of course, if they don't have the energy to use magic, they're no different from average fighters."

Basically, it was like a master of Kido, like Hachi, one of the Vizards, Tessai and Kisuke was.

"Then comes the Rook. Its trait is enhanced strength and defense, making a Rook a powerhouse. But, most of them are pretty slow, so they're especially vulnerable to high speed attacks like from Knights."

Kenpachi in a nutshell. Possessing absurd physical strength, and incredible endurance that prevented his body from taking any damage from all but the strongest attacks, but was incapable of using Shunpo at all. Though, his sheer leg power was enough to make up for that, so maybe he wasn't such a good example.

"Next is the Piece I used on you. The Queen Piece. It combines the traits of the Knight, Bishop and Rook Pieces, which makes the Queen the strongest and most balanced of the Pieces. The Rook's trait is probably why you're not injured, Ichigo-chan!"

Ichigo was immediately reminded of Aizen.

Possessing the physical strength to cut through a Bankai, a mastery of Kido unlike any other, which also enabled him to muster up defenses that were capable of completely negating Ichigo's Getsuga Tensho in Bankai, and so fast that even Ichigo's enhanced speed in Bankai and further enhanced by Hollowfication was easily outmaneuvered.

Was that the standard he was supposed to live up to?

"Last is the Pawn Piece. It doesn't possess any special abilities on its own, but much like how a pawn piece in chess can be promoted into another piece other than the King, a Pawn can use Promotion to gain the traits of the Knight, Bishop, Rook or Queen Piece. However, they can only use Promotion when in enemy territory, or when granted permission by their King."

That…sounded very useful, actually. To be able to switch between different traits to adapt to different opponents…a Pawn who had mastered their power would be very dangerous, no less than a Queen.

And there were 8 of them in just one peerage?

"Also, they set the standard for the other Pieces. Knights and Bishops are worth 3 Pawns, Rooks are worth 5, and Queens are worth 9. So basically, someone who needs to be reincarnated using a Knight or a Bishop Piece can be reincarnated with 3 Pawn Pieces."

So, basically, there could be less than 8 Pawns in one peerage, huh?

"Wait, what about Mutation Pieces?" Ichigo asked, remembering the term that had been used to refer to the Queen Piece that Serafall used on him.

"Oh, those? They're variations of normal Evil Pieces that can reincarnate beings that are worth many times of what a normal Evil Piece can reincarnate. That means you, Ichigo-chan!"

He blinked. He was worth a lot more than 9 of Serafall's Pawns?

Wow, that actually felt pretty gratifying.

As he processed the information about the Evil Pieces, he remembered something.

"Come to think of it, you never explained to me the whole King Piece thing. We're in privacy now, aren't we? What's the deal?"

Like before, the moment he brought up the subject of the King Piece, Serafall froze and her expression became very serious.

"…Ichigo-chan, just concentrate on your training for now. After the spar, I'll tell you everything you need to know. About the darkness that surrounds the Rating Games. But, until then, don't go around talking about the King Piece. You never know who might be listening." She said in a low voice.

He frowned. What was so big about the King Piece that it could make Serafall act like that?

"Well, since you're so against flight training, why don't we do something more fun?"

Ichigo immediately wished that she would stay in that serious mode, because the smile she was now sporting was setting off alarms in his head.

"Something…fun?"

"Yeah! How about we see just what kind of powers you gained from Hell?"


Grayfia Lucifuge waited patiently for her opponent to arrive.

She was standing on a floating platform, one of many that made up this little artificial dimension that served as one of the Rating Game's many stages.

She had silver eyes and matching long hair that was tied into a twin braids behind her, and two shorter braids at the side of her head.

Befitting her status as Maou Lucifer's Queen and the Head Maid of the Gremory Clan, she was wearing a blue and white French maid outfit, complete with a white headpiece, which also served as her combat uniform, despite how impractical it seemed.

Many people had asked why the Strongest Queen and the wife of a Maou would debase herself by working as a servant, but Grayfia genuinely enjoyed working as a maid. Rather than enjoying a casual life, staying busy like this suited her better, and helped her to focus and her mind sharp so that she could act competently in her capacity as Sirzechs Lucifer's Queen when she was needed.

Like right now.

It had been a huge surprise not just to her, but to all Devils, when she heard that Serafall had chosen her Queen, more so when she learned that it was Kurosaki Ichigo, the one who had broken into Hell and destroyed almost four Circles, and had been lent power by the infernal realm itself to send a sinner down to the Ninth Circle.

Not to mention, he was the one who had resolved one of Japan's greatest crisis when he defeated a traitorous Shinigami whose near conquering of Soul Society had almost caused Takamagahara to spring into action and take him down themselves.

At the very least, if he had a similar level of power after becoming a Devil, she most likely wouldn't stand a chance against him.

He had power that was on the same level as her husband and the other Maous in their true forms after all.

But considering that the entire Underworld was not crumbling from the sheer force of his power, it was safe to say that he was weaker than he had been when he defeated Aizen Sosuke.

How much weaker though, she did not know. Though he no longer had his Shinigami powers, he still possessed his naturally immense reserves, and the powers that Hell had granted him.

At the very least, she was going to assume that he was as strong as she was. Serafall wouldn't settle for anything less.

And the current Leviathan would not have stayed idle for an entire month. She would most certainly be helping him train his new powers.

The incident from a month ago, when a massive explosion rocked the Underworld for miles, came to mind, and she wondered if he had been the one who caused that.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when a magic circle appeared on the ground opposite her.

A magic circle that bore Serafall's personal mark as Maou Leviathan.

A teleportation spell.

Her eyebrow raised when she noticed that the demonic energy flowing through the magic circle was very rough, as though the spell had been cast by a beginner.

In other words, it could not be Serafall, who was a master spell caster.

Her eyes narrowed.

Her opponent had arrived.

A tall figure emerged from the blue light of the magic circle.

The magic circle vanished once its user fully emerged, its purpose complete, revealing Kurosaki Ichigo.

Well, he was certainly easy on the eyes, Grayfia had to admit.

He was tall. Taller than her husband, but not by much. He had shoulder length messy orange hair (which reminded her rather unpleasantly of her husband's Mutated Rook, Surtr Second, though hopefully, this one wasn't as uncouth as the clone of the Norse Fire Giant), his bangs long enough to slightly obscure his brown eyes. He wore a very simple getup, a black jacket over a white shirt, blue jeans and a pair of loafers.

She could tell that he was very well-built, with broad shoulders, an obviously toned body even if it was being concealed by his clothes, and an aura of subtle confidence.

If she wasn't happily married, she wouldn't mind getting some of that.

Her eyes trailed to the simple, yet well-crafted sword sitting in the leather scabbard attached to his waist.

A swordsman, huh? Judging by his rather rough use of the teleportation spell, he was probably new to using magic. Which meant that he would be relying mostly on swordplay.

That was fairly simple. She just had to keep her distance and fire spells at him. That was how she had beaten Okita Souji, despite the speed that was afforded to him as a Knight.

Speed was rather useless if your legs were trapped in a block of ice after all.

Still, it wouldn't be a very fair evaluation if she didn't let him try at all…maybe she should give him a handicap?

She blinked when he bowed politely to her. She had been expecting blank staring at her choice of clothes.

Then again, he had been around Serafall, whose usual outfit was that of a Mahou Shoujo, so he was probably already fairly jaded.

Her opinion of him went up several degrees just for that. He was already more polite than the neanderthals that made up most of her husband's peerage.

They should get along, as the Queens of the two most troublesome Maous. She could give him a few pointers about dealing with his King's antics.

Speaking of the Maous…all four of them should be watching the match from their VIP viewing room right now.

Sirzechs and Serafall were probably arguing over how well the latter's Queen would do.

And they probably weren't the only ones having that discussion.

She glanced over towards the barrier that was separating the Rating Game's grounds from the spectators' stands, which were no doubt filled to the brim.

Once news got out that Serafall Leviathan had gotten a Queen, all Devils had been waiting for this evaluation match. Those who weren't lucky enough to get seats were probably tuning into this match at home, broadcast live by pretty much every news network run by Devils through the cameras that were flying around the grounds.

They would have to try to avoid damaging them. She was very careful with her money and didn't want to have to waste any of it on reimbursement.

[The rank evaluation match for Kurosaki Ichigo-dono, newly reincarnated Queen of Serafall Leviathan-sama will begin shortly. His opponent shall be Grayfia Lucifuge-dono, Queen of Sirzechs Lucifer-sama. Combatants, please standby.]

She tensed herself once the announcement from the MC was broadcasted, and Kurosaki Ichigo took up a stance, placing a hand on the handle of his sword so that he could spring into action and draw it immediately.

How would he play this?

Was he the strategic type who would formulate a plan before making his move?

Or was he a man of action, rushing in immediately and going along with the flow of the battle?

[3…2…1…Begin!]

Grayfia blinked just as the announcer declared the start of the match, and when she opened them, she took an involuntary step back when she found that her opponent had completely filled her field of vision, his Orichalcum sword already in hand.

"Fast…!"

Grayfia barely managed to process her opponent's speed before she was forced to lean backwards, barely avoiding the tip of the blade that passed through air uncomfortably close to her eyes.

Seeing Ichigo pull his sword back for another attack, Grayfia acted quickly and conjured a wall of ice between them and moved back as fast as she could with the speed of a Knight.

*SHATTER*

She was stunned to see her wall of ice crumble under a single blow from his left fist, which he had unclenched from the handle of his sword and used to punch the frozen construct between them.

It had been slipshod work by her standards, considering how little time she had to create it, but it was still ice conjured by a Devil who was known to be on the same level as the original Maous.

Adding that to the fact that he had managed to catch her off guard with his speed, something that only Okita Souji, her husband's Knight and acknowledged as the Strongest Knight, had ever been able to do…she gained a new appreciation for the physical enhancements that the Queen Piece afforded.

So, he was making use of the Rook's and Knight's traits that the Queen also possessed?

That made him her direct opposite, being a Queen who relied mostly on the magical enhancement trait that the Bishop Piece possessed.

Though a Queen possessed the traits of the Knight, Bishop and Rook Pieces, there weren't yet any notable Queens who made full use of all three traits.

Queens were basically split into two categories: magic users who had mastered the trait of the Bishop Piece, like her, as well as most other Queens, only occasionally making use of the Knight's speed and the Rook's power and defense, or physical fighters who mastered the traits of the Rook and/or the Knight Piece, rarely using the power of the Bishop, like Ichigo appeared to be.

That…made him the worst possible opponent for her.

If he really was as fast as he appeared, she would be at a disadvantage, because all of her stronger spells had long casting times.

When she said 'long', it was actually time measured in split seconds, but even that brief period was enough for someone as fast as her opponent to close in on her and attack her, forcing her to interrupt the casting and dodge, or risk being cut in two by her opponent's sharp blade combined with his fearsome physical strength.

And as he had demonstrated just now, weak spells, even ones cast with her Ultimate-Class power, would do little against him.

First of all…she had to open up some distance between them, like she had originally planned.

Grayfia fired off a barrage of icicles at his head, aiming to force him to waste a few moments to cut them down.

She didn't have the time to be surprised when he simply weaved through them with nothing but sheer speed and footwork, for she was already casting another, stronger spell.

The platform they were standing on was flash frozen in an instant, turning its smooth surface into a rough, icicle-covered terrain of absolute zero.

Through the clear ice, Grayfia could make out Ichigo standing completely still among the icicles.

Not by his own will, of course.

His feet, having been in contact with the platform when Grayfia frozen it solid, were now trapped inside two icicles that had grown around them, extending up to his thighs.

The ice wasn't that thick, but it was filled with a good amount of her demonic energy. Even with his strength as a Rook and a sword of Orichalcum, he won't be able to break through the ice immediately.

Enough time for her to cast one of her strongest spells and end this.

But, before she could even begin formulating the spell, Ichigo suddenly raised his blade and then turned it over in his hands so that the blade was pointing at the ground.

She blinked.

What was he doing?

Her eyes widened when the blade gained a black hue, crackling with demonic energy.

"Is he…!?"

Ichigo slammed his blade into the ground, easily breaking through the frozen surface.

The black demonic energy surged forth from the blade and into the floating platform.

For a moment, all was silent.

Then, veins of black surged through the ground, spreading out from the spot where Ichigo had slammed his blade into, causing cracks to appear in their wake, encompassing the entire surface of the platform, visible beneath the ice

The entire platform shattered, taking the frozen terrain that Grayfia had created with it.

Having lost her foothold suddenly, Grayfia's casting was interrupted and she quickly expanded her wings to take flight before she fell.

Now free from the ice, Ichigo did the same.

He raised his sword, and once again the silver color of the blade turned black.

Grayfia's instincts immediately started screaming at her.

She was in danger. She was in danger there.

She needed to move!

She obeyed her instincts and flew aside, just as Ichigo swung down his blade, releasing a large vertical wave of pitch black.

It sailed past her head, managing to cut off a few strands of her silver hair.

What in the name of the Nine Circles of Hell was that?

It…did not appear to be a spell. Was it just a mass of demonic energy?

Loud noises of something, or somethings, breaking drew her attention and caused her to turn around.

The black wave sliced right through several floating platforms in its path like butter before slamming into the barrier around the grounds with so much force that the barrier flashed brightly and let out a groaning sound as its defensive capabilities were forced to its maximum capacity in an instant, its caster needing to throw an exponentially greater amount of demonic energy to maintain it.

Grayfia grew alarmed when a crack appeared in the barrier, and it looked like the deadly wave of demonic energy was about to break through, when the barrier turned red, suddenly stopped giving way to Ichigo's attack, and pushed back against it, causing the black wave to dissipate.

It appeared that her husband had stepped in to reinforce the barrier himself.

If it was the Crimson Lucifer himself maintaining the barrier, then they shouldn't have to worry no matter how wild they ran in here.

In that case…

Grayfia immediately glided through the air, opening up as much distance between them as she could.

She turned her head back to judge how far she would have to go, but paused when she saw that Ichigo was falling behind her.

Ah, so that was it. Masterful flying required fine control over demonic energy. He certainly had an impressive amount, probably dwarfing her own reserves, but it was because of that that he had trouble controlling it. So his flying, much like his teleportation spell, was rough and unrefined.

He wouldn't be able to keep up.

But…it was a different story if he decided to give up on flying and use the floating platforms to reach her instead.

They were spread out fairly wide apart, but she had no doubt that he would have no trouble jumping from one to another, judging by the footwork she had seen from him so far.

She would not be underestimating him anymore. Best to take away as many advantages as she could.

She raised a hand, and a massive icicle, sharp tip pointed downwards, appeared above each of the platforms within a 300 meter radius of her.

Lowering her hand in a gesture, she mentally commanded all of the icicles to fall at once.

With the full weight of the icicles being concentrated at the tip of the icy constructs that slammed into the center of the platforms, they crumbled in an instant, sending tons of rubble falling down to the lowest level of the grounds with a loud crash.

Grayfia felt a small surge of satisfaction when she saw her opponent's eyes narrow.

Evidently, he had been planning exactly what she had suspected.

With the only way he could keep up with her flying speed cut off, this would be an easy victory for her as long as she kept her distance.

Still, she couldn't help but worry.

Was this really all that he was capable of?

She didn't think so. Newly reincarnated though he may be, he was still someone Serafall Leviathan had personally chosen.

That was immediately proven when she had to swerve hard in the air to avoid being struck by another one of his black demonic energy waves.

Even with his mobility limited, he was still very much a threat.

She had to defeat him fast.

And she knew how.

She raised a hand towards him, which immediately put him on guard.

That was fine. Even if he was on guard, he wouldn't be able to do much against this.

Dozens of magic circles appeared around him, surrounding and trapping him in a perfect sphere.

Grayfia clenched her hand into a fist, activating all of the magic circles at once.

Each one started firing off icicles at Ichigo rapidly. There was no way for him to escape from that.

Instead of trying futilely to dodge like she had expected, Ichigo instead started swinging his sword in wide arcs, using the speed of a Knight to move his body along with each swing to shatter as many icicles as he could.

Appearing as a mere blur to even Grayfia's trained eyes, each icicle that neared him shattered into tiny bits of frost.

Impressive, being able to keep his cool under such circumstances. Grayfia's respect for her opponent just seemed to keep rising.

However, he wouldn't be able to keep it up for long. His body would soon tire, and when that inevitably happened…

An icicle that his swings had just barely missed crashed into his legs, causing a fine layer of frost to spread over the limb.

Surprised, Ichigo slowed down, only just a little, barely perceivable to all but the most trained eyes, to flex the limb and shatter the thin ice, before resuming his defense.

But, that was fine. That tiny, momentary drop in his speed would result in even more misses.

One slammed into his left arm, another slammed into his torso, and while he easily shattered the ice, each moment taken to do so resulted in more and more mistakes, until finally…

"Hrmph!?"

Grayfia heard her opponent let out a loud grunt of surprise, and drop rapidly from the sky, a layer of ice now coating one of his wings.

That was it. What she had been aiming for. With the weight of the ice added to one of his wings, his balance in the air would be completely destroyed, causing him to fall.

Even if he had the defensive power of a Rook, a fall from this height would still hurt very, very much.

It was ov-

Something was wrong.

Just as soon as she was sure it was over, the surroundings seemed to grow a little darker.

She could feel something in the air.

Dark.

Cold.

Old.

Powerful.

Her instincts as a Devil immediately began to react.

It was not telling her she was in danger like before. Rather, it was telling her to…submit and prostrate herself?

Her eyes locked onto Ichigo.

The air around him seemed to have grown the darkest.

So, he was the source.

Then, she noticed something.

He was not falling anymore.

In fact, he appeared to be standing on air.

No, that wasn't it.

He was standing on…a chain?

It was connected to two floating platforms that were rather far apart, pulled taut so that Ichigo could stand on it with no problem.

But, where did it come from? That was definitely not a part of the original stage.

Ichigo suddenly raised his sword that had once again turned black.

Grayfia immediately started flying around at high speed, making sure to make as many random and sharp turns as possible.

Even he would have a hard time aiming at her if she stayed on the move.

Ichigo swung his sword in her direction, and she expected a black wave to pass through spot that she had already vacated, but…

There was no black wave.

Instead, a black rift had opened up in front of Ichigo, in the same path that his sword had travelled.

She blinked.

What was that?

She was stunned when five black chains suddenly emerged from the rift, extending and surging towards her with incredible speed.

But, she was moving just as fast, and as long as she didn't slow down, she could stay out of reach, and cast her next spell.

Then the chains split up, one moving to cut her off. She turned sharply to the side, and was immediately met by another. She began to turn again, only to have to twist her body when a chain almost struck her head.

Unfortunately, those three chains had forced her to hover in the same spot long enough for the remaining two to wrap around her ankles.

The first three chains circled back around, two wrapping one wrist each, and the last wrapping around her waist.

She was caught.

She immediately tried to struggle out of them, utilizing her rarely used Rook physical strength, but they refused to budge.

She took a good look at the chains binding her, and froze.

She recognized them.

They weren't unique in design. They looked like ordinary chains.

However, the aura they were giving off told her exactly what they were.

"These are…Hell's Chains!?"

She could only stare in shock at the legendarily powerful chains meant to bind the souls of all sinners in Creation to the infernal realm where they were eternally condemned.

A sudden tug on the chains caused her to drop in altitude as the sectioned lengths of metal pulled her with them.

Ichigo had taken hold of the chains and was now using them to draw her towards him.

She tried to pull away, but she was not accustomed to using the physical strength of a Rook, unable to overcome her opponent's own power, as embarrassing as it was for an experienced centuries-old Devil like her to admit.

Then there was the fact that Hell's Chains could not be broken by any means other than raw destructive power that Grayfia did not possess.

And when she caught sight of her opponent's blade once again raised and glowing with dark light, she knew she was in trouble.

However, there was still one thing she could do.

In order to brace against the impending attack, Grayfia did the only thing she could do in her position: conjuring as much ice as possible in front of her to take the brunt of the blow.

As Ichigo swung his blade and her vision was engulfed by pitch black, Grayfia could only hope that the massive volume of ice she had generated would be sufficient.


"T-That is not possible! How could this be!?"

"For Hell's Chains to be used in such a manner…"

Sirzechs Lucifer, formerly Sirzechs Gremory, watched in amusement as the members of the council started to panic and murmur amongst themselves.

The current Yondai Maous and the Devils' council were seated in the VIP viewing room, watching the match.

Sirzechs found himself quite impressed with Kurosaki Ichigo's performance so far.

Though he was newly reincarnated, he was holding his own against Grayfia, who possessed centuries of experience over him, and was even pressing her.

Ajuka and Falbium, who was wide awake for once, seemed interested as well.

Serafall had a smug smile on her face as she watched her new Queen press the Strongest Queen, directing it towards Sirzechs, who simply ignored her.

Grayfia would not go down from just that much.

He was proven right when Grayfia, with precision and technique that spoke of centuries of practice, knocked Ichigo out of the sky by freezing his wing.

That was when things started to get very interesting.

Kurosaki Ichigo summoned Hell's Chains to be used as a foothold, and then to trap her.

It was at the sight of that that the councilmen, who had been watching the match with expressions of disdainful disinterest up until then, suddenly fell into a panic.

It was a natural response, he supposed.

After all, Hell's Chains weren't supposed to be used in such a fashion.

Hell's Chains had one primary function: to bind the souls of sinners to Hell, preventing them from escaping their eternal damnation.

And that was all they were meant to do.

They could not be used in any other fashion.

Even the Maous, who could exert some form of control over them because of their 'contract' with the sentient infernal realm, could not direct them to do anything else apart from their primary function.

That was why it was such a shock that Kurosaki Ichigo was able to use them seemingly without restraint.

He wondered if the boy even knew just what a ridiculous feat he was accomplishing at the moment.

"T-There is no precedence for this…"

"Oh? That isn't true, is it?" Sirzechs decided to cut in when he heard one of the councilmen mutter.

All of the councilmen turned to look at him, pale-faced and rather terrified.

"S-Sirzechs-sama?"

"There was one Devil, wasn't there? A Devil who was said to be able to do what Ichigo-kun is doing now."

"T-That is…!"

If possible, their faces turned even paler.

Probably unbeknownst to Ichigo, there was a third reason why the council was scared of him.

It was because Hell had chosen to give him its power of its own accord, granting him the ability to summon Hell's Chains, infuse Hellfire into his attack, and even control the Kushanada, Hell's Keepers who barely listened to the Maous.

Even the original Maous and the current Maous could not claim to have received the same honor.

However, there was said to have been one Devil who was able to all of that, and so much more.

Hell itself was said to have bent to his whim.

A Devil who was said to have singlehandedly shaped Hell into what it was today.

Back during the Dawn of Creation, Hell, in its infancy, was a wild realm fresh from Genesis, absolutely inhospitable to any and all things due to its powerful miasma, and was thus designated as the destination of the souls of all of the sinners in Creation upon death.

However, Hell was literally nothing more than empty space at the time, and the souls of sinners were allowed to run rampant freely within its boundaries.

Soon, with so many sinners flooding in and desperate to return to life, Hell was on the verge of breaking down and flooding into the rest of the realms in Creation.

Then, he appeared.

By himself, he completely reshaped Hell, starting by crushing the sinners, creating the Nine Circles as the punishing grounds for them, creating Hell's Chains to ensure that they could never escape from Hell's hold, and created the Kushanada as their Keepers.

Then, to oppose God and his Heavenly Host and maintain Creation's balance, he created and granted power to the Devils who would become the ancestors of the 72 Pillars and other Clans, as well as converting a section of Hell into a hospitable place where Devils could live and thrive, naming it the Underworld.

Subsequently, when Lucifer and his followers failed in their rebellion against the Biblical God, and were subsequently cast down into Hell as Devils, he was the one who allowed Lucifer, Leviathan, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Belphegor and Mammon to take positions that possessed identical status to his own, despite his superior power.

Even then, he was the only one capable of manipulating Hell as he pleased, something that the other Maous only wished they could do.

That was the original Devil, who was to Devils what God was to Angels.

Satan himself.

At least, that was how the legend went.

Sirzechs had never met the legendary First Devil himself. Few Devils alive today had. He had mysteriously vanished not long after he had finished shaping Hell.

But, the oldest Devils who had lived under his short reign and were still alive to this day worshipped him with the same fervor that Angels worshipped their Lord and Creator, and thus, the rest of their kin followed suit, taking those legends as truth.

It was said that the Fallen Angels, who had taken over a part of the Underworld, and the various Gods of the afterlife from various pantheons, who also lived in separate levels of Hell below even the Underworld after forming their own pacts with the sentient realm, were unable to gain a foothold in the infernal realm until after the original Devil's disappearance.

That was just how great Satan's power was said to be.

A being that was like the physical manifestation of the infernal realm itself.

What the council feared was that Kurosaki Ichigo possessed the same powers as the First and Strongest Devil himself.

With that power…he could easily reshape not only their society, but Hell itself to his liking.

And now…it appeared that their fears might have come true.

What this meant for the Underworld, even Sirzechs himself wondered.


It burned.

Her skin felt like it had been scorched off. That was how much pain Grayfia was currently experiencing.

The ice she had generated had been useless. The black wave tore right through it and struck her with full force.

However, perhaps it was because he was sure that she had taken the full brunt of his attack that the Hell's Chains holding her in place seemed to slacken their hold on her limbs and waist, allowing her to twist and free herself from them.

She burst out of the black torrent and was able to assess herself now that she could see.

Her clothes were torn and seared in several places, leaving sizeable holes through which burnt patches of her skin could be seen.

He held back. That much she was sure of. If he hadn't, there was no way she would have gotten away with only a few burns.

That's right. This was just a regulated match. It wasn't a battle to the death.

However, the battle had become so intense in just a few seconds that she had forgotten that fact.

She took a deep breath to calm down and prepared for battle again.

Once her opponent noticed that she was still conscious, he would surely strike again…

…Or not?

Grayfia blinked when she saw her opponent deliberate trying to avoid looking at her, a red hue visible on his cheeks.

"Um…do you need a moment to cover up?" Ichigo asked while resolutely facing his head to the side.

She blinked again, but understood when she looked down at herself.

One of the larger tears on her clothes happened to be right where her rather voluptuous bosom was, revealing them for the world to see.

She blushed lightly and silently fumed at the thought of having accidently flashed her entire race.

"Yes, that would be very much appreciated." She replied to her opponent.

With a snap of her fingers, a magic circle appeared in front of her exposed mammaries, and in an instant, her damaged clothes were replaced by a fresh set that she kept on standby just in case.

"Shall we continue?" Grayfia asked while her mind raced.

She hated to admit it, but her opponent was strong.

She was holding back of course. She had yet to use even 10% of her full power. She had never needed to in any of these evaluation matches, except in one, against her husband's Mutated Rook, Surtr Second.

There was a reason why the clone of the Norse Fire Giant was called the Strongest Rook.

She should have known that someone whose reincarnation required a Mutated Queen Piece belonging to a Maou would be this strong.

She had underestimated him greatly.

If this continued, she was going to lose.

She could not allow that to happen. She was Sirzechs Lucifer's Queen. She could not allow such a disgrace to occur in her King's name.

Her own personal pride as a senior Queen had nothing to do with the matter. Nope. Nothing at all.

The only way she could ensure a victory…was to use her full power.

While still inferior to the four Super Devils who were the current Maous, she was one of the strongest of the vaunted Ultimate-Class Devil, possessing power that could rival any of the original Maous bar the near mythical Satan himself. An attack with her full power behind it was the type that necessitated the redrawing of world maps.

How long had it been since she last used her full power?

As far as she could remember, it was during the Civil War centuries ago.

She wasn't sure how well she would be able to control it after so long, but she was sure her opponent would be able to survive no matter what she threw at him.

She took another deep breath, and drew on the power that had been lying dormant inside of her for so long.

The world began to tremble, shaking under the force of her full might she was now letting loose.

The ribbons tying her hair tore, allowing the silver locks to fall to their full length.

A silver aura manifested around the outline of her body, and her eyes began to glow with power.

The air around her became slightly distorted, out of sync with the rest of the world as the sheer force of her presence began to distort her local spacetime.

However, the most striking change would definitely be her wings. They had multiplied from a single pair to five pairs, expanding to become much larger than before.

There were multiple ways to determine how powerful a Devil was, but the easiest way was to simply count their wings.

Ordinary Devils with ordinary power were born with a single pair.

Obtaining the second pair required Devils to cross a certain threshold of power, decisively above that of ordinary Devils who possessed only one pair.

Naturally, not all Devils could do it. If they did not possess the potential, no matter how hard they trained, they were unlikely to ever cross the threshold.

The third pair required the surpassing of yet another, even higher threshold, as did the fourth pair, and then the fifth.

Thus, the number of pairs of wings that a Devil possessed was a clear indicator of their power, because a Devil who possessed two pairs would always be stronger in terms of raw power than a Devil with one pair.

It was the same between a Devil with three pairs and a Devil with two pairs, and between a Devil with four pairs and a Devil with three pairs, and so on.

Without exception, every Devil who had ever been deemed Ultimate-Class in power possessed more than one pair of wings.

On a side note, children born between parents possessing multiple pairs of wings would find themselves obtaining their second pair far more easily than others, because they would be born with a greater amount of power and potential than other Devils.

Some rare cases were known to have been born with two pairs of wings.

The Devils who had managed to develop five pairs of wings were only a small handful. Five pairs were the same number of pairs of wings that the original Maous possessed, again, with the exception of Satan himself. Therefore, developing five pairs required both Maou-level potential to even have a chance of obtaining five pairs, as well as intense, hellish training that could make even the most stoic Devil blanch.

Grayfia was one of the small handful. Born with immense potential, and after training endlessly for years, she had managed to develop five pairs of wings.

She would still need to hold back, of course.

She didn't want to accidently overpower the barrier and destroy this artificial dimension after all.

Grayfia looked at her opponent, whose face was set in a hard expression.

"So, this is your true form?" Ichigo asked.

Grayfia nodded.

"That is correct. I advise you to focus everything on defending. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee that you will survive." Grayfia spoke with a voice filled with power, causing the air in front of her to shimmer.

A magic circle appeared in front of each of her wings, each preparing a spell of the highest level of their attributes.

Everyone always assumed that she was an ice magic user because she had once fought with Serafall over the position of Leviathan, but that was a terrible misapprehension.

She did not limit herself to a single element like Serafall did, and while her proficiency over them could not compare to Serafall's nearly godlike mastery over ice, they were still at a level that only the greatest magic users of the world could ever hope to possess.

And now, with ten spells of the highest level, backed by more power than she had used in centuries…

"Haa…well, Serafall did order me to do this, so I suppose this is as good a time as any…"

Grayfia frowned when she heard Ichigo mutter to himself and sheath his sword.

Was he…not going to defend himself?

She was holding back enough not to outright kill him, but the wounds he would receive would be grievous at best, and at worst, critical.

Her eyes widened when she felt his power rapidly rising.

Impossible…he had been holding back as well!?

The shaking of the entire area increased as his own full power came to the surface. A pitch black aura appeared his body, and just like in her case, the air around him distorted as the local spacetime was warped by sheer power.

She could only watch, utterly stunned, as a second pair of bat-like wings sprouted from Ichigo's back…followed by a third, and then a fourth, and then a fifth.

At that point, the power he was releasing was already matching hers.

How was this possible!? How could a newly reincarnated Devil possess this much power!?

No, she already knew that he had at least this much power. She simply didn't think he would be able to tap into it in the span of just one month.

Just what in the name of Satan did Serafall teach him!?

This was bad. He had already been overpowering her when both of them were holding back. Now that they were releasing their full power, the same thing would surely happen agai-

Just as Grayfia thought that Ichigo's power could go no higher, she suddenly felt as though a massive ocean had appeared in the sky above her, the incredible pressure threatening to utterly crush her.

She stared at Ichigo with a mixture of awe and fear.

And then…a sixth pair of wings sprouted from his back.

Grayfia almost fainted from shock right there and then.

The highest level that even the most talented and dedicated Devil could reach was the same level as her: Maou-level, signified by five pairs of wings.

However, there was still one more level above even five pairs.

Six pairs.

That was initially a fabled number, the number of pairs of wings that Satan himself was said to have possessed, the absolute proof that his power was superior to the other Maous.

However, few had ever seen Satan, much less the number of wings he had, so it had been thought to be a mere myth.

Until a few centuries ago, where not one, but five Devils were born with six pairs of wings, all in the same generation.

Sirzechs Gremory, Serafall Sitri, Ajuka Astaroth, Falbium Glasya-Labolas, the current Yondai Maous, and Rizevim Livan Lucifer, the son of the original Lucifer.

It was completely unprecedented, and once they grew up, it was clear that each and every single one of them possessed power that even the original Maous could only dream of.

They could not be ordinary Devils, and were thus dubbed Super Devils.

There had never been any such cases before, and since then.

Until now.

As she watched the barrier that her husband was personally maintaining begin to collapse, and the entire artificial dimension begin to tear itself apart at its metaphysical seams, she was sure.

Kurosaki Ichigo…was also a Super Devil.

The new Super Devil lifted his head to look right into Grayfia's eyes, revealing his own glowing blood red orbs, surrounded by a sea of black.

Grayfia's world turned to black, and she knew no more.

That day would forever be remembered by Devils as the day that Grayfia Lucifuge's title of the Strongest Queen was usurped from her, by the new Strongest Queen.

The Sixth Super Devil, the First Reincarnated Super Devil, the Second Coming of Satan, the newest Ultimate-Class Devil, Queen of Serafall Leviathan, Kurosaki Ichigo.


And that's all for now.

So, this is how Ichigo's Hell-based abilities work. When Hell gave him power, it opened a pathway between him and the infernal realm. However, when Ichigo lost his powers, the pathway shut to almost a complete close. When he was reincarnated into a Devil, it reopened, far greater than before, because a Devil's body is far better suited to using Hell's power. Essentially, Ichigo has something like an internal Hell Gate, which allows him to draw on the powers that Hell granted him.

And unfortunately, Getsuga Tensho is unavailable to him. Why? Duh, because he doesn't have a Zanpakuto or a Fullbring. However, this may change later.

And yes, Ichigo's new abilities are indeed the same as Satan's. More on this in later chapters.

For those who are wondering, I still don't have Ichigo's full peerage planned out yet. However, his two Bishops and a Knight are already set. They are canon DxD characters, but are unlikely to make an appearance until near the end of the first book.

Next, I need your help deciding what to write for the next chapter. It can either be about Ichigo's encounter with Fallen Angels and/or members of the Church, or about Serafall's duties as the Maou in charge of foreign diplomatic relations.

That's all for now. As always, please read and review.