The next morning, the club was packing their bags again.

However, this time, me and my peerage were going with them.

"I can't believe I'm looking forward to returning to the Underworld!" Xenovia said.

"Yes. When I first went, I was nervous, but the atmosphere is actually nice." Asia replied.

"I almost feel like praying for forgiveness from such thoughts!" Irina commented.

"Don't worry, Irina. The section of the Underworld you went to is separate from where the wicked are sent after death," Mother assured. "They are sent to sections of Torment in the Underworld that the Demon Lords have dominion over."

While Mother was in the Living Room with us, I had to ask her a question.

"Mother, during our date-"

"I heard about your encounter with Rahab, yes."

"She was looking for Ascalon, do you know where it is?"

She chuckled. "You will find it soon enough. But I assure you, it is quite safe from her. And even if she does find it, I think the people you will be with will have something to say about it."

I then realized I should not have left my phone out.

"Aika, give it back."

"Come on, I was about to give Matsuda and Motohama a golden reply!"

Knowing Aika, it was going to be something incredibly embarrassing.

I scrolled through the message feed.

She had already sent the message "Whatcha doin' over Summer Break?"

Innocent enough.

Matsuda replied, "We're going to the Beach to hit on the LADIES!"

Figures.

He continued. "You goin' with us?"

Aika, as me, replied, "Nah, the ORC is going on a vacation of their own."

They responded,

"Of course, you already netted the best ones."

"Go to hell! You're too lucky!"

"He's pretty accurate on that one," I muttered.

But I managed to get my phone back before she sent the next reply.

"In fact, I'm going to get to see Rias and Akeno's boobies in the hot spring!"

I glared at Aika.

She chuckled.

I rolled my eyes and backspaced that entire statement.

As we were heading towards the station, we noticed two others rushing towards us with briefcases of their own.

"Lint? What are you doing here?" Irina asked.

"Didn't you say you were babysitting Kuroka during the break, Yuma?" Xenovia asked.

"Well, that's the thing!" Lint said, pointing up with nervous glee. "Yuma-chan told me she had lost track of her and she asked me to come and look for her."

"The Church and the Grigori are going to keep searching on Earth while we join you to see if she hasn't snuck off to the Underworld," Yuma added.

"This could be an issue," Rias responded. "She is a very powerful magic-user, and she could prove to be a threat wherever she is."

"I think the biggest threat she faces is to Makoto's virginity," Xenovia commented

"Could you lay off that?" I responded. "She said herself that she isn't really concerned with that."

"Then why was she so interested in your shirts earlier?"

"Let's just get to the train," Rias interjected. "It leaves in twenty minutes."

We went down the elevator at the station and reached the Gremorys' platform.

"I've been thinking," Aika commented as we approached the train. "Why don't we just teleport?"

"Normally that would be fine, but everyone who enters Underworld territory needs to go through official entry procedure at least once." Rias responded. "Otherwise, they would be charged with illegal entry."

"But haven't all of us here done that?" Ravel asked.

"I haven't!" Lint replied like she knew the answer to the grand prize question.

"My group kinda jumped out a window before we reached the station," I commented. "So, there's that."

"Don't worry. I have already cleared you and your group the last time," an old man with a conductor uniform said as we approached. "I still need to clear you though, young lady," he added, pointing to Lint.

"Yes sir!" she said, cheerfully.

Lint kinda boggles me. She has the same frivolous, and sometimes, trigger-happy attitude as her brother(?), but she is clearly less of a sociopath.

"Hey Mr. Reynaldo. The attack last time didn't cause any setbacks, did it?" I said to him.

"Other than having to install some additional safety measures to combat stowaways, no. Any damage was easily fixed. However, we do have a slight situation at the moment. Follow me, Lady Rias, Sir Makoto…"

Rias motioned the group to stay back as she and I entered the train with Reynaldo.

He lead us to a central train car.

I noticed an alarm was beeping.

"Is that?"

"Yes, the upgraded sensors indicated a stowaway had come aboard."

We entered the traincar. As we approached one of the couches in the car, we found the suspect.

"Oh, good grief." I exclaimed.

"She had somehow appeared on board and has been napping on this couch the entire time, even after she had tripped the alarm."

We had found Kuroka. She was fast asleep while wearing her signature loose-fitting kimono.

"What's even more concerning is that she is a notorious stray devil," Reynaldo considered. "What should our course of action be, Lady Rias?"

She then rubbed her eyes and pried them open, yawning.

"So, you have finally arrived here, Makoto-nya…"

Reynaldo instead confronted her.

"As conductor of this train, I must ask you to leave the train or I will have to employ the use of force."

"That won't be necessary, Reynaldo." Rias insisted. "She has not posed any threat to us."

"Two others have come with us to keep an eye out for her." I commented. "She isn't any real danger."

However, two others had then teleported onto the plane who appeared to be police!

Kuroka then lept up and engulfed herself in a light-blue aura.

"What's going on here!?" I asked.

"We have a warrant out for her arrest," one of the officers responded.

"For what!?"

"The murder of her master… and trespassing on a private train."

I remembered from earlier. Yuuto had said stray devils like her had often escaped after slaying their master. Was Kuroka one of them?

Kuroka looked at the officers with bloodthirsty fury.

Rias then put her hands on her shoulder with her signature tranquil aura.

"It will be okay, Kuroka. I'll get Baraqiel to explain your situation. This will be resolved, I promise."

Her fury gradually settled.

She nodded as the officers cuffed her and teleported away.

"I'll explain this to you on the ride over," Rias said to me.

I could faintly hear a commotion on the train. What was going on?

Eventually, the President emerged from the train.

"Is everything alright!?" I asked.

"Everything's fine, Aika," she replied, and proceeded to speak with Yuma and Lint privately.

I couldn't understand everything they were saying, but I could swear I heard something about Kuroka…

That suspicion was further confirmed by a reaction from Koneko.

"I understand," Yuma responded as the President wrapped up her conversation.

"Let's go, everyone!" she said as she walked back onto the train.

"About time!" Xenovia responded.

The President went ahead to a cabin ahead of us as Reynaldo ushered us to the central passenger cabin.

"We will arrive at our destination in about one hour," he announced. "Until then, feel free to entertain yourselves in the cabin."

Irina had brought a card game known as Rook and we played that to pass the time.

The church trio seemed to be the most familiar with the game. Irina played on a team with Xenovia and they were consistently the best at it. The only reason I stood a chance is I was on a team with Asia.

The other two teams were Hagane and Yuuto, Ravel and Akeno, and Lint and Yuma.

"Man, I'm missing Makoto," Hagane commented as she quickly losing ground to team Irina/Xenovia. "I bet he would be helpful right about now."

"I'm surprised Akeno wasn't the one to make that comment first," Yuuto replied.

"I'm not worried about him while he's alone with another woman."

"Wouldn't that be exactly the type of situation to be suspicious about?" Ravel commented.

"This is Akeno you're talking to," I replied. "Her kinks are an enigma."

Meanwhile, Rossweisse was sleeping on a couch across from us while Koneko was staring distantly out the window.

"Hey, is something the matter, Koneko?" Ravel asked in-between rounds.

She shook her head, with a slightly sullen look on her face that said otherwise.

"Is it about Kuroka?" I asked.

She looked uncharacteristically flustered, followed by a look of resignation a few moments later.

I was in the middle of a chess game with Rias.

"You are getting better at this," Rias commented.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," I replied. "Other than that fluke victory against Sona, I haven't had much luck."

"Now, where were we?" Rias said as we were getting engaged in the chess conversation.

"You said you would explain the situation with Kuroka."

"Oh, yes… You do understand what a stray devil is, right?"

"It's because she killed her master," I responded. "Do you have any idea why she did it?"

"Nobody knows for certain. However, the higher-ups say that her power was growing out-of-control, which caused her to murder him."

"She seemed quite interested in Koneko when we first met," I commented. "What does she have to do with this?"

"Kuroka ran away with her sister. She was never apprehended until now, as she obliterated any squads that opposed her, but, at some point, this sister stayed behind and was caught. Fearing that she would grow up to be as dangerous, it was decided that she would be executed. However, my brother intervened, rightly claiming she was innocent, and put her under my care."

"So that sister is…"

"Yes, it was Koneko. She was called Shirone then."

"Was being a fugitive for so long the reason why she seems… kuudere sometimes?"

"It was worse when I first met her. She barely spoke to me."

"Why wouldn't you speak to the President?" Xenovia asked Koneko.

"I didn't trust the devils. For all I knew, they were all out to kill me or do other unspeakable things to me. And I especially didn't trust my sister. She is the reason I was hated by them."

"Do you still distrust her?" I asked.

"Absolutely. To this day, I refuse to become like her."

There was silence in the cabin after that, and we uneventfully continued our game as Koneko's distant look had turned to spite.

Rias continued, "Eventually I was able to get her to trust me and she opened up to me about her sister. I told her I can give her a new life, one where she didn't have to live in fear.

I asked, 'Would a new name help?' and she said yes."

"And that's why she's now Koneko."

Rias nodded.

We were going deeper into our chess game as we were having this conversation.

Shortly after, it had reached its conclusion.

"Checkmate."

I playfully scoffed. "Still second as a master and a chess player…"

…

"You remember when you first met Asia?" Rias asked me.

"Yeah, why?"

"The heart and the courage you showed when you took her as your servant is just as much as I could ever muster."

"But you keep telling me about these epic stories about how you saved my friends from the brink of death. I could never muster that."

"But didn't you do that with Asia?"

"I did not… She died…" My inability to stop Halja from murdering her is still my greatest failure.

"So did Yuuto. I make mistakes too, you know. But it doesn't matter, because they're with us now, aren't they?"

I nodded. They became some of my closest friends despite their so-called death.

"The mistakes you make don't matter, so long as you rectify them."

She pointed to pieces placed beside her outside the board. "And look – you were able to defeat all of these pieces of mine. It won't be long before you surpass me proper."

I looked at the pieces and nodded. "Thank you, President."

She giggled, and playfully told me. "What did I tell you about calling me that?"

"Sorry, it kinda slipped out," I responded, rubbing my head.

Eventually, we were approaching the Gremory territory.

"So about how big is your family's territory?" I asked Rias.

"It's about the size of Honshu."

"It's that big?" I responded. "I was thinking more along the lines of Kanto…"

With how big the Underworld is and how low the population-density is, especially compared to Japan, you would be forgiven for wanting to go there when you died.

"How was your date with Rias?" Akeno asked me as we joined the rest of the club in the main cabin.

"It was not a date."

"C'mon, it's okay to admit you enjoyed it," Aika responded.

"Don't you get started on that nonsense too."

As we went through the Gremory territory, we reached a mountainous area and Akeno pointed out the window.

"And that's where me and Makoto will live together…"

"O-kay… let's not get too ahead of ourselves."

"Actually, she's not thinking as ahead as you think," Rias said. "Many of my servants have already claimed land in my family's territory."

"Oh yeah!" Aika exclaimed. "I was meaning to get to that."

Rias handed me a book titled "Underworld Atlas" in rune language.

"Be sure to hand that to Aika once you're through with it."

I flipped through it and, sure enough, Rias had marked, in red, and in Japanese, the names of members of her peerage in certain sections of the Gremory territory, including the area I assume we just passed through.

A few minutes later, the Conductor announced, "We will be arriving at our destination at the Gremory residence shortly. We appreciate you riding with us today."

Xenovia stretched out her arms in relief. "I'm glad we didn't get attacked during the ride this time…"

"Could've been worse," I said, putting down the atlas. "Could have been a giant dragon or something."

The train soon stopped. I noticed, as I looked out the window, there was quite a few people around this station. Probably rush hour or something.

But wait, isn't this a private station?

We all walked out of the train and through the station.

I guess it's not rush hour, as there was not a whole lot of people inside the station, though the few of them waved and greeted Rias, who greeted them back.

However, as we went through the station's entrance…

"Welcome home, Lady Rias!"

A massive group of people were congregated outside and cheered out simultaneously, applauding.

Rias coming home for the summer is apparently an event of massive fanfare, completely with fireworks and a military band.

Yuuto, Koneko, and Akeno seemed accustomed to this. Everyone else, however…

"Well that's something…" Aika commented. Xenovia, meanwhile, was rapidly blinking and rubbing her eyes in astonishment and Irina was violently squeeing.

"There was nowhere near this many people the last time…" Ravel commented.

As Rias was joyfully greeting the crowd, Grayfia, followed by an entire platoon of other maids and butlers, approached us.

"Welcome back, milady. I assume the ride went smoothly?"

"Very much so. Yes," Rias responded.

I was about to head back to get my luggage, but the servants were already carting it all to the house.

"I got the message about the nekomata. We'll see what we can work out."

We were then taken by carriage to Rias' home. While it was the second time I had been there, it was still no less impressive.

As we were led in by Grayfia, a young boy came up to up to us and hugged Rias.

"Welcome back, Big Sister Rias!"

"My, you've gotten big, Millicas!"

The boy who I assumed was Millicas had red hair like Rias. His eyes, however…

"This is my brother's son, Millicas," Rias said to me. "Millicas, meet Makoto. He's a close friend of mine."

"My name is Millicas Gremory. It's nice to meet you," he said to me, bowing.

Even the kids are super-formal.

I believe I saw him briefly last time and assumed he was her little brother. But no. She's his aunt!

"He may be young, but he's actually next in line after me."

"What an adorable nephew you have. He even has his mother's-"

"Let us head on inside," Grayfia interrupted.

"Mommy doesn't like that…" I muttered.

"She prefers that it is not addressed in public." Millicas explained.

"Good to know."

Jeez, I need to straighten up. I'm being outdone in the decorum department by a little kid.