Love and War

by A Decent Hoonter

Cursed with a power he feared, Alfred lived his life in anxious loneliness until one day, a letter arrives. Come to Kuoh, it said, and all your dreams will come true. It was an odd thing, but he had long since learned to accept the strange. Or at least, so he thought. But in a town controlled by devils, he will have to face stranger things than he could ever dream of. (WC inspired)

6. Door to Door

"Any sight of her?"

Kiba sighed as he knelt down by a mangled body, burn marks that clearly came from some form of lightning alongside claw slashes painting a very grim picture. "None yet. Though her attacks have been around the radius of the academy, or so it seems."

The phone in his hand went quiet for a moment as Rias contemplated something on the other end, leaving him alone to stare at the dead exorcist. It was alarming to see an exorcist in devil territory at all, even more so when you were trying to find your friend who had gone rogue. And the lightning marks… while it was her specialty, claw marks and senseless violence weren't. Though sadistic, Akeno was hardly one to go so far as to mutilate someone. Everything about this situation was off.

"With Akeno AWOL and centering her hunting grounds around the academy, we can't risk keeping it open. I'll alert Sona and have her hypnotize the faculty into claiming there's a gas leak. We need to find her before she does something irreversible."

"Would you like me and Koneko to set up some ignorance barriers around the academy area?"

"…Have Koneko do it. If either of you were to run into Akeno and be forced to fight, I'd rather it be you."

He motioned to the white-haired girl beside him, who simply nodded and ran back to the academy to set the barriers up. She was a strong girl, Koneko, and normally he would find the idea of keeping her away from the action to be absurd. But Akeno was the worst kind of opponent for the melee focused devil, and at least his swords would give him an edge in terms of versatility should things come to that. Speaking of. "You sure that it'll come to that?"

"No, but I have a bad feeling about this situation, and I'd rather be safe than sorry."

A bad feeling? From anyone else he would've thought it mere superstition, but Rias tended to have good instincts. If she got a bad vibe from something, he'd be damned if he ignored it. "As you say. And what about the exorcist?"

That was another problem. With exorcists apparently setting up shop in the city, there was little chance that the Church wasn't planning something. It would be a bold move, but the Church always were ones to be as dramatic as possible in any situation they could.

"I doubt this is Church activity. They would've announced themselves much earlier. My bet is on this being a band of strays, possibly lining up with the reports my bats have been giving of potential fallen sightings."

Right, the fallen. Kiba could feel a few dots being connected in his head as he summoned a sword to his hand, the blade so hot it was an orange-white color. "You think that she found out about it and started her own manhunt?"

It wouldn't be the strangest thing. Akeno's feelings on the fallen were simple: she hated them. She hated them more than she could ever hate humans, who she had more complicated feelings about despite her claims. He could almost relate to her hatred of them, though his anger was directed at a more specific kind of enemy.

"Possible. But then again, I did make her aware of them earlier. It wouldn't make sense for to just now start a rampage. This reeks of third-party intervention."

"You think whatever hurt Akeno did this?"

His sister in all but name had been rather cagey regarding that bit of information. She hadn't even said what it was that she had been fighting, only that she had fought it, and that the situation would resolve itself. He wouldn't call it protective, but she seemed to have had a rather strong desire to keep it to herself.

"I'm positive of it. Try and find more evidence of a third-party during your investigation. Something tells me Akeno has been keeping something from us for a little while now."

Damn it. Kiba stabbed the corpse with his blade, quickly burning it to a crisp as he summoned a second sword which absorbed the smoke into it. "I'll be on the lookout then. Anything else?"

"There is one thing. After investigating the letter and some of the faculty, I was able to confirm the identity of the forger."

"Who?"

Rias sighed on the other end, exasperated by the answer in some regard. "The forger identified themselves as 'Azazel Sexypants' and wrote a note for one of the hypnotized staff members to give to me. Unfortunately, it's all in some kind of code or cipher, so I don't know what it says."

So it was a ploy by the fallen, though not one that was expected to be hidden for long. Though what Azazel could want from them or with Alfred, he had no clue. "I see. Is that all?"

"Indeed. Please, continue your investigation and be safe."

"As safe as I can."

Rias grumbled something about him on the other end before hanging up. If he had to guess, it was likely his lack of self-preservation which was somewhat unfair. Just because he was willing to put life and limb on the line for the mission didn't mean he had a death wish, he was just dedicated.

Going to go put his phone in his pocket, Kiba paused as a new idea came to mind. Turning the phone over, he popped open the case and grabbed a rock comm from the inside. Putting it over his ear, he pressed a button and waited for the magic artifact to connect. He could only imagine Rias' disapproval at such an action, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Miss Abe? It's Yuuto, I'd like to hire your services."

… … …

Alfred grunted as he held his knee up, pushing up from the ground as he read Kuroka's handbook. The woman in question had left not long before the sun rose, citing the desire to be out of devil territory as soon as she could. Understandable, though he would admit that it was somewhat disappointing. Her… form was one he liked resting beside.

"Bad thoughts, bad thoughts."

He focused back on the book, taking full advantage of the sudden day off to try and get some meditation done. His strategy of meditative movement was one that seemed to be working rather well, his arms bending as he lowered himself to the ground before pushing off again.

"Let your ki flow like blood, circulating with every breath until it becomes so ingrained that you can hardly imagine living without it."

Reading aloud helped him focus on the words, leaving the rest of his brainpower to getting a feel for his odd new core. Unlike when it was damaged, the thing no longer seemed to constantly generate energy. If anything, getting it to work at all was actually somewhat of a hassle. The process had gone from automatic to manual, and while it granted him much more control over the output, it was much more difficult to work with.

Repetition remained just as useful as ever, at least.

Counting to ten seemed to help with focusing his mind enough to get the core to work, but it was far from effective. If his basic attempts at math were any good, then it was like going from 100% generation to 5%. Not great, and clearly a sign that he was doing something wrong. The question, in that case, was what?

Alfred closed his eyes as he focused on his core, getting a feel for it as he contemplated how to go on from here. None of Kuroka's notes had anything on magical cores, likely because she didn't have one. Demons and the like seemed to be the ones most likely to possess magical cores, with some other exceptions that he wasn't aware of likely existing.

Getting out of his pushup position, he moved his desk over and slid underneath. Grabbing the edge of the desk, he began to lift himself up. "Any idea, Threat?"

Threat lifted a tendril, making a spiral pattern as another tendril pointed at him. "Mess with my own Goetia? Sounds a bit dangerous."

It shrugged before its mass began to bulk on one of the tendrils, the end of an oversized handgun forming on it. "You're too eager to use those things, you know that?"

The construct went away as Threat retreated with a slight attitude. His partner's ability to just manifest weapons it had eaten was… an interesting one. It had scared the hell out of him when a gun formed in the center of his chest during his pull ups, and even after a quick explanation from Threat, he wasn't totally comfortable with it just yet. Not in the sense that it worried him, but more in the sense that he really didn't want to start shooting people.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock coming from his front door. Pushing the desk back into place and hiding Kuroka's book under his bed, Alfred walked over to the front door and opened it to reveal-

"Oh shit."

Isami leaned against the door, bleeding from the head as she held some kind of wound on her stomach. She lifted her head weakly, eyes unfocused as she began to fall forward.

"I've got you."

He caught her before she could hit the ground, closing the door behind him as he quickly carried her to his bed and laid her down. He rushed over to his sink, opening one of the drawers and grabbing the first aid kit stored inside. He rushed to her side, lifting her shirt up to see the wound before swearing at the severity of it.

"We're going to need something stronger."

Her internal organs were visible to him, the sight of her damaged guts sitting there burning its way into his brain. The fact she was alive at all was something he'd attribute to the gauntlet on her left arm, the jewel glowing a bright green as it struggled to keep her alive. He wouldn't be able to save her, not with what he had on hand, and he had no way of getting her to any hospital in time or without having to answer quite a few hard questions. He went to dial for Kiyome on his rock comm, but stopped as a voice rang out from the green gem on her gauntlet.

"Your ki, can you use it?"

Ki? Right, ki could be used to heal. But he wasn't totally sure how to do it. Going underneath the bed, he grabbed Kuroka's handbook and flipped through it quickly to find what he was looking for. "Maybe? But I've never done this before and-"

"Touch the gem, and I will aid you."

Alfred did as he was told immediately, reading the pages as he held a hand over the wound. Red ki formed around his left hand, flickering violently as he struggled to get the energy required to perform the magic.

[BOOST!]

At first, nothing happened other than the gem on the red gauntlet growing brighter. However, soon a flood of power rushed through him as he felt his everything seemingly double in efficiency. The energy around his hand began to stabilize, stretching out to cover the gaping hole in her stomach.

[BOOST!]

It had only been ten seconds at most, but the next boost doubled his already enhanced power. The flesh around the wound began to knit itself together, the insides arranging themselves into their proper places. The healing was practically miraculous, but something else began to take hold on him.

[BOOST!]

Alfred grit his teeth as his chest began to ache, his core spinning faster than it could handle. He could feel the stitching between where his soul was attached and where the original core had been begin to loosen.

[BOOST!]

"C-Can't do much more."

His hand was shaking as his core began to tremble, the still raw seams from his recent procedure coming undone. It was hard to ignore the sensation of having your soul begin to rip in two, but he held strong as the pink flesh of Isami's newly healed skin began to close the gap of her wound.

[BOOST!]

"Sh-Shit!"

Pain began to radiate off from his chest to his jaw, the muscles in his left arm feeling sore as his vision began to blur, nausea beginning to kick in. He held his arm a little longer, focusing on the middle of his vision as Isami practically tripled before his eyes.

[BURST!]

Job done, Alfred fell to the ground as sweat poured down the sides of his face. His core began to slow down, the seams tightening themselves back up though at a glacial pace. He waited a few minutes, then a few minutes more, then some more, all the way until an hour passed. By that point, he was stable enough to drag himself to his feet and glare at the gem. "Bastard… you almost killed me."

"It is not my fault that your soul is so damaged. I simply acted for the benefit of my host."

Fair enough. To be frank, he wasn't even too angry about it. Even if he had known what would've happened, he would have gone through with it anyway. There was no way he would let Isami die, even if it did hurt like hell. "Any advice on that soul business Mr…?"

"I am Ddraig, the Red Dragon Emperor of Domination."

He rolled the name around, working with the Welsh the best he could. "Ddraig? How is that even spelled?"

"D-D-R-A-I-G."

"I would have guessed 'Th', not a double d."

"Most make the same mistake."

Giving Isami another check, he let out a thankful sigh to her resting somewhat peacefully. "And about that advice?"

"…You will find that battle will fuel your growth more than any meditation will."

That… actually checked out. Fighting always left him feeling more at one with himself, which was weird in hindsight, but he wasn't going to question it. Still, he couldn't exactly be fighting anyone in his condition. "Soul's still in the recovery phase, but I'll keep that in mind."

"Good."

The gem went dim before the gauntlet disappeared entirely, coinciding with Isami scrunching her brow and groggily getting up. Her head rolled to the side of her pillow, gaze landing on him as she slowly got her bearings. "Evander? How did I-oh shit!"

She shot up, almost bumping her head into his face before grabbing his shirt and giving him a shake. "I was hanging out with Asia earlier and suddenly this winged bitch came in and threatened to kill me but then Asia said not to and the bitch agreed but then she threw a glowy spear at me and then spit on me before telling me to crawl like a worm which normally would be the hottest thing ever but was really fucking scary and-"

Alfred grabbed her face with both hands, squeezing her cheeks as he stopped her frantic ranting. "Fallen angel woman stabbed you and left you to die. What about Asia and how did you get here?"

Isami calmed down a bit, though her hands still wrangled with one another as she anxiously recounted her story. "Asia was taken away by some big tiddy blue haired lady before the bitch stabbed me with a spear. A-And afterwards I used my Boosted Gear to give me enough strength to get to you, since you're kind of the only person I know who's in the know."

None of what she said boded well, especially if those are more fallen like that one other guy had been. As much as mounting a rescue seemed appealing, they were just two people. Well, more likely just one since he doubted Isami was capable of fighting well enough to be useful in that situation. She sorely needed some training. But then again, maybe it didn't have to be just two people.

Alfred reached into his pocket, grabbing his rock comm and placing it to his ear. He tapped the bottom of it, waiting for Kiyome to pick up. A minute passed, and then another, before the comm stopped vibrating altogether. She must be busy the-

Another knock came from his door, tickling his annoyance somewhat as he held a hand up to Isami. "Wait here a minute."

He walked to the door, grabbing the handle as he spoke out to his guest. "Who is-"

"Found you~"

The door was kicked inward, the force behind it sending him slamming into the back wall of his dorm as his rock comm fell off his ear and hit the floor. He grunted, pushing the door off of him as his eyes landed on his attacker. "Himejima?"

The devil grinned as she walked in, wearing a different version of her typical priestess garb. The long red skirt had been replaced by a long strip of cloth which went down her front but left the sides of her things exposed, her legs covered by purple spandex. Her sleeves were still there but now her hands were covered by the same purple spandex-like material, fingers sharp with claws while the part of her garb which normally covered her chest was cut much lower than usual, revealing a fair amount of the top of her breasts. Or at least, it would have had the spandex not gone all the way up to her neck. The once white parts of her outfit were now black, the red belt and loincloth a very familiar shade of red.

"We've gotten to know each other so well, Alfred. Just call me Akeno."

Before he was able to reply, she sprinted towards him faster than she ever had before. He braced himself the best he could, the air getting knocked out of his lungs as she crashed into him and through the back wall of his dorm. Glass and stone shattered against his back as she grabbed hold of him, her wings bursting from her back as she flew out of the dorm and tossed him onto the roof of a nearby building.

"Shit!"

His skin scraped against the concrete roof as he rolled to the edge, stopping just before he could fall over. Turning to his side, he froze as a clawed foot covered in the purple spandex appeared in his vision.

"Miss me?"

She grabbed him by the shirt, tossing him back to the center of the roof.

"You wouldn't believe how long we were searching for your energy, Berserker. Her memory of your dorm was too blurry, but thankfully you decided to flare your powers so potently for us."

"Us?"

Stumbling to a standing position, Alfred's eyes widened as two tendrils sprouted from her shoulders, each one sporting mouth filled with sharp teeth. "Malice!?"

Akeno gasped playfully, looking towards one of the mouths as she giggled. "Daddy remembered your name, isn't that wonderful?"

His hands flexed as Threat formed around him, physical strength increasing significantly as his partner's power became his. The back of his mind began to count as he forced his core to generate some power, hoping that it would be enough against this new threat. "You sound… different."

She gave him a wolfish grin, teeth sharper than usual as he noticed a red tint to her violet eyes that were not normally there. "Better, you mean? I was so confused before Malice helped me see what I was blind to."

"Which was?"

He dreaded the answer, especially as her grin turned cruel and her tentacles shivered in excitement. "That my hate was more powerful than I ever knew."

She lunged forward, faster than he could ever dream to move as she slashed at his chest, cutting through Threat with ease. He went to grab at her arm, but she bent her body out of the way and grappled him instead.

"Gotcha~"

Her arms held him in a headlock as a sudden draining sensation overcame him. The energy that he was carefully generating was being stolen through her touch, and the moment he realized it he quickly threw her over his head.

"Did you just-"

Twisting midair, she landed on her feet with a dexterity not even he could match as a tendril shot from her chest and wrapped around his leg. It yanked him to the ground, allowing her to straddle him as she placed both hands on his chest and moaned. "Mmmm, yes! Malice was right, your energy is absolutely wonderful~"

He tried to move his arms, but two tentacles slammed them to the ground as her superior strength kept him from moving at all. Threat tried to fight back, shooting a tendril from his chest to knock her back, but all it succeeded in doing was making her laugh. "I could drain you forever, Berserker. You just make me feel so nice and full inside as you fill me up with your essence!"

Her face was flushed with arousal, which only served to terrify him somehow as he struggled further in vain. "Wh-Why are you-"

"Why? Because I want to!"

The material around her neck began to creep up to her lower jaw, an aura of pure malevolence burning around her. Two more fanged tentacles launched themselves from her chest, biting at Threat's mass around his chest. "Your energy just feels so good! I can't get enough of the feeling! It's like every single emotion I have is just bursting at the seams with every drop of it I taste!"

A long tongue darted from her lips, reaching all the way down to his freshly exposed neck and running along the skin. She shivered, tongue returning to its place in her mouth as she bared her fangs. "I'm going to keep you as a pet, Berserker. A pet to drain every night before bed, wouldn't you like that?"

"N-Not… really…"

It was getting hard to stay awake, her touch forcing his core to produce more energy despite his attempts to stop. Her claws dug into his chest as she grinded against him, lifting one of her claws and tasting the blood. "Mmm, every part of you is just delicious~"

The edges of his vision began to darken, but right before unconsciousness could take him, she suddenly leapt off his body with a hiss.

"Damn it, Kiba!"

Kiba? Alfred tried to lift his head, but the best he could do was have his neck tremble before giving out completely. He could vaguely hear shouting, a flash of silver and a crackle of lightning, before he lost what little strength remained and succumbed to darkness.

… … …

"Damn it, Kiba!"

Akeno stood before him, an unfamiliar expression on a painfully familiar face. Kiba summoned a blade to his hand as she shot a bolt of lightning at him, the sword attracting the energy to it and glowing as it absorbed the lightning's power. "Akeno, you need to stop this! You're not acting yourself and we're worried sick about you!"

She hissed at him, an unnaturally long tongue escaping her lips as she crawled along on all fours like some animal eyeing an enemy. "Liar! All you ever do is look down on me, tell me that my ways are wrong! You're not worried, you just want to stop me from doing what I should have done ages ago!"

"Killing random people!?"

Another hiss, her eyebrows curving downwards in the purest rage he had ever seen from her. "They're murderers! Rapists! The scum of the Earth! Why does it matter if I kill them? Why does it matter if justice is served!?"

"Because not all of them are irredeemable monsters, Akeno!"

Her methodology was flawed, too reliant on her intervention to be a clear litmus. Not that she ever saw it that way, especially now as she screamed at him. "Of course they are! You of all people should know that everyone's a monster if you look hard enough! One minute they'll offer you bread, and the next they'll kill the people you love!"

Acting somewhat rashly, Kiba took a step closer with his hands outstretched. She didn't react immediately, simply maintaining her bestial defensive position as he argued back. "Akeno, you're not making any sense right now. What about Rias, or Koneko, or even me? Are we monsters too?"

She turned her head to the side, lips pursed as she struggled to reconcile it. "I-I don't- you are-"

The substance around her jaw began to recede, her inner conflict putting a pause to her rage as the aura around her began to dim. "I-I don't know, I just feel so angry. So much hate, I can't- I can't-"

He dropped the sword, letting it dissipate back into magic as he approached her slowly. "It's okay, you're okay. We can talk through this and I promise, I promise I'll listen to you. To every word."

"You will?"

She began to stand normally, hands returning to normal as she started to approach him. Internally, he let out a breath he had been holding for a while now. Things seemed to be looking up.

"Urrrrgh."

The creature she had been fighting groaned as it turned to its side, drawing her attention. She stopped walking towards him, pupils dilating as her malicious aura returned to full strength in an instant. "Him."

"Him?"

She practically salivated as she began to approach the downed man, crawling on all fours as the madness took hold of her once more. "I need his magic. It makes my thoughts clear, my hatred strong. I need it, Kiba. I need it."

His instincts screamed at him to stop her from touching the unconscious person, pushing him to step between them as he tried to reach her rational mind once more. "Please calm down, just for a moment. You can't-"

"You can't stop me!"

She moved faster than she had ever moved before, but not fast enough to match his knight-enhanced speed. A sword formed in his hands, catching her claws as he angled the blade in such a way that the majority of her attack's force was pushed to the side instead of into him. "You're not thinking straight!"

A tendril burst from her back, almost striking his unguarded side. Once more his speed saved him, allowing him to tilt his blade just far enough to divert the tendril's trajectory and save himself from the blow.

"You're right."

Kiba watched carefully as she leapt back, a façade of calmness returning to her even as her aura only strengthened. "I'm making a fool of myself with all this yelling and grandstanding. What better way to prove my point than to show you?"

"Show-"

He didn't get to finish his statement as she took a step back, falling off the roof before taking off into the sky. Taking a few steps forward, he stopped himself as he remembered the other person on the roof. Dismissing his sword, he knelt by the horrific looking stranger and went to check his pulse. The creature's skin began to spasm around it, tendrils much too similar to Akeno's flailing about before stopping suddenly. Suddenly, the skin around its face began to recede, revealing it to be a mere suit of sorts as a familiar head of red hair revealed itself.

"…It really is you, Alfred."

He hadn't believed it when the girl had called Kiyome in a panic, but there was no denying it now. Somehow, Alfred had managed to make an enemy of Akeno while also infecting her with whatever that thing on her was. Kiba found himself torn between concern for his friend and anger at how he had cursed his sister figure. He settled for something in the middle, grabbing Alfred's arm and throwing it over his shoulder before flying back to the dorm.

Landing in Alfred's ruined dorm, Kiba almost jumped as two worried brunettes practically jumped him and grabbed the redhead from his grasp.

"Holy shit, he got fucked up."

"Indeed he did, that idiot. He was supposed to be taking it easy!"

Kiba stood there with crossed arms, biting the inside of his lip while Kiyome checked his… friend's health. Friend, it was hard to say if that was true right now. Perhaps it was just his frustration talking, but the man being fussed over by the two girls had all but poisoned Akeno, somehow. It was only due to the fact that she seemed so eager to harm him that he was as willing to hear the man out as he was, knowing that had it seemed like Alfred was taking advantage of her that he'd likely be out for blood.

Still, there were ways to get answers outside of the man himself. "Abe, explain some things to me."

Kiyome didn't seem eager to listen to him, but eventually extracted herself from the unconscious redhead as she fixed him with a rather stoic expression. "He's been a patient of mine for the last week and… and a friend. He has some rather troubling medical issues which he's supposed to be taking care of by resting, but it seems that trouble is a closer ally to him than the familiar bonded to him."

Her mention of a familiar made him look to the odd creature wrapped around Alfred's body, the visceral design doing little to ease his concerns. "And what of the creature?"

"That? Well, I'm still working on it. From what I can tell it seems to be a symbiotic creature which absorbs his excess energy as food in exchange for its power."

Kiba's eyes narrowed as he connected the dots. "Akeno has something similar bound to her, though that one seems less helpful."

A lightbulb must've gone off in Kiyome's head, as she suddenly began to pace around the dorm. "Right, Alfred mentioned that Threat had made offspring. But he said it had been destroyed during a fight? Well, obviously not since it's attached to Himejima. Maybe the explosion simply launched it onto her? That would explain her irrational behavior. After all, it was born from the bloodlust of several demons."

Doing his best to absorb what information he could, another tidbit of information popped up in his mind. "She seemed strangely obsessed with his magic. Is that also a consequence of the thing bound to her?"

Kiyome clapped her hands together, pointing towards Alfred with perhaps a bit too much excitement. "Of course! Threat requires his magical energy to survive, and before it had been ejected so did Malice, the offspring. If Threat's mass is so saturated with his energy that it literally needs it to survive, then maybe that need got inherited by Malice as a sort of addiction! Like when a baby is exposed to alcohol in the womb and is born with an addiction to the stuff!"

The theory seemed sound in his mind, especially considering the borderline desperate attitude Akeno had exhibited earlier. That only left the obvious question. "What do we do about it now?"

That took the wind out of Kiyome's sails, as she slumped forward with a sudden tiredness that ran contrary to her earlier excitement. "Now, we get this idiot to my lab and hope he wakes up soon. As much as you may not like it, he's our best bet for getting your friend back to normal."

Another sound theory, and one he wasn't as upset with as she might've thought. If things were as she said, then Alfred was likely yet another victim in all this. In which case, it would be his duty to help the poor bloke. "Then let's get moving. I'll call Rias and update her on the situation while you set up a teleportation spell."

"Ugh, her."

Choosing to wisely ignore Kiyome's obvious dislike of his master and friend, Kiba pulled his phone from his pocket and called Rias. It rang for half a second before her voice came through from the other side, hesitantly hopeful. "Kiba? Did you find her?"

Glancing towards Alfred, he felt the beginnings of a headache come over him.

"Rias, we have a situation."

… … …

I absolutely speedran this somehow, having started the chapter late afternoon and finished it only like, 6 hours later. That sounds like a lot of time, but a good 90 minutes of that was me talking shit about the Borderlands movie trailer with some friends on Discord. To be honest, I didn't think I'd get this done today and while it is a shorter chapter than normal (only 5k words), it's still got some length to it, maybe a little girth.

And yeah, Akeno is currently on full psycho mode. Alfred's unintentional fuck up and Threat's bigger fuck up has screwed him over massively at the worst time possible. Not only that, but Asia's plot is happening in the background too. So… yeah. That's going to be hectic as fuck. Either way, Akeno is going to have one hell of a post-nut clarity when things are said and done.

One last thing, the whole merging soul and core thing isn't so much a power boost as it is more of a… surgery of sorts. I mentioned this as a comment to someone else, but I wanted to experiment a bit and see if I could lean into the idea of the recovery process being the powerup rather than the core merging itself. Sort of like magical self-improvement. I think it might turn out pretty good, so here's to hoping my somewhat risky move pays off.

This has been A Decent Hoonter, and devils do devious deeds during dark days.