Rael didn’t move without information. Emotion clouded judgment. Facts built outcomes.

  So when he decided it was time to bring Aria Minase into his peerage, he did the one thing he did better than anyone else.

  He dug.

  He started at the school. Records were public to devils if you knew where to look—and Rael knew. Her academic history was clean, if quiet. Always hovering above average. No clubs. No sports. Low participation. No disciplinary notes. But her file had a fg: "Emergency contact unavaible. Ward of the state until age 14."

  Red fg.

  From there, Rael reached further. Devil-run networks had eyes in government systems, and Rael had a few favors to call in from Sirzechs’ archivists.

  What he found turned his gut cold.

  Aria Minase was the only daughter of Reiji Minase, a man who’d been arrested ten years ago for the second-degree murder of his wife—Aria’s mother. Aria had been seven. She had testified. Her words sealed the conviction.

  Prior to the murder, there had been four separate hospital visits in a three-year window—injuries expined away, CPS calls dropped, investigations “inconclusive.” But the pattern was there. Bruises. Isotion. Fear.

  Abuse. Years of it.

  Her testimony ended it. But not before her mother was already dead.

  Rael read the report three times, each one slower than the st.

  It wasn’t sympathy he felt.

  It was purpose.

  The next day, he followed her home.

  Not in secret. Not with stealth. Just far enough that she wouldn’t notice. She took the same route every day—down two residential blocks, then a turn into a quiet street where the houses were stacked like forgotten cards. She lived in a rented unit—small, tight, fading paint. The kind of pce people pass by without looking twice.

  Rael waited until morning the next day, when she was sitting alone under the sakura tree near the school library.

  He approached.

  “You avoid people,” he said simply, standing beside her.

  She looked up, startled. “What?”

  “You keep your head down. You don’t talk unless spoken to. You pick the seat near the window, second row, closest to the exit.”

  She frowned. “Are you… watching me?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long pause. “Why?”

  “Because you’re not normal. And you know it.”

  She flinched. Not visibly. But her eyes—she recognized that word. Not normal.

  “You have power,” he continued. “You just haven’t unlocked it yet. You feel it, don’t you? Something under your skin. Cold. Heavy. Like a scream you never let out.”

  Her hands clenched in her p. “You’re crazy.”

  “Maybe,” Rael said. “But I know what I see. You’re not weak. Just scared.”

  “You don’t know me,” she whispered.

  “I know your father murdered your mother,” Rael said ftly.

  Her face went white.

  “I know you were the one who testified. I know he used to hurt both of you. I know that you survived. And I know that surviving wasn’t the same as healing.”

  She stood. “Screw you.”

  “I’m not here to judge,” Rael said, voice level. “I’m here to offer you a way out.”

  “A way out of what?”

  “Living like a shadow.”

  She stared at him, breath catching.

  “I’m not asking you to forget your past,” he said. “I’m asking you to use it. I want you to be part of something that matters. I want to give you power. A pce. Protection. And a reason.”

  “A reason for what?”

  “To fight back.”

  She didn’t say yes. Not right away.

  But the next day, she didn’t avoid him.

  And the day after that, she followed him when he asked her to meet outside town.

  He took her to an abandoned field outside Kuoh—grass overgrown, sky overcast, the chill of te evening clinging to the wind.

  “This is your choice,” Rael said. “If you walk away now, I won’t stop you. But if you say yes—if you join me—you’ll become more than you are. And there’s no going back.”

  “What are you?” she asked softly.

  “I’m a devil,” he said. “But not the kind from stories.”

  She didn’t move.

  Then: “If I say yes… what happens?”

  Rael reached into his jacket. He pulled out the Bishop piece—a glowing artifact, crimson and warm, shaped like a chess symbol but pulsing like a heartbeat.

  “You become mine,” he said. “My responsibility. My Bishop.”

  She stared at it. “It won’t hurt?”

  “It will,” he said honestly. “Power always hurts at the beginning.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “…Okay.”

  The moment the piece touched her chest, her body arched in a silent scream.

  Light surged around her—cold, brilliant white, then sharp blue. Ice ced over the ground in an instant, snaking outward in jagged fractals. Her hair whipped upward. Her hands clenched, and her breath came out in white fog.

  Rael didn’t move. He just watched.

  Her aura—once dormant—fred to life. No longer subtle. No longer flickering. A deep, clear resonance. Elemental. Focused.

  Ice.

  Magic rooted in pain, but refined by will.

  When she colpsed forward, Rael caught her.

  She looked up at him, trembling. “What… what was that?”

  “You awakened,” he said simply. “It’s yours now.”

  “I feel…”

  “Strong?”

  “No,” she said. “Real.”

  Rael nodded. “Good.”

  He helped her stand, and when he looked at her—really looked—he didn’t see the scared girl from the school desk anymore.

  He saw his first piece.

  Back at his notebook, Rael crossed out the line he’d written months ago:

  Potential Bishop. Dormant aura. Unknown outcome.

  And repced it with:

  Bishop – Aria Minase. Ice magic. Trauma-forged. Loyal. High growth potential. Watch carefully.

  Rias peeked over his shoulder as he wrote.

  “Oh, finally,” she said. “Took you long enough.”

  “Shut up.”

  She smiled. “You gonna collect the rest at this pace?”

  “I collect what matters,” he said. “Not what’s convenient.”

  She patted his shoulder. “You’re going to be a terrifying King.”

  Rael didn’t respond. But deep down, he knew she was right.

  And this was just the beginning.