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Chapter 58: 6 months
🕑 Added 2025-06-05 01:23:04 +0000 UTCHellnia, Hazy Mountain Range, Baku’s Personal Training Area
Sawyer, vice commander of the Dream Knights, sat atop a tree overlooking the training area, legs dangling as he bit on a fruit, the kind that tasted quite juicy and sweet.
Below, the mist was rolling in thick and theatrical, and he had a front-row seat to the chaos brewing in the garden courtyard.
Beside him stood Noh, the crimson-eyed deviless wrapped in her usual tight blue-and-gold kimono, a fan tucked under her arm and annoyance tucked firmly on her brow. She watched the swirling fog below with a practiced disinterest, which she failed at completely.
“Watching her again, huh?” Sawyer drawled, voice full of mischief.
Noh snapped her fan open and fluttered it in front of her face. “I am not watching her. I’m observing a tactical exercise. Unlike some knights, I take the safety of our fortress seriously.”
“Riiiight,” Sawyer said. “Definitely not because you're worried about Hannya getting herself dismembered. Again.”
Baku had been quite hard on the young devil upon her return from the summoning.
She had arrived 20 minutes late, and though the little devil lied through her teeth about what took her, saying she was ‘so enthralled by the sunset that she lost track of time.’
Noh’s demonic spirit Kabuki had given them the rundown soon after.
“She’s reckless. And childish. And impulsive. And obsessed with…” Noh paused, exasperated by the reminder. “...some boy.”
Sawyer grinned. “She still won’t say it, huh?”
“No one even knows who he is! She keeps mumbling about him like she’s in a tragic romance novel! Struggling to hold in the pain.”
“Well,” he said, nodding toward the chaos in the training grounds, “Tragic is right. Look at that mist. Girl’s practically drowning the garden. Do you know the cost of-”
But his words were swallowed down by a vicious glare from the painted devil. She didn’t want to hear it. It was always money with this cheapskate.
Below, the pink-haired Hannya, the devil trainee and resident creep in disguise, had once again turned her entire body into a dense vapor. Her misty form drifted through the garden, curling around trees, seeping through cracks, and creeping up Baku’s leg like a very determined fog machine with a grudge.
In the center stood Fortress Lord Baku: bald, bearded, and built like someone who could punch a god to angel ash. His arms were crossed, and in one hand, held daintily like a wine glass, was a bottle of holy water.
“Hannya,” Baku said flatly, “I’m not going to stand here all day just so you can play hide-and-seek in that fog.”
“Kikiki, then stop camping.” The mist chuckled.
A fog tendril darted from behind, tapping his shoulder.
Another poked his side.
One tried to trip him, and a fourth attempted a sneak attack on the bottle.
CLINK.
The bottle wobbled but didn’t fall.
Baku sighed. “Cute.”
He raised his hands and clapped.
BOOM.
A burst of mana erupted outward like a thunderclap of judgment, scattering the mist like a sneeze through smoke. Hannya reformed twenty feet away in a disheveled puff of frustration, hair poofed, cheeks puffed.
“What the hell!” she shouted. “You said no explosions! You know how much mana that cost me?!”
“Kahuhuhu! I said, no explosions. That was a clap,” Baku said, still shamelessly holding the bottle like it was his afternoon tea. “And if your mist can’t handle a little air pressure, you’ve got bigger problems than my training methods.”
Sawyer laughed from above. “You gotta admit, she’s getting better. Last time she tried to tackle him after tossing her sword at him.”
“That was a misdirection! A work-in-progress distraction technique!” Hannya yelled back.
“A distraction for whom? Yourself?”
“The hell do you know Sawyer? You shady fuck! Go buy some furniture or something!” She raged, turning back to the old man.
Back on the tree, Noh fidgeted with her fan. “She’s hiding something.”
Sawyer arched a brow. “You mean besides the fact that she’s clearly madly in love with some invisible nerd in the sky?”
Noh snapped the fan shut. “Yes. That too.” But Noh knew there was more…
Down in the garden, Baku’s sharp eyes noticed something again, something he’d been pretending not to see for weeks now.
When Hannya turned, her robe shifted just enough for him to catch the faint glow of five stars in a circle on her back.
Five stars.
Not six.
She was a Supreme-class devil. They were supposed to have six.
One of her stars had already been used.
Which meant…
‘She’s made a wish’ he thought.
She always tried to hide it. Tied her training wraps a bit tighter, turned her body subtly when she bowed. Always conscious of the shame.
And for devils that young, that was supposed to be a taboo. Wishes were sacred. Rare. Powerful. You didn’t burn one just because you lost your lunch money.
But Hannya had.
He didn’t ask. She never told. And devils didn’t talk about that sort of thing. If it had been a noble reason, vengeance, protection, survival,maybe he’d have understood.
The truth?
Even he couldn’t imagine.
‘The mark of a supreme devil.’ Baku thought. ‘Incomplete.’
He decided to take the page from the War Demon’s book, tactful and aloof about the subject.
~~~
The truth was, Hannya had spent her wish on reviving a butler.
Not a special, named butler, but an unknown demon butler with no redeeming skills.
Chauncy, to be specific. some fussy, tea-serving servant of Corrine Baphomet, a mortal warlock whom Hannya contracted with during a feeding frenzy.
When the butler died defending his master, Hannya, emotionally unhinged as usual, offered a contract with that in mind to ensure victory.
Corrine immediately agreed, no hesitation and hope in her eyes.
Wish granted.
Star spent.
Butler revived.
And Hannya?
She returned to Hellnia grumpy, triggered. She never once mentioned the contract again.
‘Fuck!’ she thought. The memory would flash in her head every now and then, and that would be her only thought.
A wasted wish! Just because she couldn’t control herself!
She tried to cope about it during her return, saying it was the cost of her and vainglory’s summer home, but the cost was too damn high! Vain would no doubt give her a side eye if she used that excuse!
Worse still, she had to rescue Vainglory, five stocked, essentially a pauper meeting a supreme!
She had put all her focus into training, trying to keep her mind off of it, but it was driving her crazy. Even with the extra training she asked from Baku, even forgoing checking on her warlock seedling, who by now should have transformed, her mind would only focus on her missing star!
Sure, her training has improved, and she was no longer in a blurry state trying to think up ways to bring the old man down, but who cared about that!
‘I gotta find a way to regain it before the holy day.’ She thought frantically.
There were three ways she knew of to regain a star, all either difficult or taboo.
One was fulfilling 666 contracts. Simple sounding, but everyone wants to milk a devil deal. The stigma of putting your soul on the line was too strong, especially now in Hellnia. So finding simple contracts were difficult.
Still, she had sneaked out and gone around, hiding in alleys of the village at night, offering discount deals, but none of those NPCs would bite!
That bastard busybody Sawyer had also nearly caught her dealing contracts, thinking she was a rogue nomadic devil skulking around. Had she been exposed, Baku would most definitely have roasted her to high Hellnia; she wasn’t having it.
The second would be to gather the essence ‘naturally’. But it was more like gobbling up essence of desire crystals until her star was full.
Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen. They were incredibly rare, and the amount of desire of despair needed would be far greater than one carried. She would need to eat hundreds to get a half tank.
The third way…
“Oi, kid.” Baku interrupted her distracting thoughts.
The garden had mostly cleared of mist, though a faint silver haze still lingered in the corners like sulking smoke.
Baku flexed his knuckles and set the bottle of holy water down on a nearby stump, dusting off his hands like the match was over. “You’re not using your core correctly,” he said flatly. “You’re trying to control the whole area without enough stability. Scatter too wide, and someone like me…” He clapped his hands lightly again. A breeze burst from his palms and rattled the garden trees. “...makes you vanish.”
Hannya gritted her teeth. “That’s why I’m training, you old bag.”
“You’re training wrong.” He cracked his neck. “Your body’s the mist. But the mind guiding it is all over the place.”
Hannya didn’t respond. She just stood there, arms folded, pink hair wind-tossed from his mana wave. She still wasn’t used to losing, at least not like this. Her usual antics, her unconventional tactics, her energy, they all bounced off Baku like paper arrows. And worse, he made it look easy.
Still… she wasn’t that angry.
If anything, she looked thoughtful. Focused. That alone unnerved those watching.
Up on the ramparts, Noh leaned against a parapet with arms crossed, eyes locked on the pink-haired devil below like a cat waiting for the right moment to strike.
“She really is full of herself, isn’t she?” Noh said, voice smooth and cold.
Sawyer, who was resting belly-down on the branch beside her, offered a dry chuckle. “Still mad about the restaurant?”
“She insulted my outfit, and called me a bitch, then accused me of having 'the personality of an old shoe.'" Noh’s painted lips curled. “So I chased her into the woods with my fan.”
“Ah yes. The Great Chase.” Sawyer answered, not bringing up the restaurant repair costs, but eyeing the deviless meaningfully.
Noh ignored the sidelong glance and continued. “She jumped into a thorn bush to escape me. Then laughed while doing it.” Noh's eye twitched. “Who laughs while jumping into a brush of thorns?”
“She’s got a talent for being annoying, I’ll give her that. It wasn’t like she had to do that.” He shook his head.
Noh narrowed her gaze. “Hmph! If she survives training under Baku, I might chase her again.”
Sawyer looked down at Hannya standing in the field. “Well, you’ll have to catch her first.”
Hannya took a step forward.
Then another.
Baku raised a brow, expecting a dramatic dash or a smug little speech, but she simply walked up to the bottle. Just close enough. Not misting this time. Not charging either.
Her hand reached out.
Then stopped.
She stared at the bottle like it was an unsolvable puzzle. “What’s the point of this?” she asked, voice low. “To break it, I mean.”
Baku crossed his arms, a small smile tugging at his stoic face. Not so dumb anymore, huh? It seems moving to the limb-severing difficulty finally knocked some sense into her.
He didn’t consider the event that transpired on the other side at all; he was sure his tough love was the source.
“Holy water burns our kind. Learning to not only break it but also breaking it cleanly is the point. It’s not the glass that’s the challenge; it’s doing it without hurting yourself.”
“And if you do get hurt?”
“You learn how to bleed smart.”
Hannya’s lip curled. “That sounds like something you tell yourself before doing something stupid.”
“Kahuhuhu! Most lessons worth remembering come with pain,” he said, shrugging.
For a moment, Hannya looked down, eyes flicking briefly to the bottle.
She had learned a lot about pain.
How it felt to burn out your core, how your mind could unravel if you spread it too thin. How it felt to offer something important and get nothing in return. How to make a wish and live with what came after.
‘Tch, a wish…’
“Fine,” she whispered. “One more try.”
The mist came back slowly this time.
Not all at once.
It crept over the garden like early morning fog, silent and calculating. No giggling. No lunges. Just pressure. Presence.
Even Baku’s brow furrowed slightly.
“She’s refining it,” he murmured.
The mist wrapped around the bottle. Not him, not his hand, just the bottle. Delicate strands from her core hummed beneath the pressure. She wasn’t just trying to shatter it now. She was feeling for the cracks. The stress points.
Trying to break it not with brute force, but intent.
The bottle began to sweat.
Then hiss.
A single wisp coiled around the lip of the glass—and then, the faintest pop.
Just as it cracked, Baku’s hand shot upward and caught it before it could fall apart. Stopping the spreading drops with his palm, keeping it from splashing on Hannya’s mist.
Then he set the bottle down again, unharmed.
“You almost had it,” he said, nodding. “Real close.”
Hannya reformed behind him, kneeling down with both hands on her knees, panting lightly. “How… much… closer do I need to get…?”
Baku chuckled. “One more lesson’s worth.”
Back on the fortress wall, Noh’s fingers twitched as she watched the display. “She's wild,” she said coldly. “Too much power, no discipline.”
“Jealous she’s improving faster than you thought?” Sawyer teased. Pulling out another fruit from his spatial ring.
“I don’t care how fast she improves. She’s reckless. Self-absorbed. Scheming.”
“And yet,” Sawyer said, tilting his head as he chewed on the silver fruit, “she's got Baku’s attention. That’s rare.”
Noh looked away, teeth clenching. “She’ll trip over herself eventually.”
Down in the courtyard, Hannya sat cross-legged on the grass, watching the holy water bottle again with narrowed eyes.
She rubbed her back absently, just between her shoulder blades. Under her robe, the star markings tingled faintly.
Five stars.
Five lives.
Five chances.
One already used.
She didn’t regret it, not really, ok she regretted it a lot. But the revival had helped Corrine, that sweet girl.
But it was more than that. It had confirmed something. This world could be changed. Molded. Directed toward something better. Something… beautiful.
Hannya smiled.
All it took was patience.
A little manipulation.
And the right timing.
She’d get there.
Two years.
That’s all she needed.
Then the real story would begin.
Later that evening, the garden had quieted. The training ring sat vacant, except for a few shattered leaves still spinning from Baku’s earlier mana burst. Hannya had long since slunk off to soak her pride, and her swollen face in the fortress springs.
High above, in a lavish chamber with red lanterns swaying in the breeze, Noh applied her makeup in silence.
Crimson lines curled from the corner of her eyes like dancing fire. Her face, a porcelain mask of elegance, slowly transformed into her stage persona, Aoi-no-Noh, the Devil Geisha of Hazy Mountain, the Painted Devil for short.
To the fortress staff and guards, she was merely the oddity who played haunting tunes on a stringed biwa at dusk.
But those in the know, those who read beyond the surface, understood that Noh was more than just a performer.
She was the eyes and ears of this humble mountain.
Her show tours were merely a front. Beneath every stage she visited, between every fan she fluttered and bow she curtsied, coded messages passed. Her network stretched from the hazy mountain's edge camps to border outposts disguised as tea shops. Nobles, nomads, and dream beasts weren’t the only threats in Hellnia. Information was power, and she hoarded it.
She set down her brush.
Behind her, a presence flickered into view: a silhouette with a painted devil’s mask, vibrant red with curling horns and sharp teeth. He hovered in the air like a ghost pulled from memory.
“Stop watching me like that,” she said softly.
The masked spirit did not reply.
Kabuki never did. Even though he could, he didn’t unless he had to. He knew it would sour his mistress's mood.
He floated behind her, arms folded like always, the sharp sleeves of his performance robes billowing despite the still air.
Where Noh was elegance, Kabuki had been thunder. He played drums with the force of a war cry, fought like a mad storm dancer, and had a laugh that could shatter windows.
Until the heroes came.
Until the ‘righteous’ burned him.
She closed her eyes and spoke to him as she always did, not expecting a response but needing to say it aloud. “She reminds me of you.”
Kabuki’s mask tilted slightly.
“That same ridiculous spark. That way of walking like the world should get out of her way. Too bold. Too hungry.” Noh picked up her comb and pulled it through her jet-black hair. “You rushed in once, too. Remember? Said you’d ‘charm the priestess into defecting.’ And then came back scorched and laughing, like that was some kind of victory.” She scoffed.
She turned to face him. “She’s going to get herself killed.”
Kabuki drifted slightly closer.
“Don’t give me that look,” Noh snapped. “I’m not worried. I’m observant.”
Her demonic spirit guardian shook his head, shimmered, then flickered out like smoke.
She sighed. “You always were terrible at pretending to listen.”
Back down in the fortress library, Sawyer was asleep, snoring over a scroll titled “Why Your Sword Techniques Are Probably Terrible.” He had long since given up trying to understand Hannya’s strange logic or Noh’s sudden moods.
When things got dramatic, he did what he did best: nap. Now that things were in order, the days of leisure time had made this shade demon lazy once again.
Meanwhile, Hannya wandered the lower halls barefoot, hair wet and slightly frizzed from her bath. She wasn’t sulking exactly, but the holy water training had definitely left a mark.
She stepped into the indoor courtyard, the moonlight casting pale reflections on the koi-pond-style tiles. She sat beside the fountain and traced her finger through the water, silent.
This sucked.
She had improved. A lot.
She was stronger than any devil her age, cleverer, more intuitive, more beautiful, and, well, cheatier. And yet Baku made her feel like she was still an amateur in a kindergarten sandbox.
The bottle hadn’t broken.
And worse, she looked lame in front of Noh.
Noh, whom she’d only just met. Noh, whose elegance made her look like a bumpkin. Noh, who chased her through the woods with a fan after one sarcastic jab about old shoes.
“She needs to lighten up.” Hannya snorted. Figures, the first fellow woman devil she’s met face to face, and she was a total square.
Still, she remembered the look Noh had given her after today’s training.
Not angry.
Not mocking.
Concerned.
For a moment, it made her pause.
Did Noh care?
Nah.
Couldn’t be. That devil was a hater.
…Right?
Atop the fortress wall, a pair of soldiers on night duty chatted in low voices. One of them glanced up at the clouds.
“Think we’ll ever get a day off?”
“Not while that fissure’s still pulsing.”
Below, hidden behind a hanging curtain of ivy, a thin black thread uncoiled. Noh, now fully robed and painted for a performance, crept silently down an unused servant’s stair.
She had a meeting.
Her notes from the last three village shows needed sorting. One of her contacts had intercepted whispers of movement in Greed's territory. She wasn’t sure what it meant yet, but it tugged at her instincts. Greed demons being hunted by a trio of charm demons, enslaved demons disappearing completely, a strange apple salesman.
Too many weird elements moving.
Too many new names repeating.
And Hannya… that girl was at the center of it. Like a storm was forming around her, and she didn’t even notice the thunder.
No…she noticed.
She just smiled like she welcomed it.
“Just like Kabuki.” she muttered again, stepping into the lower archives.
She wouldn’t let Hannya burn out like him.
Even if that meant chasing her through a few more forests.
With something sharper than a fan next time.
And like that.
Six months passed.
