“Alright, Vassal! Vera wants you stable, and Ignazio wants you trained! Fast-track to the basics! Ready to feel the power coursing through your veins?”
Luke rubbed his palms together, trying to ignore the way his soul was still vibrating. “Ready, Vianne-san. But please... let's keep the destruction to a minimum. I like this kitchen.”
Vianne winked, a spark of imperial violet dancing in her eyes. “No promises! First lesson: Aura Projection. Focus on that cold, immense feeling Vera gave you. Push it out through your hand. Like this!”
She thrust her hands forward. A beautiful, solid column of imperial violet energy shot out, glowing with a soft, steady hum. It dissolved gently against the wall without leaving a scratch.
“See? Simple! Your turn.”
Luke closed his eyes. He reached inward, past the pain, looking for that Crimson energy. He found it. But as he tried to grasp it, the Golden-White pillar—the Apostle Eyes —snarled. It didn't want to be caged.
He pushed the Crimson energy toward his hand... and the Gold light surged with it, like a parasite clinging to a host.
SEARING PAIN!
A sharp spike erupted behind his eyes. The Morningstar Imprint on his chest hammered against his ribs like a frantic bird. Luke screamed, his eyes snapping open—and he saw the disaster unfolding.
Two chaotic plumes erupted from his hand. Dark Crimson, writhing and hot, and Icy Gold, crackling with frigid static. They didn't blend. They didn't cooperate. They collided two feet in front of him.
KZZZZZZZT. CRACK! SHATTER!
The air didn't just vibrate; it underwent a phase shift. The tile floor under the Gold plume was instantly coated in a three-inch layer of frost.
The area under the Crimson plume blackened and began to smoke, the granite counter cracking under the thermal shock. The pressure wave hit the far side of the room, blowing out a reinforced window with a deafening bang.
Luke collapsed to his knees, his vision swimming.
Vianne, who had jumped back, stared at the ruined floor. Her cool, mature persona was gone, replaced by pure, unadulterated shock.
“Holy... Fragmentation!” she swore, rushing to his side. “Are you alright, Luke-kun? That was... disastrously spectacular.”
Luke gasped for air, his lungs feeling like they’d been scorched and frozen at the same time. “I tried to suppress the gold... it just followed the red. What happened?”
Vianne’s magenta eyes were wide. She placed a hand on his shoulder, sending a cooling wave of energy to soothe his fried nerves.
“That, my adorable Vassal, is the true power—and the true curse of the Morningstar Imprint,” she explained, her voice dropping all playfulness. “My family’s Imprint usually separates and amplifies. But Vera’s Imprint is a prism. It saw your mixed Divine and Demonic power as a single unified concept... and it shattered it into two completely opposite, equally potent halves.”
She pointed to the frozen, blackened floor. “They don't mix. They instantly annihilate the space they occupy when they touch. The Demonic is pure destruction. The Divine is pure, cold control. Until your Demonic half is strong enough to act as a permanent cage for the Divine... you cannot afford to use any power at all.”
She helped him stand, her grip firm. “Rule Number One for the newbie Devil: Don’t use power. Not until you figure out the Master’s shackles.”
Luke’s face darkened. “So I’m just a ticking time bomb.”
“No, no, Luke-kun! You have potential! Vera saw it, and I see it too. You just have to find a way around the conflict. Listen: don't force it. Feel it. Maybe they can work together, or maybe you need to use the opposite approach? Let the Gold guide the Red?”
“Feel it, don't force it...” Luke mused. It was the same thing his old Kendo instructors used to say. “So I need to find a way to make them dance instead of fight.”
Vianne nodded, though she looked nervous. She glanced at the ruined window and the shattered counter.
“Um, Luke-kun...” She quickly grabbed his arm, pulling him toward the patio door. “Let's take this lesson outside. I really, really don't want a second scolding from Vera today.”
“Fair enough,” Luke teased, a weak smile returning to his face. “You did kind of let me destroy her kitchen.”
Vianne pouted, her face flushing. “Hey! That’s not nice! I was trying to help, hmph!”
Luke laughed, a genuine sound that made the catastrophe feel a little less heavy. As they stepped out onto the wide, green grass of the yard, he felt a renewed spark of determination.
“Alright then, Vianne-san. Let’s get active. Round two.”
...----------------...
The familiar, metallic thwack of the screen door hitting the frame was a sound that should have signaled safety. To anyone else, the Kazama residence was a modest, suburban home, but to Luke, stepping over the threshold felt like a dizzying descent from another dimension.
He wasn't the Vassal of a Devil Princess here. He wasn't a "Walking Catastrophe" or the "Sixth Apostle." He was just Luke Kazama, seventeen, a high school student with a messy room and a dinner to eat.
“You’re late! Practice runs long or did you finally get scouted by an idol agency?”
The voice belonged to Miku, his younger sister. She was a whirlwind of motion, currently setting the table with practiced efficiency.
She was dressed in second-year high school fashion—effortlessly stylish even at home. Her magenta eyes—a shade so strikingly similar to Vianne’s that it sent a fresh jolt of unease through Luke danced with mischief.
“Hey, was that a black limo I saw pulling away? Is my big brother finally hanging out with the celebrity crowd?”
Luke forced a tired, practiced smile. His muscles ached from the conceptual riot in Vera’s kitchen. “Nah, just a wealthy transfer student giving me a lift. Miku, I have news. About school.”
Miku stopped, a pair of chopsticks poised in mid-air. “Don’t tell me you’re suspended again. I can’t be the only one in this house with a clean record, Luke.”
“Worse,” he teased, though the weight in his pocket—the transfer papers—felt like lead. “I’m joining you at Seishu Academy. I’ve been transferred.”
The chopsticks didn't just drop; they clattered to the floor. Miku’s eyes went wide, reflecting a mix of shock and pure, unadulterated joy.
“WHAT?! You’re serious?! You actually got in?! That’s the most prestigious school in the district!” Her voice rose into a frequency that made Luke’s ears ring. “We can walk home together! I can show you around! The Kendo club is desperate for members with your reach! This is amazing!”
“Miku, dear, inside voice please,” a gentle voice floated from the kitchen island.
Sora Kazama, their mother, was standing by the stove. She possessed a quiet, understated strength, but her features were mapped with a weariness that Luke knew he had caused. As she turned to face them, her warm smile faltered. She didn't look at the transfer papers in his hand. Her eyes went straight to his posture—the way he held his shoulders, the tension in his jaw.
“Eight months of that Tokyo commute... I saw you withering away, Luke,” Sora said softly, approaching him. “You were collapsing into yourself, losing weight, coming home like a ghost. I knew you aimed high, but I also know what happens when you push yourself past the breaking point.”
She stopped in front of him, her ordinary brown eyes searching his face. “Seishu Academy? So sudden. Is this really about a better program? Tokyo High was a good school.”
Luke deployed the cover story Vera had helped him craft, keeping his voice steady despite the Morningstar ring pulsing against his skin. “It’s a scholarship opportunity, Mom. A special transfer for students with... specific extracurricular potential. Vera, my contact there, said I’d be a perfect fit.”
Sora didn't look convinced. Her gaze dropped, fixing with horrifying intensity on his right hand—the hand wearing the Covenant Ring.
“Are you sure, sweetheart?” she whispered. The air between them cooled. Miku was back to humming a song, oblivious, but the space between Luke and Sora felt like a confession booth. “Are you... pushing yourself again? Like you did before Italy?”
The word Italy hit Luke like a physical blow. It was the family code for the nightmare they had fled.
Sora leaned in, her voice a conspiratorial, anxious thread that shielded the truth from Miku. “This isn't just about a school schedule, Luke. That power... it isn’t a gift. It’s a curse that followed us across oceans. When you were stressed about Tokyo, I saw the signs returning. The silver light flickering under your eyelids when you slept. The twitch in your hands.”
She reached out, her fingers hovering near his right hand. “I remember Rome. I remember the Vatican Basilica.” Her voice trembled with a decade of suppressed terror. “When the Apostle Eyes first opened... the gold light didn't just shine. It cracked the marble floors. It almost brought the entire facade down on our heads. We were lucky Father Thomas was there to intervene.”
She stared at the spot where the Covenant Ring sat. Luke knew what she was looking for. Underneath that violet metal was a scar that had never faded.
“It took everything Thomas had,” she whispered. “That forbidden ritual... embedding that damned Apostle Key into your hand. The one they called the Key to the Apocalypse. He only meant to contain the first burst so we could run. We fled the next day like thieves in the night.”
Luke felt the cold, physical memory surge: the blinding gold light, the smell of incense and burnt flesh as the ritual key was forced onto his skin, and the terrifying, infinite power that had been violently suppressed.
The Covenant Ring wasn't just a mark of Vera’s possession. It was a secondary seal. It was binding the chaos that the Vatican’s Key had failed to fully hold back.
His power wasn't a superpower. It was a catastrophe waiting for a reason to happen.
Luke looked into his mother’s eyes, forcing a hard, certain steel into his gaze. He had made a pact with a Devil to protect this house. He couldn't back down now.
“I am doing this, Mom, so that the worry about the Key ends forever,” he said, his voice carrying a resonance that made the ring on his finger glow faintly beneath his sleeve. “I am doing this to build a future where we don’t have to run from the shadows anymore. I promise you. I will handle it.”
Sora studied his face for a long time. She saw the new, dangerous edge in his eyes—the steel of a boy who had died and come back with a purpose. She sighed, the sound of a woman accepting the inevitable. She took the pen from the counter and signed the transfer form with a shaking hand.
“Just… be safe, Luke,” she murmured, her voice thick with a mother’s dread. “And please. Whatever you do... don’t let them see those eyes again. If the Vatican finds out the Sixth Apostle is active... there won't be anywhere left to run.”
Luke took the signed form, the paper feeling as heavy as his new covenant. “I won’t, Mom. I promise.”
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