Chapter 8 (Patreon)

Now, more than ever, I understood the grumbling of those washed-up old cultivators from the crappy little sects I’d joined in my earliest lives. “Forget everything else and cultivate,” they’d tell the youngsters, and they meant literally everything. Their ideal novice would do just three things: eat, meditate, and train. Everything else was a complete waste of time.

Some idiots would joke about what the hell kind of life that was… Stupid trash. Then again… I’d been just like them, and so had those Senior Masters, who were no stronger than senior disciples in a decent sect. You needed to reach a stage where aging slowed right down, and the sooner the better. Otherwise, you’d be stuck looking like an old geezer until you learned to control your body’s appearance—assuming you lived that long.

Sure, after so many cycles of birth and death, I wasn’t nearly as worried about aging anymore. I knew exactly what to look for within myself, how to sense qi, how to awaken my dantian, and how to circulate energy through my meridians as efficiently as possible—strengthening them, growing new ones, and nourishing the Core of Life. I had no trouble “remembering” the proper movements for active meditation, which resembled kata from exotic martial arts (most of them actually were kata, and regular practice made certain techniques much easier to perform). And then there was alchemy, of course.

Plenty of combat specialists frowned when a young practitioner they considered so promising spent his time on an important but secondary branch of the art. After all, the sect would provide all the pills and potions you needed. Just show some results… Well, they didn’t know I had recipes for incredibly powerful and useful concoctions that could be made from ingredients many sects considered practically worthless. And that wasn’t even counting the pill that could take a body with only the most basic preparation and, in next to no time, bring it to a level some people spent years or even decades reaching. The only catch was that the Ascension process had to be controlled very carefully. The changes were drastic, and the pill lacked the semblance of intelligence an Evil Piece had. It was crucial to guide those changes in the right places.

Well, given my ridiculous workload, I could understand those wrinkled lifelong disciples who’d pissed away their youth on pointless crap. Inside me, selfishness and responsibility were fighting one hell of a battle. No, scratch that… Selfishness against selfishness, greed for immediate gratification against greed for future rewards:

I needed to keep my grades up, keep my kendo skills sharp (Goto-san still had more to teach me), fulfill my duties on the disciplinary committee, spend a reasonable amount of time socializing with Sitri-sama and her servants (which was pretty draining, since I wasn’t used to it), help out with student council work, fine-tune my energy system, rebuild the array for the Nine Eyes of the Sage, carry out my duties as a demon, stay in shape, make time for my parents…

So I had to cut back on anything that wasn’t essential, starting with sleep. I often replaced it with still meditation anyway, resting my brain as soothing “tidal waves” of qi washed over me (demons didn’t need as much sleep as humans, either). Even my precious two hours of entertainment took a hit, along with my wushu classes, which, frankly, had outlived their usefulness after Ascension.

I was incredibly grateful to Sitri-sama when, after three days of the student council’s “crunch time,” she paid my family a visit and thanked Mom and Dad for letting me turn my sleep schedule upside down.

While she was at it, she arranged for me to move into the academy’s dormitory. Kuoh did have one, though it was practically empty. It was left over from the days when the academy had been an elite girls’ school. Back then, students had come from all over the prefecture.

My Lady deftly used her eloquence and magic to sell them a half-truth: the Shitori family had taken an interest in me as a serious, promising student and was offering me an intensive study program. Honestly, it really was a tempting offer: the school curriculum, tours of Shitori businesses with a chance to see how various departments worked, extra classes, and university prep. And the prospect of the Shitori family covering my tuition at a prestigious university was nothing to scoff at, either. The whole pitch was sweetened with magic, so my parents took her at her word and were enthusiastic from the start.

To be completely honest, I wasn’t thrilled about my folks being put under a spell, but I agreed with Sona-san that this would be much quicker and easier than getting me into the Shitori company’s very real program without magical help. Getting through the red tape could take weeks, and I’d soon have serious contract work to do at night. Moving into the dorm would free up a ton of time and open up plenty of opportunities. And I could still drop by the Chiba family home whenever I had a spare moment, cook Mom and Dad something nice, and tend to the tea bushes.

“Are you ready, Taro-kun?” Tsubaki-san’s cold voice interrupted my train of thought.

“More than ready.” I gave the Queen an easy smile and looked over at the other Rook. Yura Tsubasa. Energetic, cheerful, a bit of a tomboy—which only added to her charm. My sparring partner and my senpai on the disciplinary committee.

“I don’t like that little smile of yours, Taro-kun.” Despite her words, Tsubasa sounded cheerful. “Far too condescending. But that’s all right. We’ll soon wipe it off your face.”

I just smiled wider. My week of delivering flyers for “initiation” was over, and the veil of mystery surrounding the tradition had been lifted. Not that there’d been any mystery to begin with. Sitri-sama had explained it all clearly enough. It was all about reincarnation, adjusting to newfound powers, and getting some basic training for fieldwork.

Alongside the traditional busywork usually left to familiars, a newborn demon received basic training. The things even a “newborn” absolutely had to know. For instance, on my very first day as a demon, Sona-sama herself had told me about her family: her esteemed parents and her older sister, Serafall Leviathan, one of the four rulers of the Demon World. Of course, that wasn’t all. There was also a brief history of relations between the three biblical races: Demons, Fallen, and Angels. The devastating three-way war they’d fought many centuries ago, with enormous losses on every side, had been a major turning point in their history. That war was precisely why demons recruited servants from among mortals and other races, turning them into reincarnated demons.

The losses had been too heavy, and now the Underworld was trying to rebuild its population without resorting to “we’ll take anyone we can get.” They carefully selected only strong, worthy individuals, and the Evil Pieces helped with that—you couldn’t just shove one into the first person who came along. A Piece had to… hmm… respond. In this case, “The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter—not the other way around” was the perfect analogy.

I’d also been given a broad outline of magic in the Demon World. A “newborn’s” energy system was supposed to settle down over that week so they could begin practical training. And of course, delivering flyers gave a young demon a safe way to get to grips with their new nature and start getting used to their enhanced physical capabilities and newfound powers. And even a freshly reincarnated demon’s basic abilities were… impressive.

First off, I could now sprout wings. I hadn’t quite figured out how that worked, or why my clothes reshaped themselves instead of tearing when the extra pair of limbs appeared. I couldn’t fly with them yet—or levitate, to be precise—but they looked like a very promising subject for further study. Like my other demonic abilities, they left me asking, “How does this work?” My body was my Kingdom, and I’d always known what went on inside it. That was a basic requirement for a practitioner at my level. Every bone, every muscle, every blood vessel—I knew them all inside out. But the wings… they were there and yet they weren’t—beyond my understanding for now. For now.

Second, Dialectos. Another impressive ability. Pure, unadulterated magical wizardry. Understanding every language in the world and being able to get your meaning across to anyone, whether they spoke Chinese or the language of the African Bushmen. Not actually knowing the languages, but understanding them… a sort of automatic translator. A perfect translator that made even untranslatable wordplay make sense. It was always on. Unlike an array, it didn’t need to be activated, rebuilt, or even fed energy. It was there—but where? Just like the Great Quartermaster’s famous gopher: you couldn’t see it, but it was there.

Third, longevity. Had I just… hit the jackpot? Yeah, probably. Nobody had ever heard of a demon who’d kicked the bucket from old age. They grew up as quickly as humans, then, once they reached their prime, aged incredibly slowly. For me, with a cultivator’s abilities, that meant Eternity. An endless life in my prime. That alone would have been enough to make any practitioner sell themselves into slavery to any demon family, weeping with joy. Serve a couple of millennia in exchange for physical immortality when you’re not even sure you can break through to the higher levels of existence? Pfft! Where do I sign in blood?

Fourth. The good stuff. The really good stuff. Demonic power. Let’s be honest: this was the most important of the lot. I’d never had trouble with languages—I’d become quite the polyglot over all those lives. I’d never lived long enough for my body to grow old and frail anyway. And I’d soon be able to levitate without the fancy wings. But an extra… hmm… form of energy, something other than qi that I could manipulate… Now that was Power. I didn’t even know what to compare it to, what analogy to use. More ways to grow stronger, a bigger arsenal in combat—those were just the obvious benefits.

Demons who knew how to handle demonic power could pull off all sorts of interesting tricks. Boost their physical stats, create barriers, mess with people’s minds, launch attacks, change their appearance, put together complex constructs like teleportation circles, create and power artifacts, and much, much more. Basically… I was a very happy, very satisfied man. And once we got here, to Hell—or the Underworld—“absolutely ecstatic” was about right.

Just as I’d expected, the place was brimming with energy. We’d barely teleported into House Sitri territory before I started planning little outings to collect the local herbs and assorted critters, eyes narrowed in satisfaction as we headed for the training grounds. I’d need to stock up on jars, tubs, pouches. Containers of all kinds, basically.

But that could wait until next time. Today, I was going to find out what my new nature could really do. In other words, Sitri-sama had decided to put me through my paces with the help of her servants. The whole group was at the training grounds, and my first opponent would be Yura Tsubasa, the other Rook. She was supposed to show her young kohai how it was done, so to speak. Yeah, sure. I was planning to show her a thing or two myself.

“Taro-kun.” Tsubasa, dressed in a lightweight tracksuit, tilted her head. “Don’t you want to take off that pretty robe? It’d be a shame to get it dirty or tear it.”

The thing was, I was wearing the sort of outfit I’d grown used to in my previous lives, and I’d sewn it myself. Something like a pao: a floor-length robe with wide sleeves, side slits, and embroidered bamboo patterns. Some might say it wasn’t exactly practical for fighting, but I’d disagree. The perfect outfit for someone who knew how to fight in it. You could hide a whole arsenal in there, conceal the movements leading up to a strike, and as for comfort… skill was what mattered. A master could fight naked or in a boyar’s sable coat. Besides, given a practitioner’s speed and strength, “grab the hem and yank” simply wasn’t going to work—the robe was specially sewn, so that bit of fabric would just tear off.

“Don’t worry, senpai.” I shook my head, watching my Lady’s Queen take her place to Sitri-san’s right. “It’s made for fighting.”

“Begin,” said the President, her lovely voice a little weary as always. The other girls and Genshiro-kun had gathered beside her.

“Let’s give Sitri-sama a good show, Tsubasa-san.” I bowed slightly, touching my right fist to my open left palm.

“All right.” She returned the bow and settled into a fighting stance.

While we were on disciplinary committee duty together, she’d told me that before meeting Sitri-sama, she’d fought all sorts of supernatural nasties using martial arts and her innate powers. So I was hoping for an interesting fight, at the very least. Her demonic power made it impossible to tell whether she was an awakened practitioner at one of the lower stages, but I suspected that “innate power” of hers was actually qi. I could be wrong, of course, but I was a big fan of Occam’s razor.

Sona sighed softly. Taro-kun was an intriguing puzzle, and he had a knack for surprising her. Here was another example: one brief exchange, and the experienced Tsubasa-chan was lying on the ground while her kohai pursed his lips in mild disappointment. “Just like some old man,” the heiress to House Sitri thought.

“How is that even possible?” Her Pawn sounded utterly astonished.

“I had a feeling this would happen,” Tsubaki murmured thoughtfully, watching impassively as a thoroughly stunned Tsubasa-chan got to her feet.

“You’re not taking me seriously, Tsubasa-san.” Chiba Taro shook his head reproachfully. House Sitri’s newest Rook stood at ease in the same spot, arms folded across his chest, hands tucked into the sleeves of his Chinese-style robe. “Please don’t hold back or go easy on me.”

Sona merely nodded thoughtfully. Tsubasa hadn’t seen Taro’s fight with the Fallen, so her opening strike had been far too casual. She’d clearly held back on both speed and power, either going easy on the newcomer or simply not taking him seriously—and paid for it immediately. He’d shifted his upper body, letting his senpai’s fist slip past his shoulder, then delivered a rapid series of punches to her chest, finishing with an open-palm strike that sent her flying several meters and rolling across the ground. But as far as Sona could tell, Taro hadn’t used his full strength either. Her new servant had simply given Tsubasa a little “wake-up call,” a reminder to take the fight more seriously.

“All right…” Yura Tsubasa drawled, a hint of menace in her voice as she glanced at her Lady. Sona gave her a small, encouraging nod of approval.

The two clashed again at once. Yet Taro still didn’t suffer the defeat most of the onlookers had expected. He stayed right where he was, easily dodging the girl’s powerful blows while watching her intently. He blocked a couple of Tsubasa’s attacks with light movements of his hands and met one of her kicks with his own. Then annoyance crept across his face. His expression darkened with every second of the fight, until anger flashed in his eyes.

“What do I have to do to get you to hit me with everything you’ve got?” he asked without breaking off the fight.

“What?” His opponent disengaged, jumping back a meter.

“Everything you’ve got,” Chiba repeated, visibly irritated. In a strange, quick gesture, he swept his thumbs along his cheeks and back behind his ears. His cheek twitched in annoyance.

“Like he was trying to tuck long hair behind his ears,” Sona thought.

“Every strike must carry the intent to kill,” he said grimly. “Otherwise it’s not a strike—it’s a farce. We’re both Rooks. Phenomenally strong and incredibly tough. Why are you treating me like Emperor Fu’s fine china?”

“Taro-kun…” Tsubasa was clearly at a loss.

“Right now, I’m your opponent, Tsubasa-san.” For the first time in the training session, he assumed a fighting stance Sona didn’t recognize. “The outcome of real battles depends on how you spar. Those who are careless in training meet an inglorious death in battle. You must fight to win, not fool around. If you won’t take this seriously, I’ll make you. Forgive me.”

And with that… he surged toward Tsubasa so fast that Sona’s eyebrows shot up. He was little more than a blur, unleashing a barrage of swift, powerful punches and kicks that gave Tsubasa no time to adjust to the onslaught. A couple of seconds later, her body shot several meters straight into the air. And Taro followed her!!! Every so often, he punched or kicked at thin air, apparently pushing off it to climb higher while continuing to pummel his senpai. As for Tsubasa… she was clearly overwhelmed by the assault.

“Hypocrite.” Sona wasn’t sure which she felt more strongly toward Taro right now: disapproval or approval. She could see that Chiba wasn’t using his full strength either. Despite Tsubasa’s confusion, despite the situation she was in, Sona saw no sign of pain on her face as his relentless attacks sent her flying higher and higher. Bewilderment, shock, surprise—yes. But none of his blows made her grimace in pain.

The aerial battle… or beating… ended with a tremendous downward kick. The girl slammed into the ground with a crash that made Sona’s Queen wince and Momo let out a quiet gasp. Taro, meanwhile… remained standing in midair, still in that “arms folded, hands tucked into sleeves” pose. His expression was calm once more, but his gaze was grim.

(This is an experiment. What do you think—should I include pictures like these from time to time? They’re AI-generated, obviously, so the quality is… hmm… well, illustrators will probably cringe, but I got hooked on the idea.)

“Are we sure he absorbed a Rook?” Momo asked quietly, glancing sideways at Sona.

“He was fast even before his reincarnation,” Tsubaki answered for her Lady. “But yes, he’s every bit as fast as a Knight.”

“Sitri-sama,” the boy said respectfully, somehow standing in midair without manifesting his wings. “Perhaps Tomoe-san could join Tsubasa-san?”

“All right,” Sitri said after a moment’s thought, nodding to her Knight.

“But he’s unarmed,” Meguri Tomoe said with mild surprise, touching the hilt of her katana.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Taro said with a snort. In a movement too quick to follow, he drew two metal rods from his sleeves and snapped them together. He tossed the resulting “contraption” into the air and, just as quickly, drew two more identical rods through the slits at the sides of his robe. He joined those together, then caught the first section. Another click, and he was holding something like a metal bo staff, with elaborate patterns worked into its surface.

“Hmm… How about we make it five against one, then?” Tsubaki suddenly spoke up, studying Chiba thoughtfully. “A Rook, a Knight, two Bishops, and me against you? What do you say, Taro-kun?”

“That would be wonderful!” The boy beamed and suddenly jumped down to the ground. Or rather, he simply fell out of the sky, as though the support beneath his feet had vanished.

“Sona?” Her Queen gave her a questioning look.

“Four. The Knight, the Bishops, and the Rook.” Sona shook her head, turning to Yura, who was dusting herself off. “Tsubasa-chan, are you all right?”

“Yes, Sona-san.” The Rook gave her a crooked smile. “The only thing bruised is my pride…”

“My apologies for that, Tsubasa-san.” Taro bowed to her, but she simply waved it off, still looking annoyed.

“Taro-kun,” Sona said, drawing his attention. “Facing four opponents is a serious challenge, so please give this sparring match your best effort. Remember, Meguri is my Knight, and she’s very fast and skilled with a blade. The Bishops, Momo and Reya, provide magical support. I wouldn’t advise taking their magical attacks lightly. As for a Rook’s strength and endurance, I doubt I need to explain those to you. The girls already know how to fight as a team, so I don’t want to see you making the same mistakes as Tsubasa-chan.”

With those last words, Sona gave the dejected girl a gentle smile to show she wasn’t angry with her. Remembering Genshiro-kun’s first sparring match a couple of days earlier, she could understand why her Rook had gone so easy on Taro.

“I’m always serious, Sitri-sama.” The boy nodded, lightly tapping the butt of his bo staff against the ground.

“Sona, Taro-kun. Call me by my first name.” She sighed. Taro kept calling her Sitri-sama, and Genshiro had taken to doing the same. Sona found it a little… irritating.

“Forgive me, my Lady.” He bowed his head apologetically, prompting another brief, discreet sigh from her.

“Get ready.” The heiress to House Sitri nodded to her Pieces, casting a sidelong glance at Tsubaki, who had resigned herself to being a spectator but still looked a little disappointed.

Her Queen thought Chiba was far too sure of himself and kept trying to rein him in. Not out of malice—far from it. Shinra Tsubaki cared deeply about her comrades and saw House Sitri as her family. She really was worried about the boy, afraid his arrogance might land him—or Sona—in trouble.