RSE CH 27 (Patreon)

Shuri opened the door with a small creak.

Kira and Leo strolled into the club’s main room. Leo stopped just past Shuri while Kira awkwardly walked away, sitting down beside Kline on the sofa. 

“Arara! Ufufu~! Welcome, Leo,” Shuri greeted him.

“Sorry for intruding.”

“Nonsense! You are our guest—nimantraṇa literally means ‘invitation’… even if it is a rather formal way of asking you over.”

Leo released a sigh of relief on hearing Shuri’s words. The walk with Kira over to the club had been mentally taxing because she’d remained silent, no matter what he’d said to her. He’d wanted to get to know her, but she had been indifferent, cold even. The petite, white-haired girl had simply nodded every now and then when he’d tried to get her to open up. 

This uncomfortable silence had persisted from where she had beckoned him to follow her outside the lab all the way to the student center. Unfortunately, Leo wasn’t even able to break the ice. By the time they got to the Occult Club, he felt… awkward. 

In the end, the last part of the short walk had been in an uneasy silence. After trying several possible conversation starters and coming up with nothing, Leo didn’t know what more he could say. Nothing had seemed to work, so he surmised that silence was his only option.

“Oh!” he heard a voice call out from the adjoining bathroom. “Leo is here already?”

“Damn it all to the seventh hell!” he heard a woman curse—though he didn’t think she’d meant for him to hear.

“Give me a chance to change and I will be right there!” she said. A moment later, the redhead walked calmly out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. 

‘How bold. Or should I say, as expected of a devil?’

He was mildly surprised that Rayne seemed to feel no shame about bathing while a man she knew hardly anything about was in the next room. She hadn’t looked his way before ducking behind a painted screen to get dressed. 

Then again, it probably wasn’t much of a big deal for a devil like her. It wasn’t as if he’d seen her fully naked, so there was no need for her to be embarrassed—not that any woman would be embarrassed about such an amazing figure. 

He could see her shadow on the painted screen, and damn, she had a really nice figure.

‘She doesn’t seem inferior to Miss Hastings at all.’

Leo coughed a little to hide the embarrassment that threatened to turn his cheeks a vibrant pink as he remembered what had happened with Miss Hastings the other day in the clinic.

He didn’t think of himself as shy. His mother was also quite shameless, flaunting both her flawless body and her affection for her husband so often around the house that he considered himself somewhat immune to being embarrassed by a beautiful body. 

What he had gone through the other day with Miss Hastings was different, and on a different level altogether. In the end, his mother was his mother. He simply did not think about her the way he’d done with the mature, alluring lady who was completely unrelated to him.

Shuri giggled as she guided Leo to the other sofa for him to sit down and relax, thinking Rayne had been the cause of his blushing. “Tea? Or Coffee?” she asked.

“Coffee, please. I’m not really into tea. “

Shuri nodded and went to get him a coffee, leaving Leo alone in the room with a silent Kira and the enigmatic Kline.

‘How awkward….’

He sensed a faint trace of aggression coming from Kline, but it seemed the hostility was not directed particularly at him. As for Kira, he could see that she wanted to ask him something, but stopped herself and then fidgeted restlessly in her seat instead of speaking up.

Since he didn’t understand why either of them would act this way, there was nothing he could do. So, he simply stayed quiet and waited for Rayne to come out from behind the painted screen.

Shuri’s voice came from the kitchenette across the room. “Leo, you’ve been in town for quite some time now, right? What do you think of our quaint little Spartanburg?”

Leo shrugged at Shuri’s question, though she wasn’t likely to see it as she was focused on adding two sugars and a bit of creamer to his coffee. He was surprised she knew how he liked his coffee.

“Honestly, I’d hoped simply to finish college here and then leave as quietly as I came. You can imagine my surprise when I sensed there were so many devils here.”

“Fufufu~! I can well imagine.” She tilted her head to one side as she brought him his coffee. “Though I am still perplexed about how you do not seem to discriminate against devils—reincarnated devils like us in particular. One would think that someone who had been taught at the Vatican would have certain prejudices.”

Leo fell silent at her probing words. What she said made sense—though it also showed they’d done their homework on him. From the perspective of most humans, reincarnated devils were considered traitors, having betrayed their humanity in favor of something ‘better’. 

Though not all reincarnated devils had been humans, most of them were. It was easy to turn a human into a devil—compared to most other races, that is. In Shuri’s and Miyu’s cases, since they were formerly of the Shinto Faction, they actually were traitors. 

Their clans violently opposed the Devil Faction. But even that didn’t mean much to Leo.

He shrugged. “Everyone has their own circumstances. We each have our own story—one that leads us down a certain path, be it good or bad. I’m not important enough to be worthy of judging any of you.” He looked the other way. “At least that’s the way I think about it.”

How could he judge another? And why would he? Much good—including himself—had come from what others judged to be wrong.

Like how he was exiled from the church… or how his father fell in love with a devil, despite being an exorcist sworn to fight her kind. Like how Shuri and Miyu had been shunned by their families for embracing a chance at life.

It wasn’t about right or wrong. 

Often there wasn’t good or evil in what happened in this sad reality. And reality wasn’t simply black and white. Everything had a reason, and absolutes were a fallacy.

Because of what he was, both as an individual and by genetics, Leo tried not to judge people by their appearance or their race. He judged people by their actions.

He gave four sets of stunned eyes another shrug. “None of you are evil devils. It’s not like you enjoy tormenting weak humans. Why would I be biased against you?”

Silence fell as all four devils looked at him with dazed expressions. Each had their own complex set of emotions his words brought forth.

“As I thought,” Rayne said, “you are eminently suited to be one of us.”

Clad in an unbuttoned, white long-sleeved blouse and her pink-colored panties, Rayne crossed the floor from the corner where she’d been getting dressed. Her youthful, alabaster skin shone under the light coming in the windows. Her still wet hair gave her a vulnerable look on top of her already vulnerable, some might say desperate, appearance.

What drew his eye, even more than her desperation, was her incredible bust. It was much bigger than he’d expected on a woman her age.

‘Is she really only twenty years old?’

Her body was too glamorous to be that of one so recently a teen. Of course, Shuri was equally attractive and nearly as busty.

‘Now that I think about it, Saori was stacked as well.’

He smiled when he remembered the times they’d shared a bath. It was a very awkward memory.

“Please, Leo, join my circle!”

His reminiscence was stopped by her abrupt outcry. 

Rayne, clearly uncaring about her appearance, rushed across the room to kneel in front of him as she made her proposal. Her anxiety had been at an all-time high before Leo’s arrival. After hearing his words of compassion and wisdom, she wasn’t able to control herself and blurted out her proposal. 

The moment the words left her mouth, she wished she could reel them back in. She already knew he was likely to refuse. The way she’d thrown the offer out there like that, it had decent chances of backfiring. But she couldn’t afford to care. 

Leo was everything she needed and more. He would make the perfect addition to her circle, and she needed him. She was willing to do almost anything to get him. To get him to join her, she would pay almost any price.

Leo blinked. He was at a loss for words at the abrupt declaration but, more importantly, he didn’t know where to look. He settled for staring over her head. He certainly couldn’t look down—he knew himself well enough not to think he was strong enough to maintain eye contact. 

Not with those weapons of mass distraction!

He sighed. “ First of all, could you please wear your clothes properly? Secondly, this isn’t why you called me here, right? Let’s leave it for later.”

Rayne was caught off guard by his words and blushed the moment she realized she’d rushed out before she was fully dressed. She’d hardly done more than put on her bra when she’d rushed out from behind the changing screen upon hearing his compassionate words. 

Though her blunder stemmed from her agitated emotions, she nodded in response to his question. “You are right. I am terribly sorry. I got ahead of myself…”

Uttering those words, she darted back behind the screen and finished getting dressed. Once she was fully clothed—checking twice to make sure she’d not done the buttons of her blouse up out of order—she returned and sat in her chair.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she addressed Leo. “You told Shuri that you wouldn’t join my circle because I was too weak, right?”

Leo bit back a sigh. “No. I told Shuri that I wouldn’t join your circle, period. Then, I added that even if I wanted to—which I don’t—it wouldn’t be possible.” He shrugged—though part of him winced at how often he seemed to be doing that. “When Shuri asked why it wouldn’t be possible, that’s when I explained that it was because you are too weak.”

Shuri tilted her head to one side, pressing a hand to her cheek. “You… are quite mindful of the details.”

Leo sighed. “Mother said to always be careful with my words around devils. You never know when they will try pushing you in a contract by finding a loophole in your words to get what they want.”

Rayne smiled. “Your mother is indeed wise. But you do not need to worry. I will not try to convince you through treachery; it is not my way.” She smiled at Shuri, Kline, and Kira. “Feel free to ask any of them, I see the members of my circle as family. It would be stupid to force anyone to join us. That goes against my principles.” She crossed one leg over the other and held her hands out to the side. “I’m many things, Leo, but I try to abide by the principles I set for myself.”

‘She isn’t lying,’ he thought.

Leo knew from rumors that the Mephistos were said to treat their servants better than other devils, but it was still interesting to see what that meant.

“Still,” Rayne continued, “I wish to convince you to become at least ally, if not to join. To do that, I wanted to show you our power.”

Leo wanted to say that even if she was stronger than he suspected, it wouldn’t change a thing, but he held back.

“That’s why I invited you over tonight the way I did. I wanted to apologize for what happened with Sharon Sitrin, and I wanted to demonstrate what my circle can do while offering to show you a side of the town I doubt you’ve seen.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” he asked.

“We are about to hunt a stray devil.”

Leo’s pupils constricted at her words, and he looked at Rayne as if she was crazy. He thought back to what Lucy had told him the other day. ‘Does she not know there’s a stray ultimate class devil on the loose?’

“Our target is a stray devil. They are only a lower devil, though it may be more accurate to say it is nearly a median devil.”

He blinked. 

‘It seems she isn’t that crazy.’

“From the way you are talking, I’m guessing you already have a plan. You know what kind of power the stray has? You know not only where to find it, but where you will fight it? Are you sure it doesn’t have allies? What will you do if the mission fails and we need to retreat?”

This time it was Rayne’ turn to look at Leo as if he was crazy.

“I mean… It’s just a lower or median devil. Worst case, it is barely a median. Why would we need a plan against someone so weak? We’re simply going to blast them to oblivion.”

‘Oh…’ Leo closed his eyes and suppressed a sigh. 

Only now did he remember the difference between humans and devils. For most exorcists—meaning those without holy swords or Divine Gears—hunting a median devil was a matter of life and death. A full team would be assembled, and everyone’s task would be rehearsed to ensure they got the greatest results with the least risk of casualties. 

Even then, finishing the mission successfully without a few deaths would be unlikely.

Was Rayne wrong in her way of doing things?

Not necessarily. With such an overwhelming difference of power, plans could be considered a waste of time and skull sweat. His father never made a plan when he was hunting small fry.

The question was, did Rayne and her circle possess such overwhelming difference in power?

The answer for Leo was a definitive ‘no’. At least, not when there was an ultimate class devil in the area. To a peak devil, Rayne and her circle would be little more than a speed bump.

If they approached even simple fights like this, one day they would face an enemy they had no chance against. And then, they would die.

‘I promised Saori to take care of Shuri if ever I met her.’

As such, his choice was clear. Leo knew that he didn’t have a binding obligation to fulfill that promise, and there were those who would say this made him something of a pushover, but he didn’t care. He did his best to keep his promises because he was mindful of the weight of a promise.

“I will accompany you.”

He hoped that they would just have to fight a lower stray or two. Against a peak devil, it was smarter to run as fast and as far away as he could.