Smoke curled from the tip of a student's cigarette behind the gym. It wasn't legal. It wasn't smart. But that was the thrill of it — until he blinked and found his cigarette replaced by a candy stick.
He looked up.
A tall man in a well-fitted Kuoh Academy uniform — monocle perched elegantly on his face — stood watching.
The student frowned. "Who the hell—?"
Amon gently tapped the brim of his new, regulation school cap. "Students aren't allowed to smoke. You know that. But your defiance is amusing. You may go."
The student blinked again. A moment passed. He dropped the candy stick, no memory of what he was doing, and wandered off with a dumb grin on his face.
Amon exhaled contentedly and straightened his collar. His illusion was in place — forged perfectly into the database. His name: Amon Monarque. Transfer student. Stellar grades. No family records. Just believable enough to go unnoticed by normal humans — and just off enough to invite the attention of the abnormal ones.
Which is precisely what he wanted.
Kuoh Academy — Morning Homeroom
The moment he stepped through the door, silence fell.
Not because he was intimidating. Not even because he was unfamiliar. But because he seemed... too perfect. A gaze that reflected too much. A smile that curved a little too knowingly.
Even the supernatural beings in the room — like Issei Hyoudou or the distant stoic Kiba — couldn't quite name what unsettled them.
"Class," said the teacher, blinking as if she hadn't read the name on the roster before, "this is our new transfer student—"
"Amon Monarque," he finished smoothly, giving a practiced bow. "Pleasure to be among the gifted youth of this nation."
Gasps from several girls in the room. Whispers too — mostly about how he looked like a fallen noble out of a romance novel. But his eyes didn't dwell on them. Instead, he scanned the back row… toward Issei.
Ah, the Red Dragon Emperor in larval stage.
Delightful.
Student Council Office — Afternoon
"President, there's no record of where he transferred from," murmured Tsubaki as she handed a stack of files to the bespectacled girl sitting primly at the desk.
Sona Shitori — or more accurately, Serafall Leviathan's sister, Sona Sitri — peered at the falsified records.
"Everything checks out on the surface," she said softly. "But look at the date stamps. The student ID registry updated before the request was made."
Tsubaki's eyes widened. "Time displacement?"
"Possibly. Or someone is tampering with cause and effect." Sona adjusted her glasses. "We're dealing with a high-level reality manipulator."
"Should we tell Rias?"
Sona shook her head. "Not yet. She has her hands full with the fallout from Raynare. Besides…"
She glanced at a security feed showing Amon sitting quietly in the library, reading The Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley — where did he even get that?
"…I want to see what he does."
Library — Same Time
Amon turned a page, savoring the irony. He had just reached the phrase:
"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."
Chuckling softly, he ran a finger down the book's spine, whispering a phrase in Hermes' tongue that would ripple through the paper and leave behind a glyph invisible to normal eyes.
Just a little spell. A whisper in ink.
Let the curious find it. Let the devout misinterpret it.
The game always started with a book.
Cafeteria — Later That Day
Issei couldn't help but glance at the new guy. Every time Amon walked by, it felt like his sacred gear twitched.
Kiba noticed too. "Something's off."
"You sense it?" Issei asked.
"His magic signature is—no, was, demonic. But it keeps shifting. Like it doesn't want to be known."
Amon sat across the cafeteria alone, calmly unwrapping a sandwich. Several girls giggled behind their hands. One slipped him a love letter.
He read it, smiled warmly, and burned it between two fingers with a snap — no flame, no heat. Just gone.
Later — Abandoned Clubroom
Amon pressed his hand to an unused door on the top floor. It had been locked since the school's founding. Ghost stories surrounded it. Some said it led to another building that was demolished. Others claimed time looped behind it.
He opened it.
The room beyond was full of mirrors. Cracked. Warped. Broken.
His own reflection stepped out of one, winking.
"Well, isn't this familiar," it said in his voice.
Amon stepped forward, monocle gleaming. "We'll need a base of operations. This place has history. Good for illusions."
He passed his hand over the room. The mirrors straightened. Glass reformed. The floor shimmered into black marble, adorned with red velvet curtains and glowing glyphs in a language older than this dimension.
Perfect.
Elsewhere — Grigori Database
Azazel rubbed his temple as the anomaly pinged again.
"He infiltrated the school within 12 hours. Tch."
He opened a new file. Title: "Project Trickster Deity?"
Below it, a single line typed itself out, without his input:
"Why do you seek to explain what was meant to be experienced?"
Azazel froze.
Then grinned.
"Oh, you clever bastard."
Sona's Office — Night
Tsubaki stared at the security feed again.
"He just disappeared," she whispered.
Sona didn't reply. Her gaze lingered on a still frame. Amon smiling, hand raised toward the camera, as if waving… no — saluting.
"To whom?" Tsubaki asked.
Sona answered coldly. "To whoever's watching."
Back in the Mirror Room
Amon leaned on a velvet chair, watching flickers of the future.
Sona, smart and structured. Rias, proud and bound by fate. Issei, the boy of dragons and desires. Azazel, the reader of forbidden texts. And the gods above, too blind to see what's walking among them.
He pulled out a deck of tarot cards, shuffling lazily. One card floated out and spun in the air:
The Fool.
Amon laughed softly.
"Too obvious."
He let it burn away in blue flame, and drew another:
The Tower.
His smile widened.
"Better."