Jin calmly accepted the information he had received. The revelation about the nature of his soul provoked neither panic nor despair. Only a cold, detached understanding. The problem had been identified, which meant a solution would be found sooner or later. Azazel, exhausted by the sleepless night and emotional swings, retired to rest, muttering something about needing to "digest." Jin, feeling a sudden pang of hunger, allowed the re-summoned maids to escort him to the dining hall.
***
The Grigori common dining hall turned out to be an enormous, echoing space, more akin to a high-tech food court than a military mess hall. Dozens of Fallen Angels sat at tables, eating, chatting casually, laughing. The atmosphere was surprisingly relaxed. None of the fear or tension Jin had expected to find at a secret organization's base. Just mundane routine.
The maids, having led him to the serving line, bowed deferentially and withdrew. Jin, taking a tray with something resembling fried meat and rice, surveyed the hall. His gaze swept over dozens of faces and caught on a familiar group. At one of the tables in the far corner sat them. Reynalle, Mittelt, and Kalawarner.
They looked... broken. Not physically, but morally. Listlessly poking at their plates with their forks, they barely spoke. Their shoulders were slumped, and a frozen hopelessness and emptiness lingered in their eyes. Jin understood—the knowledge that he was here, on their base, pressed down on them like a gravestone. They were waiting. Waiting for him to come for them. And he decided not to disappoint.
With a predatory, anticipatory smirk, he headed toward their table.
Mittelt, sitting with her back to him, felt a tray land on the table in front of her with a loud thud. She whirled around, ready to vent her accumulated irritation.
"Occu—"
The word died in her throat. Her eyes widened in terror. Before her, with a pleased smile, Izayoi Jin stared directly at her. He casually dropped into the chair beside her, crossing one leg over the other.
Mittelt's heart seemed to stop, then plummeted somewhere into her heels. She lowered her eyes, her body freezing, transforming into a statue. Reynalle and Kalawarner froze as if they had stopped breathing, their faces turning white.
"Pfft... haha," Jin let out a quiet, guttural chuckle, full of superiority. "Relax, will you."
He reached out and carelessly ruffled Mittelt's light-blonde hair. She flinched at his touch but dared not move, only pressing herself into the back of her chair, looking up at him with frightened eyes.
"The food here isn't bad, by the way," Jin continued, proceeding to eat as if nothing had happened.
His arrival had the effect of an exploding bomb. A wave of surprised whispering rippled through the dining hall. Fallen who didn't know him by sight stared curiously at the insolent stranger who had dared to sit with Reynalle's disgraced group. Those who were aware of the events in Kuoh watched with a mixture of fear and respect.
Mittelt, hastily smoothing her ruffled hair, exchanged glances with her companions. Panic was written in their eyes. After exchanging a silent confirmation, they picked up their trays and simultaneously began to rise, intending to leave.
Jin pointedly stopped eating. He didn't say a word. He simply turned his head slowly and fixed his cold, attentive gaze on them. The girls froze anxiously and slowly sat back down. Jin smiled with satisfaction and continued eating.
When he finally finished, a flicker of relief crossed their faces. They rose again to leave the dining hall. And discovered, with unpleasant surprise, that Jin, hands clasped behind his head, was strolling leisurely after them.
They quickened their pace. He kept up. They turned down a corridor. He turned after them. This silent pursuit was worse than any threat. Finally, in one of the deserted technical corridors, Reynalle couldn't take it anymore. She spun around sharply, her face contorted with despair.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" Her voice cracked into a shout. "Why are you following us?!"
Jin stopped. His relaxed demeanor vanished instantly. He turned his gaze on her, and his violet eyes grew cold as space. Reynalle's breath caught in her throat.
"Thought it was all over?" His voice was quiet, but it sent a chill down the spine. "Thought Azazel saved you and you could forget what you did? It's not like that at all."
Simultaneously, while continuing to speak to Reynalle, he stepped right up to Mittelt, who was frozen in terror, and, as if it were the most natural thing, began slowly stroking her head. The small Fallen merely endured it; a fine tremor shook her body, and her cheeks flushed with a mixture of fear and embarrassment.
"You owe something," Jin continued, his fingers threading through Mittelt's soft hair. "Not to me. To him. To Issei. If you want me off your back for good? You will meet with him. Alone. And he will decide what to do with you."
"What?!" Reynalle protested. "That pervert?! He'd—"
"I absolutely don't care what you think of him," Jin cut her off aloofly. "You have no say. Either you do as I said, or..." He didn't finish, but the threat was obvious. "And I doubt Azazel would jeopardize his relationship with me over a low-ranking Fallen like you. He's a pragmatist."
Kalawarner, who had remained silent until now, shifting a sympathetic gaze between Reynalle and Jin, finally dared to speak.
"A-and us?" She spoke carefully, afraid of drawing his anger. "What is our fate? If you only need her..."
Jin looked at her transparently, as if she were empty space.
"I couldn't care less."
Kalawarner breathed a sigh of relief.
"In that case, w-we have matters to attend to. Please, let us go."
Jin looked at her in surprise.
"I'm not holding you."
Reynalle and Kalawarner glanced at his hand, which was still gently stroking Mittelt's head. Jin followed their gaze and, with a slightly embarrassed smile, withdrew his hand.
"Oops."
Mittelt, upon being freed, immediately rushed to her companions' side, her eyes glistening with tears. They turned quickly and hurried away almost at a run.
***
"Why are you still following us?!" Reynalle snapped when they saw his figure looming behind them once more in yet another corridor.
"What else am I supposed to do?" He shrugged. "I'm bored."
That word became their sentence. He wouldn't leave them alone. Not out of malice or revenge. But simply... because he had nothing else to do.
Finally, in desperation, Kalawarner proposed a deal. "We'll help you return to Gremory if you leave us in peace!"
Jin agreed matter-of-factly. The Fallens' plan was simple: teleport to the nearest public node in Gremory territory and flee while he was distracted. But a surprise awaited them. The security system installed around Rias's training camp blocked any direct teleportation into that zone. The closest landing point turned out to be one of the major cities in the Gremory domain.
***
Finding themselves under the already familiar purple sky, in the middle of a noisy street filled with devils, the girls were already preparing to activate a return teleport.
"Stop," came Jin's calm voice from behind them. "The deal was 'help me get back to Rias.' Until I find them, you're staying with me. And since we're here... show me the city."
Thus began the strangest tour in the history of the Underworld.
The devil city lived its bustling, chaotic life. For Jin, finding himself in such a place for the first time, it was intriguing. He studied with detached interest the spires of gothic buildings neighboring neon signs, and the magical carts gliding silently through the air.
"And what's that?" he asked, pointing at a stall where a goblin vendor was frying something resembling large purple mushrooms on a sizzling brazier.
"Glimmercaps..." Kalawarner explained nervously. "They grow in deep caves. Supposedly, mildly hallucinogenic."
"Excellent," Jin stated. "I'll take four portions."
He bought the steaming skewers and handed one to each of the stunned girls. They accepted the treats with a shudder, but upon tasting them, exchanged surprised glances. The flavor was strange, spicy, leaving a pleasant tingling on the tongue.
Jin behaved surprisingly... amiably. He didn't threaten, didn't mock. He simply observed, asked short questions, and seemed genuinely to be enjoying the moment. He bought Mittelt a funny hair clip shaped like a little winged skull, and she, blushing to the tips of her ears, hesitantly accepted the gift. Then they wandered into an arcade, where Jin, with a single shot at a magical shooting gallery, won the grand prize—a giant plush Cerberus, which he promptly foisted upon a stunned Kalawarner.
"It'll guard your sleep," he explained impassively.
They ate cotton candy that changed color and flavor with every bite, and drank a fizzy beverage made from fruit that grew only in the Underworld. Reynalle, who had initially kept to herself, gradually thawed and even allowed herself a smile when Jin, attempting to eat a particularly slippery fruit, nearly dropped it onto his shirt.
At one point, passing by a park with crimson trees and glowing flowers, Jin stopped.
"I want ice cream," he declared. "You sit here, I'll be right back."
He pointed to an empty bench and headed toward a brightly lit kiosk. The three girls sank onto the bench in silence. The moment Jin's figure disappeared around a bend in the path, their cheerful, relaxed expressions instantly changed. Smiles vanished, replaced by stony, impenetrable masks. They sat motionless, staring straight ahead, and shock rippled in their eyes.
"I don't understand anything," Kalawarner was the first to break the silence, her voice hollow. "What just happened?"
"He... he bought me a hair clip," Mittelt whispered, touching her fingers to the skull in her hair. "And... he wasn't angry. He... joked?"
Reynalle remained silent the longest. She looked at her hands, then at the lively park path.
"It's all wrong," she finally said. "All of it. We should hate him. Fear him. And we... we were laughing. This is some twisted, incomprehensible game of his. He's just playing with us, like a cat with mice."
"But... why?" Kalawarner wondered. "What's the point?"
"Maybe... maybe he's not so bad after all?" Mittelt ventured uncertainly. "Maybe he's just... lonely? And doesn't know how to communicate any other way? Perhaps this is his attempt... to make friends?"
The thought was absurd, but it was the only one that even remotely explained what was happening. They looked at each other. The monster who had threatened to grind them to dust was trying to befriend them by buying them street food and plush toys?
However, they could not have known that for a being weary of his own omnipotence, their fear and confusion were simply a way to alleviate his boredom. And that he himself didn't know what he would want the next minute.
***
Jin approached the kiosk. The selection was impressive: "Phoenix Tear Sherbet," "Leviathan Salted Caramel." He was studying the price tags with curiosity when a sharp, aristocratically haughty voice sounded nearby.
"And this is all you can offer? What a meager selection. Absolutely nothing with lunar flower extract."
Jin turned his head. Beside him, looking disdainfully at the display, stood a girl. Golden hair, styled into two tight, provocative drill-shaped locks. Perfect posture. An expensive dress of deep crimson. She turned to leave, and her blue eyes met his violet ones.
A whole gamut of emotions flickered across her face. Shock. Recognition. Anger. And something else... a shadow of embarrassment? Or joy?
"You..." she breathed out.
Jin tilted his head slightly, a smirk touching his lips. He remembered her perfectly. Riser's younger sister. And the very same tsundere who, with tears in her eyes, had begged him to help her worthless brother.
"Ravel," he pronounced her name in an even, calm tone, as if they were old acquaintances who had happened to meet in the park.