001 - What Makes it Hard to Go Home ?

The devil just stares at Euclid while Euclid stares back, both of his eyes wide open.

"#######?"

"Yes, he's the one. Do the usual," I respond while stepping to the side.

The Devil is one of my Arcana cards, but unlike the others, his ability is to trap someone inside a Nightmare.

His ability is similar to Tsukuyomi from Itachi in the Naruto anime I used to watch, but the difference is that this one has no side effects at all.

"Crimson Nightmare," I say, pointing at Euclid, and immediately the Devil's face glows red.

"######!" With both hands, the Devil grabs Euclid. "Ahhhhh!" Euclid screams as he feels the burning heat from the Devil's touch.

Euclid tries to use his power or anything he can to resist being pulled by the strange creature.

But it's no use; the Devil easily drags him into the magic circle from which the Devil emerged, and then they both disappear.

After Euclid and the Devil vanish, the only thing left is the Arcana card floating in the air.

The damaged trees from the earlier fire and the crater where Euclid was thrown are all that remain.

"Rei!" Suddenly, I hear Grayfia's voice as she lands in front of me, looking around.

"What happened? Where's Euclid?"

"Well, your brother is busy with someone I know, so just let him be," I tell her, changing my wings back to their usual multicolored state.

"What!? When will he be back?" Grayfia asks, worried about her brother. Even though Euclid is a terrorist, he's still her brother and Lithia's too.

"He'll be back in two days, and here," I say, tossing a mirror toward her.

Grayfia catches the mirror and looks into it, but instead of seeing her reflection, she sees a bright red orb surrounded by runes.

[IMAGE]

"What is this?"

"After your brother is done with my friend, he'll appear wherever you put that mirror. Just keep it in your room and wait 48 hours until he's back."

"I see..." Grayfia then stores the mirror safely and looks at me. "Is he going to be okay? After... he's done with your friend...?"

"He'll be fine... Probably brain dead, but your phoenix tears can definitely heal him."

"Well... He probably deserves that. Maybe after this, he won't act like that again."

What I didn't tell her is that, while for us it's only 48 hours, in the Devil's dimension, I have no idea how long he'll be there...

Because it depends on the Devil—if he's enjoying the torture, he might prolong it until he's satisfied.

"Let's go back," I offer my hand to Grayfia.

"Sure. At first, I wanted to go back and punish Euclid after we were done here, but since he's with you now, I can take a break and go with you," Grayfia says with a smile while Accepting my hand.

After that, Grayfia and I teleport to where Nier is waiting for us.

After that incident, a week have passed.

Not much has happened except that I asked Rias if she could lend me a house in Kuoh Town, which she happily agreed to.

I don't want to get involved with paperwork when I own a house, and altering someone's memory to get one seems foolish when I can just ask Rias since her family is wealthy.

Every morning in our living room, we always find three people passed out from exhaustion—Rias, Koneko, and Ingvild.

Since the person training them is someone with immense power, they don't know what it means to hold back when training Rias and the others.

Well, at least they're getting stronger, with Koneko progressing the fastest. I can sense that her senjutsu abilities are becoming more like the Senjutsu I've felt in the Sky Realm.

Ingvild still needs to train to use her ability to control dragons without singing and to properly control her power over the sea as well.

Rias... well, not much progress there since mastering Bahamut's sword is really hard.

"Rei, we're out of food in the fridge," Grayfia says as she enters the living room.

"Hmm, then I'll create more," I say, putting down the book I was reading and heading toward the kitchen.

With my ability to manipulate reality, I don't need to buy anything from the supermarket for cooking.

I can just create it and be done with it, and I'm also kind of glad I have this ability because, with so many people here, I need to cook a lot of food too.

"Thank you, Rei," Grayfia says after I restock the fridge.

"Sure. I'm going back to the living room, so if you need anything, just let me know."

So yeah, everything is just peaceful here while we wait for Rias's family to finish building a house for us in Kuoh Town.

Djeeta and Lyria keep going to the city to look around and have fun. There are times when they suddenly get attacked by random creatures, but Djeeta just kills them immediately.

So I don't need to worry about them.

<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>

(Nasuverse Dimension)

"Hmm~ hmm~ hmm~" Sakura hummed as she helped her sister draw the summoning circle for her sister's servant.

"Why do you sound like you're having fun with this..." Rin shook her head, frustrated by how troublesome it is to draw the summoning circle.

If they made even a slight mistake, their ritual would fail, and they would have to wait until tomorrow for Rin to summon a servant again at exactly 2 AM.

"Well, it's kinda rare for us to actually do something together because you're always so stubborn and insist on doing everything yourself, sis~," Sakura said while continuing to draw the summoning circle.

"Wha!? That's because... Nevermind, just help me and go to bed," Rin yelled at Sakura. The reason she always did things by herself was that she didn't want to trouble her younger sister.

Sakura handled all the household chores, from cooking to cleaning and laundry, while Rin didn't help at all and just enjoying the benefits, which made her feel guilty. As a result, she always bought Sakura food or anything else she wanted.

A few hours later, they finally completed the complex summoning circle. "Hahh, finally it's done...." Rin wiped the sweat off her forehead.

"Congratulations, sister," Sakura clapped her hands while admiring the summoning circle they had drawn.

The summoning circle was red, with a ring of purification around a ring of four purging circles, surrounding a ward of summoning.

"Well, what now?" Sakura asked Rin.

Rin looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 2 AM, which made her smile. "It's almost time, Sakura! I'm going to summon Saber when my magical energy is at its peak."

"Huh? But do you have the catalyst for the Saber class?"

"...Nahh, it will be fine. Now stay back, Sakura. I don't want you to get hurt." Rin then pushed Sakura out of the basement where they were.

"Wait, sister! It's still 1 AM because, remember, your clock is faster than the actual time!" Sakura shouted before her sister could push her out.

Hearing this, Rin immediately stopped pushing Sakura and stood still for a moment. "...Oh right, I almost forgot..."

"Sister...." Sakura could only shake her head at her sister's behavior.

But since they were already there and still had an hour before Rin could summon the servant she wanted, they decided to wait in the summoning circle.

Sakura went to get drinks for the two of them, while Rin returned to the summoning circle they had drawn.

She gazed at the summoning circle with pride, confident that she would succeed in summoning Saber with it.

"Maybe with this, I can find out why we keep seeing that dream," Rin murmured, stroking the necklace she doesn't remember when she got.

All she remembers is that the two of them woke up from a nap, and suddenly, these necklaces were hanging around their necks.

But when she tried to remove the necklace to examine it or ask her father about it, she suddenly heard a male voice saying, "Don't ever remove your necklace, Sakura, Rin."

And after hearing that, she could feel something gently stroking her head, even though no one was near them.

And it wasn't just that. Even when Rin decided to ignore the man's words, her body suddenly felt heavy and refused to obey her commands, as if her instincts were telling her not to do it or something bad would happen.

Because of this, Rin decided to leave the necklace on and told Sakura not to remove hers either.

Years passed, and they both began having the same dream about an island floating in the sky and a silver-haired man with twelve wings.

And now, Rin intends to win the Holy Grail and use her wish to discover the meaning of those dreams.

"Sister, I'm bringing tea for us," Rin suddenly heard Sakura's voice, making her turn towards her.

"Ahh, thank you, Sakura."

Sakura then brought the drinks over to Rin, who is standing right above the summoning circle.

The reason they weren't waiting in the living room is that they didn't want to forget or be late for summoning the servant at exactly 2 AM.

But when Sakura stepped onto the completed summoning circle, the necklaces they were wearing suddenly began to glow.

"!?" Rin saw Sakura's necklace shining, and Sakura saw Rin's necklace glowing as well.

"What's happening??" Sakura asked, confused by what is going on.

But before Rin could answer, the red summoning circle they were standing on suddenly began to glow as if it were activated.

"What? I didn't start the summoning at all" Rin panicked as she saw their hard work suddenly activate on its own.

The necklaces they wore shone even brighter, then detached from their necks and floated in front of them.

Sakura's black necklace and Rin's purple necklace continued to glow until they float down to the summoning circle.

When the two necklaces touched the summoning circle, they instantly enveloped the red circle, changing its color to half black and half purple, and altering the letters surrounding it into characters they didn't recognize.

"Sakura, we need to get out before something happens!" Rin shouted, grabbing Sakura's hand and trying to escape the summoning circle.

But Rin couldn't leave the summoning circle, as if something was surrounding them, preventing them from getting out.

"C'mon!!!" Rin kept trying to push against whatever is blocking them.

But Sakura just stared at the drastically changed magic circle. "Sister... come here," Sakura suddenly pulled her sister so they were both standing at the center of the summoning circle.

"Wha!? No Sakura!, we need to get out of here!!"

Sakura then released her hand and turned to face her sister. "Sakura?" Rin looked confused, seeing her sister acting so strangely.

Sakura easily pricked her finger, letting some blood flow out, and dripped it onto the summoning circle.

When her blood touched the circle, the black half of it began to glow even brighter.

Seeing this, Rin, without realizing it, began to mimic Sakura's actions, biting her finger and letting her blood drip onto the summoning circle.

"The fire rages, the water runs calm," Sakura suddenly chanted in a language Rin didn't recognize.

"The dark nurtures" Rin's mouth suddenly moved on its own, speaking words she didn't know.

"The earth roars, the wind blasts" "The light shines down."

"Purify me, and let's go to the end of this fate." Sakura's eyes began to glow with a purple light.

"Born ####, Born again, Again I observe #### fate—your fate." Rin's eyes began to glow the same color as her sister's.

"Come forth..." They both finished their chant, pouring all their magical energy into the summoning circle.

A strong wind began to swirl around them, but the two remained unaffected, focused entirely on the summoning circle.

Everything in the basement is destroyed by the wind, and the summoning circle grew brighter and brighter until something finally began to materialize above them.