Beyond Critical - Chapter 12.1 (Patreon)

Thankfully for Kaito, on his way to class, he didn't suddenly find himself accosted by members of the student council. And he entered the classroom just as roll was being called.

Because of his full on two minutes of tardiness, multiple eyes were on him as he entered the classroom.

Only two in the room really stood out of course.

A pair of yellow eyes and a set hidden by a fringe hiding them completely. Honestly it was a good thing Yanagi was a girl or she'd look like the villain straight out of a hentai.

He paused for a moment at her desk on the way to his own, "I need to talk to you at lunch." he said, before continuing on.

When he sat down at his seat at the back beside the window, he saw that Yanagi was looking over her shoulder at him. It was hard to tell if she was giving him an odd look or not with that hair style of hers.

…Honestly, Kaito really thought she kept it like that so she could hide her expression so she could troll people easier.

It was definitely in character for her that was for sure. Everyone thought she was such a good, demure, polite and angelic girl.

Outside of himself and her family that was. Only he and them knew what she was really like and how foul a mouth she had on her.

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Drumming her fingers atop her desk, Rias stared down at the small ornate wooden box atop her desk, lid popped open. Multiple glowing red chess pieces stared back at her.

Though of course, it was not a complete set. Not even three weeks ago there were eleven pieces remaining in this box.

Now there were only two. A knight and a rook.

'Will one of them even be enough though?' she wondered, pursing her lips. The excitement at the thought of Kaito Evander being the holder of another Heavenly Dragon had temporarily blinded her.

But after calming down, she realised. Issei had cost all eight of her pawns. All she had left now were a knight piece worth three pawns and a rook piece worth five pawns.

Kaito would be worth at the very least the same as Issei, if not more so taking in to account the fact his own magic power while not ludicrously powerful was on the level of a standard average low-class devil and it was growing every day.

…Which implied he may have already unlocked his Sacred Gear and considering the rate at which his magic power was growing, was well versed in using it.

It wouldn't have been a problem really if one of her two remaining pieces were mutation pieces, but sadly they were not.

The only saving grace was she knew that Sona while having a few more pieces than her left, didn't have enough to outperform her either.

'Perhaps…Grayfia?' Rias mused. Her sister in law had her own evil pieces, but had never used them. Reluctant as she was to take advantage of her brothers desire to help her and even ask for help in the first place, she couldn't deny Grayfia was vastly stronger than her and could have most likely reincarnated Issei for half the amount of pieces Rias herself had.

But that did open the can of worms that was the Satan Leviathan. Serafall and older sister of Sona. If Sona asked her to, Serafall wouldn't hesitate to teleport over to do what her little sister asked of her. And she would have an even easier time reincarnating Kaito than Grayfia would.

'All the more reason to strike first.' she decided.

Which was why she was here currently and not in class like the rest of her peerage were currently.

There was a knock at her door.

'Speak of the devil.' Rias smirked lightly, "Come in, it's open." she called out.

A moment later, the door opened to reveal the svelte form of her childhood friend and rival, Sona.

"Good morning Rias," Sona greeted her, polite as ever, softly closing the door behind her before turning to face Rias, "You realise of course skipping class like this is cause for a detention, do you not?"

Rias giggled, "Ah, but as far as the teacher is concerned, I've been in all my classes today and giving one hundred percent of my attention to absorbing her lessons."

Hypnosis was such a useful tool to have at ones disposal.

Not to mention a queen that was in her class and could take care of little things like that for her.

"Hmph," Sona rolled her eyes and pushed up her glasses, "Always with a plan in mind when it comes to slacking off, you haven't changed since we were little. You were always doing things like this to get out of lessons so you could go watch your precious anime."

Rias shrugged, completely unashamed, "Most of the lessons were things I already knew anyway, so it was fine wasn't it?"

Sona sighed, "That's not the point," she replied, making her way over to sit down on one of the green couches within the huge clubroom and place her hands in her lap, "Now, why did you call me here, during classes of all times."

"Not like you were even in classes." Rias pouted at her. She'd been like this since they were kids, all work and no play.

Well, after they actually got taught their future duties as the next heads of their clans.

"I still have a lot of work to do you know, running this school and all," Sona replied flatly, "Besides, I was in the process of formulating how I would approach Evander. I believe it to be the right time, he slipped up this morning and was late to school. Not only did he break the rules by hopping the fence and sneaking in he simply jumped over the gate in a single bound, something far out of the realm of capability of a normal human."

"Oh?" Rias' eyebrow raised with interest. That was interesting. So it wasn't just his magic power then, his physical abilities were way above the norm as well? That was good actually, she did think he had quite the robust build befitting of a rook. If he was already that physically able, he would be quite strong indeed from the get go if she managed to recruit him as her rook.

Still, as interesting as that was, "Are you sure this is the kind of approach you want to be making?" Rias asked, even if they were rivals in recruiting Kaito, Sona was still her dear childhood friend, "From what I've managed to gleam from Koneko, he seems to think you have something against him. And honestly, it isn't like you did any of this kind of thing with any of your other peerage when recruiting them as far as I know."

"False, I was much more blatant in regards to Saji, though granted he was an actual rule breaking delinquent. Considering how he's improved since then in not only attitude but ability, it clearly worked," Sona replied, "And I have nothing at all against Evander, in fact I find him quite admirable. He comes from nothing so everything he has, he has earned himself. He is consistently at the top of his year, already the captain and star player of one of our best sports clubs, diligently trains his body and if it were not against the school rules he would still be working a job to support himself financially."

"Not to mention, handsome, right?" Rias teased.

"Yes, indeed he is ha-" Sona paused, catching on quickly to her ploy before she even finished her sentence and gave Rias a flat look, "Why must you be like this?"

"Because it's fun riling you up?" Rias grinned at her, "Still, just because it worked with your newest pawn doesn't mean it will work with Kaito. No offense to your pawn, but he doesn't quite have the self made substance and real pride that Kaito has from I can tell, though I could be wrong, I've barely interacted with Saji."

"…Perhaps," Sona agreed after a moments thought, "It may have been the wrong approach, an impulsive one actually that came to mind when he first became the head of the soccer club, but one I made all the same. I will see it through, and if I indeed caused him trouble, I will make it up to him later once I manage to recruit him."

"Well…if all else fails you've got a bunch of cute girls in your peerage, maybe you can bribe him with the idea of getting a harem? It worked wonders for Issei," Rias pointed out with a giggle, "Though, that assumes he would pick you over me."

Sona narrowed her eyes behind her glasses.

Rias' grin widened challengingly.

"Tch," Sona clicked her tongue in annoyance, "Exactly the reason why I was preparing to approach him today. My peerage has reported to me that they caught sight of Koneko and Kiba shadowing him quite often."

Rias shrugged, "You didn't think I'd just stay away now did you? Over the last few weeks he's grown explosively and I've noticed now his magic power has a noticeable increase by the day," she replied, "If he keeps growing at this rate, within two months he'll be on the level of a mid-class devil. By turning him into a devil, not only will his magic power grow instantly, his rate of growth should be enhanced as well. With the right training, give it a few years and he could easily catch up to us in magic power."

"You're not wrong, especially if he was reincarnated with a bishop piece, though I believe he's better suited as a rook personally with his build. Not to mention dragon-type sacred gear users tend to be very physical fighters," Sona nodded in agreement, "Of course, that assumes he accepts any of our offers in the first place."

"It's just a matter of finding what he wants and offering the right incentive," Rias replied, crossing her arms under her chest, "Though, if the company he keeps is anything to go by, I believe I have a distinct advantage over you in that regards." she couldn't help grinning once more as she tightened the grip of her crossed arms, pushing up her large breasts noticeably.

Sona didn't react. It was a close thing though, Rias could see the motion of her eye nearly twitching in annoyance, "I hardly see how that is relevant, unless you plan on sleeping with him," the Sitri heiress scoffed, "Besides, if it was simply about large breasts, you only have two members of your peerage that fit the bill including yourself, while I have Tsubaki, Momo, Reya and Tomoe. Last I checked, four beat two."

"Yes, but how is that relevant unless you plan on forcing them to sleep with him?" Rias parroted Sona's words right back at her.

"Such a child," Sona rolled her eyes, "Speaking of though. Uzaki, the girl Evander is known to spend time around has rather large stores of magic power for a human herself, easily on the pinnacle of low class and approaching that of Mid-class."

"Yeah, I checked her out a bit, but Koneko couldn't really find anything interesting about her besides that," Rias shrugged, "She just seems to have been born with a lot of magic power, she could make a decent bishop but I've already used mine up sadly."

"True, though that is not to say she wouldn't be a decent pawn either," Sona nodded in understanding, "She is on my list of possible candidates, just like Evander was before I moved him on to the list of desired candidates."

'Hmm, that wouldn't be a bad approach either.' Rias mused as she thought it over. An offer for eternity with his best friend…possible lover, considering Koneko reported to her the girl always made lunches for the boy. that would be a nice icing on the cake.

Sadly, she only had two pieces left and neither that would be a good fit for such a girl.

Thankfully it seemed Sona hadn't clocked on to such a thing or the girl wouldn't be on her 'maybe' list.

She could still use it though. After all, if he managed to reach High-class himself, he would be able to get his own Evil Piece set and reincarnate her himself.

"Anyway," Sona continued, "Putting that aside for the moment, I assume you called me here to declare your intentions of attempting to recruit Evander?"

"Yes, that's right," Rias confirmed, "The trouble now is, deciding who should be allowed to approach him first."

"Indeed," Sona agreed easily, "Which I feel should be me. After all, I allowed to go after Hyoudou at your leisure and gave up any claim I had on him despite our belief that he indeed had either the Boosted Gear or the Divine Dividing."

"Yeah right, I seem to remember you telling me you wouldn't recruit my cute little Issei even if he was the last choice on Earth," Rias scoffed, "No use waving that card here, besides, I stepped back and allowed you to fully approach your own newest pawn without getting in your way at all."

"You didn't want to bother with reigning in a delinquent anyway!" Sona squawked indignantly, "So you can't wave that card either!"

In just moments, the two heiresses of ancient and powerful devil clans were glaring at each other.

"You're always like this you big titted cow," Sona growled, "Why not just hang yourself out the window and shake your chest while moo'ing if you want to recruit a man to your peerage?"

"That's rich considering how big the breasts are on your mother and sister, you're just jealous it skipped you," Rias stuck her tongue out petulantly, "You're just scared you won't stand a chance against me in recruiting him."

"Keh!" Sona ground her teeth, blue energy seeping out of her skin and forming a billowing aura while her purple eyes began glowing blue.

At the same time, a reddish black similar aura shimmered into existence around Rias while her bright green eyes were dyed in the colours of red and black.

Magic auras of blue, black and red clashed against each other, sending the lighter items within the large room that weren't bolted down, slinging through the air.

It was only the shattering of a cup that was on Rias' table that startled them both into calming down.

"….Clearly we need to figure something out and come to an agreement on who may approach him first." Sona coughed and said.

"Agreed," Rias huffed, taking a deep breath and calming down, "Or….we could not." an idea came to mind.

And it would save them fighting over who got to him first. Which would probably be a bad example for him of their stations.

…Or he could take it the other way and get an ego boost over them the pair of them, devil nobility fighting over him.

"…..Explain." was all Sona said.

"Look, why don't we just do this fairly and let him decide for himself?" Rias suggested, "You're the president of the school, so you can use the intercom system or have one of your peerage do it and call him out of class and send him here. Everyone will be busy with classes, so just the two of us alone can make our offers to him and without any of our peerages around it will put less pressure on him."

Sona stared at her for a moment, before sitting back down on her couch and crossing her arms, "Hmmm…" a hum of thought emanated from her lips for a few seconds, before she finally nodded, "Very well, that should be fair I suppose for everyone involved."

Rias hid a grin.

After all, this was her clubroom and as such, so she had the home field advantage, which was why she never suggested they meet in the student council office.