"Hm?"
Just as Vali made up his mind to leave, he sensed something and halted mid-step.
A smile curled at the corner of his mouth as he spoke.
"So you've already noticed me, huh?"
The moment the words left his lips, a voice answered from behind him.
"Well, Magic Detection is one of the things my Eligos family excels at. When someone as bright as a star suddenly shows up above Kuoh Academy, it'd be pretty hard not to notice."
At the rooftop entrance behind Vali, a boy about his age leaned casually against the door, arms crossed, smiling as he replied.
If Vali was a beautiful man with the gentle glow of the moon, then this guy was like the sun. Bright, open, and full of energy.
It was Leo.
"I thought you'd just barge in and snatch Kokabiel away."
Leo watched Vali's back as he spoke.
He'd been on guard the whole time. In the original story, Kokabiel had been taken away by Vali after a sudden intrusion.
If Vali hadn't appeared out of nowhere and defeated Kokabiel back then, relying on the Gremory servants and Xenovia alone would've made it nearly impossible to bring him down and resolve the crisis.
Of course, that was without counting the protagonist going all out.
If Hyoudou Issei had truly pushed himself to the limit and forced out the Red Dragon Emperor's power at any cost, beating Kokabiel might've been possible.
In the original story, to defeat Riser and stop the forced marriage, Issei had sacrificed an arm to forcibly obtain ten seconds of Balance Breaker.
That method was something only a Sacred Gear housing a monster's soul could pull off.
By striking a deal with the soul of the Red Dragon Emperor sealed within the Boosted Gear, Issei had traded one arm for ten seconds of Balance Breaker, gaining the power needed to defeat Riser.
So if Issei had really been driven into a corner and decided to take Kokabiel down no matter the cost, sacrificing most of his body could probably have bought him enough power to do it.
And if things got even worse, if he completely lost control, he might've tapped into even deeper layers of the Boosted Gear, unleashing terrifying strength.
But if it came to that, it wouldn't just be Kokabiel. Even Rias and the others would've been killed by an out-of-control Issei.
Which was why, in the original timeline, Vali's intervention truly saved the entire Gremory peerage.
This time, since Leo himself had stepped into the incident Kokabiel caused, there was no way he could ignore the possibility of Vali showing up.
Throughout the fight with Kokabiel, Leo had kept Magic Detection running at full output, and in the end, he'd successfully sensed Vali's arrival.
Back then, he'd even braced himself for Vali to crash in at any moment.
Who would've thought that after seeing Kokabiel taken down, Vali would just turn around and leave?
Leo couldn't relax over that.
So after giving a few instructions and leaving Kokabiel in Rias's care, he'd followed alone.
He'd also overheard parts of the conversation between Vali and Azazel just now.
"Looks like it's not that you didn't want to barge in," Leo said with a shrug. "You were warned in advance, so you couldn't go too far. That fallen angel governor is pretty cautious, huh. Hard to believe the laid-back guy from earlier was him."
"You seem to know us quite well." Vali turned around, hands in his pockets, smiling at Leo. "Whether it's Azazel or me, you talk like we're old acquaintances."
"And only you get to watch me from the shadows and gather intel?" Leo met his gaze, smiling back. "My Maou have warned me more than once to be careful of that governor and the Grigori. They're convinced you'd be very interested in me."
"We are interested in you," Vali said bluntly, his eyes burning as he looked at Leo. "You're the holder of Zenith Tempest. How strong the world's second-strongest Longinus really is... Azazel's curious, and so am I."
At that point, Vali was basically laying his cards on the table.
"Since the opportunity's here, and we're both Sacred Gear users… how about a match?"
He no longer bothered hiding his fighting spirit.
He'd thought today would be boring. Instead, the opponent he was interested in had come knocking himself. It was perfect timing.
This wasn't him recklessly attacking a devil prodigy. The other side had approached him. He was just defending himself.
Leo could clearly see the desire to fight in Vali's eyes.
That pure battle hunger, that raw fighting spirit. It was the same thing he'd seen in Tiamat and Miyamoto Musashi. The mark of someone who lived for combat.
"But is it really just because we're both Sacred Gear users?" Leo said meaningfully. "There's more to it than that, right?"
"Besides that, we're both human–devil hybrids. Isn't that true?"
The wind blew in from afar, tugging at their coats and making the fabric snap loudly.
The two stared at each other in silence, the atmosphere subtly shifting after those words.
"Hah…"
Vali suddenly laughed, eyes closing.
When he opened them again, four pairs of bat-like black wings silently spread behind him.
"My name is Vali Lucifer."
His tone changed. Deeper, colder.
No one was ignorant of what the name Lucifer represented.
Sirzechs bore that surname now, but only because he'd taken the position of Maou and inherited the old Maou Lucifer's title.
Among devils today, "Lucifer" was a role, the strongest Maou.
Vali's "Lucifer" wasn't a title.
It was blood.
"As you said, I'm a hybrid of human and devil. A descendant of the former Maou Lucifer."
The son of the old Maou Lucifer, recorded in the Bible under the name "Lilin," a Super Devil like Sirzechs and Ajuka, was Vali's grandfather.
Because of his human blood, Vali had suffered sustained, systematic abuse in childhood at his grandfather's hands. It was that which led to Azazel's intervention, his rescue, and his eventual joining of the Grigori as a Sacred Gear user.
The four pairs of devil wings behind him perfectly showcased what true bloodline advantage meant.
While pureblood devils of the same generation, like Rias and Sona Sitri, were still High-Class Devils with only a single pair of wings, Vali already had four.
Even without being a Sacred Gear user, he would've stood among the most exceptional of the new generation.
Leo unconsciously spread his own five pairs of devil wings, rising into the sky alongside Vali.
"Even though we're both hybrids, you seem even more ridiculous than me in your base state," Vali said, staring at Leo's wings without the slightest frustration, only admiration. "By all logic, a Maou bloodline should be superior to the Eligos family's. And yet, I'm the one falling behind."
"Is it because your potential surpasses bloodline advantage?"
"Or because you're hiding some secret we don't know about?"
"How intriguing."
As he spoke, another pair of wings burst open behind Vali. Wings of light.
A pure white frame, blue membranes of light, inlaid with sapphire-like gems.
"Divine Dividing," Leo murmured.
Divine Dividing, the Longinus that sealed the soul of one of the Two Heavenly Dragons, the White Dragon Emperor. Ranked sixth among the thirteen Longinus, it was a Sacred Gear on par with the Boosted Gear.
Though ranked one place lower, these two rival Sacred Gears were equal in power and standing. Swapping their ranks wouldn't have been unreasonable. Like the Boosted Gear, Divine Dividing stood just shy of a Top-Tier Longinus.
With those wings deployed, Vali now had five pairs of wings as well, just like Leo.
But…
"As a devil, your raw ability and standing are higher," Vali acknowledged. "And as a human hybrid wielding a Sacred Gear, your ability and standing are still higher."
No matter which side you looked at, Vali held no advantage.
And somehow, that only made him happier.
"Good. That's even better," Vali said, grinning. "I have no interest in defeating the weak. If I'm going to fight, it has to be someone stronger than me. That's what makes it fun."
At that moment, Leo moved.
With a powerful beat of his five pairs of wings, his body became a streak of light, shooting toward the outskirts of Kuoh Town.
"Boom!"
A sonic boom echoed as Vali immediately flared both his light wings and devil wings, kicking up a violent gale as he gave chase.
Two streaks of light cut across the sky above Kuoh Town, one pursuing the other, until they left the city behind and reached an uninhabited wilderness.
"Boom!"
The instant they entered the deserted area, pure white aura erupted around Vali's body.
"Balance Breaker!"
The blue gems on his light wings blazed with brilliance.
"Vanishing Dragon Balance Breaker!"
A deep voice resounded from within the blue gems as the white aura surged like a volcanic eruption.
Encased within it, Vali donned a suit of radiant white full-body armor.
A dragon-shaped helmet. Dragon armor. A chain-like dragon tail whipping behind him. Blue gems across his body flashed in sequence, sacred and immaculate.
This was the Balance Breaker of Divine Dividing.
Divine Dividing Scale Mail.
"Going straight to Balance Breaker?" Leo stopped mid-flight, staring at the armored dragon figure and letting out a wry smile.
"When the opponent is you, anything less wouldn't even qualify as a proper fight."
Vali's voice rang out from within the helmet, filled with excitement and battle lust.
"Come on. Let me see what you've got."
As he spoke, he raised his gauntleted hand and released his demonic power.
Amplified by draconic might, it condensed into a brilliant, star-like blast that he hurled toward Leo.
Mid-flight, the blast suddenly shattered, splitting into countless smaller shots that rained down in a dense barrage.
From that single exchange, Leo knew it. Vali's attacks right now were on an entirely different level compared to Kokabiel's Light Sword barrage earlier.
Holding back here would be suicide.
Without hesitation, Leo unleashed the power of Zenith Tempest, roaring flames surging up before him.
From within the fire, countless flaming shots streaked out like meteors, colliding head-on with the incoming blasts.
"Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!"
Explosions erupted one after another.
Fireballs and demonic blasts collided endlessly in midair, detonating and blossoming into flashes of light that illuminated the dark wilderness.
As if competing, both of them continued firing without pause, the projectiles colliding nonstop and triggering an unbroken chain of violent explosions.
Their output kept climbing, demonic power pouring out as if it were limitless. The fireballs and blasts grew larger and larger.
At first, each was only palm-sized. But over time, they swelled, eventually becoming massive, meter-tall spheres. Each collision produced increasingly terrifying explosions.
The resulting shockwaves surged like a category-five storm, sweeping across the wilderness and tearing trees and rocks from nearby mountains.
"Good! Now this is fun!"
Vali was completely exhilarated.
At some point, his body became a white meteor, trailing a long arc of light as he blasted through layers of explosive shockwaves at incredible speed, charging straight at Leo.
"Whoosh!"
Leo didn't hesitate either. His wings flared, and he shot backward.
Divine Dividing's ability was the exact opposite of the Boosted Gear.
The Boosted Gear doubled its wielder's power every ten seconds and could transfer that power to others.
Divine Dividing halved the opponent's power every ten seconds, and absorbed that stolen power for its own use.
And in Balance Breaker, that ability could be used without the ten-second cooldown.
So Leo had to keep his distance from Vali.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
You can read up to chapter 216 on patreon.com/NiaXD.