Esty’s POV
   Esty was supposed to be sleeping on her bed. And yet, she was standing in the middle of a wasteland without knowing how. And not just any wasteland. She could never mistaken the scenery all around her. She’s at the Demon Realm. She’s back at home, at Ifezan.

   She looks down at her clothes. She’s no longer wearing her lounge wear, but the clothing she used to wear when she was still living here. She’s not going to bring up the details about them, but she will say this: what she’s wearing right now is way too revealing for a human’s standard.

   Even her horns, wings and tails are out in plain view. She makes her tail move to right in front of her face before staring at it. She hasn’t seen it for so long she has forgotten that she has one, or her horns and wings for that matter.

   Hmm, is this a dream? She has watched a program where a human explained something called a lucid dream. According to him, lucid dreamers are aware that they’re dreaming. As a result, they can control their dreams to a certain extent. This must be one of such dream.

   If so, she can make the Hero appear and make him say that he loves her. No, no. A head pat comes first. His hand was always so warm Esty just love having her head stroked by him. Wait, maybe-

   “Esty.”

   The voice came from directly behind her. Esty flinched. No. It can’t be. There’s no way the owner of this voice is still alive. She saw it with her own eyes that-

   “Come on Esty, what aren’t you turning around?” the voice asks this time.

   Slowly, Esty turns around as told. And sure enough, as impossible as it may seems, Sulgran, one of the Four Demon Marquis, is standing just a few feet away from her.

   “W-What, I mean, how are you still alive, Sulgran?” Esty asks the female demon before her with a trembling voice.

   Sulgran smiles sadly.

   “I’m obviously dead, silly. You saw me fell after the Hero dealt the finishing blow with your own eyes, didn’t you?”

   “Then, how are you here then?”

   A shrug.

   “Maybe this is your conscience trying to send you a message. Or a reminder.”

   “About what?”

   “Oh, I don’t know. About the fact that you’re nowhere near avenging us?”

   Esty freezes at that.

   “I understand that you need more time. I really do. After all, the Hero is not someone you can take on without proper preparations. However, there’s just a few things that don’t sit well with me.”

   Sulgran’s expression became a terrible sight to behold. Esty didn’t even know that the usually mild-mannered demon could even have an expression that could kill a weaker living thing with looks alone.

   “You became soft. Not only are you mingling with the lowly humans, you’re spending time with them like equals. And worst of all, you fell in love.” she hisses. “With. The. Very. Human. Who. Killed. Us.”

   “Wait, I-”

   “Save your excuses! You no longer cared to take revenge. That’s all that matters!”

   Esty starts to tremble violently. That’s right. Revenge was the sole reason she came to this world in the first place. And yet, she got so comfortable with the mostly peaceful life here that she has forgotten her vengeance.

   “How could you, Esty? Didn’t you swear with your very own life that you’ll take the Hero’s life or die trying?” Sulgran demands.

   “I’m trying, I really am!”

   “Pathetic. Simply pathetic.” a new voice says.

   Three more silhouettes appear next to Sulgran. Even before they took shape perfectly, Esty already knows who they are. The rest of the Four Demon Marquis. Sure enough, it was them.

   “I’ve always known that you were a failure, but never to this extent.” Igmis, the one who spoke just now, continues.

   The ever-silent Roglon is just glaring at Esty. Even so, she could tell that he’s condemning her in his own way.

   Lastly, Segdroth. He shakes his head disapprovingly.

   “I have told you before that you will become a splendid demon one day. But now? You will never be one.” he tells her.

   Esty is weeping openly now, her oath of never going to cry completely forgotten. She has failed them. She has failed them all.

   “Do you honestly think that we’re done?” Sulgran asks with a soft voice. “There is still one more demon who wishes to berate you.”

   No. Not him. Please-

   “You are a disgrace, Estyshana Von Mantus! You bring shame to the Demon’s name!”

   Her father, Volrik Von Mantus. Of course he’s here too. This is no lucid dream where Esty can control her dream so that it can become a happy one. It’s a complete nightmare.

   “Disgrace. Disgrace. Disgrace…” all of them are chanting in unison.

   Esty feels her knees go weak. The next thing she knows, she’s on the ground, her hands covering her face-

   She woke up abruptly while panting. Her entire body is covered in sweat, and her eyes are filled with tears. She wipes them away with the back of her hand and looks at the time. It’s quarter to 1 in the morning.

   She takes her time in getting her breathing under control. Once that was done, she looks over the opposite side of her room. Chifuyu is still sleeping soundly on her own bed. Thankfully, Esty didn’t cause a ruckus which might wake her up.

   Esty recalls the scene which took place in her dream just now. She remembers it a little too vividly for her liking. Of the Four Demon Marquis and her father berating her, calling her a disgrace. She hangs her head in shame. They’re right. She’s nothing but a disgrace who tainted the name of Von Mantus. This cannot go on. She takes her phone and message the Hero.

   “I want to settle things between the two of us.” she wrote.

   Surprisingly, a reply came within a minute. And here she thought he was already asleep.

   “Sure. Let’s meet up.” came the reply.

   Esty gets up as slowly as possible from her bed so that she doesn’t wake up Chifuyu. And then, she gets dressed and leaves the room while remaining stealthy. Before long, she’s outside and on her way to meet the Hero.

   She didn’t bother to write down a location so that they could meet up. She just picked one at random and firmly believes that he will be there. Prior to the dream, she will feel embarrassed by this fact, and secretly a little happy that the two of them are, borrowing Anri’s words, in sync. Now, she just feels hollow and empty.

   She flies to a nearby park. That place has lots of empty space and thus perfect for a place to fight. It would be bad if she was seen, so she cast Silent Bubble. She made sure that it covered a huge area since they might end up thrashing the place. Not long after she landed, the Hero arrived as well. Like her, he also flew here.

   Contrary to his usual poker face, the Hero is showing a serious expression. That’s enough indication to show that that he knows her intention of calling him here. Still, Esty has to make sure.

   “Do you know why I called you here?” she asks.

   A nod.

   “Of course I do.”

   Esty hears him letting out a depressed sigh. She can’t say that she doesn’t understand how he feels. Her, too, wished that things don’t have to be this way. That they don’t have to fight and try to kill each other. Alas, their relationship can never progress further than enemies.

   The two of them take up a stance. The Hero makes his double-bladed sword appears on his hands. Esty conjures up two tiny fireballs on the top of her palms.

   Neither of them agreed on a signal to begin. Rather, that wasn’t necessary. One moment, both of them are standing at their starting position. As soon as Esty moved, though, so did the Hero.

   Esty managed to tilt her head to the right in time as the tip of the Hero’s sword is stabbing the empty air where her head was a second ago. Based on the stab alone, she fully knows that he’s not going to pull any punches. Good. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

   She tries to blast him with her fireballs. At this distance, there’s no way he could evade them. But avoid them he did by swatting them away with his sword.

   A headbutt comes next. Esty charges up her right hand with electricity and puts her hand in front of his head. He reacts by stabbing his sword on the ground and does a somersault, his right leg aimed at her head. She jumps backwards to avoid the kick and fires the electricity. Before the lightning bolts could hit him, he pulls out his sword and slices them in half.

   So far, so good. When the Hero’s face got close, the old Esty would have blushed and got all flustered. The her right now is completely calm. She’s not even being fueled by anger or the thirst for revenge. She’s going to fight him with a calm mind. Still, there’s one major problem. He’s way out of her league in strength, magic and everything combat-related. She has always known this, so this is rather reckless of her.

   No, stop thinking like that! There’s no way you can win if you let pessimism get hold of you-

   Was what Esty thought thirty seconds ago. Thirsty seconds later, she’s having literally the most difficult fight of her life. For the thirteenth time. Considering the fact that she used to spar with her father and the Four Demon Marquis with a no holds barred rule almost on a daily basis back when they were still alive, that’s really saying something. It’s really no wonder, for the Hero has defeated all of them.

   Twenty more seconds later, she starts to realize that it’s no use. She’s out of breath, and her whole body is screaming from constant pain she got from him. She can’t keep this up for long.

   She shakes her head and grits her teeth. No. She WILL do this. He’s bound to show an opening. All she has to do is be patient and wait for an opportunity to arise. She takes a deep breath. Time to use the youjutsu she has been practicing.

   In a single second, she created three split images of herself. All these clones of hers can deal damage on their own, and have their own independent thoughts. The three of them proceed to surround the Hero.

   Esty has trained countless times while coordinating her movements with her clones. Having too many of them will end up hindering each other’s movements, so she settled for two.

   Clone 1 fires some lightning bolts at the Hero’s feet. As Esty has expected, he dodged by jumping up. Herself and Clone 2 use this chance to attack, with the real one casting Whirlwind Blade and the clone casting Crushing Boulder, both Level 5 Spells.

   All the Hero did was casting Barrier, and the two Spells bounced off harmless by the invisible wall. Figures.

   Even though he’s suddenly outnumbered, the Hero doesn’t look the least worried. Of course he’s not. Esty could make a hundred of the clones, and it still wouldn’t be enough to faze him. For all Esty knows, he could do the same thing she can since he has mastered youjutsu way faster than she did.

   Esty and her clones are doing their best on moving around as much as possible, mostly to confuse the Hero so that he has difficulty in figuring out who’s the original. Esty rushed to the Hero’s back and planning to strike from there, and then he turns around without even looking at the clones.

   …Right. Of course he has no difficulty in figuring out the original. How careless of her. He charges forward, the tip of his sword mere inches from her head-

   “WAIT!”

Jin’s POV
   Just as Felfarthen was about to pierce Estyshana’s head, his movement was stopped by a single shout. Jin looks towards the direction where the shout came from. As expected, it was from Wakaba. It’s not only her. Watanabe, Ayumi, Meiko, and the Graylock sisters are also here. He also sees a portal right behind Audrey. He takes it that an onmyoji who was keeping watch on the street alerted Ayumi of the fight, and she called all these people over within the span of three minutes. A pretty impressive feat from the onmyoji for being able to see through the illusion of Silent Bubble.

   The girls rush over and stand in front of Estyshana. Jin reads the atmosphere and backs away, his sword long being kept into his Vault.

   “Can you spare Esty, Minase-kun? Please?” Wakaba pleads.

   Jin shrugs. “Sure.”

   “Esty, I know that you have a very good reason to fight Minase-kun. Even so, can you forget about it?” she asks the demon next.

   “...Sure.”

   Jin knows that she’s lying. He could tell from her tone that she’ll demand a duel again and next time, she’ll be a lot smarter in the arrangement so that they won’t be interrupted for the second time.

   “Well, I’m leaving. See you girls at school later.” he says to the girls.

   Without looking at them or waiting for a reply, he flew back to his apartment and goes to sleep like nothing has happened.

   The next few days were honestly agonizing. This time, the situation is much worse than when both Jin and Estyshana has finally realized their feelings for each other. They’re straight up not talking at all. They might as well be strangers. Perhaps to prevent Estyshana from acting rashly, Wakaba, Watanabe and Ayumi are with her the entire time.

   Jin has stopped having lunch together with them since things will just be awkward, even though the others are doing their best on mending his relationship with Estyshana.

   “We can help you out with it. Rather, please let us help you!” Wakaba told him once.

   “I’m really happy for your offer, Wakaba. Unfortunately, I really don’t think that our relationship will ever progress from being enemies.”

   Wakaba lowered her head dejectedly.

   “...So, is the only ending the death of one or both of you?” she asked while on the verge of tears.

   “I’m afraid so. Well, I guess you could at least delay that fate if you stick with her and make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.”

   “We’ll definitely do our best.” she promised.

   Today, he’s walking back to his apartment after school all by himself again. Wakaba and the girls have probably gave up on helping out, which is why none of them invited him to go somewhere with them like they used to for the past few days.

   A shame, really. Jin once thought that maybe, jut maybe, the two of them could be together after everything he did. Who was he kidding? A mass murderer like him don’t deserve to live happily-

   Jin stops walking. Several feet in front of him stands a man. He has blond hair, blue eyes and seems to be in his forties. He’s a man Jin never thought he’ll see again, for he is Austin Graylock, the father of Audrey and Aldenia. Jin was pretty sure that this man was dead the last time they fought.

   Jin narrows his eyes.

   “You. I thought I buried you. Literally.” he says to the man.

   Austin smiles.

   “Well, here I am again, alive and kicking.”

   Jin scans Austin with his Eye of Truth. He wasn’t kidding about the alive part. Jin sees mana flowing inside his body, and it’s impossible for an undead to have mana inside its body. In addition, he doesn’t see a mana thread which indicates that the man is being controlled by someone.

   “How are you still alive?” Jin couldn’t help but ask.

   “Oh, a man named Jacques Bouchard helped. Really, this world has such wonderful technology.”

   “...Of course he did. And let me guess, you’re telling me that because you killed him.”

   “Indeed I did. He revived me with the intention of using my knowledge to fulfill some crazy dream of his. I simply detest working alongside others, so I made him vanish into thin air.”

   …Right. As if Jin will believe that. From the brief description given by Sergeant Wakaba, that Bouchard is slippery as an eel. For all Jin knows, this is all a hoax to lead others into believe that he’s dead and thus making it easier for him to go wild. Well, one thing at a time. Jin puts down his bag.

   “You’ll be joining him soon enough once I’m done with you.” he say as he prepares to cast Silent Bubble.

   Aystin raises his right hand.

   “Now now, there’s no need to be so hot-headed. I’m just here to greet you, that’s all.”

   “And I’m a zombie with a rotting brain. Just save your words and stand there as I give you your second death.”

   Austin shakes his head.

   “The young one these days are so impatient. Well, I shall take my leave.”

   With that, he steps back and enters a portal that was opened a split second before. Jin sighs and picks up his bag. With his other hand, he takes out his phone and calls Audrey.