You Are My Peerage

That day, Yukino Yukinoshita was being driven to Sobu High School in her family's private car.

Because it was the start of the school year, her mother and sister were also in the car with her.

However, while on the way to Sobu High School, a dog suddenly ran out and blocked their path.

Just then, a boy rushed out, hugged the dog, and shielded it in his arms.

At that moment, everyone panicked—the people in the car, the person blocking the road, and the person who had failed to keep the dog on a leash, leading to this situation.

If nothing unexpected happened, a car accident was about to occur.

The moment she realized this, a powerful emotion erupted within Yukino Yukinoshita.

Immediately after... something incredible happened.

Yukino Yukinoshita would never forget that day, or what happened at that moment.

At first, a whistling wind reached her ears, as if a gale had blown in from beyond the heavens, strong and forceful.

Then, the temperature plummeted, as if they had suddenly transitioned from a hot summer into a freezing winter, causing white mist to rise.

Next came a harsh, cracking sound, as if something were freezing solid.

When these strange phenomena vanished, Yukino Yukinoshita realized that her mother and sister were sitting there, hugging their arms and shivering uncontrollably from the cold. The car she was in had stopped at some point, less than a meter away from the boy who had blocked the road, making the look of terror on his face exceptionally clear.

The boy was also shivering, frost clinging to his eyebrows. It was said that he later missed the opening ceremony, with his reason for leave being a severe cold.

As for the car that had stopped so abruptly, its tires had fused with the ground, frozen into a lump of ice.

Beyond that, the entire street had frozen to varying degrees; the road surface, streetlights, and even the buildings on both sides of the road were covered in scattered patches of ice and snow.

As for everyone present, they all fell ill afterward, and some even suffered frostbite. Only Yukino Yukinoshita remained unscathed, standing there at a loss.

This strange phenomenon troubled Yukino Yukinoshita for some time. It wasn't until they reviewed the surveillance footage later that people discovered a freezing wind had suddenly blown down from the horizon, causing the scene.

The incident was dismissed as a manifestation of the increasingly frequent extreme weather in recent years—a pure accident and coincidence. Only then did Yukino Yukinoshita gradually let the matter go and stop dwelling on it.

Now, Leo had deliberately brought this up, causing Yukino Yukinoshita to instantly consider an incredible possibility.

"Are you saying that I caused everything that happened back then?"

Yukino Yukinoshita looked at Leo with an expression of disbelief.

"Don't doubt it; that was your doing." Leo didn't let Yukino Yukinoshita harbor any false hope, stating bluntly, "I was at Sobu High School at the time, not far from the scene, so I can tell you with full responsibility that it was a situation caused by you."

"Although I didn't witness it with my own eyes, I truly felt it at that moment—a powerful force emerged from your location."

"That day, perhaps because your emotions were too volatile, you awakened the sacred gear residing within you for the first time, causing its power to erupt."

"At the same time, that was also the day the three factions sensed the anomaly here and discovered the existence of the sacred gear within you."

This was the reason why Leo had set Yukino Yukinoshita as his primary target, wanting her to become his first peerage servant.

To this end, he had even secretly helped Yukino Yukinoshita resolve some troubles; otherwise, the church personnel stationed nearby would have long since come knocking to make contact with her.

Compared to him and the church, the actions of the fallen angel side were relatively slow. After all, Chiba prefecture was not their territory, and even if they sensed something, it would take time for them to take action.

Little did he expect that once they moved, they would immediately aim to take Yukino Yukinoshita's life.

"You were also unlucky to run into the faction that reacts most strongly to sacred gear possessors."

Leo continued to stir the black tea in front of him with a spoon, curling his lip under Yukino Yukinoshita's stunned gaze.

"Among the three factions, the fallen angels are the ones who research, focus on, and value sacred gears the most. They even established a central organization—the grigori. Its duty is to specialize in researching sacred gears, finding possessors in the world, monitoring or recruiting them, and if they deem the individual to be a harmful influence, they send people to eliminate them."

Hearing this, Yukino Yukinoshita's hands tightened involuntarily.

"Is that why I encountered such a thing?" Yukino Yukinoshita said, biting her lip. "By what right do they arbitrarily label others as harmful, dangerous elements?"

"Aren't you?" Leo stopped his movements, narrowed his eyes, and said, "Think carefully. If the sacred gear that awakened in you that day had exerted even more power, what would the result have been?"

"Would your mother and sister sitting beside you have only been shivering from the cold? Would the people on that street have only suffered from colds and frostbite?"

"To take it further, if the temperature that day had been lower and that freezing wind had been stronger, would that street have only been covered in varying degrees of ice?"

"Could it be that the people around you and the street itself would have been frozen solid, beyond any hope of rescue?"

As soon as these words were spoken, Yukino Yukinoshita's heart trembled violently, and her face turned pale.

"That kind of thing..."

She wanted to say, how could such a thing possibly happen?

"It would," Leo ruthlessly shattered her illusions and laid bare the reality. "If the sacred gear residing within you is truly the one I know, then I can only tell you that all of this is possible, and the probability is quite high."

"If the true power of that sacred gear within you were fully unleashed and pushed to its limit, it would be capable of freezing an entire small country solid, let alone a mere street."

"Now, please tell me, are you a dangerous element or not?"

Leo's words left Yukino Yukinoshita completely silent.

"So, everything I've encountered is just a matter of course?"

Yukino Yukinoshita self-deprecatingly remarked with a gloomy expression.

Who would have thought that at this moment, Leo would suddenly shift his tone.

"No, just as I said before, you were simply unlucky." Leo spread his hands and said, "There are sacred gears in this world far more dangerous than the one you possess. The three factions—devils, angels, and fallen angels—all fear this power while simultaneously craving it to bolster their own strength."

"Take the grigori mentioned earlier, for example. They value sacred gear possessors far more than you can imagine. Their governor general is a fanatical researcher of sacred gears; he has provided sanctuary to many dangerous possessors, taking it upon himself to teach them how to control their abilities so they can master their own power."

"I suspect that the governor general didn't issue a direct order to eliminate you. Instead, he likely instructed the operatives sent here to observe and monitor you, only to eliminate you once they confirmed signs that you were losing control, right?"

At this point, Leo let out a mocking laugh.

"Unfortunately, as that order was passed down the chain of command, it ended up in the hands of an idiot who views humans as lowly, inferior creatures and looks down on any race other than fallen angels. He couldn't be bothered to secretly observe a human, nor did he want to linger in a place where church personnel might appear at any moment. So, he simply decided to strike at you to end it once and for all—saving time, effort, and peace of mind."

Hearing this, Yukino Yukinoshita suddenly remembered something important.

"What about that person?" Yukino Yukinoshita asked hurriedly. "Where is he now?"

"Him?" Leo smiled, though the smile lacked any warmth. "He's not in heaven, and he's not in hell. If there's any fragment of his soul left, he's probably waiting to be reincarnated. Let's hope he tries to be a better person in his next life, right?"

Yukino Yukinoshita understood exactly what those words meant.

"You... you killed him?"

The way Yukino Yukinoshita looked at Leo became complex.

"Do you think he shouldn't have been killed?" Leo looked straight at her, smiling with profound meaning. "Or do you think I'm too cruel?"

Yukino Yukinoshita didn't speak.

Although she was the daughter of a wealthy family in Chiba Prefecture, in the world she had lived in before, she had never encountered someone who could talk so casually about killing and actually put it into action.

In the past, she would have certainly thought this was wrong; even if the person were a murderer, they should be left to the judgment of the law.

But she wasn't stupid. She knew that the world she was in now was no longer a place where human laws held any sway.

And so, Yukino Yukinoshita asked another question.

"Are you... really a devil?"

A day later, this question, which she had once thought meaningless, was finally brought to the table.

This time, the smile on Leo's face was no longer devoid of emotion; it became deep and intense.

The next second, three pairs of devil wings unfurled from Leo's back, right before Yukino Yukinoshita's trembling pupils.

"A genuine devil, through and through." Leo smiled brilliantly, looking nothing like a dark, sinister creature. "Just like you are now."

Yukino Yukinoshita understood the meaning of that sentence immediately.

As if summoned by her king, the moment Leo unfurled his devil wings, an itching sensation erupted on Yukino Yukinoshita's back, and suddenly, a pair of devil wings burst forth from her as well.

"Congratulations, Miss Yukinoshita. Your surgery was a complete success."

As Yukino Yukinoshita's mouth slowly fell open, Leo spoke happily.

"From today on, you are a member of my peerage—a devil reincarnated from a human. I look forward to working with you, won't you?"

Those words echoed in Yukino Yukinoshita's ears, leaving her speechless for a long time.