Chapter 10

Run away, this was all the two girls could do right now. She was normal by all accounts, raised as a normal girl with normal parents that she loved normally. Absolutely nothing about her was extraordinary as far as she knew, well if you don't count her voluminous red hair, pink eyes, and truly great breasts topping at the F-Cup with still growth to expect since she was still growing.

Today was like any other day for her too, she had just returned home after school and was eating some quick snack before she had to go and start her homework when her entirely normal life abruptly stopped being that.

Weird people wearing aristocratic or bondage clothing showed up all of a sudden and half of her home was literally blown up. Her father, ever so kind and understanding for her, began battling those men with some weird sword when he was stabbed in the back and her mother, who was also somehow able to fight, got distraught at the death of her husband and got injured.

"My child, I will buy some time. Run, escape from here." Her mother yelled as she threw herself against those that were attacking and the girl, terrified of what was going on, could only run as tears spilled out of her eyes.

She couldn't understand what the hell was happening, just that she had to run away or she wouldn't get to see another sunset.

She shouted for help, over and over again she shouted for help, but it was like if there was no one in the entire town no matter how much she shouted. The streets that she knew so well looked so much scarier now as she could hear the sounds of wings flapping behind her.

She ran and ran and ran, but in the end, she was not fast enough. One of those winged people caught up to her, holding her against a wall with a wicked grin on his face as he took in the sight of her.

"Hehehe, I can see it clear enough, the previous Demon King did a fine job, giving birth to some hot bitch like this. Truly, killing you right away is a waste, why not take a taste first?" The monster in front of her said and others started showing up, also jeering and looking at her in a way not any different than what one would look at a mere piece of meat.

The devil began to fondle her breast and ripped off her shirt and then moved to her skirt, she cried out in despair as the devil put his hand underneath it, and with his free hand he held her skirt and panties and ripped it all away, leaving her almost completely naked and in the sight of these men, some still covered in the blood of the girl's parents.

"Well, shit. I guess I can't let any of you get away now, huh?" Came a dull voice from the back as the devils turned to look. There stood Ace, his eyes cold as he looked at the monsters and knew precisely what they were intending on doing.

Yeah, Ace was not happy, not happy at all.

He hated working for free, it was completely counter-productive to do any sort of effort for others if there was no clear reward or anything, but rape is one of the few things that could make Ace move regardless of any reward.

After Isane was molested by that disgusting cockroach that still breathed only because Ace didn't want to bring attention to himself when the incident happened, he developed an absolute hatred for the act done against the innocent. So, seeing this group of monsters (they all had all sorts of skin tones, pointed ears, and body types as well as wings) attack a girl alone in the streets?

Well, he would do what any good person should, and make sure that their entrains and brain matter was splattered all over the walls and the road.

You know, good guy stuff.

First, Ace created an earth alchemy circle, generating from the ground around the girl a large wall made out of marble as to make these monsters not be able to get to her.

"Wha, didn't the intel say the devils would be out of town for a few hours?"

"It di-"

That was as far as the one speaking got as Ace used his newfound speed, accelerating towards him with his sword drawn. The monster got bisected in half right down the middle as Ace jumped to the side, avoiding a flame attack aimed at him.

Using wing alchemy Ace created a small tornado towards the monsters, not aiming to kill but to drag as many as he could to the same location before he activated a fire alchemy circle, letting the fire blast mix with the wind to increase the heat by several times over.

Of the ten monsters that were at the start, only six were still alive and, of them, two were heavily injured as the others had used magic barriers to protect themselves.

Ace frowned, he was a bit tired from the night already so he would rather try and use as little energy as possible to deal with the enemies left.

Using a water alchemy circle Ace created a large amount of fog in the area, making visibility near zero for everyone in there. It was a nifty little trick Ace figured out after remembering the Jutsu used by Zabuza in Naruto. With Ace's enhanced sense of smell, it was still extremely easy to detect the location of the enemy, so the fog did not intervene much in his fighting skills.

In truth, Ace has never used this technique in practice, mostly due to him never having an enemy or enemies that would warrant him using such powers. But facing a group clustered together like this made this technique by far the most practical to use as they wouldn't dare use large-scale attacks for fear of friendly fire. Besides, they seemingly lacked any way to find and differentiate each other in this fog, a problem Ace did not have thanks to the Kamado family's sense of smell.

In this deep fog, Ace was no different than a wolf amongst a pack of sheep, he could attack as he wanted and retreat as he wanted since not one of these monsters could stop him from acting as he wishes, none able to get to him properly under the trouble generated by the fog.

By the time that the first one of them used wind magic and dispelled the fog only one of the monsters were still alive. And even then it was heavily injured and not in any state of moving around. In truth, these monsters were not weak, all were around mid-class by devil standards, but they were all caught by surprise by Ace when they least expected it and whose methods were not like those they were used to fight against.

Ace didn't care though, he has won due to having taken the initiative from start to finish while the enemy has been passive and didn't show their strength, simple as that.

After finishing killing the last one Ace did not hesitate in using fire alchemy to burn the corpses after taking some blood samples of these creatures to sell to Carol. The alchemist was a useful business partner and he figured that he could always see if she would accept selling him the other two models of Autoscorrers, especially the wind one as it has a supreme advantage against swords, and with the Excalibur situation approaching it would not be a bad idea to have something like that around.

With him having finished cleaning up the results of this little escapade Ace undid the walls that surrounded the girl. Her frightened and wide eyes together with her hyperventilating were clear signs of her mental state as she turned from one side to another in search of the monsters that were trying to rape her just now.

"Calm down, you are safe and sound. Those beings that were after you will not get to you for now, so how about if we take a deep breath and relax." Ace said soothingly, hoping to calm the girl down.

The girl looked at him and as Ace made the motions of deep breaths she copied him, her nerves relaxing as she did so and Ace nodding in her direction.

"Good, keep breathing a bit longer."

And the girl did, her mood returning to a more stable state before her eyes widened as she shouted.

"MY PARENTS!"

And, without hesitation, the girl ran back to where she was coming from.

Sighing to himself Ace shook his head in exasperation. He could just ignore this, but by now he was already helping her and he should at least follow through and complete his job if he starts it. Moving faster than her Ace caught the girl in his arms and jumped onto the rooftops.

"Where is your house?"

The girl's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before she turned her gaze in a direction and pointed.

"Over there."

Ace nodded and started to run, however it wasn't long before it was clear what happened as the firefighters were at the scene of a burning down house. The girl could only stand there, looking on in despair at what she was seeing.

Ace felt bad for the girl, so he took her away from the place as he knew that staying there watching her home burn wouldn't be doing the girl any favors. Moving back to his house he entered his room through the window while still holding the girl as he sat with her in bed.

"... Do you have some other family that can take you in?" Ace asked, wanting to help this girl a bit.

She just shook her head in denial, not even speaking a word as she was still in shock over all of this.

Ace scratched his head and spoke.

"Look, I will figure something out to help you, but we can figure that in the morning. You should sleep for now, okay?"

"Um." The girl voiced, barely even that as she lay in the bed, and silent tears strained her face as reality started to settle in.

Ace did not like that. Having grown beside Isane for these years Ace was very weak against girls' tears due to the pervert, a weakness he knew he had but didn't know how to deal with it.

Not knowing exactly what would be the best option Ace just did as he used to do with Isane, sitting beside her and holding her hand as a show that he was there. The girl clutched his hand tight as she cried more and more, she was showing herself at her most vulnerable to a complete stranger but, at this time, she couldn't even afford the effort to try and stop this.

She simply cried herself to sleep as Ace came to a conclusion.

'... Being a nice guy is just not cost-effective.'

He regretted the time he would not be able to train for his upcoming match that would decide his salary and benefits, but what was done was done and he could only hope that a magic caster Hashira with soul power and a physique that doesn't lose out to that of a regular devil could match Riser Phenex.

... Maybe training intensely for this bout was an over-exaggeration, huh. Oh well, better safe than sorry and the paycheck was by far the most important for Ace anyway.

///---///

The next day, which was just a few hours since he returned home, Ace was thankful that it was Saturday since it meant that everyone would sleep in a few extra hours. Having not been able to properly sleep at his bed Ace stood up from the chair he sat in and stretched a bit. Thankfully the girl he had saved was still asleep so Ace did not need to worry much about it, for now, instead of moving along to the backyard of his house.

This was a Saturday morning, he would have at least another hour or so before the rest of the house woke up and it was time to start to try to explain to everyone why he suddenly brought home two hot teenage girls out of the blue.

Not wanting to deal with this sort of issue Ace concentrated instead on his practice. Even if he had many useful skills his basis was still that of a swordsman and that was his focus at the end of the day, as such he made it a point to always practice during the weekends on the time he had available.

No breathing techniques, no extra enhancements, no nothing besides the most simple sword movements. It was almost therapeutic for Ace, this sort of easy and simple move was just what he needed to keep his mind in place after such an agitated and complicated night.

Moving forward Ace kept his movements normally for a good half an hour before stopping. He still needed to practice his new powers for a bit.

Namely, he started using his Soul Wavelength ability to try and resonate with the Black Blood inside him slowly. It was quite a troublesome process as he sometimes felt the madness inside it trying to encroach upon his psyche, but he managed to avoid it causing any damage while still being able to better acclimate to it. His current objective was to be able to resonate with the blood safely as to improve his body further.

With some practice, he should be able to control his Soul power safely enough to practice some more advanced techniques that could be very useful.

Ace had yet to practice with his Adola fire though since he wasn't quite sure it would be safe to practice it while in a city so full of people.

Sure, some of them would be relatively safe to practice, but if his power was that of the pilar Nanaki then it wouldn't be that good an idea to try it out here.

The last thing Japan needed was someone practicing throwing Nuclear explosions around.

Regardless, the Black Blood and Soul power would still improve Ace's body way further in both defense and offense while perhaps giving him the chance of attacking the enemy's soul, bypassing entirely regeneration or defense powers.

That, plus his hashira-level swordsmanship, plus his Alchemy that would not lose out in terms of technique to Carol, plus Ace's own physical quality that is above normal humans even without considering his Black Blood, plus the fire resistance that being an Adola Burst user provide should be enough to beat Riser.

... Perhaps he was trying too hard, huh.

///---///

In the Underworld, or to be more precise at the Demon region, two people were talking.

First was one that looks like an elderly man. He has long red hair, two golden and purple horns as if they were swords, and a mustache and beard that looked very neat and at the same time pointy. He wears black armor with shoulder armor, as well as a long red cape with yellow ornaments, and stands with a regal and elegant posture of someone who clearly was used to leading. The feeling of pride he exuded was completely unmistakable.

He was Ramusas, the leader of the Moderate Faction of the demon race.

Meanwhile, the other one was his personal aid, she was a woman who looked around in her early twenties and was wearing a classic maid outfit and had short silver hair, purplish-blue eyes, had pointy ears, and short black horns on her head.

Her name was Lucia, the second daughter of the Queen of the succubus race, Sheila.

"So, my niece was attacked?" Ramusas questioned to which Sheila nodded her head.

"Yes, according to the report sent by our spies in the Demon King faction there was an attack against her a few hours prior. The attack was organized by count Zolgear, one of the elders of the demon race, apparently without the consent of the other elders or the faction who is trying to understand the situation and what action should they take now that they know of Mio-sama's existence." Lucia said to which Ramusas growled in irritation.

"Damn those devils. I told my brother that he should not have let his bastard child be raised in devil territory, she should have been raised in a city controlled by our moderate faction instead. There we would have been able to set up proper defenses around her at the very least." Ramusas says.

"There is little we could have done, lord Ramusas." Lucia says with a shrug. "Lord Wilbert wanted to let his bastard live a normal life so he entrusted her to live in a human city in devil land, hoping that neither us nor other demons would get our hands on her. It was a good plan, especially with those lands being held by the Gremory clan where his old friend Sirzechs comes from."

Ramusas refused to agree to that. He knew that Sirzechs and Wilbert were old friends and rivals since youth, and Ramusas could see how leaving Mio to live as normal a life as possible in the human world while keeping her powers mostly sealed would ensure she wouldn't be targeted by the demons and with Sirzechs around no devil would get their hands on her either, but that is still trusting her life to another race.

"It seems like the attack happened as soon as the devils in town retreated to the Underworld." Lucia said making Ramusas frown.

"Did the devils spread the information to those bastards in the Demon King Faction?"

"We cannot ascertain that yet, it could well be a spy since the devil's factions have many of those mixed in on all sides." Lucia argued.

"Regardless, where is the bastard child now?" Ramusas questioned in irritation.

"She is currently in another human's house. It seems like one of the humans there managed to save her according to Maria who was approaching at the time to protect Mio-sama."

"... What do we know about this human? Is he a sacred gear user or perhaps one of the Hero Clan people?" Ramusas questioned.

"We have found out information about him. It is a bit complicated, in fact." Lucia says as she presents Ramusas with a document.

He starts to read it and one of his eyebrows raises before he chuckles in mirth.

"How interesting. That person's child actually ended up saving a half-demon who holds the power of the previous demon king inside her. It almost makes me laugh at the absurdity of it all." Ramusas says before turning to Lucia. "Tell Maria to enter in contact immediately, she is to try and be by Mio's side as much as possible and protect her. Also, tell her to obtain the cooperation of the boy regardless of the price, having him around should mean an extra layer of protection to Mio before we decide what to do with her. However, let Maria know that under no circumstances may Mio be captured or taken by the Demon King Faction, that she kills the little bastard before that may happen."

"I will inform my sister immediately of the orders." Lucia said earning a wave of the hand from Ramusas to dismiss her.

After she left the old demon looked up at the purple moon in the sky in thought as he muttered.

"So that monster really did it, huh. I wonder what the rest of the heroes will do when they found out what is going on."

///---///

AN:

Simple chapter, but I hope this introduction to Shinmai Maou plot was good. Mio is here, and soon her plot will go underway. We also get a glimpse that Ace's past is not quite as 'normal' as expected.

Quick question, I have the first 'lemon' scene happen in chapter 12, would you guys prefer if I showed it in detail or not?