19

The moment Lavinia saw me, she started sprinting and leaped into my arms. I caught her and spun her around. She took the opportunity to plant a kiss on my lips. You see, Lavinia and I had a peculiar relationship, according to this life's memories. She had always thought that I held a flame for her, and she was technically right, but the previous Taylor Sune Valefor never acknowledged his crush. This led to memories that were full of teasing and attempts at getting my attention from Lavinia, and memories of pretending to ignore her advances from me. Despite all of that, or maybe because of it, we were still very close.

When Lavinia kissed me, I stopped thinking about the past and just kissed her back. It was incredible. Her lips were soft and plump, and, even though she didn't really know what she was doing, her airheaded savant-ness provided her body with the necessary skills. Eventually though, I had to break the very pleasant kiss and set her down.

I got down on one knee, and took out my queen piece, "Lavinia, would you do me the honor of becoming my queen?"

I was playing into the proposal misunderstanding for her sake, and it seemed to be working because she covered her mouth with her hands in barely constrained joy, "Yes! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. It could only be you, Taytay."

Her enthusiastic agreement actually caused me to blush. She was just so earnest in her love for me. It was almost so genuine that it felt fake. This sort of thing only happened in movies, and the people around us seemed to agree. They had their phones out and were filming. I even heard comments about how well we were acting out this bit from the crowd.

Deciding that this wasn't a good place for the reincarnation ceremony, I stood, grabbing Lavinia's hand, and dashed away from the public eye. Lavinia allowed herself to be pulled along, she was still in a state of blissful celebration at my proposal. I eventually escaped from watching eyes and was able to teleport us back to the ORC. Grabbing a hold of Lavinia's being, I stepped through the Warp.

Unfortunately for me, Rias and Akeno were present in the clubroom. The two of them looked slightly shocked at my appearance with a strange woman, but stayed silent.

"I'll ask again now that we're in private. Are you sure you want to become my queen?" I asked.

"Oh, just do it already, ~Darling~" Lavinia squirmed in place with happiness when she called me darling, the movement doing wonderful things to her breasts that hypnotized me for a moment.

I, once again, presented my queen piece to Lavinia. This time though, I followed through with the ceremony. The Evil Piece sunk into Lavinia's chest with a flash of light, and I took advantage of the momentary contact to apply the Binding to Lavinia, as well.

"Taylor? Care to introduce us to your… ahem… queen?" Rias said, barely concealing the jealousy she was feeling.

Lavinia, finally noticing we had company, seemed to just appear in front of Rias, "Oh, oh, you're so pretty! I love your hair. Thank you for taking care of Taytay. Will you be my friend? I always need more female friends. Azazel tends to drive females off or sleep with them before I get the chance to befriend them."

Unsurprisingly, Rias got sucked into Lavinia's pace at that point. Lavinia was like a force of nature when she got started. Getting along with people was always so simple for her, and, sure enough, Rias and Lavinia were soon chatting away like old friends.

Akeno had removed herself from the conversation to let Rias get to know her new bestie, and approached me, "You certainly work fast, ~Darling-san~"

I chuckled at Akeno's light hearted probe for information. "Yup, not even a day and I've already gotten two peerage members. I've actually known Lavinia for a long time. She helped me out and gave me a place to stay when I was younger and running from my mother's old enemies." I said.

"I see… She sounds like she will make a loyal queen for you. And the other peerage member?"

"Hmm?"

"You said you had already acquired two peerage members. Who is the other one?" Akeno asked.

"Ah, my first contractor, Aika Kiryuu. She's a student here at Kuoh, and, as part of the contract, I've been teaching her some magic."

"I will admit, I don't actually know very much about the girl. Only whatever rumors are whispered about her. You think that she holds enough potential to give her one of your Evil Pieces?"

"Yeah, definitely," I said, smirking because I was the one who gave her that potential. "She's impressed me already, and I think she'll make a fine pawn."

"And for your next member? Do you already have a target? A plan?"

"I may have found a lead on a powerful Sacred Gear user. If everything goes well, she'll be my newest member."

"Well, I'm glad to see that you are taking this Rating Game business seriously. It would be such a shame if you lost and made dear Rias sad." Akeno's words held the barest hint of a threat. She did dearly love her king after all. I was confident in my victory though, so I just nodded to reassure Akeno that I wouldn't let it come to that.