Chapter 13: Kouhai

Sona brought a cup of tea to her mouth and closed her eyes as her taste buds took over enjoying the drink.

"Thanks for the tea... Akeno" Sona thanked carefully placing the cup on the small table in front of her.

Akeno nodded with a smile and sat down on the sofa next to the sofa Sona was sitting on, it was the OCL room.

After that event, Sona went to the OCL since she needed to discuss it with Rias before talking to Ajuuka, while Tsubaki was in charge of Goku's healing.

"Sorry for the delay Sona, I was taking a shower" Rias spoke with a smile as he had a towel on her head and sat in front of her.

"Don't worry, I just got here" said the devil Sitri, taking a sip of her tea again.

So Sona told Rias what happened tonight with Goku, she told her about the wounds on Goku's body, about how she tried to reincarnate him and what she had done with the "evil pieces".

"Really?!" Rias shouted after having heard Sona's story "It can't be something like that... I've never seen anything like it in my life"

"Impossible" Akeno murmured in a grave tone as he had his left hand under his chin, even she, a fallen half-human reincarnated as a demon, was surprised to hear that.

"Well, it's the reality, now I'm out of pieces... that's why I need to report the case to Beelzebub-sama" Sona reported adjusting her glasses. "However, I won't tell him anything about Goku, that would cause quite a stir in the underworld if it came namely".

"You're right, it's for the best" Rias murmured thoughtfully, now she believed that she had done well in not reincarnating Goku just when he had the opportunity, because the pieces of her would have exploded.

This raised the debate about the identity of Goku, who was the only thing on the minds of the Sitri and Gremory heiresses, Sona and Rias.

"What do you think he is?" The redhead finally asked her childhood friend, who she denied.

"I don't know Rias..." Sona replied sighing "At the moment my evil pieces exploded I felt an energy so archaic and full of darkness that it seemed like a disgusting abomination"

"Full of darkness? Like a god of death?" Rias asked, according to her she had heard only the gods of death like Hades, Anubis or Shinigami emitted those sensations.

"It was definitely worse Rias... in fact every piece I put inside Goku's body returned to me surrounded by a blue shadow, which conveyed that same feeling" Sona spoke remembering that with some dread.

"Well... I've only been close to Goku-san for a few moments but... the feeling he transmits is quite pure and pleasant, what do you think is the reason?" The Gremory inquired looking at her friend.

"I don't know...he may have a Sacred Gear related to darkness" Sona suggested, that wasn't a far-fetched option either.

"A secret longinus?" Rias raised with her shoulders shrugged, but that didn't explain the fact that Goku couldn't have been reincarnated.

"My priority right now is to recover my pieces... Tsubaki is currently taking care of Goku" Sona informed. "And what about you?"

"Now we know that there are fallen angels after Issei, for that reason I am attentive these days to see when they take action and so I can reincarnate Issei" Rias spoke calmly.

Akeno stayed in her seat with a strange smile on her face, she would have liked to have Goku as her peerage partner, so she would have enjoyed him a bit in that sense.

With Tsubaki:

Tsubaki was walking down the hall of a Shinto temple holding a lamp, she was wearing a priestess outfit and her hair was tied up in a tail thus increasing her beauty.

That temple was located on the outskirts of Kuoh, it belonged to her grandmother Sawako Shinra until her death almost fourteen years ago.

'Oba-chan...' Tsubaki let out a sigh full of sadness as he remembered her grandmother, the only person in her family/clan who really loved her.

The Shinra clan was one of the five Onmyouji clans that served the Shinto gods since ancient times by purifying evil spirits through mystical techniques.

Tsubaki manifested her Sacred Gear as a child, which allowed her to seal evil spirits in mirrors, something that the Shinra saw as a sacrilege to her traditions, so they tried to expel her from it.

Sawako, her grandmother, was opposed from the beginning to her granddaughter being expelled from it. The Shinra, although they did not share the same opinion, kept quiet since Sawako was the matriarch.

As soon as Sawako died, the elders of the Shinra clan pulled strings to expel Tsubaki as quickly as possible, if it weren't for Sona right now she wouldn't be telling.

'It's not time to remember that... I'll go see how Goku-san is' Tsubaki said with a smile, jumping towards the room.

"BROUGH!"

That smile disappeared from her face when she heard a strong cough, she ran with great speed to the room where Goku was resting to find out what was happening, that cough scared her.

In a matter of moments she arrived at her destination, in fact that was the only room that temple had and therefore Tsubaki used to sleep there.

"Goku-san!" Tsubaki exclaimed as soon as she arrived seeing that it was Goku who was trying to get up from the futon where she had been resting.

Goku looked up from her as soon as he heard Tsubaki's voice, he didn't know why she was with her torso exposed and a bandage around it.

"Tsubaki-senpai" Goku spoke seeing the vice president enter the room "What are you doing here? What do I do here? Where are my clothes?"

Tsubaki couldn't help but laugh at Goku's reaction, she took a few steps and sat down next to her.

"Sona-kaichou and I found you quite injured a few hours ago at the subway station while we were returning from shopping" Tsubaki stated and Goku swallowed at that.

"Ah that... I was robbed by some thieves but don't worry, I'm fine and they didn't take anything of importance" Goku spoke with a smile, he hated lying but he had to in this case.

Tsubaki hesitated whether to believe him or not, believing that wounds like this had been inflicted by thieves was not an easy thing to believe, but she decided to trust him and nodded, putting aside the fact that Sona's evil pieces had exploded.

"Then I brought you here to heal your wounds, the nearest hospital was several kilometers away and you would have lost a lot of blood in the process" Tsubaki spoke distorting the truth. "As your clothes were stained with blood I had to take them off... or at least the top"

Tsubaki looked away with a blush on her cheeks, it was the first time she had done something similar and she had to admit that Goku's body was well worked up for just a teenager.

'What things am I thinking about? Damn hormones' Tsubaki said to herself while she denied, surely her grandmother Sawako would have already hit her with the fan for having those kinds of thoughts that were not healthy at all.

"Souka..." Goku spoke with a drop of sweat seeing Tsubaki swimming among her thoughts.

It didn't take long for a silence to take place between the two, which for Tsubaki began to become a bit… uncomfortable since she wanted to get to know her Kouhai a little more now that she had the opportunity.

'What can I tell him?' Tsubaki wondered looking up at the ceiling, she was bad at this kind of thing since she had never done it.

Goku for his part was not better either, being face to face with the fourth most outstanding and beautiful person of the Kuoh academy for him this was an innovative experience never lived before.

"Hummm... I brought you this Goku-san" Tsubaki turned around and took out a tray of food "I thought that when you woke up you would be hungry and I did..."

"Oh, how good it looks!" exclaimed Goku sincerely as he had stars in his eyes "Thanks for the food Tsubaki-sempai!"

Goku without wasting any time began to eat that meal, which included rice, bento, noodles, ramen and some ohagi for dessert.

Tsubaki smiled seeing how Goku devoured all the food, that action made him think that she had liked the food that she had prepared.

"It was delicious!" proclaimed the jet with a smile after having finished eating "You really cook very well Tsubaki-senpai"

"Thank you very much Goku-san, I learned it from my grandmother" Tsubaki mentioned with a small smile and Goku felt a little nostalgic.

"Then she must be a great person" Tsubaki widened his eyes at Goku's words. "You are someone that everyone admires and aspires to be, you are a great role model".

Goku knew what he was saying, many of her classmates, including Murayama, admired Tsubaki and wanted to be like her.

He knew that both she and Sona were devils but he didn't feel evil coming from them enough to qualify them as "bad" according to the meaning he had given to the word "demon".

"T-thank you" Tsubaki couldn't help stuttering, she heard comments like that in the classroom corridors but hearing it from Goku's lips sounded different "You can use my first name, really no problem"

Goku nodded with a sigh of relief, which made Tsubaki smile. His grandfather had told him to treat people older than him and also people he didn't know.

"My grandfather used to tell me to be nice to girls and if he saw a pretty girl to say so" Goku spoke looking at the ceiling, before looking at Tsubaki "You are quite beautiful Tsubaki-senpai and your eyes... are also quite beautiful"

Goku said that with all the innocence in the world, that's why he didn't know that his words had quite an effect on the vice president.

Tsubaki had to hide the huge blush that reigned on her face, it was the first time someone had flattered her heterochromic eyes.

In the past that was made fun of in her clan, several children made fun of her calling her "bicolor eyepatch" or other insults and although all that changed when she got to Kuoh high school it was still marked inside her...

"Tsubaki-senpai did I say something wrong?" Goku asked when he saw that Tsubaki got up holding the tray in which there was food before "I..."

"No, no... I just need a little rest" Tsubaki answered with a small smile "You should do the same Goku-san... tomorrow we have class and you should go with all your strength"

"Hai!" a chibi Goku exclaimed raising his fist in the air and Tsubaki let out a small laugh "In that case I'll go to my apartment Tsubaki-senpai"

"Then I'll walk you to the exit" Tsubaki declared with a small smile and Goku nodded.

So it was, Tsubaki guided him to the exit not without giving him a yukata so that he could get dressed as well as indicating in which area of ​​Kuoh the temple was located so that he could return home.

"Thank you very much Tsubaki-sempai, tomorrow I'll bring you this very clean yukata" Goku asserted and she denied with the gesture of "you can keep it".

Goku waved his hand from left to right and Tsubaki smiled doing the same, as soon as Goku left she entered the temple and leaned her back against the door, thinking.

"You're quite beautiful Tsubaki-sempai and your eyes... they really are quite pretty too"

Tsubaki remembered those words of her putting her hands to her heart... not because they had captivated him but because she revived a memory of her.

Flashback:

"Oba-chan, oba-chan..." a Tsubaki in child version grabbed the dress of an old woman who was crushing some bananas in a mortar.

"What's wrong my little granddaughter?" asked the old woman with a smile caressing the hair of her granddaughter, she was Sawako the Shinra matriarch.

"Why do other children make fun of my eyes...? They always insult me ​​and I... I don't know why" Tsubaki spoke keeping his head down.

"Tsubaki..." Sawako spoke taking her granddaughter's chin "No matter what others say, for me you will always be the most beautiful girl in the world and your eyes are the most beautiful I have ever seen in my life"

Tsubaki, unable to contain her desire, threw herself into her grandmother's arms releasing tears, her grandmother always knew how to comfort her.

End of flashback

"Oba-chan..." Tsubaki murmured as several tears came out of her eyes and she had her hand on her chest, she missed her grandmother and she knew that her cruel fate would never return it.