Chapter 6: The Jobs of a Devil
The next day…
Keijutsu stood in front of the main gate to Kuoh Academy. Around him, other students walked in, talking with each other about various topics. The latest gossip, what they were planning to do after school, whether or not they got their homework done… Life as usual, really. The details concerning the picture would change, but the overall image of life would remain fairly the same.
'I'm not sure whether that's more comforting or depressing,' he thought, taking a deep breath. Not counting yesterday, this would mark his first day living as a Devil, the start of a new life that would last for years and years to come. A long, winding road through time, one that contained endless possibilities for both ruin and glory.
And it all would start here, at the fateful Academy where he and Sona had crossed paths. How fitting. Taking a deep breath, he walked forward into the school, heading for his first class.
His first day as a Devil turned out to be more boring than he thought it would be. Even though he was supposed the learn the rules and procedures of being Sona's servant, she had not called on him once during class. Being the Student Council President, he knew full well that she had the authority to have him excused on the grounds of club duties. And yet she hadn't done that. Was this some subtle form of payback?
Nothing interested happened after the last class, when he was sitting in the classroom and reading a book on electromagnetism. He heard someone clearing their throat and looked up to see that it was Saji, looking distinctly irritated.
"Good afternoon, Genshirou-san. How can I help you?" he asked pleasantly.
Saji grimaced. "Sona-kaichou sent me to find you and bring you to the Student Council room. Come with me, please," he said.
That statement alone set off a wave of whispers throughout the other students in the room. The head of the Rocket Club was being summoned by the Council President? What could it be for? Was his club getting shut down? Did he do something and was trouble? Was Sona asking him on a date?
Doing his best to ignore the mutterings of his fellow students, Keijutsu nodded and stood up. "Very well. Lead the way," he said.
Saji nodded and the two of them left the room. The sight of the two of them together set off yet more whispers, causing Keijutsu to roll his eyes. Didn't these people have a brown-haired mega-pervert to whisper about?
Deciding to make some small talk, he said "So, Genshirou-san, how long have you been a part of Sona's peerage?"
"Not that long; I was actually the newest member of the group before you showed up. Sona found out that I had the Absorption Line Sacred Gear and offered the chance to become a Devil. I accepted, and she used her remaining Pawn Pieces to get it done," he explained.
Keijutsu raised an eyebrow. "Wait. Remaining Pawn Pieces? You mean that you can use more than one Evil Piece to revive the same person?" he questioned. When Saji nodded, he asked" What would be the benefit in that?"
Saji smirked. "Actually, if you're trying to use them on someone that's really strong, it may take more than one piece to turn someone into a Devil. For me, it took a total of four Pawns," he said proudly.
The white-haired man hummed. That was interesting. And since a Bishop was technically worth only three Pawn pieces, that meant that Saji's Sacred Gear actually gave him more raw power than he had. "If you don't mind, is it possible that I can later perform a study on your Sacred Gear? Nothing invasive, of course, but a brief inspection to see if I can learn anything."
Saji thought about that for a while, before eventually shrugging. "I don't see why not. But…" he began, before suddenly whipping around and grabbing the front of Keijutsu's shirt.
Quickly, Keijutsu grabbed Saji's arm and was about to channel of current of electricity, before Saji spoke. "Let's get one thing clear. To me, you're an arrogant, manipulative bastard that just happened to get lucky twice in row against our King. We may both be on the same team now, and Kaichou may have taken an interest in you. But that doesn't mean I'm required to like you, and I don't. Got it?"
Keijutsu stared at him for a moment, his smile fading away faster than a desert mirage. "I… see. Well, maybe your opinion of me will chance with time. But right now, I understand you clearly, and I'll keep that in mind," he said.
Saji nodded and let him go, smoothing out any creases he might have caused in Keijutsu's uniform. "Glad we understand each other. Now, let's get going," he said, and kept walking. Keijutsu walked behind him, mind running at high-speed. From that tirade alone, he had been able to gather the impression that Saji had a great deal of admiration for Sona, possibly bordering on a romantic attraction.
That meant that, if Saji kept this attitude up, he had a very real chance of becoming a problem in the future whenever he tried to do experiments and they had the risk, however small, of causing Sona any inconvenience. And while such loyalty was useful, it could lead to unpredictable consequences. He'd have to tread a lot more carefully then, at least until he either at succeeded at duplicating the young man's Sacred Gear or gave up on it.
Keijutsu refocused on what as in front of him just in time to noticed that they had arrived, and that the door to the Council room was opening. Inside was Sona, who was sitting at her desk and doing paperwork, while Tsubaki was standing behind her and to the side, holding a stack of more papers. The rest of the peerage wasn't present, something that caused him to raise an eyebrow.
Before he could speak, however, Saji elbowed him in the stomach. "Lesson Number One: Never interrupt Sona-kaichou when she's working. That's a surefire way to get punished," he whispered.
Keijutsu grunted but did as he advised, and waited in silence. Eventually, Sona finished with whatever document she was working on and handed it to Tsubaki, who added it to the stack in her arms. Then she looked up at us and placed her hands on her desk.
"Thank you for bringing Keijutsu here, Saji. You can go home unless you receive a client request," she said. Saji bowed and left, leaving just the three of them.
Once he was gone, Sona smirked slightly. "Well, Kei-san, how does it feel to be a Devil?" she asked.
He shrugged. "There is a psychological shift, to be sure, but I don't physically feel any different, to be honest. Though once I got home last night, I did notice that my power with magic is almost twice what it was before," he said.
"I expected that much. Each of the Evil Pieces grants a different boost in abilities to whoever it is used on. The Knight receives an increase in speed, the Rook a boost in strength, and the Bishop is granted greater magical power. I had one of each remaining, and I felt that the Bishop would fit you and your skillset best," she told him.
Keijutsu nodded. It made sense. He wasn't much of one for directly confrontation, preferring to let his inventions and tactics win the battle in the long run. More power with magic would go a long way to that. "Moving past that, exactly what will I be doing today. I'm assuming that you send your servants out on assignments, correct?"
"In a sense, yes," Sona replied, and waved her hand. On the table to the side, there was a flash of light and several stacks of fliers appeared, each of them bearing a Sitri magic circle on the front along with the phrase 'for all your wishes you desire to come true'. "Your first assignment will be take these fliers and pass them out to people in town. You're to do this every day after school until you've passed out all the ones you see here, at which point I'll give you more to pass out."
He blinked once. Then twice. "That's it? Passing out fliers? That's my assignment?" he asked, looking at her in surprise. He had honestly been expecting something a bit more… important. Maybe this was how she was going to pay him back for beating her?
Evidently, his disappointment showed, as Sona frowned. "Don't assume that this is just some sort of meaningless job, or that I'm giving you this assignment as punishment. This is actually one of the way that Low-Class Devils such as yourself actually rise in rank and prestige in the Underworld," she said sternly.
Keijutsu raised an eyebrow, and sat down on the couch. "Is that so? Please explain," he said.
"Whenever you pass out one of those fliers and someone uses it, if they have enough willpower, they can summon you with the pre-prepared magic circle written on it. Then, in exchange for having their wish fulfilled, the client forms a contract with Devil in question. The contract grants the Devil a small portion of the client's power, thereby raising their own strength and prestige. Eventually, once you have obtained enough contracts from a number of different clients, you can earn the right to be promoted to Middle or, if you contract with someone of great power influence, maybe even High Class," Sona lectured him.
"Hmmm… So, this is something that all Devils do? Pass out fliers and grow in rank by getting contracts?" he asked.
"Exactly. Though once you've been passing out fliers for a while, I might allow you to get your own familiar, who can handle the passing0out of the fliers for you. But for now, this is your job. So, get to it," she ordered.
Keijutsu sighed. "As you command," he said, putting the stacks of fliers in his bookbag and heading for the door. He could see the point of the task rather easily now, but that didn't detract from how tedious such a process was going to be. Not to mention that this was going probably going to cut into time that he had previously allocated to doing research. If only there was a way to pass out these fliers faster.
Actually, there might be a way. If he headed straight back home and gather a flock of his ornithopters, then he could give each of them a small number of these fliers. Then they can airdrop them all over the city, maximizing area coverage and decreasing the amount of time it would take by a factor of-
"And no using your inventions to pass any of them out for you!" Sona called out after him.
Damn it.
A few hours later…
Keijutsu plastered a fake smile on his face, doing his best to make it look as real as possible while he passed out fliers. The sight of a young man wearing a school uniform and lab-coat handing out wish-granting fliers was strange enough. Already he could feel his pride demanding that he abandon this task and get back to what he considered to be more important work. But orders were orders, and Keijutsu had out himself in a position where he could be ordered around by becoming a Devil.
The extra few thousand years of life looked so much better before he learned he had to do this. Now he wondered whether there really was some sense of cosmic karma coming back to bite him in the ass.
Behind him he heard a set of giggling, and he looked behind him. To his shock, Rasiel was there, standing on the back of a chair and twirling around on one foot. Such an act was garnering the attention of more than few spectators, amazed at the girl's sense of balance.
Quickly approaching the girl, he grabbed her hand. "Rasiel! What are you doing here?" he demanded.
The girl giggled again and removed her hand from his grasp, jumping down onto the ground. "You're foolish. I've been here for the past thirty minutes. And you didn't notice me all this time? So foolish," she said.
Keijutsu opened his mouth, before shutting it. That was another blow to his pride, one that left a bitter taste in his mouth. But it seemed Rasiel wasn't done there.
"I have to say, I didn't expect you to ever fall this low. My own Keykeeper reduced to the job of a messenger boy, passing out papers at the behest of his 'master'," she taunted.
He frowned. "Alright, that's enough. Tell me why you're really here," Keijutsu said.
Rasiel sighed and reached into the pocket of her dress. From it, she produced a small, leather-bound book with gold filigree on it. The pages appeared to have yellowed with age, yet the book itself was in pristine condition. "I looked at the section of the Library you asked about, and found this. A book detailing every Sacred Gear ever made by God, divided into categories and classes and including a description of each one. Here," she said, handing it out to him.
Keijutsu's eyes grew huge, and he quickly took the book from her hands. A quick inspection showed that the contents were written in a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, the same three languages originally used in the Bible.
Placing the book in his bag and making sure that there wasn't anything that could damage it, he said "Thank you for this. What can I do to repay you?"
Rasiel's smile returned. "Well, I was eyeing this new candy shop just around the corner. Perhaps you could go in there once you're done with paper-duty and get me, say, five kilos of chocolate and caramel?" she asked sweetly.
Keijutsu looked back up, his eyes even huger. Five entire kilograms of chocolate and caramel? How the hell was she supposed to eat all that?! Thinking about it, however, he decided that he didn't want to know. It seemed like every Biblioprincess had their own food craving, and this was Rasiel's. Still, it could be worse. Fried bread was even more expensive, and at least she wasn't asking for that.
"You've got a deal. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a job to return to," he said, and went back to passing out fliers.
Once he had passed out at least a third of all the fliers, Keijutsu decided that it was time to call it in for the day, and returned home. In his living room, he sat back and opened the book on Sacred Gears while Rasiel happily ate the chocolate he had gotten her.
The fact that it was written in multiples languages should have phased him, but when he had been examining a different book written in Latin last night, he had discovered something interesting. Apparently, becoming a Devil had given him an ability called 'Language' which enabled him to read and hear any language in existence as if it were the one he was most familiar with (Japanese). It likely worked in reverse too, so that anyone who spoke to him would be able to easily understand him too. That would certainly make things more convenient if his clients spoke another language.
It also made reading a book as archaic as the one in his hands no real issue, and he did so with a fervor.
"So, the very first Sacred Gear was known as Longinus Spear, named as such for having been wielded by the Roman centurion Longinus, who stabbed Jesus Christ while he was on the cross. The blood of God's own Son gave the spear its power, and it remains the most powerful Sacred Gear even today," he read.
Not only but, but the name Longinus was extended to include every Sacred Gear that had enough power to slay a divine being, something God had never intended to have exist, but eventually came about anyway. And there was a total of 13 such Sacred Gears, each with their own powers and abilities. How fascinating.
Looking through it, Keijutsu was astounded by the sheer diversity of what Sacred Gears could do. From absorbing an opponent's power to creating swords with variety of powers to being able to manipulate death and life itself. Even Saji's Sacred Gear was just one of a group of five, all of them possessing a piece of the soul of Vritra, the Dragon King.
Looking over at one of his fake Absorption Lines sitting at his worktable, he sighed. It would seem that, in trying to replicate a Sacred Gear, his research into the limits of magic had hit a dead end. Unless he could get his own hands on a Sacred Gear and learned the exact finer points of how God made them—something this book seemed to lack—he would never be able to copy them with magic.
Where to go from here, then? If he was to start over in experimenting with magic, then he needed to point to start from. Duplicating one of God's creations didn't work… So, what about duplicating a creation from just nature? He had already done so on a limited scale with his golems, who were meant to crudely resemble humans. What if he used magic to create a living being?
Keijutsu hummed. Actually, that was as good a question as any. Necromancy already existed, and had the power to animate that which was dead. But the 'life' that necromancers gave their work was also a shadow of true life, not a real resurrection in the plain sense. And the 'zombies' made by necromancers certainly weren't as intelligent as the creatures they were made from. But could magic, with all its capabilities, actually create intelligent life?
If the answer was no, then he had found one limit on the things that magic could and couldn't do. But if he could... if he could make an intelligent, living being using magic, then he held in hands a power normally ascribed to the divine. Even if he wasn't personally in it for power, he couldn't deny that having the power to make life definitely had its own allure.
It was decided, then. Having failed to create a working Sacred Gear, Keijutsu would try to use magic to create intelligent artificial life.
Now the next question was thus: What form should that life take? Should he try to create life that was mechanical in nature, organic life, or something else altogether?
Keijutsu stood up and began pacing his living room, ignoring the look of curiosity he got from Rasiel as he considered pros and cons. Starting with mechanical life, the two were easy to see. If he could create intelligent mechanical life—some sort of 'living machine', as it were—then the machine had several advantages.
First, if he was successful and could replicate the feat, then each living machine he invented could be specialized for whatever task was needed. Each machine would also be almost completely automated, requiring little-to-no direct user input. Furthermore, they were, by design, exceptional at following rules and procedures, and the only thing they would need to keep going was regular maintenance and an energy source.
However, attempting to create mechanical life also had its drawbacks. Due to being designed for a specific purpose, a living machine wouldn't be able to adapt if placed in a situation outside of its parameters, leaving it essentially helpless. Since they would possess only rational thought that followed pure logic, they would be unable to draw the same conclusions organic life could draw by taking indirect routes. And even if he succeeded, it would still fall on him to provide growth for the machines; they wouldn't be able to evolve on their own.
Keijutsu next considered the pros and cons of trying to create organic life. The problem of being unable to adapt and evolve would be solved easily, as successive generations of artificial organics would be made more capable of survival by artificial and natural selection. They could also work in more than one capacity over time, and could assist each other in completing assigned jobs, with a decentralization of authority enabling him to delegate tasks to those he deemed capable of performing.
But just like machines, organic life was imperfect as well. Organic life was less adept at following given procedures, so their work process tended to be more unpredictable. Secondly, their method of integrating new members into the group was much more complex than machines, so achieving full efficiency would take more time. And he didn't want to start thinking yet about the fact that organic life would have to include emotions, the process of which would be almost endlessly complicated in and of itself.
Taking all of this into account, Keijutsu considered which path to take. After over an hour of thinking, he finally reached a conclusion.
Despite all its frailties, and the additional difficulties it would pose, he still concluded creating artificially organic life to be the better option. Perhaps it was his own bias as an organic being talking, but organic life would be more effective than machines. Their ability to naturally adapt would, given enough time, lead to a wide array of possible beings, each tailor-made to survive in their own environment, and the increased ability to perform work that came with it would be a huge boon to any of his other studies.
Keijutsu chuckled. 'I wonder if this is how Victor Frankenstein felt. All that time spent trying to give life to a patchwork of body parts put together from old corpses, believing that he was harnessing a power reserved for God,' he thought. But unlike the unfortunate doctor, he knew that he wouldn't be satisfied with a patchwork of already-used pieces. No, he would try to artificially grow a human body—choosing human as the designated species since they would be the easiest to study—and then give that body animation.
Already he could feel his mind buzzing with ideas, thoughts of what he would need to study in order to get to test this question on magic, and where his knowledge on the human body and human life was lacking.
"You look like you're plotting something very exciting," Rasiel commented.
Keijutsu smiled. "For once, you're spot on."
Rasiel stared at him for a moment, unbelieving. Eventually, however, she smiled widely back at him. Oh, this was going to be fun.
A few days later…
"That's the last of the fliers, Kaichou," Keijutsu said, sitting down on the couch.
Sona smiled. "Excellent. Good job on finishing your first assignment as my Bishop," she said.
He shrugged. "All in a day's work, I suppose. So now what? Is there another stack for me to pass out?"
Sona shook her head. "There was, but something else came up. I received a summons request from one of my own clients, but I have to stay here and finish this report on the school's annual budget. Therefore, I am delegating the summons to you," she announced.
Keijutsu looked at her in surprise. "Are you serious? So soon and I'm actually being sent out?"
"Normally, I would be having you pass out fliers for a few more weeks before letting you start getting your own clients, but the client asked me specifically, and everyone else in my peerage is already on their own jobs. Consider yourself lucky" she said, smirking.
'Lucky, indeed," he thought, before nodding. "Very well. What needs to be done for me to meet this client?"
Sona pout down her report and walked out from behind the desk. Standing in the center of the room, she conjured a large blue magic circle. "This magic circle will take you directly to the client's location. From there, you have to perform whatever task they ask you within reason. Don't disappoint me now," she said.
Keijutsu nodded and stepped into the center of the circle. It began spinning around him and glowing brighter, and he could feel the magic in the circle resonate with the magic in his body. The circle spun faster, and Keijutsu closed his eyes. 'I hope this works,' he thought. After all, he was a Bishop. Not having enough magic power to use a magic circle would be pretty embarrassing.
The light reached its peak brightness and Keijutsu suddenly felt a sensation of weightlessness. It was as if he were hovering in empty space, yet at the same time he felt like he was rushing forward, pulled by an unseen force. After a few seconds, it ended, and he opened his eyes.
It appeared as if he had been transported to a modern museum, one that was full of artifacts and relics from ancient civilizations, Quickly, he could spot Greek marble statues, Japanese samurai armor and even Chinese clay tea sets.
"Oh, it seems Sona-san sent me someone new instead," he heard a male voice say. Looking over at a collection of busts of roman figures, he saw a middle-aged man standing there with a clipboard. Said man had graying brown hair and a mustache, with brown eyes. He was wearing a blue button-up shirt with a black tie, to Keijutsu's pleasure, a white lab coat.
Keijutsu bowed. "Yes, sir. My name is Keijutsu Hatsume, one of Sona's servants. She couldn't make it today, and so she asked me to fill in for her. If that's not too much trouble, that is," he said.
The man chuckled. "I don't think it'll be a problem. I'm Professor Nishiura; I work here at this museum. Pleased to meet you, Hatsume-san," he said, bowing in return.
'Maybe this won't be so bad,' he thought, before asking "So, what is it that you need me for?"
"Well, whenever we have a new artifact come into the museum, I usually call for either Sona-san or Rias-san to help me identify it. But you seem like a learned young man, so perhaps you can help," Professor Nishiura explained.
Keijutsu's eyebrows rose. A chance to examine and identify and museum exhibit before it was even put on display. This sounded like fun. "I'd be happy to help. Show me the artifact, Professor," he said.
Nishiura nodded and led him into a back room, where was looked like a necklace sitting on an examination table. The necklace looked to be made of solid gold with several large links, with the pendant was emerald and in the shape of an animal's head. What animal, however, it was hard to tell, as the details of the face were worn with age.
"This is the artifact. We've determined that it likely served some sort of ritualic purpose, worn by a high priest or priestess during prayer or ceremony. What they were praying to, however, as well as the age of necklace, have been things we have yet to identify. I was hoping you might be able to shed some light before our own researchers took another crack at it," he said.
Keijutsu nodded and approached the necklace. However, once he was within a few feet of it, his senses suddenly began tingling. The presence of magic. Looking around to see if anything else might have caused it, he stepped closer to the necklace and the feeling intensified. No doubt about it. The magical energy was coming from the necklace.
Instantly, his skills as an Artificer went into overdrive, and he quickly approached the table and began examining the necklace. An array of runes appeared over his hand and he held it over the necklace, making sure not a to touch it. As he held it over one of the links of the chain, it began glowing and vibrating slightly. When Keijutsu pushed more power into his hand, however, neither the glow or the vibration increased.
"Not to interrupt, but might I ask what you're doing?" Professor Nishiura asked.
Keijutsu looked over at him. "I can sense that this necklace possesses a reservoir of magical energy. This runes on my hand will cause any part of the necklace that has such energy in it to react to my own and begin vibrating. And if I use on the part of the necklace that is the source of the energy, then it will react more violently as I increase my energy output," he said.
Moving his hand over the next link, the same affect occurred, with no chance once he increased his energy. He repeated this process for each of the links, trying to see which, if any, of the links was the energy source. However, while the initial reaction from the links was more violent as he came closer to the animal pendant, the second reaction didn't occur for any of the chain links.
Finally, when he held his hand over the pendant, he received the greatest reaction yet. And once he increased his energy output, the pendant shook even more in response. Keijutsu deactivated the spell. "As I thought. The necklace itself had no magical value—it's simply an ancient gold necklace—but the pendant does an act a sort of magical battery, enabling whoever wears it to access its abilities," he said.
"I see. How utterly fascinating. And can you tell what those abilities are?" the Professor questioned.
Keijutsu shook his head. "Not without putting the necklace on, no. And I'd rather not do that due to the slim chance that there could be a curse on the necklace that being concealed from detection. But what I can do… is this," he said, pulling back his sleeve to show his wristwatch.
He took the watch off and placed it on the table next to the necklace. After pressing the buttons on the side of the watch in a specific sequence, it suddenly began glowing blue. The blue glow expanded onto a sphere that enveloped both the watch and the necklace. "This is one of more… unconventional inventions. It enables me to take an inanimate object and, in exchange for expelling a great amount energy in the form of heat, I can reverse any damage done to the object due to use, aging, destruction, etc."
Nishiura started to nod, but then stopped. "Forgive me, but wouldn't do so somewhat violate the laws of physics?" he asked.
"Actually, not so much. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, within a closed system, the total amount of entropy—that is, the amount of chaos or disorder—can only increase over time. So, what my device does is isolate everything within the sphere from the surrounding environment and then, in exchange for repairing the necklace, create heat. The total of amount of entropy generated by the heat is greater than the amount that is taken away by the necklace's 'de-aging', so the Second Law is still obeyed even when the necklace itself is fixed," Keijutsu said.
Even as he spoke, the Professor could see the results before his very eyes. The numerous nicks and dents along the chains of the necklace began to suddenly repair themselves, rapidly returning to its previous state. At the same time, the air within the sphere began shimmering due to the heat that was filling the sphere up, causing the image to waver in the same manner as the heat coming off a hot road.
After several minutes, the pendant began to be repaired as well, thousands of years of age and wear melting away as Keijutsu's invention repaired it. The shimmering of the air grew as it absorbed the heat from the spell, which continued to increase. And finally, the shape of the animal head came into clearer focus, until he saw exactly what it was meant to be—the head of a cat.
At that point, he halted the process and undid the isolation sphere, allowing the heat to expanded outwards and hit them like they had just opened the door to a furnace. Ignoring it, Keijutsu out the watch back on and said, "And that's that."
The Professor came closer and gasped in awe. The necklace appeared to be perfectly restored, as if it hadn't aged a day since it was made, and now shined in stunning detail and beauty. "Incredible! If I hand my hands on a device like that, the entire profession of artifact restoration would be a thing of the past! It could revolutionize science and archeology! Does it even work for living creatures?" he asked.
Keijutsu sighed. "I wish it did, but it doesn't. Despite the fact that all objects on earth are made from the same atomic particles, there's stills something that prevents me from using this to 'de-age' any animate object. Instead, it actually ages them, doing even more of the same damage than I'm trying to fix. Sorry," he said.
Nishiura shrugged, saying "Well, it was worth a shot. But look at this! A perfectly restored jeweled necklace, one likely worn by a worshipper of Bastet!"
Keijutsu blinked. "Bastet? The Egyptian cat goddess?" he asked.
"Well, technically she was a lioness warrior goddess before she became a cat goddess, but yes, that Bastet. She was also the defender of the chief god Ra, and fought the Chaos Snake, Apophis. Now we have a ritualistic piece of jewelry that was dedicated to her, and one that has been perfectly resorted! My colleagues are going to fall over themselves to examine it once they get the news!" Professor Nishiura said, now looking positively giddy at the thought.
The young man chuckled. "I'm glad to have helped. Is there anything else you need help with?" he asked.
Nishiura shook his head. "No, you've already given me a great gift. Unless I was willing to sell my soul, I don't think I could ask you for any more. What can I do to repay for all that you've done for me?"
It was at that point that Keijutsu grinned. "How do you feel about forming a contract with me?"