As Rias stepped into the hall with her peerage she noticed a strange mood of the place. Several couples were embracing and the whole area had a surreal atmosphere that made her unable to associate it with what she had expected.

She thought the area would be filled with nobles mingling and talking business while trying to find some way to get an advantage over one another, not this romantic mood. ​​

Shaking her head Rias put her ‘game face’ back on as she strode inside the room as if she owned it. Even if her nerves were killing her and she was terrified of what would happen if her plan failed, she still had to try.

After talking with her brother they had arrived at a plan to avoid this marriage. And no, it wasn’t the option Rias preferred (killing Riser for being a disgusting pig), but it was the only one that could work.

She had to EARN the right of challenging Riser to a rating game. Normally she could do it without any issue, but with the problems she was facing she was not judged as even worthy of challenging the decision of their families.

And to earn it, she had to prove to all those present that she deserved this chance.

Behind her were those who she managed to convince to help or, at least, stand by her. It was not that many, but it was enough.

There was her peerage, of course. She had trained them all extensively this past week and she was confident that, should the Rating Game happen, she would be able to win. Then there was her best friend Sona, who agreed to stand by her but would not directly intervene, Sona’s whole peerage that was following their king, and then there was her greatest help.

Her cousin and the strongest young devil, Sairaorg Bael. In truth, he was quite reluctant to stick up for this sort of matter, and he did think that Rias was overreacting since being married to Riser wouldn’t truly change her life much (devils of both genders can get harems and the concept of ‘cheating’ was more a kink than anything serious in pureblood devils relationships), but Rias was ultimately his cousin and was asking for help.

Family matters a lot for Sairaorg, and, as such, he decided to help out this cousin, even if reluctantly.

As Rias walked in she headed towards Riser, he was dressed elegantly and when their eyes met he showed a face of pleasure as he walked towards her as if he was happy to see her and, surprisingly enough, he was. With her here he can have someone else to throw at the nobles to question about so much stupid shit.

“My dear Rias, I am so glad to see you so well and beautiful like always. Come, come, I have many people to introduce to you, they are important trading partners of the Phenex family that would be interested in discussing with you about future venues regarding the Gremory house.” Riser said happily.

It was as he said, many of the nobles and merchants here were those close to either the Phenex or the Gremory house and Riser wanted to make both sides closer, or to be more specific he wanted to bind the economy of the Gremory house closer to that of the Phenex house. Riser might not have been trained as future head of a house, he is a third son after all, but he was still taught what was expected of a Devil noble.

House Phenex had much to gain economically if they tied their economy with the Gremories, they would gain great force over the Gremory since the Phenex could always produce more Phenex tears so they had what was close to an infinite source of money, but the Gremories lacked that.

Basically, he wanted to economically tie House Gremory to House Phenex without risking House Phenex all that much. And it honestly wasn’t a bad deal for House Gremory considering how much money they would stand to gain from this, and seeing as Riser would be marrying into House Gremory they did not fear House Phenex intentionally damaging the house one of their sons was in.

However, Rias just humphed and spoke.

“That does not matter, I didn’t come here to talk with any merchants of house Phenex.” Rias said, making Riser look at her as if she was stupid. Ignoring the merchants who dealt with the money passing through the Underworld, was she even trained to be an heir?

Riser decided then and there that, when he had kids with her, he would take care of teaching them. Better the kid grow as a spoiled, but capable noble, than raised as a spoiled, and just spoiled noble.

“Regardless, there are many guests around and the drinks and food were all carefully selected, please everyone enjoy the party.” Riser said as he put his arm around Rias’ arm, as was custom, to go talk with several nobles regardless of Rias’ wishes.

It was the norm, simple as that. It was what was expected of two pureblood devils of great houses in a party like this.

However, the moment he did so, Issei’s face darkened and he actually moved forward in a blind rage, bypassing everyone in his way and without hesitation threw a punch at Riser’s face.

“Get away from buchou, you creep!” Issei shouted as he did so, his fist connecting but not even managing to damage Riser enough to warrant Riser’s healing power to flare up.

After the fight against the strays when his sister was almost killed, Riser, as an older brother, decided he had to get stronger in case his little sister was ever in danger again. As such he had been training for several weeks now and used his family’s near-limitless money to buy several unique treasures to accelerate his growth, right now Issei’s punch didn’t even register as more than a child angry flailing for Riser.

Well, Issei didn’t use a single BOOST on his punch, it was just his base strength, but the facts remain that Issei as himself wasn’t strong enough to even have his attacks be counted as such.

Riser just glared at Issei and spoke.

“… For the sake of my bride, and due to the fact that you clearly have not been taught the most basic of etiquette required from a servant of a noble of such a status, I can forgive you for that one. But you must learn to behave in a way that fits your station in life while in the presence of distinguished company as to not bring shame to the people you represent.” Riser said and Issei snorted.

“Fuck off and get your hands off her! The only one that can touch Buchou is me, the one that will have her virginity!” Issei said loudly, causing Riser to wonder if Rias would truly mind if he killed this stupid piece of shit.

Riser was confident he could convince his bro to remove the Boosted Gear right before death so Rias would still have a Red Dragon Emperor in her peerage, but perhaps make sure that the next one was mute or less brain-damaged.

“Issei-kun, that is enough.” Akeno said as she pulled Issei back. Looking around several lords and ladies of high society were all looking at this display and wrinkling their noses in disdain.

As Issei was pulled back, Riser closed his eyes for a few moments to not act on the thought of burning the irritating worm.

“Rias, I understand that your family likes to treat the servants as family members, each family deal with their servants as they wish, but you should educate your peerage better. It reflects badly in you and in the Gremory name as a whole if they behave like beasts in a public setting.” Riser said elegantly, he was trained to always mind his position in life and especially in how to act in fancy parties. And this training was also done to all servants of house Phenex.

However, Rias ignored what Riser was speaking as she glared at the ‘insult’ that Riser was pulling into her house, she pulled her arm away from his.

“That is enough Riser, I will not have you, who parades around with a bunch of sluts for a peerage, talk about how to educate my precious people.” Rias said, irritated that Riser would speak badly about her peerage in any sort of way. Besides, in truth she was WANTED to cause a scene to justify her next actions.

“Well, someone SHOULD tell you how to do it if you can’t educate them on how to act in polite company.” Riser said, garnering a lot of popular support. All nobles knew this as a fact, even the merchants and others present in the party all could agree to this.

Devils are an aristocratic society, knowing how to behave was the basics of the basics unless you was strong enough to crush anyone who disagrees like if they were a mere bug.

Rias just glares at Riser, ignoring all gazes around, before replying.

“I can’t let this stand, I challenge you to an honour duel .” Rias said, feeling triumphant about their plan succeeding.

The plan is to force a challenge against Riser, and when she wins, she can then declare Riser too weak to deserve her hand in marriage and, to prove that, challenge him to a proper rating game.

Riser just looked at her as if she was stupid, causing a scene like that would only make her look near unhinged to the rest of the nobles and merchants around, damaging her house and her own standing in society even further since no one wants to be close or depend on a crazy person.

Riser wanted to say something to stop this nonsense when-

“Now this seems interesting.” Sairaorg spoke up, having reluctantly agreed to help Rias he had to do his part. And since he agreed, he had to help move things along. “Why don’t you take this challenge Riser?”

“Because I don’t have to and challenging me over a simple piece of advice taken the wrong way is quite a bit stupid.” Riser said easily enough. “Now, how about we proceed with the festivities as planned? Or does heir Bael want to intervene in an internal matter between houses Gremory and Phenex?”

As he said that several people sucked in a deep breath. One must understand, house Bael was undoubtedly the strongest house in the Underworld, but Sairaorg’s position in it was very far from decent.

Sure, he was the ‘heir’ of the house due to being the strongest of his generation, but he lacked the Bael house trait, and his potential of having any offspring with the Power of Destruction was yet unknown and highly doubted.

In truth, Sairaorg would never become the head of his house unless he was to have a son who showed potential with the Power of Destruction, the most important duty of a head of house was exactly the furthering of the bloodline by creating heirs. Sairaorg might have won the title of heir by depending on his strength, but there was real chance that any future children of his would not have the trait and would not even deserve to have the name Bael.

No noble house wanted to marry their daughter to Sairaorg considering this, even if he was strong that didn’t mean anything for his bloodline and accomplishments of future generations.

In the end, Sairaorg’s position as heir was tenuous at best and only kept due to his personal strength, and if he tried to directly interfere with the internal matters of two houses, then he could easily be kicked out of his position as heir, a position that he fought hard to obtain.

Sairaorg frowned, not wanting to take that deep a plunge for Rias (it was just a favor for family, not a life or death matter after all).

Thankfully for Rias, Sirzechs moved forward at this moment.

“Now now, we don’t need to overreact.” Sirzechs said. “My cousin was just speaking his mind, worried about the honor of the young lady Gremory.”

“… Fair enough.” Riser said, honestly just wanting to get this all over with, end this party, and go on the bachelor party he had prepared.

It would be so much more fun than this stuffy party. He even had the 66 stripers ready to go at a moment’s notice, and there was even a noble blood Succubus amongst them! Now THAT was a party Riser wanted to get to already.

“But still, a challenge sounds interesting. Why not go for it? It doesn’t really have to have any big stakes, after all.” Sirzechs said and Riser wanted to roll his eyes at this, he did not want to do this shite but he can’t just say ‘no’ to motherfucker Lucifer.

Riser may not be the smartest person around, but he wasn’t dumb enough to do that.

“What would you suggest then, dear Rias?” Riser questioned and Rias showed a triumphant smile as if she obtained some sort of victory.

“We can have a three versus three ‘tournament’ of sorts. We each select three people to represent us, of these three we each select one and they will fight, when someone loses, another person is sent to replace them and the last team with someone standing wins.” Rias said and Riser rolled his eyes.

“Fair enough, so we select people from our peerages to fight for us then?” Riser said to make sure.

“We can select from our Peerages or volunteers.” She said and Riser’s eyes widened for a moment before speaking.

“That seems awfully unfair, you could just select your brother to represent you or someone from his Peerage.” Riser mentioned and the nobles that were interested in this little show nodded their heads and several eyes turned to Sirzechs who was starting to sweat bullets.

He couldn’t intervene in matters between the houses of the Underworld unless it was in his official position as Lucifer, what he was doing now was already pushing the boundary and could already cause internal problems for the entire devil race considering how economically influential the house Phenex was, and if he were to fight for Rias or send someone from his peerage to fight for her…

Yeah, he would be fucked. There would be discontent and fear that the Satans are trying to control the noble houses directly like their predecessors and the fragile peace they were experiencing might be shaken further.

“Do not worry, neither I nor my Peerage will get involved in this whatsoever.” Sirzechs said.

Riser looked at him for a moment before returning his gaze to Rias.

“Very well, let us proceed with haste and not keep our distinguished guests waiting. Three fights or so shouldn’t take too long anyway and would make this night all the more memorable as the day our two houses join together as the friends and the allies that we are.” Riser said, and in the distance, Soma felt like laughing at him.

As someone who learned manners and reading people to a terrifying level, Soma could tell that Riser hated all of this and just wanted to get this entire night over so he could leave. He is also able to see, like all other nobles in the room, the obvious fallout of this entire event could cause to the Gremory family’s reputation just by looking at Rias’ father in the distance getting clearly irritated.

Soma wondered how much damage this would do to the Gremory family, unless Rias somehow finds someone who would be able to provide a powerful enough offspring Soma would not be able to believe she can get out of this unscathed.

Soma then approached Riser, put a hand on his shoulder, and spoke.

“If it is like that, how about I give you a hand, since your honor has been put into question.” Soma said and Riser looked a bit torn. He didn’t want to pull his bro into this sort of mess, calling him to this party was just because he wanted a close friend around not because he wanted to use Soma for these sort of dumb power plays.

“Bro, you don’t need to.” Riser said, not wanting to cause problems for Soma. Riser and the entire Phenex family owed Soma far too much after he saved Ravel.

“Come now, that’s what friends are for. As your friend, I should be willing to stand up for you when someone tries to slander you.” Soma said honestly and Riser perked up from knowing his friend had his back and nodded his head.

This scene of camaraderie was broken though, when someone interrupted them.

“I imagined as much, honourless trash gravitating towards each other.” Declared the blond standing behind Rias. From the moment he entered the hall he was glaring at Soma.

Not just because of the pain he was inflected with during their fight, but for taking an interest in the Holy Sword Project AND being in the possession of an Excalibur fragment. For Kiba, Soma was already no better than those scientists who killed all his friends and he wanted him dead, and the Excalibur piece destroyed for good measure as well.

It was not logical by any means, but when someone was angry they wouldn’t really think or act in a logical manner.

“… Who are you again?” Soma said, turning to Kiba.

“I am Rias Gremory’s Knight, Ki-”

“Oh, sorry, I almost forgot that I don’t care. I don’t need to know the name or listen to the opinions of someone who offended me and my friend, so you can keep your name, opinions, history, and everything else for yourself now. YOU are a servant, learn to act in a way that does not reflect badly on those you serve. I might not know much about the Underworld, but it seems like the house Gremory thinks themselves superior to all the distinguished guests here tonight if they allow two of their servants to belittle the host of the party without even reprimanding them.” Soma said, looking to Rias for a moment before turning back to Kiba. “Learn to respect your betters, boy. And learn when you pick fights or you will cause a disaster to your lord due to your hubris.”

Kiba glared and was one step away from taking out his sword as he responded.

“As if someone who is interested in the Holy Sword Project matters. You are just the same sort of scum like those scientists. Die!” Kiba said in fury, taking out his sword and pointing it at Soma.

Only for him to be shot by Aya and sent literally back to Kuoh town above the Kuoh Academy pool.

Everyone turned to Aya as she did that, and as if realizing what she just did, she lowered her sacred gear and addressed the people who were paying attention to her.

“He started it.”

At these childish, but not untrue words several guests chuckled as the tension in the air deescalated a lot.

“Well, it seems like Riser already has two ‘champions’ chosen.” Sirzechs said between chuckles as Aya looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

She did NOT volunteer, she just reacted when she saw someone speaking ill of Soma in front of her and actually pointing a sword at him. She sent him to the biggest pool she knew back in Kuoh to see if he could cool off, not that she knew the pool was empty and she failed to consider the position she was sending Kiba in.

… He would be nursing a headache for sure after his pretty face had such a close encounter to the floor of the pool.

Regardless, Aya had stepped forward and was now involved.

She wanted to say no, but Soma put a hand on her shoulder.

“You should participate, Aya-chan. This can be a good experience for you to become stronger moving forward and you can always use the gift I gave you.” Seeing her stressed eyes he just squeezed her shoulder firmly, but gently, as to reassure her. “If you ever feel like you are in any danger you can and should just forfeit. Let me deal with the rest, okay? ”

She still looked a bit torn before nodding his head.

Riser himself looked worried and asked.

“Bro, are you sure she can fight? We can still get someone from my peerage instead as it would be safer, devils like us are hardier compared to normal humans like your date.”

As the word ‘date’ was spoken Aya’s ears became as red as Rias’ hair as she lowered her head in embarrassment. A soft smile on her face as she took Soma’s hand from her shoulder and held it with her little hand, squeezing back.

“Okay, I will try my best.” She says to which Soma nods reassuringly.

Riser then indicates for Yubelluna to come over, being his final representative.

Rias then smirks at how her plan succeeded as her representatives all stepped forward as well.

“Fufufu, it seems like our kings think alike, wouldn’t you agree, Explosion Queen?” Akeno asks as the first representative of Rias.

“Perhaps, even if I don’t think our kings have much more in common after that, miss Lightning Miko. And don’t worry, I won’t hurt you so badly that some Phenex Tears can’t heal you up, we still have a party to enjoy.” Yubelluna said.

Issei, meanwhile, was drooling at the big breasts of both Queens. Not acting with the seriousness that the second representative for Rias should be showing.

“What do I do? I want Akeno-senpai to win, but fighting this onee-san would also be great with my new special move.” Issei then turned his eyes to Aya and looked her up and down before muttering. “Small ones are nice too, even if they can’t compare with buchou or Akeno-senpai.”

Soma just pretended not to listen, but a single strand of his hair moved to Issei’s pants. As Issei took a step forward the seams of his pants’ back were torn open by ‘accident’, making Issei’s pants fall apart and showing his tight little undies to everyone, including the fact that he was wearing his lucky underwear.

Namely, the one with the words ‘Opai Lover’ on the back, where everyone could see.

Well, not that Issei noted considering he was too busy looking at the jiggling mountains in front of him.

Rias sighed, wondering if it really was a good idea to let Issei come to a fancy party like this wearing his school uniform. She thought of making him wear something else, but he was so adamant about it that she just let it slide.

Sairaorg, not wanting to see this scene any further, took off his blazer and put it around Issei’s exposed underwear.

“Young pervert, go and find another pair of pants, you clearly need it.”

“… Did my erection show?” Issei questioned looking at his most important partner.

Sairaorg would have facepalmed at that, but he needed to carry himself with dignity, especially as he was the final representative in this little challenge and all eyes would be on him.

And he was already regretting it, but who told him to be weak when it comes to refusing to help family anyway?

He was just that type of nice guy in the end.