Cuck a harem protagonist?

The front door of Hyoudou Residence clicked shut behind you, and the familiar weight of Issei's cheerful farewell still echoed in your ears as he'd clapped you on the shoulder and announced he had "urgent stuff with Ddraig" before disappearing upstairs. That left you standing in the spacious entryway of what had once been a modest suburban home but was now a sprawling compound that sprawled outward and upward with spatial enchantments layered so expertly they were nearly invisible. The floors gleamed. The air smelled faintly of jasmine and something warm baking in a kitchen somewhere deeper inside.

Rias Gremory stood at the end of the hallway, already waiting.

She'd changed since you'd seen her briefly at the front door. Where Issei had introduced you with his usual loud enthusiasm, Rias had been composed—polite, warm, the picture of noble grace welcoming a guest. But now she wore something more relaxed: a soft white sundress that left her shoulders bare, her crimson hair loose and tumbling over them in waves that caught the light from the tall windows behind her. She held herself with quiet authority, one hand resting on her hip, the other gesturing casually toward the corridor ahead.

"Welcome to Hyoudou Residence," she said, her voice carrying that particular blend of warmth and confidence that made everything she said feel like it mattered. "It's bigger than it looks. Much bigger. Sitri and Bael enchantments layered over the original structure. Issei didn't understand half of it until after it was already done."

She turned and began walking, expecting you to follow. You did.

"The ground floor is shared living space," she continued, her heels clicking softly against polished wood. "Kitchen, dining room, a lounge large enough to host a small army—which, given our household, sometimes feels necessary."

A faint smile touched her lips. Not rehearsed. Real.

You walked beside her through corridors that opened into rooms that shouldn't have fit inside a normal house. A library with dark wood shelving and leather armchairs. A training space with reinforced walls and faint scorch marks that suggested someone had been practicing destruction magic recently. Rias narrated each space with casual familiarity, but you noticed something shift in the way she walked beside you.

Her pace had slowed. Subtly. Almost imperceptibly. She'd started at a brisk tour-guide tempo, efficient and composed, but with each room and each passing minute, her stride matched yours more closely. Her shoulder drifted nearer. Not touching—but close enough that you caught her scent each time she turned her head: something floral and warm, like roses steeped in honey.

You were beautiful.

Rias had known you were strong. Issei had told her—loudly, repeatedly, with the kind of animated hand gestures he reserved for things that genuinely impressed him. Satan-class abilities, he'd said. No known family, no noble bloodline, no political backing. Just raw, terrifying power that had appeared from nowhere. She'd been curious but cautious. Power without lineage in devil society meant danger. It meant someone the old families would either try to recruit or destroy.

But standing next to you now, watching you examine the architecture of a room she'd walked through a thousand times, Rias Gremory realized that Issei had failed to mention something.

You were stunning.

The realization settled into her chest slowly, like a coal catching fire. She kept walking, kept talking, kept gesturing toward doorways and explaining the spatial layout with practiced ease. But her eyes—those vivid blue-green eyes that had made half of Kuoh Academy fall in love with her—kept drifting. To your jaw. The line of your throat. The way your hands hung at your sides with a calmness that suggested someone entirely comfortable in their own skin, someone who didn't need to posture or perform.

And beneath the beauty, beneath the surface composure, Rias sensed it.

Power.

Not the aggressive, flaring kind she was accustomed to. Issei's dragon aura was like standing next to a bonfire—impossible to ignore. This was different. Yours felt like the ocean at night: vast, dark, deep beyond comprehension, and absolutely calm on the surface. She was the Gremory heiress. She'd stood in rooms with Sirzechs. She'd faced gods and devils and things that didn't have names. And the power she sensed coiled inside you made something ancient and instinctual in her go very, very still.

You were holding back.

She was certain of it. The Satan-class abilities Issei described? That was just what you'd shown. What lay underneath was something she couldn't fully measure, and that both thrilled and unsettled her in equal measure.

She didn't ask about it. Wouldn't push. A woman who'd spent her entire life navigating the expectations of noble families understood that some things were kept hidden for good reason.

"This is the main courtyard," Rias said, sliding open a glass door to reveal a beautifully maintained garden with stone pathways, a koi pond, and cherry trees that bloomed impossibly out of season thanks to another layer of magic. "Akeno tends it when she's stressed. Which is often."

She stepped outside into the warm light and turned to face you fully. The sun caught her hair, igniting it into a cascade of deep crimson that framed her fair skin and those searching, luminous eyes.

Rias studied your face openly now—no pretense, no tour-guide mask. Just her, looking at you with an expression that was half curiosity and half something far more dangerous.

"You know," she said softly, her voice dropping to a register that was hers alone—not the heiress, not the president, not the fiancée, but Rias, "Issei is generous. Too generous, sometimes. He sees power and wants it close. Wants to befriend it. Trust it."

She paused. Her lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"I'm glad he did."

The words hung in the garden air between you, weighted with more meaning than their simplicity suggested. Rias held your gaze a beat longer than courtesy demanded, and in that silence, something unspoken passed between you—a current, a recognition, the faintest crack in the foundation of everything she was supposed to be.

Then she turned, hair sweeping behind her like a crimson banner, and gestured toward the rest of the property.

"Come on. There's still the upper floors, the training grounds, and the—"

She stopped mid-sentence, realizing she'd nearly taken your hand. Her fingers had drifted toward yours of their own accord, and she caught herself just in time, folding her arm back against her side with practiced grace.

"—the rooftop garden," she finished smoothly, as if nothing had happened.

But her cheeks carried the faintest flush, and her heartbeat had quickened, and Rias Gremory—who had faced down gods without flinching—found herself quietly, privately terrified of what she wanted to do next.

Agreas gleamed under the perpetual twilight of the Underworld's manufactured sky—a sprawling city of crystalline towers and ancient stone that blended old devil architecture with modern enchantment. The streets hummed with activity, market stalls overflowing with rare magical components, enchanted textiles, and foods that existed nowhere else in any faction. The air smelled of ozone and roasted sugar and something faintly metallic that was just part of breathing in a place steeped in centuries of accumulated devil magic.

The whole household had come.

Issei led the charge at the front of the group, gesturing wildly at a vendor selling what appeared to be dragon-fang amulets while Xenovia and Koneko trailed behind him with the weary patience of people who had done this exact thing in seventeen different cities. Asia walked beside Irina, both of them pausing at nearly every stall, oohing and ahhing over delicate jewelry and enchanted flowers that bloomed in impossible colors. Rossweisse had gravitated toward a bookshop three blocks back and was probably still there, buried in Norse mythology texts and muttering about academic applications. Akeno walked with serene amusement, watching everything unfold, her parasol casting delicate shadows across her amused expression.

And Rias walked beside you.

She'd arranged it that way. Not obviously—nothing about Rias Gremory's manipulations were obvious unless she wanted them to be. It had started that morning at breakfast, when she'd calmly suggested the group split into shopping pairs to cover more ground efficiently. Practical. Logical. Something a responsible leader of a household would naturally propose.

"I don't want anyone getting lost in Agreas," she'd said over coffee, her tone perfectly reasonable. "The market districts twist. The signage is inconsistent. Last time, Akeno ended up three sectors away at a weapons bazaar."

She'd sipped her coffee. Akeno had raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Rias had drawn names from a bowl—a bowl she'd prepared herself, late the night before, while the rest of the house slept. The paper slips had been carefully folded, identical in size, except for two. Yours and hers. Those had been folded slightly differently—a marginally tighter crease, a barely perceptible difference in paper weight—nothing anyone would notice during a casual draw. But Rias had known exactly which folds to reach for when her fingers dipped into the ceramic bowl.

Issei had gotten paired with Akeno. Asia with Irina. Koneko with Xenovia. Rossweisse, predictably, had volunteered to go solo to the bookshop and vanished before anyone could argue.

And Rias had gotten you.

Now, walking through the amber-lit corridors of Agreas's central market, she could feel the plan settling around her like a well-fitted garment. The others had split off naturally—Issei already pulling Akeno toward a gadget stall, Asia and Irina vanishing into a textile shop linked arm in arm, Koneko and Xenovia drifting toward what appeared to be a sweets district with silent mutual understanding.

You and Rias moved through the older part of the market, the section where the stalls were carved directly into the stone walls and the vendors were ancient devils with knowing eyes and prices that required negotiation. The crowds thinned here. The enchantments deepened, casting everything in a warm amber glow that turned Rias's crimson hair into liquid fire and softened the sharp angles of the carved archways overhead.

"You don't mind, do you?" she asked, glancing at you sidelong as she examined a display of enchanted rings without really seeing them. "The pairing. I know it was random, but I'm glad it landed this way."

She smiled. It was the smile she used on everyone—warm, gracious, the Gremory heiress at her most approachable. But underneath it, her pulse thrummed with anticipation she'd been carrying since the moment she'd folded that first slip of paper.

Walking beside you through quiet streets with no Issei's cheerful commentary drowning out the ambient hum of the city, no Akeno's perceptive gaze tracking her micro-expressions, no Koneko's unsettling ability to sense emotional shifts—Rias could finally breathe.

And breathe she did, deeply, drawing in the air between you like it was something precious. You smelled like whatever you naturally carried—not cologne, not magic, just you—and it made something behind her ribs tighten.

"I come to Agreas once a year," she said, her voice dropping to a more conversational register as the crowds fell further behind. "Usually for diplomatic business with the old families who maintain holdings here. It's always exhausting. Meetings. Formal dinners. Smiling at people who want something from the Gremory name."

She paused at a balcony overlooking a lower terrace where crystalline fountains caught light and scattered it across pale stone. Leaning against the railing, she turned to face you fully, the Underworld twilight painting her features in shades of gold and shadow.

"This is the first time I've come here and actually wanted to be here."

The words were simple. Honest. She let them sit without softening them or adding a deflecting joke. Her blue-green eyes held yours with an openness that she rarely offered—because openness in her world was a vulnerability, and Rias had spent a lifetime building walls of poise and nobility around the parts of herself that wanted too much.

You were one of those parts now.

She could feel the pull toward you like gravity—steady, constant, impossible to argue with. Standing this close, with no audience and no obligations pressing in from either side, Rias became acutely aware of everything: the warmth radiating from your body, the way the amber light caught the line of your jaw, the calm, steady presence that made her want to lean in and stay.

She didn't lean in. Not yet. Rias Gremory was patient. She had orchestrated this moment with the same precision her family used to negotiate treaties, and she intended to savor every second of the distance between what she was supposed to want and what she actually craved.

"There's a tea house two streets down," she murmured, tilting her head just slightly, letting her hair cascade over one bare shoulder. "Old place. Very private. The owner owes the Gremory family several favors."

She straightened from the railing and took a step closer—just one—close enough that the hem of her dress brushed against you.

"Want to see it?"

Her voice was light. Casual. The tone of a gracious host offering a tour.

But her eyes told the truth: this was an invitation to something that had nothing to do with tea, and Rias Gremory had never in her life wanted anyone to say yes more than she wanted you to say it right now.

The Bael family's diplomatic estate was the kind of place that made you understand why old devil families took themselves so seriously. Marble columns rose forty feet into enchanted ceilings that mimicked the Underworld's perpetual crimson twilight. Crystal chandeliers hung like frozen starbursts above a polished obsidian floor so dark and smooth it reflected everything like a mirror. The walls were lined with tapestries depicting ancient battles between devil houses, each one woven with enough protective enchantment to shrug off a mid-class demonic blast. Even the air tasted expensive—cool and filtered through centuries-old purification wards that stripped away anything common or mundane.

Today the estate hosted a formal summit between six major devil houses, two fallen angel delegations, and a Norse ambassador who looked profoundly uncomfortable in her chair. The agenda covered everything from cross-faction trade agreements to the political implications of Issei Hyoudou's growing influence across the Three Factions.

Which meant, of course, that Issei was the main event.

He sat at the center of the longest table like a reluctant sun around which an entire solar system of power players orbited. The Bael patriarch addressed him directly. The Sitri representatives presented their proposals specifically to him. Even the fallen angel delegation—three sharp-eyed bureaucrats who clearly resented being there—directed their most pointed questions toward the Red Dragon Emperor with barely concealed fascination.

Issei handled it better than he used to. He'd grown into the role. He listened when Sirzechs's aide whispered context in his ear. He nodded seriously when elders spoke. He asked surprisingly shrewd questions that made the older representatives exchange glances of grudging respect. But he was visibly overwhelmed—not by the politics, but by the sheer volume of attention. Everyone wanted him. Everyone needed him to care about their specific thing. His eyes kept drifting between speakers with the glazed expression of a man drowning in relevance.

Rias sat four chairs to his right, close enough to be seen supporting him, far enough to be ignored.

That was the key.

She wore a fitted navy dress that buttoned high at the collar and fell to her knees—formal, conservative, the exact image of a Gremory heir conducting herself with propriety. Her crimson hair was pinned in a low chignon, a few deliberate strands left loose to soften the severity. She looked like she belonged here. She looked like she was focused on the meeting.

She wasn't.

For the last hour, Rias had been building her exit with the patience of someone who understood that the best deceptions weren't dramatic. They were boring. They were routine. They were the kind of small, forgettable movements that the human mind filed away as unimportant.

She'd excused herself once already—forty minutes in, citing a restroom break. No one had looked up except Koneko, who had watched her leave with flat golden eyes that saw everything and said nothing. Rias had returned in six minutes, sliding back into her seat with a quiet apology. Normal. Forgettable.

Now she was ready for the real move.

The Norse ambassador was presenting something about berserker enchantment licensing rights. It was dense. Technical. The kind of presentation that made even seasoned diplomats reach for their water glasses. The room's attention contracted to a point.

Except for Koneko, who was watching a fly on the ceiling with more interest than anything in the room.

Rias's message arrived in your mind like a warm breath against your skin.

"Left hallway. Fourth door. Count to sixty then go. I'll already be there."

You felt the transmission dissolve. Clean. Professional. Nothing for anyone to detect.

Fifteen seconds later, Rias leaned toward Issei and murmured something about checking with the estate's steward regarding the evening's seating arrangements. He nodded without looking, too engaged in the Norse presentation to question her. She touched his shoulder—light, affectionate, the perfect gesture of a devoted fiancée—and slipped from her chair.

No one noticed.

The hallway was cool and silent after the crowded conference room. Rias moved quickly but calmly, her heels clicking softly against marble. She counted doors. First. Second. Third. Fourth.

The door was ajar. Inside was a private sitting room—small, elegant, furnished with a leather couch and a writing desk. A single window overlooked the estate's inner courtyard where enchanted fountains burbled in crimson light. The room smelled of old wood and the faintest trace of her perfume, because she'd been here before. She'd found this room during her initial walkthrough of the estate two days ago. She'd chosen it deliberately.

Rias closed the door behind you and turned the lock with a soft click.

She exhaled. The composure she'd maintained for two hours in that conference room—smiling, nodding, performing perfect noble restraint—dissolved like frost in sunlight. Her shoulders dropped. Her eyes, those luminous blue-green eyes, found yours and held them with an intensity that had nothing to do with diplomacy.

She reached up and pulled the pin from her hair. Crimson waves tumbled free, cascading over her shoulders and down her back, and the transformation from formal heiress to something far more dangerous was instantaneous.

"Issei is currently trapped between a Norse ambassador, a Sitri economist, and Lord Bael's grandson who won't stop asking about Balance Breakers," she said, her voice low and warm. "He won't move for at least thirty minutes."

She stepped closer. Her hand found your chest, palm flat against it, fingers splayed.

"I've been sitting across from you for two hours, watching you sit there like you're made of patience," she murmured, her thumb tracing a slow line just below your collarbone. "Do you have any idea what that does to me?"

Her eyes searched yours. The flush was already climbing her neck.

"Don't talk. We don't have time for talking."

She rose onto her toes and kissed you.

The Venezuelan jungle hit you like a wall.

Not figuratively. The moment the teleportation circle dissolved beneath their feet, every sense was overwhelmed simultaneously. Humidity thick enough to taste. Heat that wrapped around your body like a living thing. The sound—a massive, layered chorus of insects and birds and distant water that filled every gap between trees so dense and tall they swallowed the sky. The smell of wet earth and decaying vegetation and flowers so fragrant they bordered on obscene.

The tepuis rose in the distance like gods sitting down—flat-topped mesas of ancient sandstone that broke through the jungle canopy in sheer vertical walls of rust-red and grey, their summits lost in low-hanging clouds. They looked impossible. Structures that shouldn't exist in nature, carved by millions of years of erosion into monuments so vast and alien that even devil magic couldn't replicate their scale.

The girls had chosen Venezuela after Akeno found a travel documentary about Canaima National Park and spent an entire evening narrating it with dramatic flair. Asia had gasped at every waterfall. Xenovia had asked pointed questions about how much of the territory was climbable. Koneko had said nothing but her ears had perked up under her hat when they showed the jungle wildlife. Rossweisse had immediately begun researching the tepui geological formations with academic intensity. Even Irina, who usually preferred European destinations, had admitted the Angel Fall looked divine—her word choice, not yours.

Issei had agreed instantly, because Issei agreed to everything that made his household happy.

Now they stood at the edge of a clearing near the base of Auyán-tepui, the great mountain that housed Angel Falls somewhere on its hidden eastern face. The air was alive. Butterflies the size of small birds drifted through shafts of golden light that pierced the canopy. A river churned past on their left, its water the color of dark tea, carrying the minerals and tannins of the deep jungle.

Issei was already filming everything on his phone, narrating with the enthusiasm of a travel vlogger who'd never left his neighborhood.

"This is INSANE," he announced, panning across the tree line. "Look at those trees. Those are like—the big kind. The really big kind. Akeno, what are those called?"

"I don't know, Issei," Akeno replied with patient amusement, shielding herself beneath her parasol. "Perhaps we should have hired a guide."

"We ARE the guide," Xenovia corrected, studying a trail map with the tactical focus of a woman who had once mapped enemy fortifications for the Church. "Two paths. East toward the base camp trail, west toward the river overlook. The overlook has a better view of the tepui face."

Asia was already photographing orchids. Irina had spotted a toucan and was making soft delighted noises. Koneko stood completely still, her ears visibly twitching beneath her sunhat as she tracked sounds only she could hear. Rossweisse had her nose in a geological survey and was muttering about Pre-Cambrian sediment layers.

No one was looking at you or Rias.

Rias stood at the edge of the group, her crimson hair pulled into a high ponytail that left her neck exposed to the heavy jungle air. She wore a fitted olive tank top and hiking shorts that showed off long, fair legs already glistening with a thin sheen of sweat. A light pack hung from one shoulder. She looked like an adventurer—like someone who belonged in wild, untamed places rather than marble conference halls.

She leaned toward you, close enough that her shoulder brushed yours, her voice dropping to something barely above a breath.

"The group splits here. Akeno wants the overlook. Asia and Irina want the orchid trail. Issei will follow Akeno because she'll convince him the view is worth it."

Her fingers found your wrist. Light. Brief. A squeeze that lasted half a second before releasing.

"There's a path behind us. Old trail. I scouted it last night through a familiar."

She glanced at the group. Everyone was debating routes with increasing enthusiasm. Xenovia was pointing at the map. Rossweisse was arguing about elevation gain. Koneko had already started walking east without waiting for consensus.

Rias turned back to you. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat—or from something else. Her blue-green eyes held yours with a directness that cut through the humidity and the noise and the overwhelming green of everything.

"It goes about two hundred meters into the jungle. There's a clearing beside a waterfall. No one will hear anything over the water."

She bit her lower lip. Just for a moment. Just enough to crack the composed exterior and show the hunger underneath.

"I've wanted you since we landed. The heat. The way you looked walking through those trees. I can't sit through a six-hour nature hike pretending I'm interested in geology right now."

She stepped back. Adjusted her pack. Tossed her ponytail over her shoulder with casual elegance.

"Ten minutes after the group moves, start walking. Follow the orange markers on the trees. I'll be waiting."

She turned and rejoined the others, immediately launching into a cheerful suggestion that everyone follow Xenovia's overlook route, her voice bright and natural and completely convincing.

No one noticed a thing.

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