Yet another dreamless night.

However, this was a realization he'd stopped to question only after realizing that it was still dark outside.

His eyes were still adjusting, and the boy found himself still looking towards their window. In its reflection, he could see his partner's outline. She was sitting up, her knees hugging up to her chest.

From the looks of it, Lyric was looking straight forward, occasionally shifting in place. A couple times, she even seemed to consider reaching over and lighting the lamp between them, but pulled back before ever getting past the edge of his bed.

If not for whatever it was that was keeping her, then for his own growing curiosity, Kyoya figured there wasn't much sense in feigning sleep any longer.

As softly as he could manage, the Miscreant dismissed their silence.

"Hey."

At the very least, she didn't jump. Not that he could tell, anyway. The girl sighed and finally found it in herself to turn on their lamp, forcing his eyes to adjust a second time.

He sat up and leaned back against his bed's headboard. "What's got you?"

"I guess I'm just too psyched for tomorrow to sleep, y'know?"

"That's a bold-faced lie."

"Was it really that easy to tell?"

"You don't look the slightest bit excited."

Lyric yawned and nodded, then returned her stare onward. In tow, Kyoya slowed his breaths to not appear off-put by her visible trepidation. With her less-than-driven attempt at fooling him into security, he couldn't hone in on what that could be; there'd need to be more details before he could reach anything.

An answer came sooner than anticipated.

"That Demon."

"What about it?"

The Seraph shook her head, a conclusive thought all but avoiding her. Lyric's posture, tone, and expression: they all spoke concern to him. Sure, she may be an established over-thinker, but there were well-defined lines between what he knew to be overthinking and genuine conflict.

Thoughts of their Void-dwelling visitor crept their way back to the forefront. She'd told him that it was summoned, and that alone was more than enough to provide a spark to light the fuse for plenty of accompanying stress.

"Just... Why?" the girl murmured. "I know there's some real crazies in the world, but... Summoning? A Demon? Who would do that? Here? Now? For what? Why?" She scratched at the sides of her head with a fixated forward stare. "I just can't put it together—I've been sitting here for nearly an hour just trying to pick up on what the deal is with that, and all I can do is draw blanks... It doesn't add up."

"Credit where it's due, you're definitely honest—a tried-and-true thinker... Looks like I'm in that boat with you on this one. A far cry from how much thought you've given it, but I've been having my ups and downs with it, too. I don't know enough about how it even works to start hounding for clues, though."

Lyric held her tongue for a moment, then nodded.

"If you could tell a Demon appeared without having to see it, I'm gonna bank on you having some history with them."

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"Spot on. Never beaten one till yesterday, but I've seen my fair share. Why?"

"I explained it earlier, but the way they appear is separated into two methods." She held up two fingers, counting them with her other hand. "The naturally appearing ones are usually the brainless kind you find in the woods and under beds. The gnarled, snaggle-toothed cronies that drool all over and lumber around. You can always tell them apart from other kinds because their bodies are always either totally physical or elemental, and never have any sort of human traits."

The Seraph put intense emphasis on that last statement, ensuring that he took note. "They're cannon fodder for greenhorn Reclaimers, so we call them F-Class Lesser Demons. Like us, their classes rank up with how much of a threat they pose based on their Power Levels."

"Makes sense..." Mused the boy. "I didn't even consider what that bozo from yesterday would be classified as."

Another nod clued her to continue.

"Of course, that's only the tip of it all. When they're summoned, they're called up from the Void to take on forms that have both physical and elemental matter. It should be obvious that even considering summoning a Demon is way past taboo... They follow the same ranking system, but they're always more of a threat than the natural ones."

"I guess that's why my gut sank like it did, then; I've never actually ran in with one until now. Not the most comfy feeling, I'll admit."

"Right? If that's not enough to make you hurl, their whole deal is that summoned Demons have to agree to a pact with their summoners, and if those terms aren't met, they get snapped back into the Void."

Gears cranked and whirred to life in the Miscreant's head.

"If that's the case, I don't remember that Demon disintegrating when it ran off after the fight... Wait, yeah! Ryder said she saw it running! Would that mean it wasn't even summoned?"

"Ryder and I talked about that a while before you woke up: she did some digging around herself, and ended up finding its trail deeper in the woods after nightfall, but no luck on seeing it personally..."

Another round of contemplative silence enveloped the pair. "...So, if it was able to escape, then any idea of summoning being the play goes out the window. I could see some lunatic wanting to cause panic by summoning one at the festival, but nobody would call one in just to be okay with it turning tail."

Her words took on a more cautioned, somewhat tense coat. "All she could put together was that if nobody summoned it, then odds are they're finding ways to crawl out of the Void themselves... but that's a whole different can of worms."

With that said, she shook herself off to regain focus on an objective. "At the end of the day, it all comes down to figuring out what that Demon was trying to do. By pinning that, we'll be able to move on to deciding if we should be on high alert."

"What it was trying to do..." The Miscreant paused. "It showed up in the courtyard at dusk, and was just trying to do as much damage as it could, right? I can't see anything past that, since we stopped whatever was happening at the time..."

They both sat for a few moments, until a wide-eyed Seraph interjected.

"What if it's a bait?"

Kyoya blinked at her sudden remark, then ran a double take.

"A bait?"

"A classic bait-and-switch," she added, continuing. "Whatever it is, they might be trying to bait out an action—!"

Lyric huffed and shuffled up to the foot of her bed. "Remember the Grandeur at the main gate, that one who turned our entry away? He mentioned to me that they're keeping potentially suspicious-looking people out because of there being rumors of somebody intending to summon Demons at the festival. If the one from yesterday wasn't summoned, that'd point to somebody on our side being in kahoots with someone down-under. That leaves the question of what someone could gain from it..."

Kyoya followed her up.

"That would mean the Kingdom would be forced to either start gathering forces to combat the threat, or assume that there wouldn't be anything else coming since we iced the first... And with the Festival going on, there's more than enough Reclaimers in the capital to deal with a Demon like that, but..."

"There's our bait-and-switch. It's just a hunch, but there's a chance that they're throwing a weakling at us as a way of gauging us, like conditioning—and once we've gotten comfortable believing we were right to think it'd be a one-and-done deal with the write-off Demons, we'll get the rug pulled out from under our feet... with something they know we can't beat."

"I can't think of any way to explain an inexplicable appearance... You might have something, here. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that last part."

"I hear you. Another hunch of mine is that things are gonna start ramping up, soon... So, let's hope, Blue."