A Fake Familiar Reborn

Chapter 18: The First Battle

Beta read by Shigiya and Paragon of Awesomeness.

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-Kuoh Academy, Gymnasium-

(A few minutes earlier)

The entirety of Sona’s peerage had just finished inspecting the nearly countless magic circles that Tsubaki and Momo had covered the floor with, and the task was made no easier by the fact that many of the circles intricately overlapped with one another, with some empowering or enabling completely different sections of the complex ritual. A few even acted as control or pressure valves for the arcane energies meant to flow through the system. Now they were inspecting the incantation, materials, and time of day, as Sona wanted to make sure her Demonic Power would be at its peak for this.

Her nature as a Devil, which rendered her slightly weak to the sun, made it obvious to Sona that she needed to wait until after sundown, but that was as much as she could narrow it down. Perhaps it would be different for a human, but she could only go with the presumption that midnight would be the most optimal time to start the summoning.

"The hour of midnight to one o’clock is called the Witching Hour for a reason. Whether that will translate to summoning the Servant I want is another matter, but it doesn't hurt to try and tilt the odds in my favor as much as possible, even if I already have the catalyst to summon Perseus."

She asked her team to be meticulously thorough in every one of their tasks; this was an occasion wherein not a single error could be allowed. Sona trusted her team to know how to handle the entire summoning, as their extensive research and preparation leading up to this had helped her understand every step that she needed to take and improve what they already knew. Unlike the summoning ritual Rias used, this one had a couple of changes. Parts that she now understood to have been very bare-bone or redundant had now been corrected if not improved. Knowing just how unforgiving this kind of magic was, Sone had trouble comprehending how Rias had managed to succeed on her first attempt at every point in this ritual without the entire thing blowing up in her face, even when she had no idea what she was doing when she received the Command Seals!

‘I had to fix the student council room sixteen times even with protection spells just to get my own set of Command Seals!’ She really wanted to tear her hair off at the injustice and what could only be described as blatant favoritism by fate itself. Her attempts had been meticulously prepared with enough resources spent on it to bankrupt a small bank!

Having to resort to asking her sister for help with some funds and materials was embarrassing enough in itself, but to promise favors felt no different to making a deal with the Devil from the perspective of someone affiliated with the church!

Damn that Rias… damn her and her stupid luck.

"It shouldn't have worked; there were imperfections that should have caused it to explode or not even activate in the first place. It makes no sense! I tried to rationalize my thoughts and find a logical explanation, but the more I study this, the more I want to bash my head against the wall. If I didn't know better, then I would have suspected the Gremory clan's power to involve the manipulation of luck itself!” In her anger, the bespectacled heiress lifted her right foot and was prepared to kick the wall until she came back to her senses. “Wha-wait… I shouldn't take any risks and risk accidentally ruining something right when I’m so close.”

Taking a deep breath, she forced her nerves to calm down as she recalled everything that was at stake here. “I'll show you, Rias… I refuse to fall behind and let you take such a massive lead just because you got lucky.”