13

"Somehow I had a feeling my surprise visit wouldn't be so simple." Zenith said to herself while shaking her head.

When she had told her husband Lux that she was going to meet up with her long-time friend Shuri, it was meant to be more of a surprise visit on her part than an actual meet up. It's been nearly two whole years since Zenith married Lux and prior to that it was a year since she's last seen Shuri. Honestly, the blonde woman feels extremely guilty for suddenly disappearing on Shuri like that. Even during the year where they didn't meet, they still communicated via cell phone at least once or twice a month. So it's safe to say that she hasn't hung out with Shuri in about 3 years.

Because Zenith didn't actively try to sense Shuri's energy signature, she didn't notice anything off about Shuri's energy. All she did was use magic to teleport close by to Shuri's home, which is located within Fallen Angel territory, just to see her friend's home surrounded by at least 50 members of the Himejima Clan.

Not wanting to waste time on a bunch of fodder, Zenith immediately locked onto Shuri's ki signature and used Instant Transmission.

Inside the home, Shuri was glaring furiously at her uncle Suou Himejima with tears flowing down her eyes while also trying her best to prevent her daughter Akeno and niece Suzaku from bleeding out. Everything was going normally as she was cooking dinner for the three of them, when out of nowhere with no warning their home became completely surrounded from outside. Not only that but the front and back door was busted open along with several powerful fire attacks blasting through. While Shuri herself had somehow remained unscathed, her beloved daughter and niece were not.

Both Suzaku and Akeno unfortunately got burned and pierced through from the surprise attack. Shuri felt her heart shatter into pieces seeing them hurt. Anger, betrayal and many more emotions all flooded through her as for the first time in her life she gazed hatefully at her uncle Suou and the other members of her clan.

Even though she already knew the answer, Shuri questioned him on his reasons for this sudden attack on them.

Suou glared. "You already know Shuri, that girl you call your daughter is an abomination to the Himejima Clan that must not exist. She's a stain that needs to be completely wiped away from the clan."

"But you exiled me and also never accepted Akeno into the clan in the first place. Why do this if we are not even bothering you in any way? Why did you have to hurt Suzaku as well? She has nothing to do with this." Shuri retorted.

Suou snorted. "She doesn't condemn your abomination of a daughter and instead stays here with both that abomination. She's no better than a traitor in my eyes." He truly meant that.

"Stop calling my daughter an abomination! She has a name! And my niece isn't a traitor! You and the other members of the clan always look at situations too black and white. How did you even get this many people here without being stopped by any Fallen Angels?"

"That's none of your business, you're about to die so why should I bother to keep explaining myself?" Suou shrugged.

The clan head of the Himejima clan began powering up a fire attack powered by the Vermillion Bird itself.

Shuri could only close her eyes in frustration as well as defeat. She couldn't even find it in herself to blame her former husband for abandoning them at such crucial times.

Before Suou could unleash his attack, his right wrist was suddenly gripped very tightly. The sound of bones being crushed echoed loudly, causing him to shout in intense pain.

"Yeah, not gonna happen." Said from a familiar voice that shocked Shuri. If Akeno or Suzaku were conscious, both would share the same feeling as their mother/aunt.

Zenith wasted no time, letting go of his wrist. She then instantly punched Suou with an Amaterasu flame-covered fist that contained the perfect amount of strength needed to completely shatter Suou's jaw only.

Suou screamed in both pain and horror from Zenith's punch, due to the Amaterasu flames quickly covering his body. His cries of pain lasted for only 3 seconds. Before his body completely burned away, the Vermillion Bird left his body, it quickly made its way towards Suzaku and fused with her body. Choosing her as it's next host.

The black flames did not even leave the ashes of the now deceased clan head of the Himejima Clan.

Shuri wasn't the only one shocked, the other members who came with Suou were also shocked.

However the blonde woman ignored it and turned her attention to the others. Her blue eyes focused intently for a moment as she unleashed her Conqueror's Haki upon the fools. Yellow shockwaves escaped her body, covering the entire surrounding area of Shuri's home. Even the Fallen Angels who had suddenly showed up to monitor the situation from a distance were caught within her Haki.

It only lasted a few seconds, once it was over everyone suddenly fell to the ground unconscious. Their pupils gone while foaming out their mouths. Only Shuri was unaffected due to Zenith's control over her Conqueror's Haki.

During the months where Lux spent time intensely training Kuroka and Shirone, her husband also took the time to start teaching Zenith Haki. Obviously the inhabitants of this universe do not have Haki, Lux being the overpowered immortal that he is simply granted his wife the ability to use Haki just by lightly touching her forehead.

He did the same for the Nekoshou sisters and Ranga, Lux explained to them that Haki is a very useful ability to have.

So far Shirone and Ranga are most talented in Armament Haki, for Kuroka it's Observation Haki while for Zenith it's surprisingly Conqueror's.

Well it was surprising to Zenith since she never saw herself as the conquering type. Lux himself however wasn't all that surprised since he always suspected if Zenith was born in the One Piece world she would definitely be a natural born Conqueror's Haki user. At least for his Zenith who was born in the DxD world, he's unsure if the same would apply to the Zenith of Mushoku Tensei. Even though both Zenith's look 100% the same, they are different.

All Shuri could do is keep staring in shock, many questions running through her mind. Though she's very grateful that Zenith saved her.

When the exiled Himejima mother blinked, she saw that Zenith was suddenly kneeling down in front of her. Again, wasting no time Zenith placed her hands on Akeno and Suzaku and began using her healing magic on them. She could feel the Vermillion Bird had already been working on healing Suzuku's condition.

Because of her training with her husband, Zenith's own healing magic has become incredibly powerful to the point where she can heal critical damage without the use of her Twilight Healing. It's also because of this that Akeno and Suzaku were recovering at an astonishing pace.

Seeing her daughter and niece being healed, Shuri sighed in relief. Eternally grateful and happy that both Akeno and Suzaku were going to be alright. It's hard to believe how close she came to not only losing them but also dying herself.

"Z-Zenith…?" Shuri spoke first.

Zenith had already finished healing up the two young adult women. She gazed at Shuri, smiling brightly at her friend. "Long time no see Shuri-chan."

"Yeah…long time no see…" Shuri smiled, she couldn't stop herself from crying again.

"Sorry for not contacting you for over 2 years…a lot happened." Zenith said.

"It's fine, I was worried about you but I figured you had your reasons. I also have been going through some things over the last year and a half." Shuri admitted.

"I can imagine so, I guess I wasn't the only one who wanted to do a surprise visit." Zenith shook her head.

"Unfortunately, though, I'm very grateful that you decided to visit. Without you I'm certain Akeno, Suzaku, along with myself all would've died today. Thank you Zenith-chan."

The blonde woman waved her off. "Don't worry about it, you're one of my closest friends, Shuri. You know I will always try to help you if I can. Although I gotta say, these guys sure have some balls to come into Fallen Angel territory with this many people. Either that or the Himejima Clan has some sort of agreement with the Fallen."

The black-haired milf sighed. "Honestly I don't even care about that, I just don't understand why would the clan be fine with killing Suzaku over such a petty reason? Me and Akeno I can understand but Suzaku is the most talented woman among the clan since her infancy. She should be too valuable to the clan, yet they didn't hesitate in trying to kill her. They didn't even care from what I could tell."

"Yeah that is pretty suspicious, by the way where is Baraqiel? There's no way these idiots would have dared to attack you if he was here." Zenith asked.

Shuri's expression became sad, she looked away from Zenith. "He left us a little over a year ago."

Zenith was surprised. "Left you?"

Shuri nodded.

"Wait, you mean the same guy who had been hopelessly in love with you, left your family?!" Zenith felt very shocked.

From what she remembered, Shuri and Baraqiel always had a strong marriage.

"I don't know much, but I know that the situation with the Fallen Angels has been chaotic to say the least. Baraqiel told me and Akeno that his presence was needed in Grigori, he said that he could no longer afford to keep his current status quo. A choice needed to be made, his family or his own kind…he told us his decision, saying that we could keep living here for another 3 years at max before he immediately teleported away without saying anything else. That day was the day my marriage suddenly ended and the last day me and Akeno saw Baraqiel." Just talking about this made Shuri feel depressed.

"Wow…and here I thought I was gonna be the only one out of us two that had their marriage end horribly." Zenith grinned wryly.

Now it was Shuri's turn to be surprised. "Huh? What do you mean?"

Zenith spent the next few minutes explaining everything that happened with Paul.

Listening to the explanation made Shuri mentally berate herself. Yes, her situation is sad but it's nothing compared to what Zenith went through.

'Here I am always being depressed about Baraqiel when Zenith watched Rudeus be killed by Paul with her own eyes and even had a miscarriage when she was pregnant with her daughter. Paul even raped her in her sleep once and tortured her for 3 days…' Shuri thought.

"Zenith-chan…that's terrible I'm so sorry that happened to you."

"Yeah but it all worked out in the end, I got my revenge on Paul and got a new husband who is infinitely better than Paul on his best day." Zenith's expression became very smug.

"Oh! You got married again?" Shuri asked.

"Yep, my husband's name is Lux Arcadia and he's the sexiest man to ever exist as well as…"

Shuri sat there and listened to Zenith spend the next 5 minutes constantly bragging about her husband Lux. Honestly, Shuri found this highly amusing and interesting since for as long as she's known Zenith not once has Shuri ever seen her friend talk or feel so passionately about Paul. One would think Zenith never even actually loved Paul to begin with.

"Zenith! I get it, you found a good husband who seems to be extremely powerful. Congratulations, I'm happy for you."

Zenith felt a bit embarrassed, she didn't realize that she had been talking nonstop about Lux.

"Sorry, I just love him so much. By the way, what do you want to do with your unconscious former clan members?"

"I…I don't know nor do I even care." Shuri answered.

"Are you sure? Because if you don't care then I'm just going to kill them." Zenith asked.

She knew that this could potentially cause her to garner the ire of the Shinto Faction. However, she doesn't really care. Plus if there's any problems if she doesn't handle it then her husband certainly will.

"I'm sure." Shuri just couldn't find it in her heart to care about their fate. She nearly lost her precious daughter and niece because of them.

With a snap of her fingers, every single unconscious body outside of Akeno and Suzaku literally disintegrated into pure ashes. The spell Zenith used is called Decay; she clearly learned it from Lux.

"Well now that's over with…Shuri, how do you feel about becoming a farm girl along with Suzaku and Akeno?" She curiously asked while internally smirking.

'Heh I had no intention of doing this originally but it seems that I may have potentially acquired 3 new harem sisters without even trying.' Zenith thought to herself. She can already envision Lux having his way with Shuri and Akeno at the same time.

Shuri blinked twice before saying. "Huh?!"