Yet another dreamless night.

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

His eyes still adjusting, the boy found himself to still be looking at their window. In its reflection, he could see his partner's outline. She was sitting up, knees hugged 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 her 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."

Thankfully, 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. At least it wasn't too harsh of a change. He sat up as well, leaning 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 bald-faced lie."

"Was it really that easy to tell?"

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

Lyric giggled and nodded, then returned her stare onward. Even Kyoya, being about as dense as they came, was still leagues beyond certain that something was troubling her. With her less-than-driven attempt at fooling him into security, there was no telling what that could be. There'd need to be more details before he could reach anything.

Although, 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, 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.

Truthfully, he'd harbored similar fleeting thoughts of their Void-dwelling visitor, but had chosen to leave them for dissection during less excitable times. 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 fears... But, if now was that less excitable time, he'd no intention of denying her a chance to let go of whatever she'd built up.

"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? 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 had some history with them."

"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, drooling and lumbering ones. 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."

She filled in enough blanks for him to at least have a general thought of his past encounters, now. Lyric was definitely up-to-speed with her knowledge, as it fit exactly right with what he'd been told by Guran and Reika in the past.

"But, of course, that's only the tip of it all. When they're summoned, they're called up from the Void using Void-based magic 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, so we call them Abominations. 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."

"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, or else they just kill the sap that did it and wreak havoc on the real world... And, most of the time, if they even go so far as to agree to terms, they set that pact up to be inescapable, making it just end up killing their human anyway and leaving an open door for another Abomination in the world. But, if the deal goes through, they're smart enough to follow orders -- and disobeying those orders literally removes them from existence, so there's no room to cut corners with the pact's terms."

A gear turned in the Miscreant's head.

"If that's the case... I don't remember that Demon disintegrating when it ran off, yesterday. Think that means it still had something to do?"

"Ryder and I talked about that a while before you woke up. She did some digging around, herself, and ended up finding what was left of it deeper in the woods after nightfall... That means that whatever its summoner told it to do wasn't done, or somebody got to it before we could. I'm leaning on the former being what happened."

Contemplative silence followed, soon broken by another statement. "All she could put together was that those involved had some sort of connection to the upper classes of the Kingdom, because the cloth around the parts of it that were human were of the same fabric used in high-class Altarian clothing. Meaning, there might have been a sacrifice... I don't think I'll have to tell you what that means."

"Even if I didn't, I'd still tell you to spare me the details..." Kyoya trailed off. Sacrifice, in a different context, was a noble act of courage and selflessness in the hopes of preserving another likeness; yet, here, it was one of disgust and deluge, epitomizing a twisted hunger for something that couldn't be sated by one's own ability. The thought that a life may have gone to something he had to bring down wasn't exactly comforting.

It seemed that Lyric could tell that wasn't his favorite thing to think about.

"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 thinking up potential ideas."

"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 doubt there was a plan for us showing up, so that could explain why it died out, since there was no longer any way of it completing some kind of task..."

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. "Whoever it is, they might be trying to bait out an action... Remember the Grandeur at the main gate, 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 were to have done as much as it was supposed to, there'd be plenty of reason for Altaire to go on high alert, but 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... And with the Festival being underway, there's more than enough Reclaimers at the capital to deal with a Demon like that, but..."

"A reverse 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'll know we can't beat."

"I can't think of any way to explain someone with access to such expensive materials to burn just settling on a small-fry... 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."