The Gremory estate had seen many things over its long, noble history—wars, peace treaties, sacred rituals, and royal visits.
What it had not seen until now was a full-scale magical lockdown… for an 8-year-old.
Kael Gremory floated horizontally three feet off the ground, blindfold still in place, a rice cracker in one hand and zero cares in the other.
"Effective immediately," Venelana had said that morning, "you are under house arrest."
Kael had bowed deeply. "I shall reflect upon my poultry-based sins."
Grayfia wasted no time. Seals were carved. Glyphs inscribed. Anti-teleportation fields activated. Surveillance spirits deployed.
One of them tried to bite him.
He named it Gregory.
Within hours, six layers of magical containment surrounded Kael's quarters. They were designed to restrict all movement, prevent space-warping spells, and suppress any aura leakage.
And yet…
Kael now hovered upside-down in the hallway, humming.
Because none of it worked.
Unbeknownst to everyone, Kael had activated Infinity the moment the punishment began—filtering out all magical effects around him. Seals fizzled on contact. Wards bent and slid away. Even physical guards grew disoriented if they got too close.
They didn't notice it failing. They just assumed Kael was slipping through cracks in the system.
Which made him laugh harder.
Down in the training chamber he wasn't supposed to access, Kael stood in silence with his blindfold still on.
His cursed energy surged quietly as he extended his arm.
A faint mark of Sukuna flickered across his skin before disappearing. Kael's expression grew serious for the first time in weeks.
He wasn't just floating and trolling anymore.
He was training.
Slowly. Carefully. Quietly.
Because this power wasn't for jokes.
Hours later, he reappeared in the garden, lounging midair like he had never moved.
Grayfia spotted him and froze. "How did you get out of the suppression wing?"
Kael pointed above her. "Gregory left the window open."
She looked up. Gregory chirped innocently and attempted a backflip.
Kael floated upside-down in the lounge again, humming as if gravity were just a suggestion. With Infinity silently nullifying every magical barrier, no one could stop him from roaming the estate. He was technically still under house arrest—but it was more like a self-guided field trip with snacks.
Enter Rias.
She stomped into the lounge wearing a pink dress two sizes too poofy and carrying her favorite plush demon lion.
"Why are you still being punished?" she asked with a pout, plopping onto a cushion.
Kael hovered sideways. "Because some people can't appreciate the artistic brilliance of a chicken-led uprising."
She blinked. "You mean school was mad?"
"Very."
Rias crossed her arms. "Well I'm not mad. I missed you."
Kael blinked behind his blindfold. "I was upstairs."
"But not with me!" she huffed, cheeks puffed. "I even asked Grayfia if I could go sleep in your room."
Kael tilted his head. "And?"
"She said no."
Kael drifted lower and handed her a chocolate from somewhere in his coat. "Unacceptable. You've suffered. A great injustice."
Rias beamed, happily munching.
Then: "You're still my favorite person."
Kael smiled. "Obviously."
Later that evening, Rias wandered into his room without knocking and built a pillow fort beside his bed. Grayfia found them like that—Kael lounging on air, blindfolded, sipping tea, while Rias read a picture book aloud to her stuffed animals and dramatically added Kael into every page.
"…and then Prince Kael saved the world from the Evil Broccoli King—again!"
Kael raised his cup. "I hate broccoli."
Grayfia watched the scene in silence.
She should've been furious.
She wanted to be furious.
But instead, she closed the door and mumbled, "I need a vacation."
Day five of Kael's house arrest.
The estate was calm.
Too calm.
Grayfia didn't trust it.
Kael hadn't summoned any chickens, tea dragons, or moonwalking goats in nearly forty-eight hours. That alone was cause for alarm. She approached his room with caution, scanning for magical residue—but found nothing out of place.
Then she looked into the mirror beside the hallway.
And saw a chicken.
A giant, humanoid chicken in a tuxedo.
Staring.
Smiling.
She turned slowly. Nothing there.
She looked back.
Still smiling.
Within twenty minutes, chaos erupted across the estate.
Every mirror. Every reflective surface. All of them.
Bathrooms. Bedrooms. Silver trays. Windows during sunset.
All replaced with live projections of the same smug, monologuing chicken who seemed to be quoting Kael's actual speeches—verbatim.
"Art," the chicken said in one mirror, "is not meant to be understood. It is meant to be experienced."
"This chicken gets it," Kael muttered somewhere in the distance.
Venelana screamed in the spa.
Sirzechs—who had returned home briefly for political paperwork—accidentally launched a demonic fireball through the guest bathroom mirror.
Grayfia nearly incinerated an entire wing out of reflex.
Meanwhile, Kael lounged in the library, sipping soup from a levitating bowl, quietly enjoying the opera-level meltdown echoing through the estate.
"Mirror, mirror," he mused, "on the wall… who's the most annoying of them all?"
Answer: Him.
By sundown, nearly twenty household staff had either fainted, called in sick, or quit outright.
Venelana stormed into Kael's room and shouted, "WHAT DID YOU DO!?"
Kael, upside-down and drinking from a straw, answered:
"I simply provided reflections of how people see me. Clearly, I'm not the problem."
Venelana nearly cast a spell on the spot.
Only Grayfia's iron grip on her shoulder stopped her.
"I need holy water," she hissed.
Kael took a sip. "It's in the second mirror to the left. Right behind the chicken philosopher."
The Gremory family drawing room hadn't seen this kind of tension since the last failed marriage proposal from a noble house. This time, however, the noble in question was already in the family.
And he was upside-down in his chair.
"Sit. Properly," Venelana said with the soft intensity of a mother on the edge.
Kael slowly twisted upright, crossed one leg over the other, and rested his chin in his palm. "Of course, dear mother. Let's keep this civil."
Across the table, Grayfia Lucifuge gripped a clipboard so tightly it cracked down the middle.
Moments later, a crimson flash signaled the arrival of Sirzechs Lucifer—the family's oldest son and one of the Four Great Satans. He stepped into the room, glanced around, and sighed.
"What did he do now?"
Grayfia slapped the incident report into his chest.
Ten pages. Heavy parchment. Gilded edges. The title read:
Incident Report: Operation Chicken Mirror—Psychological Casualties Pending.
Sirzechs flipped it open, brows rising higher with each line.
"You replaced every mirror in the estate with a talking chicken wearing a monocle?"
Kael nodded solemnly. "He spoke truths none were ready for."
Venelana didn't flinch. "We're past jokes. This is serious."
She snapped her fingers, and magic screens appeared around the room, displaying visual recordings of Kael's most recent offenses:
Talking mirrors.
Singing silverware.
The enchanted rubber chicken that exploded into confetti and glitter mid-dinner.
That time the estate's entire wardrobe turned plaid for 48 hours.
An incident involving a summoned pudding that devoured someone's shoes.
Kael tapped the table. "The pudding was innocent. It was framed."
Grayfia growled, "You're impossible to contain."
Sirzechs tried to step in. "Maybe we're approaching this the wrong way—"
Venelana cut him off. "Sirzechs, one of the housekeepers fainted because she saw herself as a chicken in three mirrors before breakfast. The head butler's hair hasn't stopped clucking."
Kael offered a small clap. "A marvel of transmutation magic."
Grayfia read from a list. "The staff have filed a collective grievance. They're not quitting, but they refuse to come back so long as Kael remains in the estate."
Venelana exhaled slowly. "They're calling it the 'Chicken Clause.'"
Sirzechs looked at his little brother. "Kael… what are you doing?"
Kael gave a calm smile. "Living artistically."
Venelana finally stood, eyes blazing.
"Kael Gremory, your presence here is no longer sustainable. You're a walking anomaly—loved by your sister, tolerated by your brother, and feared by every functional adult within a hundred-mile radius."
Kael opened his mouth. She held up a hand. "You are banished. Until we call for you. No visits. No float-ins. No disguises."
Grayfia added, "And no more chicken-related illusions."
Sirzechs sighed deeply. "Is this… necessary?"
Venelana didn't blink. "He taught a goose to file taxes."
Kael stood slowly and gave a low, dramatic bow.
"Understood," he said with exaggerated grace. "The kingdom will no longer be troubled by its court jester."
Then, without a spell or chant, he vanished.
No flash. No magic circle. Just silence—and absence.
Sirzechs sat down heavily. "He's already stronger than I was at his age."
Grayfia crossed her arms. "And ten times more exhausting."
Venelana didn't respond. She just looked at the empty seat where her son had been.
Then muttered, "We'll need a new table. That one's probably cursed now."
Two hours after Kael vanished, a new silence settled over the Gremory estate—not peace, not rest… just absence.
Venelana sat at the head of the main dining table, a stack of unreviewed letters at her side and a deep glass of demonic red wine in hand.
Grayfia returned from reinforcing the entry wards, face pale and mood grim. "I double-layered the outer perimeter. No response so far."
Sirzechs leaned in from the corner. "That's because he's not stupid. He's not going to break the ban. Not until he wants something."
Venelana sipped her wine like it was a magical sedative. "Then we make the terms clear."
Thirty minutes later, the Gremory family gathered in the formal study.
The goal: put Kael's exile into official, documented law.
No contact unless summoned.
No presence near estate grounds.
No proxies, illusions, or summoned beings acting in his stead.
And no chickens. Ever again.
Grayfia insisted on that last one.
Sirzechs looked over the scroll once, hesitated, then added:
"Unless it's funny. Like, really funny."
Venelana did not approve.
Rias wandered in mid-meeting, dragging her plush lion, confused.
"Where's Nii-san?"
The room fell awkwardly quiet.
Venelana forced a soft smile. "He's… on a journey, sweetie."
"To where?"
Grayfia answered calmly. "To somewhere with fewer mirrors."
Rias blinked. "Is he in trouble?"
Sirzechs bent down to her level. "Kael's just… taking a vacation. To think about things."
Rias crossed her arms. "But he didn't do anything wrong."
Everyone in the room made eye contact for two full seconds.
Then broke it.
Just then, a knock echoed through the hall.
A devil courier entered, visibly shaken, holding a sealed envelope. "This arrived by… chicken. A very large, confident chicken."
Grayfia slowly turned to Venelana.
Venelana didn't say anything—she just drained her wine in one go.
Sirzechs opened the envelope.
Inside was a single slip of paper:
"Ban acknowledged. I will not return. Unless it's funny. Or Rias asks. Or dinner's really good."
– K
P.S. I left Rias something.
Everyone turned to Rias, who now held a glowing, enchanted bucket of KFC, freshly summoned into her lap.
She hugged it like a national treasure. "He remembered!"
Grayfia exhaled through her nose like a dragon about to sneeze.
Venelana stared into space.
Sirzechs simply muttered, "I need another bottle."
From that day forward, Kael Gremory became the first noble-born devil in Gremory history to be formally banished from his own estate before the age of ten.
And no one—not even Sirzechs—could predict when, where, or how he would show up next.
But they all agreed on one thing:
He would.