Seraph LN v1 summary

Prologue - About the Spring of this World
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- childhood scene between Ichinose Guren and Hiiragi Mahiru which shows them as childhood sweethearts
- Guren talked about how it was impossible for them to be together when they grew up into adults as Mahiru was the successor to the main house while Guren was part of the branch family
- they were then separated by adult attendants of Mahiru.

Chapter 1 - Enrollment of a Hated One
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- 10 years later when Guren was 15
- introduce Guren's 2 attendants/retainers, Hanayori Sayuri and Yukimi Shigure. - Sayuri was depicted to be an energetic airhead while Shigure, a petite girl with black hair, was shown to be cool and expressionless though their affection for their master was clear
- they were on their way to “First Shibuya High School” which was a school for nurturing sorcerers, operated and administered by a prominent religious organization in Japan, which was known as “Mikado no Oni”, a.k.a “Imperial Demon”.
- reigning house of Imperial Demon was Hiiragi with 1200 years of history with all other houses under “Imperial Demon group” as subordinate houses
- 500 years ago, the Ichinose house split from them to form the “Mikado no Tsuki”, a.k.a Imperial Moon; despite the fact they still had to answer the beck and call of Imperial Demon (unwillingly now as opposed to the past) and a branch family, they are considered a separate religious organization
- pretty much all who enrolled in “First Shibuya High School” were of the Imperial Demon group.
- but as Guren was the next upcoming head of the Ichinose family, he was allowed to enroll in the school
- it was also revealed that Guren was a rare genius born to the Ichinose house
- as they approached the school gate, after passing through a bunch of people (of Imperial Demon) who were badmouthing and humiliating Guren and co. openly, a student with white hair at the gate invoked a lightning spell at Guren which he received without dodging on purpose
- white hair guy then grinned and left
- Guren did not dodge it as he was planning to go through the 3 years of high school without revealing his true power in the hopes of acquiring more power secretly and one day overturning the Hiiragis.

Chapter 2 - Shin'ya's classroom
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- Sayuri and Shigure were assigned to classrooms different from Guren and were placed in the classrooms furthest away from him
- the Ichinose house had been the object of humiliation and bullying for the Hiiragi house
- this chapter also mentioned the 3 notable subordinate houses that served the Hiiragis, which were:
> Jyuujou house
> Goshi house
> Sanguu house
- even the teacher was an ass and mocked him.
- one of the Hiiragis, Hiiragi Shin'ya, who was of course revered by the rest of the class, had also been assigned to this class
- he was the same white hair guy who tried to test Guren earlier
- Shin'ya approached Guren without reservations and voiced his suspicion about him dodging his attack on purpose
- he also proposed to work together with him against the Hiiragi house; reason being, Shin'ya was actually a foster son who was raised through strict and deadly selection processes to breed and strengthen their bloodline
- Shin'ya went on to provoke Guren, saying that his betrothed was Mahiru, however, Shin'ya had hated the Hiiragi house for their treatment towards him and wanted to take revenge.
- and it was then time for the enrollment ceremony.

Chapter 3 - Freshman Representative
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- in the hall where the ceremony was held, Jyuujou Mito who was in the same class as Guren is introduced.
- she had fiery red hair and a petite frame -> the Jyuujou is a famous militant house of the Imperial Demon group and specialize in sorcery techniques that enhance their raw physical power and were said to even able to overcome Onis with their brute strength
- Mito was depicted to be a proud and loud girl, but apparently not very smart. She tried to talk down to Guren but was in turn teased by him
- Mahiru then walked out to the stage as the freshman representative to do her speech.
- first day of school was then over and they went back
- while Sayuri and Shigure busied themselves with unpacking and preparing dinner in their new abode, made up of 2 whole rented floors of a highrise condominium, Guren decided to go up to do some training
- in the lift he met a man in a black suit and based on his behavior and certain facts, Guren deduced that he was an assassin and attacked him with his katana
- a fierce fight ensued; the man appeared to be a modified human (a Remodeled Combatant a.k.a Chimera) and with no clear winner, they started talking and it was then revealed that he was from the “Hyakuya Church”.
- Hyakuya Church was a large sorcery organization that appeared to be supporting the country from the shadows; throughout the ages, whenever the seat of power of the nation changed, the Hyakuya Church and the Hiiragi House, which was also a large-scale sorcery organization would repeatedly engage in skirmishes to determine who would become the backer of the ruling power
- some of the rumors that surrounded the Hyakuya Church was that they were involved in things like murder, kidnapping, human experimentation, all to increase their power and influence
- it was also said that parents of children with special talents were killed, the children were then assembled in the orphanages and terrible experiments were conducted on them repeatedly.
- the man was here to invite the Ichinoses to join hands with them against the Hiiragis but Guren was suspicious of the offer; he rejected the offer and then threatened with the release of a seal on his sword, Kujakumaru, and with that the man left.

Chapter 4 - Reunion of the Two
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- Guren continued to hide his power and kept getting ‘defeated’ during tests and paired practices
- we get introduced to Goshi Norito of the Goshi house, who joined in ridiculing him as well
- Guren was not making any effort at all and the rest saw him as merely resigning himself to his fate
- Mito was vexed at his attitude and chided him for not even trying after getting looked down
- Shin'ya had been observing Guren in the meantime and commented on how he would receive attacks while avoiding damage
- he then sparred with him and went all out with killing intent, hoping that Guren would reveal his true power
- Guren still received the hit without retaliating and tried to avoid his vitals from getting hit but still he lost consciousness.
- Mahiru came to visit Guren in the infirmary
- while Mahiru showed her concern for Guren, he remained distant, mindful of their stations
- he then congratulated Mahiru on her engagement to Shin'ya, which upset her, and she left following that.

Chapter 5 - War and Supermarket
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- Shin'ya, Mito, and Goshi continued to approach Guren unreservedly
- Guren continued to put up a weak and cowardly pretense
- classes ended, Sayuri and Shigure waited for Guren outside
- Hiiragi Seiichiro appeared
- he was another son of the Hiiragi family, born to a different mother from Mahiru & Shinoa
- he came to check out Guren as during the sorcery selection exam the following day, he would face Guren in the second round
- he humiliated Guren and Guren’s followers tried to retaliate, but Seiichiro was stronger than both Sayuri and Shigure
- Shin'ya stopped Seiichiro and respectfully persuaded him to not bother dirtying his hands on the garbage
- after getting confirmation from Shin'ya that Guren was garbage, Seiichiro sneered and left
- both Shin'ya and Mito were disgusted with Guren and thought he was too weak and didn’t manage to protect his followers and left
- the rest of the other classmates of course ridiculed him
- both Sayuri and Shigure were extremely vexed that their master had to go through this crap
- in the meantime, Guren had been continuously watching and evaluating Seiichiro and Shin'ya's movements.
- on way back, as Sayuri and Shigure went shopping for ingredients at the supermarket, Guren waited outside
- appeared Saito, the Hyakuya assassin from the earlier chapter, and chibi Mikaela, shown to be a child from the Hyakuya orphanage
- Saito sent Mika off to buy candy and then told Guren that the Hyakuya Church was trying to stop the Hiiragis from causing a virus to spread, which would be due to them laying their hands on taboo sorcery/curse
- Guren sneered at Saito and commented on Mikaela being a test subject for Hyakuya Church; he also commented about Saito being a modified human as proof
- Saito denied Hyakuya Church’s true nature and insisted he voluntarily accepted modification
- Saito then said a war will begin with the Hiiragis in 10 days and asked Guren to join them in bringing down the Hiiragis; and as Guren was asked to decide immediately, he rejected the offer

Chapter 6 - Selection Sorcery Exam
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- selection sorcery exam starts following day
- Shigure was matched up against Mito; MIto used her body fortification magic while Shigure uses hidden weapons with associated sorcery though she and Sayuri were both not allowed to use the sorcery techniques/spells that the Ichinose had developed; they were evenly matched but Mito was ruled the winner after blasting Shigure off
- Mito was unsatisfied with the ruling as she was grazed by a kunai which would have poison coated in a real battle; she also got a good impression of Shigure and wanted her to leave the Ichinoses and join her house
- Shin'ya and Goshi both had easy wins, while Guren pretended to be weak and ran around and pretended to score a lucky hit and knocked out his opponent; Mito again scolded Guren for his unsightliness especially when he had someone talented like Shigure as his follower
- Sayuri was matched up against Seiichiro who owned her badly; her clothes were in tatters, and even when she had fallen and Seiichiro’s win was apparent, he continued to punch and kick her
- Guren wanted to move forward to stop the beating but Mahiru stopped him, saying that he was too weak to even protect the women around him, which seemed to carry a hidden meaning
- Mahiru stopped Seiichiro easily and released her murderous intent for an instant and prompted the referee to declare Seiichiro as the winner
- Guren was humiliated and badmouthed again and despite the fact that they had to hold back from using Ichinose’s secret sorcery, both Sayuri and Shigure were vexed at their losses and that their beloved master had to undergo such humiliation
- Guren was also vexed at his current powerlessness

Chapter 7 - Mahiru and the Dream Seen
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- following day, Sayuri was hospitalized and Shigure was with her and thus not at school
- Guren’s opponent was Seiichiro; despite yesterday’s humiliation especially towards Sayuri, Guren decided to endure and keep up his pretense for the next 3 years and decided to forfeit his match; Shin'ya helped him arrange it while Mito and Goshi were disgusted
- suddenly, beams of red light shot down from the sky without anyone the wiser
- Guren noticed the danger to Mito and Goshi and shoved them out of the way
- men in black suits dropped down and it appeared that the beams were to create smoke screens as they attacked the campus
- Saito happened to be positioned where Guren and Shin'ya were at
- they fought and Guren was forced to unseal Kujakumaru, a katana which was shrouded with a curse binding the vengeance of the people it slayed.
- his power was thus revealed to Shin'ya, who smirked happily
- to cut the story short, Guren managed to pin down Saito, and tried to interrogate him
- Saito revealed that this operation was to retrieve their ‘insider’ and documents
- after some exchanges, both Guren and Shin'ya managed to deduce that Mahiru was the insider and had betrayed the Hiiragis
- Saito knew also that both Guren and Shin'ya hated the Hiiragis and persuaded them to join Hyakuya’s cause; he also told Guren that Mahiru was doing all this because she loved him and wanted to be with him
- meanwhile, commotion from around them indicated that Mahiru was ‘captured’, which was really a farce
- Guren refused Saito’s offer, and Mahiru then appeared, complaining about how cold Guren was
- they had a few exchanges, and while Mahiru was surprised by Guren’s true strength, she was clearly the stronger one.
- she then talked about the hunger for power and Guren could become stronger; she also broke Kujakumaru with her katana.
- Mahiru then mentioned the Kiju (Demon-Curse), which she was able to acquire after combining the research from both the Hiiragis and Hyakuya Church
- here, it was mentioned that the Kiju / Kiju-soubi (Demon-Curse-Equip/Gear) was a taboo and forbidden even by the Ichinose house despite their need for power, and that it involved binding an Oni to a weapon via a contract
- aside from the theory and the sorcery advancement that was needed to do it, there was also the problem of the wielder getting consumed by the Oni
- he was clearly surprised that Mahiru had obtained it and wondered about how much human experimentation had to be done to perfect the technique
- suddenly, Mahiru’s tone changed and she appeared to be suffering; here it was revealed that the real Mahiru had been encroached and consumed by the Oni and that the transformation had not complete yet
- Mahiru went back to Oni mode and gave Guren a warning that the world would be destroyed during Christmas and a virus would spread
- Saito knew that Guren and Shin'ya would not let the Hiiragis know about Mahiru being in cahoots with them, and he then asked Guren to contact the orphanage if he wanted to meet him
- with that they left with the rest of Hyakuya’s people
- Mito and Goshi found Guren alive and were overjoyed; they were grateful towards him for saving them
- Guren was mostly preoccupied with his own thoughts, thinking about what had transpired

Epilogue - About the Spring Before the Destruction
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- the Imperial Demon group covered up everything and claimed the attack was a terrorist attack and that they had already annihilated the perpetrators
- school restarted and as Guren and his followers were commuting to school, they were mocked and ridiculed again; Shin'ya also involved himself to help Guren keep up the act
- Mito and Goshi stood by Guren’s side and stopped the other plebian students from bullying Guren
- epilogue finally ended with talking about what this story is, a story about love, hate, war, murder, lies, desire which were traits of humanity, and as these desires expand, it would lead to world’s end, and this is a story about the time before such an end to humanity:  a story about how ugly and desperate humans would become just before the hammer falls onto the world as the Seraph of the End blows the trumpet of finale.