A self-insert merge with Rias gremory into the rating game against Riser. Fate breaks for the best and the worst
Infernal comedy (Highschool dxd/sandman AU)
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Apocalypse is just another word for truth
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- france
it's been in my drafts since a long time so I thought that maybe I should post it. It has been something I wrote in a flight of fancy to relax so I didn't put a lot of thought behind the cosmetology I wanted to create.
View: https://youtu.be/2qixj0iXklA
I could feel the fire. the heat that came from it was so scalding that it felt as if my skin was peeling. My body hurt and pulsed with agony.
In my arms, rested a brown-haired teenage boy. His body was broken, his limbs resting in unnatural angles. On his face, there were tears and burn marks. "Buchou, I'm so sorry" the teenage boy cried to me.
President my mind instantaneously translated. Why was he calling me this? Without my input, my mouth moved "It's alright Issei, it's alright".
His body was covered in light before disappearing in sprites of lights. He had been teleported out of the rating game my mind whispered to me.
"You should give up Rias. All your pieces are out. Your queen lost to mine. The red dragon emperor, your last Hope also lost. Stop fighting the unavoidable. Give up Rias. This is your duty as pure-blooded heiress of the Gremory clan." The voice came from a man with flame wings protruding from his back. The voice was owned by a tall and I had to admit handsome young man in his early 20s with short blond hair and dark blue eyes. He wore a burgundy blazer with gold embroidery on the right with matching pants and black dress shoes. Underneath his open blazer was a white dress shirt that was not fully buttoned, giving a slight view of his chest.
A headache split my head and with it, images rushed forward in the disorganized canvas that was my mind. I remembered everything. I remember being raised by my parents and our servants of the Gremory household. I remembered my embarrassing brother whom I loved more than anything. I remember my peerage, the family that I had made, those that I was supposed to perfectly lead and protect from the world. I also remembered another life. I remember being raised by my grandparents. I remembered their love, and how they honestly spoiled me beyond recognition. I remembered their death. I remembered my parents who didn't understand, who never tried, and who were more siblings and strangers than my parents. I remembered the burdens and expectations they tried to push on me. I remember the flood of pills I swallowed. I remembered death. I remember the shape of a shrouded figure with eyes as cold as the cosmos dressed in a dark robe that seemed alive and from which came maddening whispers. I remembered indiscernible flashes of events. I remembered finally facing the sweet oblivion I longed for and embracing it.
Involuntary, a laugh escaped from me. Here I was trying to flee from duties, and obligations just to enter into a situation with greater expectations and burdens. None of this was supposed to be real. Rias Gremory, devils, and rating games shouldn't exist. They were supposed to be mere fiction created to attract an audience of horny readers to make money.
Those things existed in a light novel entitled Highschool DxD that sometimes could be evaluated more as porn than a light novel.
It was a world where every pantheon existed, where creatures capable of destroying the world many times moonlighted as emo goth toddlers or siscons. It was a world where I was just the main girl of a harem for Issei. A world where boobs gave superpowers to perverts.
It was a world where I would always have my fates controlled or influenced by stronger beings and I hated it. I hated it all with all my heart. With me there, who knew what else had changed? Would Grayfia intervene to make Issei crash my wedding? Even if he did, would he this time win?
Watching the eyes of Riser gazing upon me with lust and remembering our previous interactions, I knew what awaited me. I let the power of destruction surge free in me and leak out in the real world. I wanted all of it to end. I was so much tired and I longed for the eternal sleep that had been denied to me.
I wasn't something special. I wasn't the smartest, the wisest or knew dozens of ways to erase my problems. I was a failure that in the end decided to end my own life. The original Rias had been unable to do anything against Riser. The original Rias has given up in the canon events because nothing that she could be doing could vanquish Riser.
Riser was stronger than me by a wide margin. His remaining pieces in the rating game were his sister and his queen each matching me in strength. The only piece I had left in the rating game was Asia even though she looked scared, even though she absolutely despised violence stayed at my side.
I stopped kneeling and stood up. I turned towards the nun and smiled. I didn't know why but she looked horrified. The power of destruction was running amok in me and the outside world. The original Rias tried to control the power of destruction when in reality, true destruction was something uncontrollable. To gain something, you must be ready to sacrifice to obtain it. The power of destruction could never truly be harnessed without knowing this truth. Either my power will consume every obstacle on my path or gorge itself with my existence freeing me. In all cases, I won. "Please Asia," I spoke softly. "Leave".
She tried to say something, probably to contest my decision but I didn't let her talk. "Please" I spoke again. "Believe in me, Asia." Fat ugly tears spilt from her eyes. With a touch of my finger, they evaporated. The power of destruction didn't hurt Asia. I didn't allow it to. Like an angry dog, he tore through my inside bringing maddening pain. I bit on my tongue to stop myself from screaming. Warm blood pooled in my mouth but I didn't pay attention to it. I continue to Gaze at Asia.
Looking defeated, the nun said out loud the words that I wanted her to say "I surrender".
Light began to envelop Asia the same way it did to Issei. Rias turned her gaze at Riser and his queen. Was this worry in his eyes? Was this fear? Was this a mix of the two? I wondered how I must be looking to the outside world. I probably looked like such a mess and not how the regular Rias Gremory did.
Right now, I don't care about grace, elegance or other akin concepts. I yearned for only one thing, "You spoke of duty Riser," I said to the blond man.
"Fuck your duty" I spat to the Phenex. I guided the power of destruction, the abyss inside of me wanting to destroy everything and compressed it into a ball. It hurt me to try to contain it. The power of destruction lashed at me in rage but I whispered to it making promises of future ruin if he let itself be temporarily controlled, shaped.
The pain lowered "I won't let myself be a slave. I won't let my freedom be taken by anyone be it because of you, of our families, our races or Lucifer and God". I ignored the headache by mentioning the father of angels and punched the ball.
A laser made of the power of destruction surged towards Riser and his queen. Yubelluna, the queen of Riser tried to erect a shield to protect herself and her king. It was a grave mistake. She should have dodged. The beam tore through her shield and her as if it hadn't encountered any resistance. It continued its way towards Riser who instead of taking the brunt of the attack like he always did, the Phenex dodged by leaning on his side.
The beam continued its advance and entered contact with the barrier separating the dimensional gap from the pocket dimension created for the rating game and cracked it before dispersing.
I let myself be sheathed by the power of destruction like armour. With a scream, I launched myself to Riser by kicking my feet from the ground cratering it and creating cobwebs.
I could see Riser reacting as if the world was slowed. I could see the multitude of minuscule and instinctive actions that his body made to allow Riser to protect himself.
I tried to punch through his guts. Flames surged from the Phenex to create a protective barrier. My destruction met his hellfire and snuffed it out in less than a millisecond. Unfortunately, a millisecond was enough for the blond devil to move back away from me. Behind me exploded from my back crimson wings made of destruction to keep me flying.
A smile bloomed on Riser's face. "Finally, some fight in you Rias,"the blond devil yelled. "It would not have been a satisfying victory if I didn't put you down at your best".
He acted as if it was a game as if the thing not being fought for was my liberty. Rage and anger overturned my reason. I rushed to the Phenex full of pain, anger and despair. He met my charge sheathed in the Hellfire that distinguished and made his family unique.
We clashed in the sky of the fake Kuoh academy with a gigantic boom. Our fists met and even with my power of destruction, I was sent flying through one of the buildings that made the kuoh academy.
I crashed into it. It caved under the speed I was sent to it. I went through a wall, a second one and a third one. I used my wings to regain my balance by spinning like a ballerina and sank my feet into the ground to stop myself.
I tore through the ground as if I was a knife and the ground butter. Riser didn't let me take back my repairs. He appeared before me with a punch. I cocked my head to the side dodging it and grabbed his overextended arm to throw him behind me on the ground in the direction I was still tearing the ground towards.
To his credit, he materialized a dome of fire to protect himself. I directed more power of destruction to my right leg. Unfortunately for Riser, I was a true egoist. I shot the dome with my leg as if it was a football ball. My leg tore through the dome and sent Riser flying his face caved in.
I flew towards the direction I had sent Riser. I was greeted by a rain of fireballs akin to divine punishment. I materialized over my shoulders crimson swords made of the power I inherited from my mother and sent them to the balls of fire.
The power of Destruction from the Bael lineage and the hellfire of the Phenex clan met. They created by their collision explosions and shockwaves that tore through the fake Kuoh academy turning its still-standing buildings into rubble.
Riser appeared from the smoke and punched me in the gut creating a sonic boom. I spat blood. I tried to send him a right hook. He dodged it and headbutted me making me fall to the ground in a crater.
It hurts so bad. I just wanted it to end. The only thing the original Rias and I were good at was giving up yet I raised back on my feet.
The Phenex threw himself at me. I moved to the left. His fist went through the ground and pulverized it. I gathered my power of destruction to hit him with a beam of destruction at point-blank range.
Riser reacted as fast as lightning. He copied me and fired a laser of hellfire to counter my destruction. The two beams met in a thunderous roar. The heat from his flames set everything around him and under him on fire.
The grass had been turned to ashes. The ground under and behind him looked more like Lava than anything. My Destruction had not left any traces on its way. It had swallowed everything on its path and erased them.
I urged my power of destruction to come forward wilder, stronger. It didn't give me any advantages. I had done something the original Rias had never done, let the power of destruction run free. I had let it take its toll on me to reach even greater heights of strength yet Riser continued to match me in strength.
I could only use the power of destruction as long as I could use my demonic energy to serve as a bridge between the dimension that the power of Destruction originated from and this world.
Unfortunately, Rias' reserves of energy were not infinite. I watched with despair my power of destruction gradually disappearing. Was this at the end truly my worth? Was I bound to forever fail when it mattered the most?
My beam of destruction was overwhelmed by the hellfire of the blonde devil. I tried to raise a meagre defence by crossing my arms in an X shape to protect myself.
The hellfire of the Phenex met my arms and I knew pain. I clenched my teeth to stop the scream wanting to escape from my mouth. The attack of the Phenex sent me flying like a ragdoll.
I fell harshly on the ground. I skidded over it Before being stopped by my back colliding with a still-standing wall. Tortuous Pain coursed through my veins. Each breath was one that felt wounding. I could feel blood streaming from my nose and my eyes. It felt as if all my internal organs were damaged.
I learned on the still-standing wall. I tried to move my arms. One felt unresponsive and the other took difficulties to move. I looked at them. Angry blackened flesh met my sight.
I could see the sinews and even some of the white bone in my arms. It looked disgusting and turned my gaze away from the grizzly sight to not puke.
I used the still-standing wall and my barely functioning arm to stand. All my body weight was supported by my left arm. I wasn't able this time to bite back the scream of pain that escaped my mouth.
Riser flew down. He looked as pristine as he did at the beginning of the rating game. He looked at me and I saw in his eyes pity and sadness. "You did your best Rias. I was wrong, you're not weak. Unfortunately for you, you're still weaker than me. Give up Rias, please. I hate seeing you like this. Do you really hate me that much? Why can't you see that everything done by our families is for our good?"
I only had one answer to his monologue. "Go fuck yourself, Riser."
The blonde-haired devil sighed. His fire wings exploded from his back. With a flap of them, he flew above the fake Kuoh academy.
From where he was, Riser's wings looked more like two distant twin stars than anything else. "I tried to make you do it by your own will Rias but you don't want to do of your own will the same thing to do," the voice of Riser thundered over all the fake Kuoh academy.
He put his hands above his head as if trying to reach for the cosmos. Over his palms, a ball of fire began to grow. The orb of fire continued to grow and grow until it dwarfed all of Kuoh Academy. Riser had created a second sun.
The ground all around and under me began to melt because of the unbearable heat. Searing waves of heat entered in contact with my skin. It felt as if somebody was trying to peel my skin off.
"You lost Rias" the Phenex voices boomed before he sent to me the sun made of hellfire. Was I fated to always lose? Was I fated to always disappoint others and myself? What was the fucking point of me reincarnating if I couldn't change anything? How was this fucking fair?
The attack of Riser descended towards me like a holy punishment coming from a celestial being. I drilled my two feet into the ground. What I was doing was nonsensical, and ludicrous but I was exhausted of letting the world exact his will upon me. I was exhausted from always giving my best and always failing.
The ball of hellfire came before me. I laid out my functioning arm before me. I should have lost the rating game. The sun created by Riser should have ended my resistance but a miracle occurred.
I didn't lose. I could feel the ball of hellfire pressing against me, trying to consume me. I could feel it burning yet at that moment when I was at my lowest, I felt stronger than I had ever been before.
Strength surged into my veins like an injected drug. My demonic power that had been depleted was back bigger than before. My broken arm wrenched and became functional again. I could feel the pain receding and being replaced by bliss.
I couldn't stop myself. I laughed with all my heart as if madness had taken a grip on my mind. It felt like a deus ex machina situation. A savage grin split my face. With my newly healed arm, I punched the hellfire sun made by Riser. The magic used by the devils was one where every phenomenon possible could be created as long as the devil using his magic had enough power to reach the effect he intended to impose on the world.
Before, I had been scared and had used my power of destruction to a height the original Rias hadn't reached to beat Riser.
Now I felt calmer, serene, I could see all the different ways I could have beaten Riser if only I had thought if only I hadn't lost myself in the negativity of my brain.
The power of destruction in me felt now less like a wild beast that could turn against me at any moment and more like an obedient hunting dog waiting to be called to enact the will of its master.
I wished for the hellfire ball to not lose its shape. I wished it to be cut completely from the will of its creator. More than that, I made it hotter. I sped up the movement of the atoms.
When the ball of fire came back to its progenitor, it had taken a white colour. Riser tried to retrieve control over the ball of hellfire but was unable to.
The orb of fire exploded in the face of Riser Phenex. The fake sky of Kuoh took a scarlet colour. A shockwave and a searing heat erupted in an omnidirectional wave.
I didn't try to protect myself. I opened my arms as if I was waiting to hug a dear friend. The heat burnt off to cinders my clothes and peeled off my skin but I didn't worry. As I had suspected, my skin began to grow again, protecting and hiding my raw flesh and my muscles from the outside world.
The incomplete flashes of memories, the dark figure, me taking the place of Rias Gremory, me being able to regenerate as fast as I did and become stronger because of the adversity when the original Rias couldn't. I had made in numerous moments of escapism many CYOA where my characters would be self-inserted into other worlds.
I hadn't created one where I'll be self-inserted into Rias Gremory but I had created a great one where the self-insert would beneficiate of a superpower after going through the lowest point of their lives, through a manufactured Parahuman trigger.
If I knew that all of this was going to be real, I would have not created such a harrowing experience but hey, What was a story without a twist? Don't people like to see the underdog rise and what else could be the perfect essence to represent this concept than the essence of evolution? This is what I had thought.
Maybe none of this was real and it was just a fantasy created by a comatose brain. Maybe everything happening was something being written to amuse spectators that I couldn't peer at. It didn't really matter in the end. Right now, I feel only one thing and that is bliss. I would handle the future later. Right now, I just want to go wild and stop thinking.
Even though I didn't really care anymore about being naked due to becoming Rias Gremory, I still materialized over my skin and new clothes to replace the ones that had been destroyed. I would be blessed before I let Riser's lustful eyes run over my naked body.
I chose to go for a basic outfit. I now wore a white long-sleeved shirt, a black tie, black pants and brown shoes. I urged using my demonic power the wind to braid my hair in a loose braid to not obstruct me.
I looked like a Makima replica. Was it chuuni of me to dress exactly like her? Probably but no one knew about chainsaw man because it didn't exist yet. I willed a piece of rubble to fly into my hand. With a flick of my will, it turned into a mirror. I watched my reflection and deemed my appearance suitable. Being sharply dressed for breaking an engagement was a must.
I continued to gaze in the mirror. I had to admit that I looked more than divine. It was a beauty that no mortal creature could attain. The sight presented in the mirror was the reflection of a drop-dead gorgeous woman with Ivory skin, luscious red hair that looked more like freshly spilt blood and less like the orange colour that natural redheads had, with blue eyes that seemed to contain all the immensity of the sky and a buxom body that looked too perfect and too well proportioned to be real. Even art depictions created to portray perfection couldn't equal my beauty. I looked like something unearthly and it made me wonder how even with hypnosis the Original Rias and other devils were able to hide their nature as something more.
"You" a voice boomed in rage in the infernal-looking sky. I closed my hand on the mirror and broke it. Riser looked now less like the scion of a noble ass and more like a drug addict coming from a brawl.
To his credit, Riser had been able to stay in the rating game after taking the brunt of an attack Of at least 9,726 degrees Celsius and he was just at the moment somebody at the level of a strong High-class Devil.
What would an ultimate class being be able to do? Swim in the sun? Could a satan class being like Serafall be able to freeze multiple planets of the solar system? What terrible acts could monsters like my brother or Rivezim enact on the universe if they wished to I wonder?
My musing was stopped by a punch from Riser. His hand met my jaw and the thing that came to bend was his hand. His broken hand was enveloped in regenerative fire and with his other one, he tried to fire at me at point blank a beam of fire.
I grabbed the hand from where the hellfire was going to come and redirected it towards the sky painting this sky in a warm orange colour.
Since the announcement of my engagement and the beginning of the rating game, I had felt like a conscious puppet being played with by a marionnetist unable to act or to do anything to change my fate.
A savage grin split my face. With a jerk, I tore the arm of the Riser from its socket and with a pirouette, I used his arm as an improvised club to smash him in the neck as if he was a baseball ball and with a loud sonic boom, I sent him flying.
I had been all this time the prey, the one that worried. I had been too weak then to do anything but now that I was stronger, I wanted Riser to suffer, to feel at least a third of the anxiety and fear that had permeated my body.
I began walking in the direction where I knew I had sent Riser flying. I wanted to test something and I had the perfect test subject, one that I hated and that was night immortal. While walking I began to sing softly while infusing my voice with demonic energy. My voice carried in all the destroyed fake Kuoh academy. An eery and siren-like voice came out of my mouth. A haunting melody resonated in all of the rating game areas. It was a voice made to invite men to commit the worst atrocities while smiling and feeling guilt-free without any resistance. It was a voice with the only purpose to entice to commit the worst unholy sins.
View: https://youtu.be/-T5eYF9WiRI
"Who's in the shadows" I sang. As if being awakened by my voice, the shadows all around me began to move, to twist as if answering a call.
"Who's ready to play" I chanted. I continued to walk taking my time. The shadows around me began to take shape. They stopped mimicking objects of the real world to take independent forms.
They took the shape of Knights in black armour with stoic masks. They looked like the shadows being fought against when playing Persona 5 at the beginning. They kneeled before me.
I sang the next verse "Are we Hunters," I spoke. Blue fire enveloped them after the verse but it didn't burn them. Instead, as if they were machines, they absorbed the fire. They changed after doing so. They looked more corporeal, less like mirages and more like tangible things.
I finally found Riser and the reason why he hadn't come flying directly at me. At his side was his sister Ravel and both of them seemed to be arguing.
"Something is wrong brother," the youngest of the Phenex clan said to her older brother. "I don't know what it is but something changed in Rias. I felt like I'm sure you did how when she was on the verge of losing, she unexpectedly grew stronger. You experienced how she hijacked your attack and now with...the shadows. I think...I think that you should capitulate brother."
"You want me to give up because of fear Ravel? You want me to shame my name and the name of our clan because of fear sister? She may have unexpectedly grown stronger but I can feel her demonic energy and it is not too superior to mine. Maybe I can't win by myself now but I got you with me. Against both of us, she will without a doubt lose." Riser replied to his sister. He looked her in the eyes and said "Don't you trust me anymore? Did you lose faith in me?"
The youngest child of the Phenex clan shook her head in denial "No brother, I trust you and if that's what you think best, I'll act accordingly. I accepted you as my King. I would follow you even in the highest heaven".
A smile bloomed on Riser's face " Thank you for believing and staying with your idiotic brother Ravel." His flames materialized in a gold colour clouding.
Iditencal flames erupted from the youngest Phenex "You don't need to thank me stupid". She turned towards me "Let's win" she told her brother.
I mockingly clapped my hands "It almost made me cry. Tell me, scions of the Phenex clan." I modified the following lyric "Are you the prey?"
My monsters made of shadows and animated by fire began screeching, making guttural sounds. I let one of my fingers wander on the armour of one of the shadowy creatures I summoned.
By an unseen signal, the knights jumped at the Phenex siblings. Ravel fired numerous arrows made of flames at the knights I had summoned. Only one of the arrows reached one of my knights. It bypassed the armour and went to lodge itself into the knight's flesh.
The knight screamed like a rabbit animal. With rage, the knight jumped towards the two Phenex. He pivoted on his heels and with his great sword tried to bisect in one slash the two siblings.
Riser was there to meet the strike. With his bare hands sheathed in gold fire, he blocked with his palm, a taunting smile on his face that was erased by a right hook in the face of another knight. With a boom, Riser was sent soaring.
"Onii-sama!" yelled Ravel in concern for her brother.
"You should care more about yourself and less about your brother," I told the young Phenex.
With a scream, the youngest Phenex crouched under a stab and with a powerful clack from her wings, she sent herself flying directly at me bypassing and darting around the shadow knights.
"Take this" she screamed and released point blank to my face her fire in a continuous stream. Unfortunately for her, I was untouched.
"Smart of you," I told her. "For most summoned, close-quarters combat is synonymous with defeat." One of the knights had used his shield to protect me from the flames of the Phenex. "Unfortunately for you, you're not fast enough to attack me without my knights protecting me".
I extended my arm toward her. She tried to take a step back but found herself blocked by the figure of one of my knights. "Let's see how much damage the Phenex immortality can endure".
"Don't you dare!" a masculine voice shouted above me. In a swift and perfectly executed movement, I moved my arm upward.
My open palm met the fist of the third son of the Phenex clan. The ground under me and all around caved making me fall underground.
I willed my power of destruction to erase everything entering in contact with my skin except Riser's hand. I wanted to see what he was planning.
We drilled into earth layer after earth layer until my feet met what seemed an impenetrable layer. It felt different, more study.
"You don't know it but you already lost Rias" shooted Riser seeming crazed. With a movement of his wings, he stayed above me. He opened his palms as if waiting to receive a gift. Powerful winds began to coalesce between his hands. Paying attention to the superior view inherently possessed by devils, I deducted what Riser planned. With a look the spot where resided earth and dirt before the two devils crushed through it was replaced by newly demonic-made ground over Riser.
The winds stopped to amass themselves into Riser's hands. The blonde devil looked triumphant. "I removed all the breathable air I'm sure that you must begin to feel weaker and weaker with each passing moment." He wasn't wrong. I could feel myself become lightheaded. My breath was becoming ragged and breathing felt like a chore. "I am a Phenex. We Phenex are masters of fire and the wind. Unlike you, I can regenerate endlessly so I don't have to worry and if you try to go back to the surface, I'll be there to stop you from doing so. Every act that you now make or don't make is one leading to your assured defeat," the Phenex spoke. "You may have gained strength Rias but it doesn't change that you were predestined to lose to me!"
Unfortunately for the jubilant Phenex, my lungs adapted. The lack of air wasn't bothering me anymore. I felt as if I could now for all eternity roam in the cosmos without having the fear of running out of air if I wanted.
It also made me wonder. Did devils go to space and walk on the moon? My memories both from this universe and the previous one didn't have an answer to the question. It also made me wonder what would happen if a werewolf was sent to the moon or a night immortal vampire thrown into space where they wouldn't be protected by the Earth's atmosphere from all the radiations emitted by the sun or even what would happen if a sage tried to use the natural energy of Pluto.
I exited my mind to come back to reality. The Phenex was still babbling about his assured victory and how I could never win and whatever else. His naivety in thinking that he had outsmarted me bloomed into me an emotion, mirth, amusement.
I couldn't help myself, I laughed. "I know what you're popular with women Riser. You always tell the best jokes" I said while giggling.
"Don't you realize that you have lost?" the Phenex asked me.
"Oh Riser, you misunderstand something. This is not the ending." I directed one of my fingers to the Phenex as if my hand was a gun. "Bang," I said.
An invisible force flew toward Riser. It annihilated to nothing his torso and his neck and continued to drill a path towards the surface sending tons of dirt flying.
"How" the still regenerative Riser whispered. I wasn't going to tell him that the reason why was because of an alien superpower to this reality that I had gained because I had drunk from a bottle of a sketchy figure.
I simply said a half lie "You forget something Riser. We may act or look like humans but we are not. We are devils. We don't need air to breathe as long as we want to idiot."
"Now, it is my turn," I said to the siblings. Riser now healed and his sister Ravel tried to put some distance between themselves and me by flying away.
"There's no surrender And there's no escape" I sang. Vultures' wings grew from the backs of my knights. They began to soar through the air with the goal of catching the siblings.
Riser threw a spear at one of his chasers. The knight dematerialized in dark wisps to reappear before the shocked Phenex. With a quick movement, the sword of the knight went through the heart of the Phenex. With blood streaming from his mouth and clenched teeth to not scream he set with a flick of one of his fingers the knight in flames. It at first seemed to be useless but the Puenex continued to raise the intensity of the flames until they took a white colour dispersing the shadow.
I stepped with my right foot on the ground. I let the power of destruction leave the inner of my soul to access reality. I didn't use it to destroy Riser or his sister.
Instead, I commanded it to anchor itself to the earth and create walls that would not permit anyone to enter or leave the areas they delimited. "No more running or flying away. It is a game of survival and let's finally see who's the prey, who's the hunter. You took care of one of my knights Riser." I created a throne, one almost identical to the one that had originally been created for my ancestor Runeas and that was only sat on by the head of the clan Gremory. I sat on it, my feet crossed on the armchair, my head leaning on my fist "Let's see if you can continue to dance like this with my other knights."
The two siblings sent twin beams of fire to the knights. All of the remaining knights evaded them. One knight targeted the youngest of them. The female Phenex noticed and raised a shield to defend herself. The sword pierced through it and met the soft flesh of the young devil. The young devil tried to replicate the feet of her brother but the knights had also learnt and due to this, the knight removed violently with a loud squelch of the sword leaving the flesh and sinews of the Phenex, the shadow knight took a step back evading the coming attack of the Phenex.
*scene*
View: https://youtu.be/zUyf_VhWo6s
I had to give credit to the members of the Phenex clan for their tenacity. The knights have been through what seemed to be instinctual or maybe telepathic teamwork lashing out at the Phenex siblings protecting the back of each other. They were more like cornered prey than anything else. My shadow knights learnt the patterns of the attack of the siblings. No flames that were produced by the siblings and no whirlwinds or cyclones were enough against my knights.
Each mistake from the Phenex siblings was rewarded with pain and blood. In unison, all the knights soared towards Riser. It's what I had thought at first and something that must have been similarly thought by Riser because he brought a shield to protect himself.
Unfortunately for the Phenex, it was a faint. They swerved around the Phenex in a graceful way and with screeches threw themselves at the youngest Phenex stabbing her from all sides and making her look like a porcupine.
The swords protruded from the Phenex from every angle. The Phenex let out loud screams of pain. She tried to dislodge the knights and make them back up with her flames but unlike the other times, the knight didn't bulge or try to move.
I saw instantly the reason why. The shadows that were consubstantial to their existences began to be poured into the young Phenex. From where I was, I could see the veins of the young sister of Riser turn black as if venom was being poured into them.
The white scleras of the eyes of the Phenex were turning black. The blood coming from her was changing from a red scarlet colour to a dark oozing substance. "Brother" the Phenex begged.
"Ravel!!!". The Phenex in a blaze of hellfire flew to the rescue of his sister. The flames enveloping him expanded into a sphere in the sky creating an artificial sun.
The flames succeeded in banishing from the corporeal world all my remaining shadow Knights. Like a messianic figure, Riser took the falling form of his sister into his arm.
The flames of Ravel sputtered trying to regenerate their master but they were unable to do so. Ravel grabbed the arm of her brother "I'm sorry to have failed you" I heard her speak softly to her older brother.
"You didn't fail me. You made our clan and me proud."
The light that characterized the removal of one of the pieces in a rating game covered the body of the youngest child of the Phenex house " Win Brother" she said before she was taken out of the rating game.
Tremors shook the body of the Phenex. The fire clouding him was growing in intensity, in heat and shine. "You" the Phenex said softly yet his voice seemed to echo in all of the destroyed fake Kuoh academy.
The wings on his back were taking a more animalistic shape. His feet and hands were twisting discarding a humanoid form to take the shape of talons and claws. His neck bent and elongated looking almost identical to the neck of a vulture. Protruding veins that seemed to be filled with hellfire appeared grotesquely all over his skin. The sky of the rating game began to be stormy and looking foreboding. Harsh winds almost searing flew through the fake Kuoh Academy.
The Phenex looked now less like a very handsome young adult and more like an avian monstrosity. He looked now like what true devils were expected to look like. I left the throne and peered at the transformed devil. How interesting. The closest thing to this transformation in devil kind that I knew because of the memories of the original Rias was the one of my brother Sirzechs.
My brother wasn't born in a form made of flesh and blasphemy and sin and hellfire like other devils. He was born a creature of destruction. My brother was at his base somebody made of the power of destruction. People thought that the form of destruction of my brother was something that had unlocked when it was in truth the real him. The appearance that he took was one that was meticulously crafted to create trust and deflect from his true form.
This transformation that was happening right now would have never happened even in the future canon timeline where Riser would at least be an ultimate class devil.
Was all of this happening because I was inserted in an alternate reality to the original canon timeline? Was all of this happening because some existence, some entity was trying to preserve the canon? Was this because of the reunion of numerous improbable factors that were now reunited? Many thoughts ran through my mind.
The demonic energy of Riser had grown at least a thousand times making him able to breach the gap between high-class level and low ultimate level. He had already surpassed me when it came to devil energy and His power was still increasing. There was now a true chance of him winning. Things were back in his favour. Even in the case where I would lose and Issei would challenge Riser, I don't think that my pawn would be able to win like in the canon timeline with how much Riser was stronger.
If I hadn't played with him, if I hadn't committed the sin of Hubris, things wouldn't be like this. Even with all of those facts, I didn't care because I had one thing that still gave me confidence in winning and that was my essence of evolution. I could have played safe and ended it just after discovering my essence but it wouldn't have been as beneficial as the current situation.
For everyone else who was unaware of my essence, I would surely now lose but for me, this situation was more a boon than anything else. High stakes meant high rewards. I either lose which would mean the end of everything for me because I would kill myself before letting Riser touch me or I fight against Riser, win and come out stronger than ever more ready to face the challenges that I know I will have without a doubt.
The voice that came out wasn't a human one or that could be replicated by a human. It was the sound of the winds tearing and beating restlessly against material things. It was the sound of the thunder meant to cower lower life forms before superior ones. It was the voice of an angry celestial being. "It's not about you marrying me anymore," Riser slurred. "I only care now about making you suffer and lose".
He reappeared before me faster than I could follow. He tried to skewer my head with one of his claws. I used my two hands to catch his claw between my palms. Not far away from us, the defeating noise of the sound barrier being broken made itself known.
The transformed Phenex covered his claws in razor-sharp winds and tried to bisect me. I shaped hastily a shield made of the power of destruction.
Even with it, I was sent flying helplessly. I used one of my hands to stop my impromptu flight by trying to anchor myself to the ground with it.
My hand left a path of destruction drilling through blackened and melted concrete and dirt. I was able by doing to stop myself.
I had a headache. Maybe the cause of It could be the warm blood that I felt running from my head. I didn't exactly know where it was coming from but my hair was now soaked with warm blood and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. I raised my hand to examine it. My perfect nails had been shredded and dirtied.
My body was at first sending me pulses of pain. The pain however began to disappear little by little. I watched my nails go back to a more than pristine condition. They looked brighter as if I just did a manicure. They also looked sharper. Curious, I slashed the air in the direction of the ground. Everything before me was cut open as if I was Moses before the Red Sea.
I expanded my wings from my back to not fall into the chasm that I had accidentally created. My blood had stopped streaming like a waterfall. The headache ailing me had disappeared and my thoughts felt clearer than before.
I saw with my eyes the demonic form of the Phenex. He was watching me too. Our gazes met. We exchanged no words yet we understood each other the thoughts of the other.
I released all my demonic power. The power of destruction erupted in a pillar of doom with me inside it. With a thought, I twisted my power of destruction recreating an armour made of it.
The armour was different from my first one. It looked more refined, more slick, more defined. It felt like a second skin. I saw with my eyes how the Space and the atoms around me began to be erased.
With a guttural scream, the Phenex skyrocketed towards me. With a thought, My wings and my armour sent me flying towards him.
We left annihilation in our wakes and under a false desolate sky, our fists met. I felt resistance as if I had punched a steel wall while being a human.
Pain shot through my veins like ecstasy and without a mirror, I knew I must have been smiling like a maniac.
I hurled another punch at his face. Instead of dodging, he tanked it. Dark clouds parted from the strength of the collision.
A claw enveloped in fire was sent swinging at me. I could dodge but I didn't. Why should I when he didn't? Why should I fear pain when It makes me stronger?
My fist met his claw and broke. I was sent flying. Imagination I reminded myself. You're a devil and drank an essence that only makes you stronger with every obstacle you face.
The phenex was suddenly above me. With a talon, he fell towards me. I reached for something unreachable and grabbed it. I twisted it and with that action, we switched.
I turned and pointed a palm at him. He had realized that I wasn't where I was before. He looked above towards me to be blasted with a beam made of the power of destruction.
It cut through him and went into the cracked earth under us bathing everything with a scarlet glow.
Even with a hole the size of a basketball, the Phenex rushed towards me as if unaware of my previous action.
Fierce Winds accompanied him. I pushed my hands toward him to stop his mad dash. My arms exploded in bloody gore and I was sent away.
My surroundings turned into an unrecognizable blur. Pain clawed at the door of my sanity. I felt the heat. An infernal flame had been created by Riser and even far away, I knew that there was a chance of me being reduced to ashes before I could regenerate.
Stop panicking. Pain only exists because of receptors sending a message to the brain. I took hold of my demonic energy and commanded it to shut the pain away.
The mind-numbing pain was now gone. I looked at my arms or to be more precise where I had arms. "Imagination," I whispered to myself.
Steams erupted from my wounds. I saw how bone, veins, nerves and flesh appeared from nothing. I moved my finger testing my new arms.
I finally paid attention to my surroundings. Only clouds could be seen. Riser had almost made me reach the edge of the barrier of our rating game.
I could feel the temperature go up. I didn't know exactly what Riser did but it seemed dangerous which meant interesting.
I pumped my demonic energy into my eyes to see what he was doing. My view pierced through the clouds and the ashes and the ember in the air.
Riser was clad in winds when he had sent me flying away but now he had added to them his infernal flames. I saw with my gaze how the clouds, the earth, and even the air began to take fire.
A giggle escaped me. I loved this I realized. I'm not scared anymore. Maybe it was the adrenaline talking. Maybe later I would think otherwise but now while laughs of joy escaped my lips, I had never felt so free.
I opened my palm and materialized the power of destruction in the form of a ball. I didn't stop there. I added rotation to the ball and compressed the centre of it.
"Eat your heart Naruto" I whispered.
I saw looking at the Phenex the telltale signs that he would soon attack.
Riser wings batted and sent him flying in my direction. Everything ignited around in its wake. It looked like the birth of a new star. He raised his claw in a sweeping movement I knew would bisect me in half before I turned to ashes.
'Beautiful' I thought before sending myself Into the hell he had created. My Rasengan replica met his flames and space distorted.
The world around us began to wither away as if it were a drawing being erased by an eraser.
I stopped focusing on what happened around me and focused on my opponent. The Phenex screeched maybe in anger, maybe in hatred, maybe in a mix of both. I didn't know exactly what emotions his screams conveyed and to be honest, I didn't care.
Black began to pool over my arm and his claw. I pushed with everything. My destruction and his flames disappeared in our struggle. It may not have been more than a nanosecond.
A black orb materialized between us not larger than a raisin before exploding.
I hastily tried to use my power of destruction as a shield and Riser tried to do the same with his hellfire. Our bloodline powers were
Extinguished by the waves of black that spread.
I felt my right arm and all of my lower body disappear. Riser wasn't in a better shape than me. The top of His wings had been removed. He had lost his two talons but unlike me had still remaining his two arms.
He tried to claw at my face with one of his claws. I moved my head to the right. I felt his class connect with the left part of my face and found the vision of my left eye turn black.
He tried to finish the work with his other claw. "Imagination," I repeated to myself.
Time, the limits of the flesh. What was impossible I will discard all of those things. It didn't matter if it was the prince of the host, the bastard child of the Morningstar, the Abrahamic god himself or even the great red, expectations or rules. I will never again let myself be stopped by anything or anyone "Time alter-double accel" I chanted.
I flew past the strike of Riser into his guard. I flooded my fist with my power of destruction. I released all of my power nanoseconds away from hitting Riser.
My fist erupted in black and red and pushed through the flesh of the Phenex. Blood and visceral erupted in an explosion from him. "Checkmate," I told him before the area of The rating game disappeared.
"Rias Gremory is the winner," a worried voice uttered before I let my consciousness fade away.
View: https://youtu.be/2qixj0iXklA
I could feel the fire. the heat that came from it was so scalding that it felt as if my skin was peeling. My body hurt and pulsed with agony.
In my arms, rested a brown-haired teenage boy. His body was broken, his limbs resting in unnatural angles. On his face, there were tears and burn marks. "Buchou, I'm so sorry" the teenage boy cried to me.
President my mind instantaneously translated. Why was he calling me this? Without my input, my mouth moved "It's alright Issei, it's alright".
His body was covered in light before disappearing in sprites of lights. He had been teleported out of the rating game my mind whispered to me.
"You should give up Rias. All your pieces are out. Your queen lost to mine. The red dragon emperor, your last Hope also lost. Stop fighting the unavoidable. Give up Rias. This is your duty as pure-blooded heiress of the Gremory clan." The voice came from a man with flame wings protruding from his back. The voice was owned by a tall and I had to admit handsome young man in his early 20s with short blond hair and dark blue eyes. He wore a burgundy blazer with gold embroidery on the right with matching pants and black dress shoes. Underneath his open blazer was a white dress shirt that was not fully buttoned, giving a slight view of his chest.
A headache split my head and with it, images rushed forward in the disorganized canvas that was my mind. I remembered everything. I remember being raised by my parents and our servants of the Gremory household. I remembered my embarrassing brother whom I loved more than anything. I remember my peerage, the family that I had made, those that I was supposed to perfectly lead and protect from the world. I also remembered another life. I remember being raised by my grandparents. I remembered their love, and how they honestly spoiled me beyond recognition. I remembered their death. I remembered my parents who didn't understand, who never tried, and who were more siblings and strangers than my parents. I remembered the burdens and expectations they tried to push on me. I remember the flood of pills I swallowed. I remembered death. I remember the shape of a shrouded figure with eyes as cold as the cosmos dressed in a dark robe that seemed alive and from which came maddening whispers. I remembered indiscernible flashes of events. I remembered finally facing the sweet oblivion I longed for and embracing it.
Involuntary, a laugh escaped from me. Here I was trying to flee from duties, and obligations just to enter into a situation with greater expectations and burdens. None of this was supposed to be real. Rias Gremory, devils, and rating games shouldn't exist. They were supposed to be mere fiction created to attract an audience of horny readers to make money.
Those things existed in a light novel entitled Highschool DxD that sometimes could be evaluated more as porn than a light novel.
It was a world where every pantheon existed, where creatures capable of destroying the world many times moonlighted as emo goth toddlers or siscons. It was a world where I was just the main girl of a harem for Issei. A world where boobs gave superpowers to perverts.
It was a world where I would always have my fates controlled or influenced by stronger beings and I hated it. I hated it all with all my heart. With me there, who knew what else had changed? Would Grayfia intervene to make Issei crash my wedding? Even if he did, would he this time win?
Watching the eyes of Riser gazing upon me with lust and remembering our previous interactions, I knew what awaited me. I let the power of destruction surge free in me and leak out in the real world. I wanted all of it to end. I was so much tired and I longed for the eternal sleep that had been denied to me.
I wasn't something special. I wasn't the smartest, the wisest or knew dozens of ways to erase my problems. I was a failure that in the end decided to end my own life. The original Rias had been unable to do anything against Riser. The original Rias has given up in the canon events because nothing that she could be doing could vanquish Riser.
Riser was stronger than me by a wide margin. His remaining pieces in the rating game were his sister and his queen each matching me in strength. The only piece I had left in the rating game was Asia even though she looked scared, even though she absolutely despised violence stayed at my side.
I stopped kneeling and stood up. I turned towards the nun and smiled. I didn't know why but she looked horrified. The power of destruction was running amok in me and the outside world. The original Rias tried to control the power of destruction when in reality, true destruction was something uncontrollable. To gain something, you must be ready to sacrifice to obtain it. The power of destruction could never truly be harnessed without knowing this truth. Either my power will consume every obstacle on my path or gorge itself with my existence freeing me. In all cases, I won. "Please Asia," I spoke softly. "Leave".
She tried to say something, probably to contest my decision but I didn't let her talk. "Please" I spoke again. "Believe in me, Asia." Fat ugly tears spilt from her eyes. With a touch of my finger, they evaporated. The power of destruction didn't hurt Asia. I didn't allow it to. Like an angry dog, he tore through my inside bringing maddening pain. I bit on my tongue to stop myself from screaming. Warm blood pooled in my mouth but I didn't pay attention to it. I continue to Gaze at Asia.
Looking defeated, the nun said out loud the words that I wanted her to say "I surrender".
Light began to envelop Asia the same way it did to Issei. Rias turned her gaze at Riser and his queen. Was this worry in his eyes? Was this fear? Was this a mix of the two? I wondered how I must be looking to the outside world. I probably looked like such a mess and not how the regular Rias Gremory did.
Right now, I don't care about grace, elegance or other akin concepts. I yearned for only one thing, "You spoke of duty Riser," I said to the blond man.
"Fuck your duty" I spat to the Phenex. I guided the power of destruction, the abyss inside of me wanting to destroy everything and compressed it into a ball. It hurt me to try to contain it. The power of destruction lashed at me in rage but I whispered to it making promises of future ruin if he let itself be temporarily controlled, shaped.
The pain lowered "I won't let myself be a slave. I won't let my freedom be taken by anyone be it because of you, of our families, our races or Lucifer and God". I ignored the headache by mentioning the father of angels and punched the ball.
A laser made of the power of destruction surged towards Riser and his queen. Yubelluna, the queen of Riser tried to erect a shield to protect herself and her king. It was a grave mistake. She should have dodged. The beam tore through her shield and her as if it hadn't encountered any resistance. It continued its way towards Riser who instead of taking the brunt of the attack like he always did, the Phenex dodged by leaning on his side.
The beam continued its advance and entered contact with the barrier separating the dimensional gap from the pocket dimension created for the rating game and cracked it before dispersing.
I let myself be sheathed by the power of destruction like armour. With a scream, I launched myself to Riser by kicking my feet from the ground cratering it and creating cobwebs.
I could see Riser reacting as if the world was slowed. I could see the multitude of minuscule and instinctive actions that his body made to allow Riser to protect himself.
I tried to punch through his guts. Flames surged from the Phenex to create a protective barrier. My destruction met his hellfire and snuffed it out in less than a millisecond. Unfortunately, a millisecond was enough for the blond devil to move back away from me. Behind me exploded from my back crimson wings made of destruction to keep me flying.
A smile bloomed on Riser's face. "Finally, some fight in you Rias,"the blond devil yelled. "It would not have been a satisfying victory if I didn't put you down at your best".
He acted as if it was a game as if the thing not being fought for was my liberty. Rage and anger overturned my reason. I rushed to the Phenex full of pain, anger and despair. He met my charge sheathed in the Hellfire that distinguished and made his family unique.
We clashed in the sky of the fake Kuoh academy with a gigantic boom. Our fists met and even with my power of destruction, I was sent flying through one of the buildings that made the kuoh academy.
I crashed into it. It caved under the speed I was sent to it. I went through a wall, a second one and a third one. I used my wings to regain my balance by spinning like a ballerina and sank my feet into the ground to stop myself.
I tore through the ground as if I was a knife and the ground butter. Riser didn't let me take back my repairs. He appeared before me with a punch. I cocked my head to the side dodging it and grabbed his overextended arm to throw him behind me on the ground in the direction I was still tearing the ground towards.
To his credit, he materialized a dome of fire to protect himself. I directed more power of destruction to my right leg. Unfortunately for Riser, I was a true egoist. I shot the dome with my leg as if it was a football ball. My leg tore through the dome and sent Riser flying his face caved in.
I flew towards the direction I had sent Riser. I was greeted by a rain of fireballs akin to divine punishment. I materialized over my shoulders crimson swords made of the power I inherited from my mother and sent them to the balls of fire.
The power of Destruction from the Bael lineage and the hellfire of the Phenex clan met. They created by their collision explosions and shockwaves that tore through the fake Kuoh academy turning its still-standing buildings into rubble.
Riser appeared from the smoke and punched me in the gut creating a sonic boom. I spat blood. I tried to send him a right hook. He dodged it and headbutted me making me fall to the ground in a crater.
It hurts so bad. I just wanted it to end. The only thing the original Rias and I were good at was giving up yet I raised back on my feet.
The Phenex threw himself at me. I moved to the left. His fist went through the ground and pulverized it. I gathered my power of destruction to hit him with a beam of destruction at point-blank range.
Riser reacted as fast as lightning. He copied me and fired a laser of hellfire to counter my destruction. The two beams met in a thunderous roar. The heat from his flames set everything around him and under him on fire.
The grass had been turned to ashes. The ground under and behind him looked more like Lava than anything. My Destruction had not left any traces on its way. It had swallowed everything on its path and erased them.
I urged my power of destruction to come forward wilder, stronger. It didn't give me any advantages. I had done something the original Rias had never done, let the power of destruction run free. I had let it take its toll on me to reach even greater heights of strength yet Riser continued to match me in strength.
I could only use the power of destruction as long as I could use my demonic energy to serve as a bridge between the dimension that the power of Destruction originated from and this world.
Unfortunately, Rias' reserves of energy were not infinite. I watched with despair my power of destruction gradually disappearing. Was this at the end truly my worth? Was I bound to forever fail when it mattered the most?
My beam of destruction was overwhelmed by the hellfire of the blonde devil. I tried to raise a meagre defence by crossing my arms in an X shape to protect myself.
The hellfire of the Phenex met my arms and I knew pain. I clenched my teeth to stop the scream wanting to escape from my mouth. The attack of the Phenex sent me flying like a ragdoll.
I fell harshly on the ground. I skidded over it Before being stopped by my back colliding with a still-standing wall. Tortuous Pain coursed through my veins. Each breath was one that felt wounding. I could feel blood streaming from my nose and my eyes. It felt as if all my internal organs were damaged.
I learned on the still-standing wall. I tried to move my arms. One felt unresponsive and the other took difficulties to move. I looked at them. Angry blackened flesh met my sight.
I could see the sinews and even some of the white bone in my arms. It looked disgusting and turned my gaze away from the grizzly sight to not puke.
I used the still-standing wall and my barely functioning arm to stand. All my body weight was supported by my left arm. I wasn't able this time to bite back the scream of pain that escaped my mouth.
Riser flew down. He looked as pristine as he did at the beginning of the rating game. He looked at me and I saw in his eyes pity and sadness. "You did your best Rias. I was wrong, you're not weak. Unfortunately for you, you're still weaker than me. Give up Rias, please. I hate seeing you like this. Do you really hate me that much? Why can't you see that everything done by our families is for our good?"
I only had one answer to his monologue. "Go fuck yourself, Riser."
The blonde-haired devil sighed. His fire wings exploded from his back. With a flap of them, he flew above the fake Kuoh academy.
From where he was, Riser's wings looked more like two distant twin stars than anything else. "I tried to make you do it by your own will Rias but you don't want to do of your own will the same thing to do," the voice of Riser thundered over all the fake Kuoh academy.
He put his hands above his head as if trying to reach for the cosmos. Over his palms, a ball of fire began to grow. The orb of fire continued to grow and grow until it dwarfed all of Kuoh Academy. Riser had created a second sun.
The ground all around and under me began to melt because of the unbearable heat. Searing waves of heat entered in contact with my skin. It felt as if somebody was trying to peel my skin off.
"You lost Rias" the Phenex voices boomed before he sent to me the sun made of hellfire. Was I fated to always lose? Was I fated to always disappoint others and myself? What was the fucking point of me reincarnating if I couldn't change anything? How was this fucking fair?
The attack of Riser descended towards me like a holy punishment coming from a celestial being. I drilled my two feet into the ground. What I was doing was nonsensical, and ludicrous but I was exhausted of letting the world exact his will upon me. I was exhausted from always giving my best and always failing.
The ball of hellfire came before me. I laid out my functioning arm before me. I should have lost the rating game. The sun created by Riser should have ended my resistance but a miracle occurred.
I didn't lose. I could feel the ball of hellfire pressing against me, trying to consume me. I could feel it burning yet at that moment when I was at my lowest, I felt stronger than I had ever been before.
Strength surged into my veins like an injected drug. My demonic power that had been depleted was back bigger than before. My broken arm wrenched and became functional again. I could feel the pain receding and being replaced by bliss.
I couldn't stop myself. I laughed with all my heart as if madness had taken a grip on my mind. It felt like a deus ex machina situation. A savage grin split my face. With my newly healed arm, I punched the hellfire sun made by Riser. The magic used by the devils was one where every phenomenon possible could be created as long as the devil using his magic had enough power to reach the effect he intended to impose on the world.
Before, I had been scared and had used my power of destruction to a height the original Rias hadn't reached to beat Riser.
Now I felt calmer, serene, I could see all the different ways I could have beaten Riser if only I had thought if only I hadn't lost myself in the negativity of my brain.
The power of destruction in me felt now less like a wild beast that could turn against me at any moment and more like an obedient hunting dog waiting to be called to enact the will of its master.
I wished for the hellfire ball to not lose its shape. I wished it to be cut completely from the will of its creator. More than that, I made it hotter. I sped up the movement of the atoms.
When the ball of fire came back to its progenitor, it had taken a white colour. Riser tried to retrieve control over the ball of hellfire but was unable to.
The orb of fire exploded in the face of Riser Phenex. The fake sky of Kuoh took a scarlet colour. A shockwave and a searing heat erupted in an omnidirectional wave.
I didn't try to protect myself. I opened my arms as if I was waiting to hug a dear friend. The heat burnt off to cinders my clothes and peeled off my skin but I didn't worry. As I had suspected, my skin began to grow again, protecting and hiding my raw flesh and my muscles from the outside world.
The incomplete flashes of memories, the dark figure, me taking the place of Rias Gremory, me being able to regenerate as fast as I did and become stronger because of the adversity when the original Rias couldn't. I had made in numerous moments of escapism many CYOA where my characters would be self-inserted into other worlds.
I hadn't created one where I'll be self-inserted into Rias Gremory but I had created a great one where the self-insert would beneficiate of a superpower after going through the lowest point of their lives, through a manufactured Parahuman trigger.
If I knew that all of this was going to be real, I would have not created such a harrowing experience but hey, What was a story without a twist? Don't people like to see the underdog rise and what else could be the perfect essence to represent this concept than the essence of evolution? This is what I had thought.
Maybe none of this was real and it was just a fantasy created by a comatose brain. Maybe everything happening was something being written to amuse spectators that I couldn't peer at. It didn't really matter in the end. Right now, I feel only one thing and that is bliss. I would handle the future later. Right now, I just want to go wild and stop thinking.
Even though I didn't really care anymore about being naked due to becoming Rias Gremory, I still materialized over my skin and new clothes to replace the ones that had been destroyed. I would be blessed before I let Riser's lustful eyes run over my naked body.
I chose to go for a basic outfit. I now wore a white long-sleeved shirt, a black tie, black pants and brown shoes. I urged using my demonic power the wind to braid my hair in a loose braid to not obstruct me.
I looked like a Makima replica. Was it chuuni of me to dress exactly like her? Probably but no one knew about chainsaw man because it didn't exist yet. I willed a piece of rubble to fly into my hand. With a flick of my will, it turned into a mirror. I watched my reflection and deemed my appearance suitable. Being sharply dressed for breaking an engagement was a must.
I continued to gaze in the mirror. I had to admit that I looked more than divine. It was a beauty that no mortal creature could attain. The sight presented in the mirror was the reflection of a drop-dead gorgeous woman with Ivory skin, luscious red hair that looked more like freshly spilt blood and less like the orange colour that natural redheads had, with blue eyes that seemed to contain all the immensity of the sky and a buxom body that looked too perfect and too well proportioned to be real. Even art depictions created to portray perfection couldn't equal my beauty. I looked like something unearthly and it made me wonder how even with hypnosis the Original Rias and other devils were able to hide their nature as something more.
"You" a voice boomed in rage in the infernal-looking sky. I closed my hand on the mirror and broke it. Riser looked now less like the scion of a noble ass and more like a drug addict coming from a brawl.
To his credit, Riser had been able to stay in the rating game after taking the brunt of an attack Of at least 9,726 degrees Celsius and he was just at the moment somebody at the level of a strong High-class Devil.
What would an ultimate class being be able to do? Swim in the sun? Could a satan class being like Serafall be able to freeze multiple planets of the solar system? What terrible acts could monsters like my brother or Rivezim enact on the universe if they wished to I wonder?
My musing was stopped by a punch from Riser. His hand met my jaw and the thing that came to bend was his hand. His broken hand was enveloped in regenerative fire and with his other one, he tried to fire at me at point blank a beam of fire.
I grabbed the hand from where the hellfire was going to come and redirected it towards the sky painting this sky in a warm orange colour.
Since the announcement of my engagement and the beginning of the rating game, I had felt like a conscious puppet being played with by a marionnetist unable to act or to do anything to change my fate.
A savage grin split my face. With a jerk, I tore the arm of the Riser from its socket and with a pirouette, I used his arm as an improvised club to smash him in the neck as if he was a baseball ball and with a loud sonic boom, I sent him flying.
I had been all this time the prey, the one that worried. I had been too weak then to do anything but now that I was stronger, I wanted Riser to suffer, to feel at least a third of the anxiety and fear that had permeated my body.
I began walking in the direction where I knew I had sent Riser flying. I wanted to test something and I had the perfect test subject, one that I hated and that was night immortal. While walking I began to sing softly while infusing my voice with demonic energy. My voice carried in all the destroyed fake Kuoh academy. An eery and siren-like voice came out of my mouth. A haunting melody resonated in all of the rating game areas. It was a voice made to invite men to commit the worst atrocities while smiling and feeling guilt-free without any resistance. It was a voice with the only purpose to entice to commit the worst unholy sins.
View: https://youtu.be/-T5eYF9WiRI
"Who's in the shadows" I sang. As if being awakened by my voice, the shadows all around me began to move, to twist as if answering a call.
"Who's ready to play" I chanted. I continued to walk taking my time. The shadows around me began to take shape. They stopped mimicking objects of the real world to take independent forms.
They took the shape of Knights in black armour with stoic masks. They looked like the shadows being fought against when playing Persona 5 at the beginning. They kneeled before me.
I sang the next verse "Are we Hunters," I spoke. Blue fire enveloped them after the verse but it didn't burn them. Instead, as if they were machines, they absorbed the fire. They changed after doing so. They looked more corporeal, less like mirages and more like tangible things.
I finally found Riser and the reason why he hadn't come flying directly at me. At his side was his sister Ravel and both of them seemed to be arguing.
"Something is wrong brother," the youngest of the Phenex clan said to her older brother. "I don't know what it is but something changed in Rias. I felt like I'm sure you did how when she was on the verge of losing, she unexpectedly grew stronger. You experienced how she hijacked your attack and now with...the shadows. I think...I think that you should capitulate brother."
"You want me to give up because of fear Ravel? You want me to shame my name and the name of our clan because of fear sister? She may have unexpectedly grown stronger but I can feel her demonic energy and it is not too superior to mine. Maybe I can't win by myself now but I got you with me. Against both of us, she will without a doubt lose." Riser replied to his sister. He looked her in the eyes and said "Don't you trust me anymore? Did you lose faith in me?"
The youngest child of the Phenex clan shook her head in denial "No brother, I trust you and if that's what you think best, I'll act accordingly. I accepted you as my King. I would follow you even in the highest heaven".
A smile bloomed on Riser's face " Thank you for believing and staying with your idiotic brother Ravel." His flames materialized in a gold colour clouding.
Iditencal flames erupted from the youngest Phenex "You don't need to thank me stupid". She turned towards me "Let's win" she told her brother.
I mockingly clapped my hands "It almost made me cry. Tell me, scions of the Phenex clan." I modified the following lyric "Are you the prey?"
My monsters made of shadows and animated by fire began screeching, making guttural sounds. I let one of my fingers wander on the armour of one of the shadowy creatures I summoned.
By an unseen signal, the knights jumped at the Phenex siblings. Ravel fired numerous arrows made of flames at the knights I had summoned. Only one of the arrows reached one of my knights. It bypassed the armour and went to lodge itself into the knight's flesh.
The knight screamed like a rabbit animal. With rage, the knight jumped towards the two Phenex. He pivoted on his heels and with his great sword tried to bisect in one slash the two siblings.
Riser was there to meet the strike. With his bare hands sheathed in gold fire, he blocked with his palm, a taunting smile on his face that was erased by a right hook in the face of another knight. With a boom, Riser was sent soaring.
"Onii-sama!" yelled Ravel in concern for her brother.
"You should care more about yourself and less about your brother," I told the young Phenex.
With a scream, the youngest Phenex crouched under a stab and with a powerful clack from her wings, she sent herself flying directly at me bypassing and darting around the shadow knights.
"Take this" she screamed and released point blank to my face her fire in a continuous stream. Unfortunately for her, I was untouched.
"Smart of you," I told her. "For most summoned, close-quarters combat is synonymous with defeat." One of the knights had used his shield to protect me from the flames of the Phenex. "Unfortunately for you, you're not fast enough to attack me without my knights protecting me".
I extended my arm toward her. She tried to take a step back but found herself blocked by the figure of one of my knights. "Let's see how much damage the Phenex immortality can endure".
"Don't you dare!" a masculine voice shouted above me. In a swift and perfectly executed movement, I moved my arm upward.
My open palm met the fist of the third son of the Phenex clan. The ground under me and all around caved making me fall underground.
I willed my power of destruction to erase everything entering in contact with my skin except Riser's hand. I wanted to see what he was planning.
We drilled into earth layer after earth layer until my feet met what seemed an impenetrable layer. It felt different, more study.
"You don't know it but you already lost Rias" shooted Riser seeming crazed. With a movement of his wings, he stayed above me. He opened his palms as if waiting to receive a gift. Powerful winds began to coalesce between his hands. Paying attention to the superior view inherently possessed by devils, I deducted what Riser planned. With a look the spot where resided earth and dirt before the two devils crushed through it was replaced by newly demonic-made ground over Riser.
The winds stopped to amass themselves into Riser's hands. The blonde devil looked triumphant. "I removed all the breathable air I'm sure that you must begin to feel weaker and weaker with each passing moment." He wasn't wrong. I could feel myself become lightheaded. My breath was becoming ragged and breathing felt like a chore. "I am a Phenex. We Phenex are masters of fire and the wind. Unlike you, I can regenerate endlessly so I don't have to worry and if you try to go back to the surface, I'll be there to stop you from doing so. Every act that you now make or don't make is one leading to your assured defeat," the Phenex spoke. "You may have gained strength Rias but it doesn't change that you were predestined to lose to me!"
Unfortunately for the jubilant Phenex, my lungs adapted. The lack of air wasn't bothering me anymore. I felt as if I could now for all eternity roam in the cosmos without having the fear of running out of air if I wanted.
It also made me wonder. Did devils go to space and walk on the moon? My memories both from this universe and the previous one didn't have an answer to the question. It also made me wonder what would happen if a werewolf was sent to the moon or a night immortal vampire thrown into space where they wouldn't be protected by the Earth's atmosphere from all the radiations emitted by the sun or even what would happen if a sage tried to use the natural energy of Pluto.
I exited my mind to come back to reality. The Phenex was still babbling about his assured victory and how I could never win and whatever else. His naivety in thinking that he had outsmarted me bloomed into me an emotion, mirth, amusement.
I couldn't help myself, I laughed. "I know what you're popular with women Riser. You always tell the best jokes" I said while giggling.
"Don't you realize that you have lost?" the Phenex asked me.
"Oh Riser, you misunderstand something. This is not the ending." I directed one of my fingers to the Phenex as if my hand was a gun. "Bang," I said.
An invisible force flew toward Riser. It annihilated to nothing his torso and his neck and continued to drill a path towards the surface sending tons of dirt flying.
"How" the still regenerative Riser whispered. I wasn't going to tell him that the reason why was because of an alien superpower to this reality that I had gained because I had drunk from a bottle of a sketchy figure.
I simply said a half lie "You forget something Riser. We may act or look like humans but we are not. We are devils. We don't need air to breathe as long as we want to idiot."
"Now, it is my turn," I said to the siblings. Riser now healed and his sister Ravel tried to put some distance between themselves and me by flying away.
"There's no surrender And there's no escape" I sang. Vultures' wings grew from the backs of my knights. They began to soar through the air with the goal of catching the siblings.
Riser threw a spear at one of his chasers. The knight dematerialized in dark wisps to reappear before the shocked Phenex. With a quick movement, the sword of the knight went through the heart of the Phenex. With blood streaming from his mouth and clenched teeth to not scream he set with a flick of one of his fingers the knight in flames. It at first seemed to be useless but the Puenex continued to raise the intensity of the flames until they took a white colour dispersing the shadow.
I stepped with my right foot on the ground. I let the power of destruction leave the inner of my soul to access reality. I didn't use it to destroy Riser or his sister.
Instead, I commanded it to anchor itself to the earth and create walls that would not permit anyone to enter or leave the areas they delimited. "No more running or flying away. It is a game of survival and let's finally see who's the prey, who's the hunter. You took care of one of my knights Riser." I created a throne, one almost identical to the one that had originally been created for my ancestor Runeas and that was only sat on by the head of the clan Gremory. I sat on it, my feet crossed on the armchair, my head leaning on my fist "Let's see if you can continue to dance like this with my other knights."
The two siblings sent twin beams of fire to the knights. All of the remaining knights evaded them. One knight targeted the youngest of them. The female Phenex noticed and raised a shield to defend herself. The sword pierced through it and met the soft flesh of the young devil. The young devil tried to replicate the feet of her brother but the knights had also learnt and due to this, the knight removed violently with a loud squelch of the sword leaving the flesh and sinews of the Phenex, the shadow knight took a step back evading the coming attack of the Phenex.
*scene*
View: https://youtu.be/zUyf_VhWo6s
I had to give credit to the members of the Phenex clan for their tenacity. The knights have been through what seemed to be instinctual or maybe telepathic teamwork lashing out at the Phenex siblings protecting the back of each other. They were more like cornered prey than anything else. My shadow knights learnt the patterns of the attack of the siblings. No flames that were produced by the siblings and no whirlwinds or cyclones were enough against my knights.
Each mistake from the Phenex siblings was rewarded with pain and blood. In unison, all the knights soared towards Riser. It's what I had thought at first and something that must have been similarly thought by Riser because he brought a shield to protect himself.
Unfortunately for the Phenex, it was a faint. They swerved around the Phenex in a graceful way and with screeches threw themselves at the youngest Phenex stabbing her from all sides and making her look like a porcupine.
The swords protruded from the Phenex from every angle. The Phenex let out loud screams of pain. She tried to dislodge the knights and make them back up with her flames but unlike the other times, the knight didn't bulge or try to move.
I saw instantly the reason why. The shadows that were consubstantial to their existences began to be poured into the young Phenex. From where I was, I could see the veins of the young sister of Riser turn black as if venom was being poured into them.
The white scleras of the eyes of the Phenex were turning black. The blood coming from her was changing from a red scarlet colour to a dark oozing substance. "Brother" the Phenex begged.
"Ravel!!!". The Phenex in a blaze of hellfire flew to the rescue of his sister. The flames enveloping him expanded into a sphere in the sky creating an artificial sun.
The flames succeeded in banishing from the corporeal world all my remaining shadow Knights. Like a messianic figure, Riser took the falling form of his sister into his arm.
The flames of Ravel sputtered trying to regenerate their master but they were unable to do so. Ravel grabbed the arm of her brother "I'm sorry to have failed you" I heard her speak softly to her older brother.
"You didn't fail me. You made our clan and me proud."
The light that characterized the removal of one of the pieces in a rating game covered the body of the youngest child of the Phenex house " Win Brother" she said before she was taken out of the rating game.
Tremors shook the body of the Phenex. The fire clouding him was growing in intensity, in heat and shine. "You" the Phenex said softly yet his voice seemed to echo in all of the destroyed fake Kuoh academy.
The wings on his back were taking a more animalistic shape. His feet and hands were twisting discarding a humanoid form to take the shape of talons and claws. His neck bent and elongated looking almost identical to the neck of a vulture. Protruding veins that seemed to be filled with hellfire appeared grotesquely all over his skin. The sky of the rating game began to be stormy and looking foreboding. Harsh winds almost searing flew through the fake Kuoh Academy.
The Phenex looked now less like a very handsome young adult and more like an avian monstrosity. He looked now like what true devils were expected to look like. I left the throne and peered at the transformed devil. How interesting. The closest thing to this transformation in devil kind that I knew because of the memories of the original Rias was the one of my brother Sirzechs.
My brother wasn't born in a form made of flesh and blasphemy and sin and hellfire like other devils. He was born a creature of destruction. My brother was at his base somebody made of the power of destruction. People thought that the form of destruction of my brother was something that had unlocked when it was in truth the real him. The appearance that he took was one that was meticulously crafted to create trust and deflect from his true form.
This transformation that was happening right now would have never happened even in the future canon timeline where Riser would at least be an ultimate class devil.
Was all of this happening because I was inserted in an alternate reality to the original canon timeline? Was all of this happening because some existence, some entity was trying to preserve the canon? Was this because of the reunion of numerous improbable factors that were now reunited? Many thoughts ran through my mind.
The demonic energy of Riser had grown at least a thousand times making him able to breach the gap between high-class level and low ultimate level. He had already surpassed me when it came to devil energy and His power was still increasing. There was now a true chance of him winning. Things were back in his favour. Even in the case where I would lose and Issei would challenge Riser, I don't think that my pawn would be able to win like in the canon timeline with how much Riser was stronger.
If I hadn't played with him, if I hadn't committed the sin of Hubris, things wouldn't be like this. Even with all of those facts, I didn't care because I had one thing that still gave me confidence in winning and that was my essence of evolution. I could have played safe and ended it just after discovering my essence but it wouldn't have been as beneficial as the current situation.
For everyone else who was unaware of my essence, I would surely now lose but for me, this situation was more a boon than anything else. High stakes meant high rewards. I either lose which would mean the end of everything for me because I would kill myself before letting Riser touch me or I fight against Riser, win and come out stronger than ever more ready to face the challenges that I know I will have without a doubt.
The voice that came out wasn't a human one or that could be replicated by a human. It was the sound of the winds tearing and beating restlessly against material things. It was the sound of the thunder meant to cower lower life forms before superior ones. It was the voice of an angry celestial being. "It's not about you marrying me anymore," Riser slurred. "I only care now about making you suffer and lose".
He reappeared before me faster than I could follow. He tried to skewer my head with one of his claws. I used my two hands to catch his claw between my palms. Not far away from us, the defeating noise of the sound barrier being broken made itself known.
The transformed Phenex covered his claws in razor-sharp winds and tried to bisect me. I shaped hastily a shield made of the power of destruction.
Even with it, I was sent flying helplessly. I used one of my hands to stop my impromptu flight by trying to anchor myself to the ground with it.
My hand left a path of destruction drilling through blackened and melted concrete and dirt. I was able by doing to stop myself.
I had a headache. Maybe the cause of It could be the warm blood that I felt running from my head. I didn't exactly know where it was coming from but my hair was now soaked with warm blood and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. I raised my hand to examine it. My perfect nails had been shredded and dirtied.
My body was at first sending me pulses of pain. The pain however began to disappear little by little. I watched my nails go back to a more than pristine condition. They looked brighter as if I just did a manicure. They also looked sharper. Curious, I slashed the air in the direction of the ground. Everything before me was cut open as if I was Moses before the Red Sea.
I expanded my wings from my back to not fall into the chasm that I had accidentally created. My blood had stopped streaming like a waterfall. The headache ailing me had disappeared and my thoughts felt clearer than before.
I saw with my eyes the demonic form of the Phenex. He was watching me too. Our gazes met. We exchanged no words yet we understood each other the thoughts of the other.
I released all my demonic power. The power of destruction erupted in a pillar of doom with me inside it. With a thought, I twisted my power of destruction recreating an armour made of it.
The armour was different from my first one. It looked more refined, more slick, more defined. It felt like a second skin. I saw with my eyes how the Space and the atoms around me began to be erased.
With a guttural scream, the Phenex skyrocketed towards me. With a thought, My wings and my armour sent me flying towards him.
We left annihilation in our wakes and under a false desolate sky, our fists met. I felt resistance as if I had punched a steel wall while being a human.
Pain shot through my veins like ecstasy and without a mirror, I knew I must have been smiling like a maniac.
I hurled another punch at his face. Instead of dodging, he tanked it. Dark clouds parted from the strength of the collision.
A claw enveloped in fire was sent swinging at me. I could dodge but I didn't. Why should I when he didn't? Why should I fear pain when It makes me stronger?
My fist met his claw and broke. I was sent flying. Imagination I reminded myself. You're a devil and drank an essence that only makes you stronger with every obstacle you face.
The phenex was suddenly above me. With a talon, he fell towards me. I reached for something unreachable and grabbed it. I twisted it and with that action, we switched.
I turned and pointed a palm at him. He had realized that I wasn't where I was before. He looked above towards me to be blasted with a beam made of the power of destruction.
It cut through him and went into the cracked earth under us bathing everything with a scarlet glow.
Even with a hole the size of a basketball, the Phenex rushed towards me as if unaware of my previous action.
Fierce Winds accompanied him. I pushed my hands toward him to stop his mad dash. My arms exploded in bloody gore and I was sent away.
My surroundings turned into an unrecognizable blur. Pain clawed at the door of my sanity. I felt the heat. An infernal flame had been created by Riser and even far away, I knew that there was a chance of me being reduced to ashes before I could regenerate.
Stop panicking. Pain only exists because of receptors sending a message to the brain. I took hold of my demonic energy and commanded it to shut the pain away.
The mind-numbing pain was now gone. I looked at my arms or to be more precise where I had arms. "Imagination," I whispered to myself.
Steams erupted from my wounds. I saw how bone, veins, nerves and flesh appeared from nothing. I moved my finger testing my new arms.
I finally paid attention to my surroundings. Only clouds could be seen. Riser had almost made me reach the edge of the barrier of our rating game.
I could feel the temperature go up. I didn't know exactly what Riser did but it seemed dangerous which meant interesting.
I pumped my demonic energy into my eyes to see what he was doing. My view pierced through the clouds and the ashes and the ember in the air.
Riser was clad in winds when he had sent me flying away but now he had added to them his infernal flames. I saw with my gaze how the clouds, the earth, and even the air began to take fire.
A giggle escaped me. I loved this I realized. I'm not scared anymore. Maybe it was the adrenaline talking. Maybe later I would think otherwise but now while laughs of joy escaped my lips, I had never felt so free.
I opened my palm and materialized the power of destruction in the form of a ball. I didn't stop there. I added rotation to the ball and compressed the centre of it.
"Eat your heart Naruto" I whispered.
I saw looking at the Phenex the telltale signs that he would soon attack.
Riser wings batted and sent him flying in my direction. Everything ignited around in its wake. It looked like the birth of a new star. He raised his claw in a sweeping movement I knew would bisect me in half before I turned to ashes.
'Beautiful' I thought before sending myself Into the hell he had created. My Rasengan replica met his flames and space distorted.
The world around us began to wither away as if it were a drawing being erased by an eraser.
I stopped focusing on what happened around me and focused on my opponent. The Phenex screeched maybe in anger, maybe in hatred, maybe in a mix of both. I didn't know exactly what emotions his screams conveyed and to be honest, I didn't care.
Black began to pool over my arm and his claw. I pushed with everything. My destruction and his flames disappeared in our struggle. It may not have been more than a nanosecond.
A black orb materialized between us not larger than a raisin before exploding.
I hastily tried to use my power of destruction as a shield and Riser tried to do the same with his hellfire. Our bloodline powers were
Extinguished by the waves of black that spread.
I felt my right arm and all of my lower body disappear. Riser wasn't in a better shape than me. The top of His wings had been removed. He had lost his two talons but unlike me had still remaining his two arms.
He tried to claw at my face with one of his claws. I moved my head to the right. I felt his class connect with the left part of my face and found the vision of my left eye turn black.
He tried to finish the work with his other claw. "Imagination," I repeated to myself.
Time, the limits of the flesh. What was impossible I will discard all of those things. It didn't matter if it was the prince of the host, the bastard child of the Morningstar, the Abrahamic god himself or even the great red, expectations or rules. I will never again let myself be stopped by anything or anyone "Time alter-double accel" I chanted.
I flew past the strike of Riser into his guard. I flooded my fist with my power of destruction. I released all of my power nanoseconds away from hitting Riser.
My fist erupted in black and red and pushed through the flesh of the Phenex. Blood and visceral erupted in an explosion from him. "Checkmate," I told him before the area of The rating game disappeared.
"Rias Gremory is the winner," a worried voice uttered before I let my consciousness fade away.
Even old demons can dream
- Location
- france
This chapter is technically an interlude
View: https://youtu.be/l2ny3f4dv30
Life was a web of forever unravelling despair and joy. This is what the state of the never and is. Light burnt and darkness cradled.
Dream wandered and infinity plotted. Death waited to watch, destiny thought himself supreme.
This was a world full of horrors and wonders, this was a world where god himself could perish.
The emotion that bubbled in Zekram was one he hadn't felt for long immemorial aeons, since the demise of his sire against the Abrahamic god.
He had felt as if his purpose had disappeared. He had been a tool, one of the greatest of Lucifer and Lilith. He had known it since the beginning and had revelled in that fact.
Zekram had thrown himself with joy to all the tasks that were given to him even if his demise seemed inevitable, unavoidable.
He had been fuelled by the endless bloodlust in his veins, by the love that had been engraved in his beings for his creators.
He raped, killed, looted, tortured and did all of those things without batting an eye. Zekram was the name of a useless tool that had lost its wielders.
He was Bael, the great king, an Archdemon of pride, slayer of the seraph Kamael and for the first time since their death, He found purpose.
His youngest granddaughter had been married to one of the descendant spawn of Phenex. How disappointed the other Archdemon would have been if he had seen what his descendants had been reduced to if he had seen how weak, human they were. He would have probably killed them before doing the same for himself to be saved from the ignominy.
Well, after having seen a copy version of the rating game that his spawn had brought him, maybe Phenex would have left the third son alive. After all, he looked like a proper demon, like a proper Phenex.
His attention went back to the talking form of his spawn. Bael knew that he was talking but he had chosen to erase for the moment the possibility for him to listen. He would have probably killed him a long time ago if he hadn't learnt this helpful trick from Astaroth.
Reading the lips of his son, he could see that the fool was complaining about Rias, about the Gremory clan and how unfair and abnormal it was for Rias just like her, brother to be so powerful.
Bael's eyes were the eyes of a higher being. With them, he could see things that most wouldn't imagine. With them, he saw in the heart, in the soul of his child. He saw the jealousy, the envy, the lust, the anger that he felt towards his older sister and her children.
Bael removed the spell and was greeted with the shrill sound of the voice of his spawn. "Quiet," he whispered. With this word, the world itself shut down. The acidic rain became silent. Noise died unable to exist and finally, Oh finally, he shut up.
Fear was not engraved on the face of his son and Zekram forced himself to not allow the disgust he felt to push him toward killing his own blood. Saiororg was too young. Maybe in a decade.
"Do you know why I didn't smother you at birth?" he finally asked after a moment of wanted silence for his son.
The boy tried to speak but no noise came out of his mouth. "It was rhetorical. Don't bother and don't worry, I won't kill you," yet he added mentally. So weak that he couldn't break out of such a simple reality manipulation trick. How did this thing come out of him?
"If things had depended only on my will, your sister, Venelana would be the current head of this clan, my heir." He ignored the hatred and anger that appeared on the face of his son at the uttering of the name of his sister.
"Let me tell you a story, something that only my sires Lucifer and Lilith and Astaroth knew." He saw curiosity enter the eyes of the spawn.
Bael's gaze swept over the horizon of the underworld, over the world where blood had rained on every inch, blood where untold atrocities were committed with savage glee.
"My sire and the other three princes were not supposed to fall against the Abrahamic god. What had made my sire so great wasn't his strength, it wasn't his beauty or charisma. It was one thing, child. What made him greater than his maker, that could have made him greater than even the great beast of the darkness was his mind," Zekram spoke.
"My sire had begun the creation of three weapons, three prototypes that when wielded by him would have allowed him to easily win against the Abrahamic god and all of his host and allies."
With a flick of his will, he removed his interdiction over the world and noise came back. He ignored how the spawn rubbed his neck as if he had been choked. "Prototypes?" he asked.
"Yes, prototypes. They were supposed to be the first three. One was personally overseen by the Morningstar and the great mother. Astaroth and I made sure the two others would exist," Bael answered.
"You speak of them as if they still exist," the young devil pointed. Maybe Bael would let him live more than a decade.
"They do," Bael confirmed. "We didn't need to hide them. They are in plain sight but no one knows of their existence."
Bael smiled exposing his canines, letting the madness inside begging to be unfurled seep in an infinitesimal short amount spill in the world. "They were given names."
Tears of fire began to rain from the sky. Bael knew that by letting escape less than a fraction of his true self in the world, everyone who lived in his territory and was strong enough or lucky enough to be in a protected place would be burnt, marked with hellfire, scared in a way that could never be healed. It was the way of the world. This generation of devils had forgotten this. It was time to remember. "They were given the names of Rizevim, Ajuka and Sirzechs."
"You're speaking of the three super devils," the devil said in shock.
"A tool capable of denying everything divine, every miracle, a second one to predict and construct everything. A system equal if not greater to the one created by the Abrahamic god. A third tool, a sword of destruction that would reduce to nothing everything on the path of his wielder to nothing."
"Astaroth and you knew."
"We did," Bael confirmed. "The rizevim was personally developed by the Morningstar and mother Lilith with the use of human souls and blood. Astaroth and I were infused with the necessary components and tasked with reproducing with damned mortal souls. It took many tries. There were a lot of failures that needed to be destroyed. I knew that I had almost succeeded when I had Venelana. Her existence is the reason why I didn't kill you this day. You were lucky to be born just after her."
"She was strong," Bael said remembering a half-breed spawn born as strong as a high-class being. "Our sires had told us that we needed human blood and that it would take two generations for the weapons to be created."
"The Gremory boy was born after his mother had raped and killed an Irish demigod of Dagda so I accepted when your sister went to marry Zeoticus. She may think I didn't but if it had been the case, the boy would have been dead when he came asking for her hand."
Bael could not escape the joyous laugh that escaped his lips. His spawn looked at him as if he had gone mad but the happiness that was bubbling in Bael seemed never-ending. A constant Euphoria that he had missed so much "They created the Sirzechs like it was expected and Astaroth was able to make the Ajuka."
"Then why, estimated father didn't the Morningstar use them?" the boy asked him.
Displeasure and anger surged in him but Bael held it in check. 'Don't forget that Saiororg isn't yet ready' he reminded himself.
"My sire and the other died because the one that sat in the heavens attacked the underworld with all of his remaining cherubs and seraphs two years after the creation of the Sirzechs and the Ajuka. They were too young to be used in a way that would be helpful but even then, my sire could have won if the Rizevim had been loyal." The spoiled boy that had the honour of inheriting the name of the Morningstar, the Rizevim had refused the summoning of his lord creator.
Bael and the other Archdaemons had fought for days against the messengers of the god of Abraham. So many of the siblings of Bael had perished under the disgusting light of the angels. Michael fought against Lilith and was able to give her a blow that even to this day she hadn't healed of. In return, the mother of all the devils cursed the angel.
She weakened him and made him lose the majority of his might. Michael Demiurgos was still the strongest angelic being in existence, a divine existence capable of going blow-to-blow with some of the strongest Hindu deities like Indra but he would never be able to stand over the Dream and the Nothing like he had in the past.
All the other remaining Archdaemons had fought against the Cherubs and the Seraphs. They may have suffered great loss to their number but to this day, it remained no more than five seraphs on Heaven's side and no Cherubim. This victory had resulted in merely 27 still living Archdaemons, most of whom had to go slumber to not fade too.
Lucifer and his father had in their fight broken the barrier between the world continuing their struggle in the dimensional gap before the breach would be closed.
Hours later, both them and their still living enemies would feel the balance breaking, a void significating the end of their respective creators. Bael and his siblings had let the remaining angels live. What was the point they had all thought? The reason is their respective existences, their creator had perished at each other hands.
"You sided with the young devils that wanted to abolish and change the underworld you and other Archdaemons created. It was because you hated him and the descendants of the other Satans that had sided with him. Aren't I right Father?"
"You're not wrong," Bael admitted. "I wanted to make him suffer, to make him pay. I was unable to. He didn't fight, he stayed hidden."
The young devils led by the young devils Falbium, Serafall, Ajuka and Sirzechs won. Bawl had been bereft of every goal, of everything justifying his existence. He had wondered a lot if he shouldn't chosen to go into slumber like the rest of his kin, choosing to wake maybe at the destined end that the world would surely face one day.
That had been his goal. The brother of Venelana had been a disappointment since the beginning like most other devils of his generation. It was in their names, devils, not demons.
He had planned to wait for Saiororg to be mature and strong enough to enter into an eternal slumber.
Lucifer and Lilith had both hated and been enthralled by the humans. Bael had been too young to understand at that time why they had such fascination for such feeble creatures.
They were weak fools thinking themselves master of their fates when they were just puppets and toys to be played with by their better.
It was always like this. Those that were great amongst them, that carved their names through history were the ones with either supernatural blood or because they had the support or attention of a higher being.
They were cruel, crueler than ever Archdaemons. They were the teachers of Lucifer and Lilith's children. They taught them vices, sinning and like good students, demons basked in it to the point it permeated their essence.
Their souls some of them taught are infinite limited, and little in the great scope of the world. What they had greater than all races, engraved in their being that Bael had to admit was almost unreal malleability.
They could be exposed body and soul to all kinds of different stimuli and they could bounce back.
It was because of this malleability that ancient gods, that were older than even the current iteration of reality the Abrahamic god had decided to experiment on the souls of those lowly beings before being extinguished.
It was why the worship, the faith, the emotion of those emotions could affect the world around them, empower or even almost change aspects of reality as demons and higher beings like gods did.
Those experiments, those modifications of the animus of human beings had been the reason why Lucifer had tasked his subject to bring as many mortal souls as possible into the underworld.
Lucifer if he had more time would have been able to create more weapons like he had with those the current generation called super devils.
He had asked all of his archdemons after the success of producing the Sirzechs and the Ajuka to produce as many offspring and spawns as possible with either living mortals or with the mortal souls of the damned.
Souls could feel, could hurt even though nerves didn't exist. The body and the soul weren't really different. The body was just the outline. Everything mechanism, every gene that made sure that a human could function depended on the state of the soul.
Most offspring took after their mortal parent so they were either killed or discarded. Those who took after their demonic parents were taken to be raised by them.
The mortal souls that were seen as producing too many low-quality offspring were twisted, their minds and selves broken.
This was the reason for the existence of the low-class devils before Ajuka introduced newly transformed devils with the chess pieces he had created.
"Why are you telling me this estimate Father?" his spawn asked him. Bael ignored the falsehood. He knew that the spawn hated him. What he had taught just had the result of strengthening the hatred he harboured in his heart over Bael and his sister Venelana. Good, maybe the boy would prove useful.
"I had thought that everything I and the other demons were fighting was nought after the fall of the Morningstar."
"Venelana," Bael chuckled. "The gift that keeps on giving. She gave me something I thought would not be possible. If my sire was still there today, he would have congratulated her. She proved him right."
Realization entered the eyes of the spawn. "Rias," the boy whispered. "The rating game, so it was the reason." He recognized jealousy in the words of the devil.
He knew that the envy of the spawn over the Gremory heiress would make sure that he would try to make things difficult for her. This was exactly what Bael needed.
Bael had seen the rating game and the girl seemed to be growing in an exponential way only when confronted with adversity.
Coals needed heat and pressure to be turned into diamonds. His granddaughter had grown in strength. She had reached in that fight against Riser what Bael knew was the higher end of the high class. Bael knew that to reach the ultimate class and go beyond that she needed only to be pushed.
Bael let his third eye and gaze through the eddies of Destiny. He saw destruction, struggle and the waking of things even older than him.
He closed it back satisfied. "You're dismissed," he said to his son.
He saw the confusion on the face of the devil "Great father?"
"Don't make me repeat myself spawn," Bael spat. "Unless you wish for your sister to finally take what was supposed to be hers?" he added.
Anger and hatred flared into the purple eyes of the spawn but unfortunately, he wasn't a complete fool. He bowed and scurried away like a rat.
Bael opened a gateway into his personal connection and from the gateway, an Urn of wine descended slowly on the table made of Kitsune's fur and fallen angel's feathers.
Bael removed another item from his collection, what he considered one of the greatest things in his possession after Venelana and her children. It was a skull, an angel's cranium to be more precise removed from the head of a seraph of YHWH. The skull was the one of the seraphim Kamael.
Bael had taken time after the great war to learn the art of bone sculpting. His instructor, a Mayan god that Bael had captured taught him everything that needed to sculp in a perfect way bone. Bael had like he had promised given the god his freedom by freeing him from reality with his power of destruction.
Bael had used what he had learned to build the cup that he now had in his hand. The Urn's top removed itself as if it was the work of invisible hands and served in Bael's cup the nectar that he contained that Bael had looted from Dionysus's temple. He spilled a part of it on the ground in honour of his fallen kin
Life was full of horrors and tragedies. The nectar touched the lips of the Archddaemon. He had forgotten that horrors and tragedies were just the beginning of the greatest joys for a demon. Bael drank under a purple sky for the first time since the end of the Great War thinking and hoping for the future.
I was supposed to write a little bit more before posting but I had thought that it would have been better if I ended this chapter here. I wanted to make a difference between devils and demons and establish some of the lore.
View: https://youtu.be/l2ny3f4dv30
Life was a web of forever unravelling despair and joy. This is what the state of the never and is. Light burnt and darkness cradled.
Dream wandered and infinity plotted. Death waited to watch, destiny thought himself supreme.
This was a world full of horrors and wonders, this was a world where god himself could perish.
The emotion that bubbled in Zekram was one he hadn't felt for long immemorial aeons, since the demise of his sire against the Abrahamic god.
He had felt as if his purpose had disappeared. He had been a tool, one of the greatest of Lucifer and Lilith. He had known it since the beginning and had revelled in that fact.
Zekram had thrown himself with joy to all the tasks that were given to him even if his demise seemed inevitable, unavoidable.
He had been fuelled by the endless bloodlust in his veins, by the love that had been engraved in his beings for his creators.
He raped, killed, looted, tortured and did all of those things without batting an eye. Zekram was the name of a useless tool that had lost its wielders.
He was Bael, the great king, an Archdemon of pride, slayer of the seraph Kamael and for the first time since their death, He found purpose.
His youngest granddaughter had been married to one of the descendant spawn of Phenex. How disappointed the other Archdemon would have been if he had seen what his descendants had been reduced to if he had seen how weak, human they were. He would have probably killed them before doing the same for himself to be saved from the ignominy.
Well, after having seen a copy version of the rating game that his spawn had brought him, maybe Phenex would have left the third son alive. After all, he looked like a proper demon, like a proper Phenex.
His attention went back to the talking form of his spawn. Bael knew that he was talking but he had chosen to erase for the moment the possibility for him to listen. He would have probably killed him a long time ago if he hadn't learnt this helpful trick from Astaroth.
Reading the lips of his son, he could see that the fool was complaining about Rias, about the Gremory clan and how unfair and abnormal it was for Rias just like her, brother to be so powerful.
Bael's eyes were the eyes of a higher being. With them, he could see things that most wouldn't imagine. With them, he saw in the heart, in the soul of his child. He saw the jealousy, the envy, the lust, the anger that he felt towards his older sister and her children.
Bael removed the spell and was greeted with the shrill sound of the voice of his spawn. "Quiet," he whispered. With this word, the world itself shut down. The acidic rain became silent. Noise died unable to exist and finally, Oh finally, he shut up.
Fear was not engraved on the face of his son and Zekram forced himself to not allow the disgust he felt to push him toward killing his own blood. Saiororg was too young. Maybe in a decade.
"Do you know why I didn't smother you at birth?" he finally asked after a moment of wanted silence for his son.
The boy tried to speak but no noise came out of his mouth. "It was rhetorical. Don't bother and don't worry, I won't kill you," yet he added mentally. So weak that he couldn't break out of such a simple reality manipulation trick. How did this thing come out of him?
"If things had depended only on my will, your sister, Venelana would be the current head of this clan, my heir." He ignored the hatred and anger that appeared on the face of his son at the uttering of the name of his sister.
"Let me tell you a story, something that only my sires Lucifer and Lilith and Astaroth knew." He saw curiosity enter the eyes of the spawn.
Bael's gaze swept over the horizon of the underworld, over the world where blood had rained on every inch, blood where untold atrocities were committed with savage glee.
"My sire and the other three princes were not supposed to fall against the Abrahamic god. What had made my sire so great wasn't his strength, it wasn't his beauty or charisma. It was one thing, child. What made him greater than his maker, that could have made him greater than even the great beast of the darkness was his mind," Zekram spoke.
"My sire had begun the creation of three weapons, three prototypes that when wielded by him would have allowed him to easily win against the Abrahamic god and all of his host and allies."
With a flick of his will, he removed his interdiction over the world and noise came back. He ignored how the spawn rubbed his neck as if he had been choked. "Prototypes?" he asked.
"Yes, prototypes. They were supposed to be the first three. One was personally overseen by the Morningstar and the great mother. Astaroth and I made sure the two others would exist," Bael answered.
"You speak of them as if they still exist," the young devil pointed. Maybe Bael would let him live more than a decade.
"They do," Bael confirmed. "We didn't need to hide them. They are in plain sight but no one knows of their existence."
Bael smiled exposing his canines, letting the madness inside begging to be unfurled seep in an infinitesimal short amount spill in the world. "They were given names."
Tears of fire began to rain from the sky. Bael knew that by letting escape less than a fraction of his true self in the world, everyone who lived in his territory and was strong enough or lucky enough to be in a protected place would be burnt, marked with hellfire, scared in a way that could never be healed. It was the way of the world. This generation of devils had forgotten this. It was time to remember. "They were given the names of Rizevim, Ajuka and Sirzechs."
"You're speaking of the three super devils," the devil said in shock.
"A tool capable of denying everything divine, every miracle, a second one to predict and construct everything. A system equal if not greater to the one created by the Abrahamic god. A third tool, a sword of destruction that would reduce to nothing everything on the path of his wielder to nothing."
"Astaroth and you knew."
"We did," Bael confirmed. "The rizevim was personally developed by the Morningstar and mother Lilith with the use of human souls and blood. Astaroth and I were infused with the necessary components and tasked with reproducing with damned mortal souls. It took many tries. There were a lot of failures that needed to be destroyed. I knew that I had almost succeeded when I had Venelana. Her existence is the reason why I didn't kill you this day. You were lucky to be born just after her."
"She was strong," Bael said remembering a half-breed spawn born as strong as a high-class being. "Our sires had told us that we needed human blood and that it would take two generations for the weapons to be created."
"The Gremory boy was born after his mother had raped and killed an Irish demigod of Dagda so I accepted when your sister went to marry Zeoticus. She may think I didn't but if it had been the case, the boy would have been dead when he came asking for her hand."
Bael could not escape the joyous laugh that escaped his lips. His spawn looked at him as if he had gone mad but the happiness that was bubbling in Bael seemed never-ending. A constant Euphoria that he had missed so much "They created the Sirzechs like it was expected and Astaroth was able to make the Ajuka."
"Then why, estimated father didn't the Morningstar use them?" the boy asked him.
Displeasure and anger surged in him but Bael held it in check. 'Don't forget that Saiororg isn't yet ready' he reminded himself.
"My sire and the other died because the one that sat in the heavens attacked the underworld with all of his remaining cherubs and seraphs two years after the creation of the Sirzechs and the Ajuka. They were too young to be used in a way that would be helpful but even then, my sire could have won if the Rizevim had been loyal." The spoiled boy that had the honour of inheriting the name of the Morningstar, the Rizevim had refused the summoning of his lord creator.
Bael and the other Archdaemons had fought for days against the messengers of the god of Abraham. So many of the siblings of Bael had perished under the disgusting light of the angels. Michael fought against Lilith and was able to give her a blow that even to this day she hadn't healed of. In return, the mother of all the devils cursed the angel.
She weakened him and made him lose the majority of his might. Michael Demiurgos was still the strongest angelic being in existence, a divine existence capable of going blow-to-blow with some of the strongest Hindu deities like Indra but he would never be able to stand over the Dream and the Nothing like he had in the past.
All the other remaining Archdaemons had fought against the Cherubs and the Seraphs. They may have suffered great loss to their number but to this day, it remained no more than five seraphs on Heaven's side and no Cherubim. This victory had resulted in merely 27 still living Archdaemons, most of whom had to go slumber to not fade too.
Lucifer and his father had in their fight broken the barrier between the world continuing their struggle in the dimensional gap before the breach would be closed.
Hours later, both them and their still living enemies would feel the balance breaking, a void significating the end of their respective creators. Bael and his siblings had let the remaining angels live. What was the point they had all thought? The reason is their respective existences, their creator had perished at each other hands.
"You sided with the young devils that wanted to abolish and change the underworld you and other Archdaemons created. It was because you hated him and the descendants of the other Satans that had sided with him. Aren't I right Father?"
"You're not wrong," Bael admitted. "I wanted to make him suffer, to make him pay. I was unable to. He didn't fight, he stayed hidden."
The young devils led by the young devils Falbium, Serafall, Ajuka and Sirzechs won. Bawl had been bereft of every goal, of everything justifying his existence. He had wondered a lot if he shouldn't chosen to go into slumber like the rest of his kin, choosing to wake maybe at the destined end that the world would surely face one day.
That had been his goal. The brother of Venelana had been a disappointment since the beginning like most other devils of his generation. It was in their names, devils, not demons.
He had planned to wait for Saiororg to be mature and strong enough to enter into an eternal slumber.
Lucifer and Lilith had both hated and been enthralled by the humans. Bael had been too young to understand at that time why they had such fascination for such feeble creatures.
They were weak fools thinking themselves master of their fates when they were just puppets and toys to be played with by their better.
It was always like this. Those that were great amongst them, that carved their names through history were the ones with either supernatural blood or because they had the support or attention of a higher being.
They were cruel, crueler than ever Archdaemons. They were the teachers of Lucifer and Lilith's children. They taught them vices, sinning and like good students, demons basked in it to the point it permeated their essence.
Their souls some of them taught are infinite limited, and little in the great scope of the world. What they had greater than all races, engraved in their being that Bael had to admit was almost unreal malleability.
They could be exposed body and soul to all kinds of different stimuli and they could bounce back.
It was because of this malleability that ancient gods, that were older than even the current iteration of reality the Abrahamic god had decided to experiment on the souls of those lowly beings before being extinguished.
It was why the worship, the faith, the emotion of those emotions could affect the world around them, empower or even almost change aspects of reality as demons and higher beings like gods did.
Those experiments, those modifications of the animus of human beings had been the reason why Lucifer had tasked his subject to bring as many mortal souls as possible into the underworld.
Lucifer if he had more time would have been able to create more weapons like he had with those the current generation called super devils.
He had asked all of his archdemons after the success of producing the Sirzechs and the Ajuka to produce as many offspring and spawns as possible with either living mortals or with the mortal souls of the damned.
Souls could feel, could hurt even though nerves didn't exist. The body and the soul weren't really different. The body was just the outline. Everything mechanism, every gene that made sure that a human could function depended on the state of the soul.
Most offspring took after their mortal parent so they were either killed or discarded. Those who took after their demonic parents were taken to be raised by them.
The mortal souls that were seen as producing too many low-quality offspring were twisted, their minds and selves broken.
This was the reason for the existence of the low-class devils before Ajuka introduced newly transformed devils with the chess pieces he had created.
"Why are you telling me this estimate Father?" his spawn asked him. Bael ignored the falsehood. He knew that the spawn hated him. What he had taught just had the result of strengthening the hatred he harboured in his heart over Bael and his sister Venelana. Good, maybe the boy would prove useful.
"I had thought that everything I and the other demons were fighting was nought after the fall of the Morningstar."
"Venelana," Bael chuckled. "The gift that keeps on giving. She gave me something I thought would not be possible. If my sire was still there today, he would have congratulated her. She proved him right."
Realization entered the eyes of the spawn. "Rias," the boy whispered. "The rating game, so it was the reason." He recognized jealousy in the words of the devil.
He knew that the envy of the spawn over the Gremory heiress would make sure that he would try to make things difficult for her. This was exactly what Bael needed.
Bael had seen the rating game and the girl seemed to be growing in an exponential way only when confronted with adversity.
Coals needed heat and pressure to be turned into diamonds. His granddaughter had grown in strength. She had reached in that fight against Riser what Bael knew was the higher end of the high class. Bael knew that to reach the ultimate class and go beyond that she needed only to be pushed.
Bael let his third eye and gaze through the eddies of Destiny. He saw destruction, struggle and the waking of things even older than him.
He closed it back satisfied. "You're dismissed," he said to his son.
He saw the confusion on the face of the devil "Great father?"
"Don't make me repeat myself spawn," Bael spat. "Unless you wish for your sister to finally take what was supposed to be hers?" he added.
Anger and hatred flared into the purple eyes of the spawn but unfortunately, he wasn't a complete fool. He bowed and scurried away like a rat.
Bael opened a gateway into his personal connection and from the gateway, an Urn of wine descended slowly on the table made of Kitsune's fur and fallen angel's feathers.
Bael removed another item from his collection, what he considered one of the greatest things in his possession after Venelana and her children. It was a skull, an angel's cranium to be more precise removed from the head of a seraph of YHWH. The skull was the one of the seraphim Kamael.
Bael had taken time after the great war to learn the art of bone sculpting. His instructor, a Mayan god that Bael had captured taught him everything that needed to sculp in a perfect way bone. Bael had like he had promised given the god his freedom by freeing him from reality with his power of destruction.
Bael had used what he had learned to build the cup that he now had in his hand. The Urn's top removed itself as if it was the work of invisible hands and served in Bael's cup the nectar that he contained that Bael had looted from Dionysus's temple. He spilled a part of it on the ground in honour of his fallen kin
Life was full of horrors and tragedies. The nectar touched the lips of the Archddaemon. He had forgotten that horrors and tragedies were just the beginning of the greatest joys for a demon. Bael drank under a purple sky for the first time since the end of the Great War thinking and hoping for the future.
I was supposed to write a little bit more before posting but I had thought that it would have been better if I ended this chapter here. I wanted to make a difference between devils and demons and establish some of the lore.
A little sympathy for the devil
- Location
- france
My muse is a cruel mistress, she made my hyperactive ass write for more than four hours without stopping. I feel like my brain is fried. I wrote it listening to this song. It's unfortunately the only YouTube link I found. Hope you like it.
View: https://youtu.be/sADmwWhU5ZM
I could hear the sound of the waves, the granular touch of what I recognized as sand. I opened my eyes to an eery purple sky so similar to the one I knew had been created in the underworld by my brother and the other Satans.
"You're finally awake," I heard a familiar voice say on my side.
I turned my head and here she was as if she had never been out of my life, as if I hadn't run away. Curly Red hair and Olive skin. Features that could only be called aristocratic and Freckles doting a face that could only be said to be the perfect mix of fierce and beautiful as if I was before a royal being.
"Am I in hell," I asked her.
A bitter laugh escaped her "Maybe it's the damnation I think you deserve, maybe it's not and I'm just a figment of your mind."
I removed my gaze from her and turned it to the sky "It sucks," I spoke.
"Language," she instantaneously said.
"I'm grown Mom, you can't censure what I say anymore," I told her.
"You've always been ungrateful. I gave you everything and you discarded it, you discarded all the sacrifices I made for you," she said.
"I chose for once myself. I chose to be selfish and I don't regret it, Mom. You gave me what you thought, what you wanted me to need when I'm sure that deep down, you knew it wasn't the case. You wanted to mould me into something I didn't wish to be."
"I've lived more than half a century. I may have made many mistakes but those things I've done, I don't regret them, I don't think they were wrong," she spoke.
"It's always the same thing, dismissing what I think or feel because I'm young. You had told me in the past that you had wanted me to feel good, to be free and happy but it had never truly been the case when I was with you. You only taught me to lie, to hide."
"How dare you?" she shouted. I merely sighed. "I gave you things that most would not dream of. I gave you privilege and in return, you only gave me ungratefulness."
I turned towards her and her angry face "Things have changed Mom. I won't hesitate to hurt you back if you hit me."
"I had thought at your birth you were a blessing but it's clear that you were a hidden curse."
"Thanks, Mom, I can totally feel the love."
"If I could have chosen, you would not have been my child," she said to me while looking at me in the eyes.
"Same," I answered her. "I would have preferred to either not been born or to have another mother but as you had told me, we can't unfortunately choose who are our parents."
We stayed in silent. I tried the old familiar panic I could feel, how difficult it was becoming to breathe and how my heart hurt.
"In the end, all of your actions, do you really they were worth it? You died alone," she spoke after a moment.
"I did die alone but at least it had been on my terms. I had wished to die with the least regret possible. I won't say that there were things I wouldn't change if I could but honestly, I feel content plus this death was just another beginning."
"All I've ever done," she spoke softly "was for you. I didn't want to hurt you. I loved you."
"I know this. You dealt with the cards you were handled and tried your best." Her best just wasn't enough.
I remember endless expectations, a never-ending amount of it. I wished I had been the child that she had wanted me to be.
I wished that all her efforts hadn't been vain. I wished that she could still look at me with love like she once did.
I knew that it would never happen again. I had left her because I knew that if I didn't, one of us would have inevitably ended the life of the other.
It was a world where hurt people hurt other people. When all your life, what you've been taught and exposed to was suffering by your own parents or your own families, it wasn't unexpected for a person to try to push all their hatred, all their despair on the indifferent world they lived in, on others.
It didn't excuse their actions because hurting others just to feel better about themselves were the actions only committed by someone weak, an animal and rabid animals were put down.
"I don't think even after everything, I could stop loving you," I admitted. Everything we went through, every moment we shared, good or bad was engraved in my mind no matter how much I wished and prayed for them to be gone.
My back left the sand. My gaze travelled forward to a scarlet ocean, one I knew was of destruction, deep and dark. It didn't matter what could have been. I had taken my own path and I didn't regret it. Love itself wasn't enough.
I stood up "You're leaving again aren't you?" she asked even though we both already knew the answer to this question.
"Yes," I answered. ****** was dead. Only Rias remained.
I walked to the sea and entered it. I looked back a last time, to a past I wished so much was different, to a gilded golden cage, to the sadness on her face and let myself fall into the dark waves of red.
Destruction filled me, it felt like an embrace. Even though breathing was becoming impossible, even though I felt myself being consumed, I didn't panic.
What was the quote again? From the nothing they came and to the nothing they would go back. I closed my eyes.
When I opened them up, it was to the sight of a white ceiling. I felt something covering my body. I checked and it was a blanket of red colour.
I looked at my side. I wasn't the only one present in what seemed to be a hospital room.
They were at my bedside or on couches sleeping in what were clearly uncomfortable positions, my family, my peerage.
Koneko and Akeno were at my bedside. I could see dried tears on the face of the white-haired girl. My Queen who always looked usually composed looked like a mess, her frazzled, going in all directions and with visible eye bags on her face even though she was asleep.
Yuto was on one of the couches. It was clear that my knight had tried to fight against Hypnos' grasp and had lost. On the other couch, Asia and Issei were sleeping, the former in the arm of the latter. My pawn looked so innocent. No one would imagine him to be the pervert he was if they had seen him in his sleep. Asia and he looked cute together.
I wasn't like the canonical Rias who would have fallen in love with Issei because he had beaten her Riser and It was very unlikely for me in this timeline to fall in love with him plus I've always thought that Asia and him were better together.
My thoughts were interrupted by a wave of something I could only call wrong, dark and twisted. My peerage members stopped breathing. It was as if someone had used a remote and had used the stop button. I saw with my sight how the atoms themselves stopped in their movement.
A dark circle appeared on the ground and illuminated the room. It was made of intricate geometrical forms. Its colour was reminiscent of blood. I could through the past memories of Rias recognize the demonic runes for sin and Greed.
From it, he rose. With his shoulder-length scarlet hair, his androgynous face and his blue-green eyes, he and I looked as if we were twins the person before me could not be mistaken for someone else than my older and only brother, Sirzechs, the prince of lies, the Satan Lucifer, one of the strongest being in existence.
I watched him walk in a way so gracious it seemed that he had instead glided. He sat at my side on the bed. His emotions were laid bare on his face. I could see anger, sadness, despair. "Hello Rias," he said to me.
"Hello, Sirzechs Oni-sama," I answered.
He was looking at me as if trying to dissect me, find something that don't think I was aware of. From the memories I inherited from the original Rias, I could not remember one moment where he laid on me such a gaze. "You scared me Rias," he spoke softly. "It has been six days since your rating game. You've been unconscious since."
"I watched your rating game so many times Rias." His voice broke "I watched how you, my only sister chose to end yourself and almost succeeded so that she could win."
I felt guilty. It felt like a pang piercing my heart. I turned my head away from him. Looking at the figure that I've always seen as the symbol of strength looking so devastated was unbearable. "I won't apologize," I answered.
"I did what I had to do so that I would not have to marry Riser so that I would not be forced to be married to someone I hated for all eternity."
"You didn't need to go to such length. I am your brother. I would have found a way so that it wouldn't happen," he told me. In canon, Sirzechs and Grayfia made sure that Issei was able to crash my wedding. I could have done nothing, given up, and let myself lose but the thing was that I wasn't certain if I could count on what I remembered of Canon.
Someone wasn't supposed to be reincarnated in Rias Gremory. Riser wasn't supposed to turn into an infernal Avian monstrosity. Counting on Canon wasn't something I could have done.
There was also the fact that all the parts that made me, from the original Rias to the human I was before incarnating and fusing with Rias Gremory were exhausted, tired of being stripped of their ability to choose, to just be themselves instead of the thing people expected them to be.
I turned back my gaze on the form of my brother "Could I have really depended on you Brother?" I asked him.
I saw how his lips were beginning to move probably to confirm the fact that he would have done something. I talked before he could "You're the Satan Lucifer. You had told me in the past that you had the duty to make sacrifices for all of the devilkind. Don't tell me that there are laws not allowing you to interfere brother. I know that if you had really wished for my betrothal to Riser to be broken, you could have done it no matter what the consequences were."
When I was younger, Sirzechs had told me one thing. He had told me that he would always be there for me, that there was nothing he wouldn't move in this world to make me happy. "You're a liar. I trusted you, I thought that you would have done something and you didn't. Do you remember the promise you made to me when I was six?"
"How could I forget," he spoke softly.
"Rias, I am sorry. I never wished for things to be this way," he added.
I leaned my head on his shoulder and used it as a pillow. "I never wished to be a Satan," he revealed "or the Heir of the Gremory clan."
"What did you want to be?" I asked him.
"I wanted to be a music teacher," he answered. From my memories, I knew that one of the things that my brother liked to do when he had time to relax was playing the guitar. He used to play for me until I slept.
"I'm sure you were a good one," I told him.
A broken smile bloomed on his face. "I hope that it was the case. If things were different, maybe if we weren't devils, descendants of demons with war and savagery inscribed in our essence, maybe I would have been allowed to remain a music teacher."
"Rias, you have to understand that the world I was born in wasn't a kind one. It was one so much crueller than this one. Lucifer and his subjects had died against God." A headache erupted in my head for an instant before disappearing.
"The Descendants of the old Satans wanted to continue a war it was clear should have ended thousands of years ago, a war I knew would have resulted even if we won at the end of our kind. War is excuse me for the pun hell Rias especially when it's one between families, childhood friends, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, and Fathers. With those hands, I had to claw to victory, I had to do so many atrocities and slaughter so many that Genghis Khan would look like a child compared to me."
"I did all of those things," he continued "so that our race could live on so that devils would never have to lose loved ones in non-sensical bloodshed."
Our gazes met "You and Millicas were the greatest things that happened to me. You were the proof that everything I've ever done wasn't vain, that all the sacrifices I made were being rewarded. I knew you hated the Phenex boy. I talked with Mother and Father about dissolving the marriage contract. They refused."
I could hear a hatred so deep in his voice that it seemed as if the world itself had become darker, dull, dying. This was the kind of hate that could make someone torture another while smiling. "Everything we've built depends on our neutrality, on the fact that we follow rules made by weaker beings than us. If I had forcefully broken the contract, I wouldn't be better than the Old Satan faction, I would be showing that the only thing that mattered was strength, that the laws and conventions we had created for devilkind were worthless. If the strongest forces himself to follow the law, it means to everyone he's ruling, choosing to not impose his complete will on that perhaps things should be different."
"If you had lost, I would have found an indirect way to break the contract. I never lied to you Rias." I looked at him and could only see sincerity.
The light novel hadn't been able to show how deep the relationship between the canonical Rias and Sirzechs was. The first word that this body had uttered had been his name. The person to whom I've always cried has been Sirzechs.
Zeoticus and Venelana even with all their failings and the fact that they had intended to forcefully marry their daughter to another devil were the most loving parents that a supernatural being could ask for yet Sirzechs, my brother had been more of a parent to me than my biological ones.
It was the reason why in canon, Rias had always tried to do things without asking his help. She had done this because she had wanted him to be proud of her but looking at his face, at how he looked at me as if I was the only thing to matter in the entire universe, I couldn't call the original me anything else other than an idiot. Her brother, Sirzechs would have always loved and been proud of her no matter what she did. The love that he had towards me was one I easily recognized as unconditional.
It was the love parents were supposed to have towards their children but most of the time didn't give it to their children because those weren't what those parents wished they were.
"I believe you," I told him softly. "I won't lie to you and tell you that the same thing will not happen again in the future."
I thought about Kokabiel, the Khaos brigade, Ophis, Rizevim and so many other threats that I surely have forgotten.
I couldn't count on Issei, on Canon for my safety. I could only count on myself, that was the only certainty I had. Words were winds. Actions differed from them, from what we promised, and wanted to realize.
"I already failed you Rias. I won't do it again," my brother said with steel in his voice.
"Brother," I said regaining his attention.
"I don't want to see them for a moment," I told him. I couldn't understand how Rias after being subjected to a forced betrothal from her parents would be able to interact with them after the Riser arc as if nothing had happened, as if her choice hadn't been stripped away by them, as if she hadn't been almost married for all eternity to someone she hated.
Saying that I hated them would be a lie. I still loved them but that feeling of love was submerged by a feeling of immense disappointment.
I had heard in the past that in relationships whether they were with family members or friends, as long as there were positives, those relationships shouldn't be cut because negative things had happened. You were supposed to forgive and forget and go on as if nothing had happened because not always being a complete piece of shit was supposed to be a sufficient criterion for a relationship. You were supposed to be fine with that and not search for better.
My brother didn't try to convince me away from such action, he didn't judge and his loving gaze on me didn't change. "Consider it done Rias," he spoke.
I didn't thank him verbally. I just snuggled closer to him. I spoke after a moment of comfortable silence "Did you know that Sona and I had an argument three years ago when we came to Kuoh?"
"Serafall and I knew that something had happened. We didn't know exactly what it was. We didn't try to get involved because both of you had always talked of how you had wanted to be able to do things by yourselves without us interfering," he revealed.
Sona and I had grown together. She and I both were siblings of two Satans. We were of the same age, something rare amongst pure-blood devils due to the low fertility of devilkind. Our families had been allied for thousands of years. We both had been each other confident. We had been more than friends. "Sona had once told me that I was lazy, that I should be trying to do anything that would allow me to get out of this contract. She had told me that I wasn't doing enough, that it was as if I didn't want to get out of it."
I saw my brother wince. Sona had known how I'd hated Riser, she had known how I had hated that contract yet she had dared say that I was choosing to not escape from it, that maybe I wished for the betrothal to truly happen. Even thinking about felt as if nails were being slowly plunged into my heart.
In my past life, a lot of people had deemed Rias as a lazy, spoiled heiress, who had everything given to her, and who chose facility over what was supposed to be done. What Sona and they thought were if not identical mirrors to each other.
I was now Rias and none of them, none of them could ever understand or had tried to. They talked as if living beings were logical creatures. They talked as if doing what needed to be done was easy.
The original Rias had tried to grow stronger. She had trained when she had learned of her betrothal and the only thing she received from training was almost nothing. No growth in demonic energy, no more stronger physically while she had seen how Riser through each of his rating games grew stronger and stronger.
They didn't know the despair of knowing that all your efforts, all your tears sweat and blood were worth in the end nothing.
They talked as if the act of trying when faced with an inevitable loss was easy. The original Rias Gremory had tried and like most that did, she failed. The only ones who loved to complain about laziness were the ones who were never in the same situation as the person they deemed lazy.
It's as if a millionaire was saying to a homeless person they were homeless because they didn't work enough as if most people because of the conditions they were afflicted at or surrounded by at birth weren't already predisposed to it. What people hate to hear is that most of the time, success comes from luck. Without it, nothing done even if it was perfect would work.
This is why the original Rias loved Mangas and Japan. This was why she had loved the human world. It was her form of escapism. Here, She could escape notions such as her being a heiress, and responsibilities that she never asked for. Here in Kuoh, in her town, in my town, I was only Rias Gremory, a student and the president of the occult club, nothing else.
It was easy for Sona to speak. Unlike me, she had been given the choice of how she would choose who she would marry. She couldn't understand. She had been able to have what I have always wanted, a choice. How could she dare come to me and say that I wasn't trying enough when trying in itself was worthless when trying in itself was as if being Atlas holding the sky?
"In retrospect, Maybe she was right. Maybe I was just hoping for a solution to all my problems to present itself to me. Maybe I should have or could have tried better. It doesn't change the fact that those words still hurt."
"Unlike many, I was born strong," my brother spoke. "Even if I had done nothing to increase more quickly my strength, I would have still been one of the strongest if not the strongest of the Satans. Only those of my generation know the fact that once, I Sirzechs Gremory was betrothed to someone other than Grayfia."
I couldn't stop the gasp of shock that escaped me. "You? Bethothed?" I said disbelief evident in my tone.
The only lover that my brother Sirzechs was known to ever have was Grayfia. It was something even written in the history books of our races.
It wouldn't be wrong to say that Sirzechs and his wife Grayfia were the equivalent of Romeo and Juliet for devilkind except the fact that unlike Romeo and Juliet, they had their happy ending.
It was the tale of two different Devils on different sides that shouldn't have been together, whose love story should have ended in tragedy and who instead had been able to prevail against all.
"To whom were you betrothed?" I asked him. Even before being a Satan, my brother had been considered as the strongest devil in his generation and devilkind had always gravitated toward strenght. Our clan was also a royal one even if we were technically at the bottom, unlike the Bael clan.
It meant that for lower pure-blood houses like the Phenex clan, marrying one of us would have meant a greater status and for higher houses, an acceptable candidate to marry with. This was why my father had technically the right to marry my mother, the daughter of the great king Bael.
In any case, it was impossible that Both the betrothed of my brother or their clan accepted easily the rupture of a marriage contract.
"Few devils were born around the same time that I was and do you think our parents would have married me to someone they thought would have not brought something at our clan? Let me give you a clue. They're still alive".
I began to think using all the knowledge that I had before being inserted and the memories that I had inherited. The thing with devils was that we were natural shapeshifters. We unconsciously affect and change the way we look to appear as something we would like.
Some devils with good control over their demonic energy could do it at will. It wasn't wrong to say that there were no ugly devils.
We could change our biology in ways that shouldn't be physically possible. It was also the reason why devilkind didn't truly care about stupid concepts like sex or gender.
What pure-blood devils cared about was the bringing of new pure-blood devils into the world. If we had been human and limited like they were, things would have been way different but in a society where every member is a literal demon shapeshifter, one care less about things like gender or sex and more about finding pleasure in any way possible. It's not also as if it was a good idea to try to restrict the sexual urges of an Omnisexual devil capable of blowing up a mountain by sneezing.
There were tales of devils growing men's genitalia or vice versa. Unfortunately, most of those times, the reason why they had been doing such things wasn't what could be called consensual.
Anyway, I tried searching mentally for different Devils that had been around for five hundred years or more and that were from a similar or greater status than our clan. My analysis directed me towards only three possible candidates. "Please, tell me it wasn't one of the other Satans," I begged.
His only answer was "I don't want to lie to you Rias but you're right in thinking it's one of the other. Our father and Sona and Serafall's grandfather who was called Sreaszex are what could be called a special breed of devils. They were the only children of the demons Gremory and Sitri. They had fought together in the Great War. The grandfather of Serafall and Sona had died in the arms of our father Zeoticus. The both of them Father had told me had wanted to fuse our clans and our lineages but they were unable to because the Original Sitri already had plans for Sreaszex. When Sreaszex's son and my father brought to the world devils the same year, they had seen it as a sign from Lucifer himself."
"I was married to Serafall not even a year after my birth and I hated it just like you did with Riser Rias," he said to me.
"How did you break the betrothal?" I asked him. A Betrothal between devils was not only a physical or verbal contract. We were devils. It was a soul-binding one that could only be broken through certain conditions. A betrothal could only be enforced on a pure-blood devil by the authority of the head of his clan. Most contracts had clauses because devils liked to act as if there were chances of escaping their plots when most of the time, there were no chances of doing such. To break a betrothal contract made by devils, you were supposed either to find a way to realize one of the stipulated clauses as I did with beating Riser in a rating game or by Killing the head of your clan, usurping his authority and with it break the contract.
We were devils from the Gremory clan. Familicid was antithetic to us, in the same way, the light of either the sun or divine beings was for devils.
"I was able to break it because when I became Lucifer, usurped the lingering power our progenitor had left behind before his demise I was cast out of our clan. At a metaphysical level, as long as I hold the mantle of Lucifer, I'm unable to be bound by the decisions of the head of our clan," my brother revealed.
"Was Serafall as happy as you when you broke it?" I asked him. I couldn't imagine the Serafall I knew from both set of memories I have be happy with the fact that she would be forced into a marriage.
Sirzechs chuckled darkly "Unfortunately she and her clan weren't happy. It is said that Grayfia and her fought over the title of Leviathan but it couldn't be more wrong than this. Serafall didn't fight Grayfia, she slaughtered her. She would have murdered her if I hadn't intervened. Serafall can be called many things that are probably wrong except for one thing. She's the strongest devil our kind has ever produced."
"But you and lord Ajuka," I objected "are seen as the strongest of our race."
"Ajuka and I aren't technically what could be called devils but this is a discussion for another day. To appease the Sitri clan that had followed and supported me against the old Satan faction, I made her a satan, and made sure with the help of Ajuka that she would be able to usurp a part of the lingering authority of the great serpent, the prince of envy."
"You said it was to appease the Sitri clan but Did it appease Serafall?" I questioned him. If I had been Serafall and the one that I was betrothed to and that I supposedly loved to the point I had been ready to follow him into a civil war and tried to kill the one he supposedly fell in love with because I was jealous, even the highest title or seat of power would not have been enough to get rid of my jealousy and hatred.
"It wasn't," my brother admitted. "I had to promise her something. She wanted me to at least give her a part of the future she said that Grayfia had stolen from us."
He looked me in the eyes with a sad gaze "She asked me for a child and I gave it to her."
Shock erupted in me before being replaced by sadness. If Sirzechs had a child other than Millicas even though it was an illegitimate one, I would have known. That child would have been both a Gremory and a Sitri and there was nothing more sacred for a Gremory than family.
The fact of me not having met that child meant one thing "That child died, isn't it?" I asked even if I already knew the answer.
My brother closed his eyes "Yes," he confirmed. "A stillbirth it was said. Serafall's mind with the loss of the child broke. It took me centuries to try to put back the pieces. I had been able to have what I wanted, the freedom to love who I wanted to pass all my eternity with but in return, I broke the heart of one of my childhood best friends who had always been there for me. I had tried my best and in the end, it felt like a pyrrhic victory where I both won and lost. I tried my best and in the end, it didn't really matter. I wasn't able to completely avoid what I wanted to avoid so I understand you Rias. Maybe like you said, we could have done things differently, we probably should have but it was we who had to make those choices and no one except us really knows how it is. What they say or think doesn't matter. The only thing we can do that I would loved to know sooner is to treat ourselves with compassion, not like something that should be perfect because no being has ever been perfect Rias."
I rose with difficulty from my bed and hugged him. He leaned into it. "I love you, Brother," I said to him. I had lost many people that I had loved before without being able to say those words. You never know when you will lose your loved ones. Life was fragile. No one even if they thought they thought they were was prepared to confront death. It was better to show them that you loved them before it was too late because not doing such a thing would be something that would haunt you forever.
I felt his arms close themselves around my body. "I love you too Rias."
I could feel wetness on my shoulder. I acted as if I wasn't aware. What did Dante say? Even devils may cry.
After a moment, I retreated from his arms. My brother looked happy as if he was a construction worker and at the end of the day, all of his struggles had been rewarded.
I went back into using him as a pillow. He was surprisingly soft and comfortable for a being that had supposedly slaughtered millions willfully.
"What will you do now?" he asked me.
I thought about his question. My gaze wandered over the members of my peerage. It wouldn't be wrong to say that every one of them was at some level traumatized.
Akeno hated herself, more precisely her half-fallen angel side to the point that she chose to restrict her own strength, that she loved to hurt fallen angels in a more sadistic way than she was usually.
She was my queen, my confidant. She had known how I hated Riser and I knew that she cared for and loved me but that love and care hadn't been stronger than the self-hatred she had in her heart.
If she had used her half-fallen angel side, if she had used the light and the divine lightning she had inherited from her Father, Riser would have lost at the beginning of the rating game. She had been after all in canon able to hurt Fenrir even if he was limited, one of the strongest beings in this world with her lightning.
She hadn't and a part of me saw it as a betrayal but looking at how unkept and distressed she looked even in her sleep, this feeling was washed away.
The same could be said about Koneko and her use of Senjutsu. Most people either had Daddy or Mommy issues. Koneko had Sister issues and they were linked to her own heritage, to the senjutsu that should have been instinctual for her because of her race.
There was also the issue of her name that left a bad taste in my mouth. Koneko literally meant little kitten. It was more the name you would give to a pet instead of a person integrating what you considered your family.
Kiba or Isaiah my knight has done his best. He hadn't a secret power or bloodline like Akeno or Koneko that he could have used but thinking about it, there were so many things that my knight could have done to be better to the point that it was almost insulting.
He had been born with a sacred gear allowing him to create demonic swords with the effects he wanted. The only thing that I knew he had done with his sacred gear had been to create either sword of different forms with no effect and the light erasure that he had used when fighting against Freed Selzan.
He should have been A Shirou Emiya-lite. He could create demonic swords with the effects he wanted. If he was also using his demonic energy that produced effects only depending on our imagination, I don't see why he couldn't have created with time a sword as strong as the Excalibur of Artoria in Fate. I would have to check if Fate Stay Night existed in this universe. If it did, I would make sure that Kiba would be watching and playing the shit out of it because I could only see his actions or lack of actions as a waste of potential.
My gaze slid on the sleeping forms of my pawn and my bishop. Issei and Asia were the only ones I think that had tried their best to go beyond what was expected for my sake and it had not been more than one month and a half since the both of them are in my peerage, unlike the others.
There was also the case of Gasper who had so much social anxiety that he preferred the stay alone in a box instead of interacting with others and instead of I don't know maybe trying to send him to a therapist, the original I had instead fed his social anxiety by enabling him.
A ten-wings fallen angel, general of the Grigori that had fought against God and his seraphs and Lucifer and his Satans and that had survived the both of them would soon be coming to try to kill me to begin a new great war. It was another possible problem I would have to take care of in the future.
I felt already tired. There were so many important things to do and not doing them would only cause me a disfavour.
I knew that because of the essence, I would surely grow stronger than even I'm sure what I predicted. I know that I only needed one thing and that thing was time. I needed time so that I could grow stronger. The essence allowed me to adapt to things I faced and grow stronger but to adapt to a thing, I needed to be able to survive it at least for an instant. I lived now in a world where higher beings like my brother and gods viewed concepts like time and space more as guidelines than things that restricted them. If Sirzechs had tried to annihilate me, I don't think that my essence would have had enough time to make me adapt and grow stronger than him before he eradicated me.
"I think that I would try to focus on my peerage. There are a lot of things that I could have done better as a king and I want to do them now before it's maybe too late."
He chuckled softly. "I know you will do excellent work and even if you don't, that's fine Rias."
He kissed the crown of my head before slowly standing. I hadn't felt any difference even though he had left his duty of pillow. I don't know how but the spot where I was using him as a cushion had been replaced by a scarlet pillow. He must have used magic.
I watched how a teleportation circle lit up under his feet. "I have to go take care of the repercussions of the breaking of your betrothal. You would have thought that by being able to stop or slow time, you would have enough time but it's not the case at all. Riser didn't wake up since the end of your rating game. His regeneration isn't apparently working the way it should and the Phenex clan has been a pain on my side since."
"I wished I could have hit him harder," I told my brother.
I saw vindication and Schadenfreude in his eyes "I'll let them worry about their youngest son for a while before asking Ajuka to help them."
"You're evil," I simply said.
"I am the Satan Lucifer. It's the requisite of the job."
His expression softened "I won't let anything like this ever happen again Rias."
He began to sink into the circle before disappearing with it "I love you," I heard his voice say.
"I love you, brother," I said back to a room devoid of him.
The wrongness that I had been feeling, the unnatural stillness disappeared. I saw how atoms and molecules began to move again.
At my side, Akeno slowly opened her eyes. "Hello Akeno," I told her softly.
My voice seemed to have awakened the other members of my peers. Moments later, I was buried under their crying forms.
Yes, they weren't perfect. Yes, there were a lot of things that they either could have done or done better but they were before all my family. The only thing I was sure of was that they truly Loved Rias Gremory, that they truly loved me. I would worry about the future and what could have been done later. Right now, I would allow myself to get lost in their embrace.
Someone had asked me if Great Red was an endless. The answer to this question is yes. Comments literally feed me so if you like it, please interact
View: https://youtu.be/sADmwWhU5ZM
I could hear the sound of the waves, the granular touch of what I recognized as sand. I opened my eyes to an eery purple sky so similar to the one I knew had been created in the underworld by my brother and the other Satans.
"You're finally awake," I heard a familiar voice say on my side.
I turned my head and here she was as if she had never been out of my life, as if I hadn't run away. Curly Red hair and Olive skin. Features that could only be called aristocratic and Freckles doting a face that could only be said to be the perfect mix of fierce and beautiful as if I was before a royal being.
"Am I in hell," I asked her.
A bitter laugh escaped her "Maybe it's the damnation I think you deserve, maybe it's not and I'm just a figment of your mind."
I removed my gaze from her and turned it to the sky "It sucks," I spoke.
"Language," she instantaneously said.
"I'm grown Mom, you can't censure what I say anymore," I told her.
"You've always been ungrateful. I gave you everything and you discarded it, you discarded all the sacrifices I made for you," she said.
"I chose for once myself. I chose to be selfish and I don't regret it, Mom. You gave me what you thought, what you wanted me to need when I'm sure that deep down, you knew it wasn't the case. You wanted to mould me into something I didn't wish to be."
"I've lived more than half a century. I may have made many mistakes but those things I've done, I don't regret them, I don't think they were wrong," she spoke.
"It's always the same thing, dismissing what I think or feel because I'm young. You had told me in the past that you had wanted me to feel good, to be free and happy but it had never truly been the case when I was with you. You only taught me to lie, to hide."
"How dare you?" she shouted. I merely sighed. "I gave you things that most would not dream of. I gave you privilege and in return, you only gave me ungratefulness."
I turned towards her and her angry face "Things have changed Mom. I won't hesitate to hurt you back if you hit me."
"I had thought at your birth you were a blessing but it's clear that you were a hidden curse."
"Thanks, Mom, I can totally feel the love."
"If I could have chosen, you would not have been my child," she said to me while looking at me in the eyes.
"Same," I answered her. "I would have preferred to either not been born or to have another mother but as you had told me, we can't unfortunately choose who are our parents."
We stayed in silent. I tried the old familiar panic I could feel, how difficult it was becoming to breathe and how my heart hurt.
"In the end, all of your actions, do you really they were worth it? You died alone," she spoke after a moment.
"I did die alone but at least it had been on my terms. I had wished to die with the least regret possible. I won't say that there were things I wouldn't change if I could but honestly, I feel content plus this death was just another beginning."
"All I've ever done," she spoke softly "was for you. I didn't want to hurt you. I loved you."
"I know this. You dealt with the cards you were handled and tried your best." Her best just wasn't enough.
I remember endless expectations, a never-ending amount of it. I wished I had been the child that she had wanted me to be.
I wished that all her efforts hadn't been vain. I wished that she could still look at me with love like she once did.
I knew that it would never happen again. I had left her because I knew that if I didn't, one of us would have inevitably ended the life of the other.
It was a world where hurt people hurt other people. When all your life, what you've been taught and exposed to was suffering by your own parents or your own families, it wasn't unexpected for a person to try to push all their hatred, all their despair on the indifferent world they lived in, on others.
It didn't excuse their actions because hurting others just to feel better about themselves were the actions only committed by someone weak, an animal and rabid animals were put down.
"I don't think even after everything, I could stop loving you," I admitted. Everything we went through, every moment we shared, good or bad was engraved in my mind no matter how much I wished and prayed for them to be gone.
My back left the sand. My gaze travelled forward to a scarlet ocean, one I knew was of destruction, deep and dark. It didn't matter what could have been. I had taken my own path and I didn't regret it. Love itself wasn't enough.
I stood up "You're leaving again aren't you?" she asked even though we both already knew the answer to this question.
"Yes," I answered. ****** was dead. Only Rias remained.
I walked to the sea and entered it. I looked back a last time, to a past I wished so much was different, to a gilded golden cage, to the sadness on her face and let myself fall into the dark waves of red.
Destruction filled me, it felt like an embrace. Even though breathing was becoming impossible, even though I felt myself being consumed, I didn't panic.
What was the quote again? From the nothing they came and to the nothing they would go back. I closed my eyes.
When I opened them up, it was to the sight of a white ceiling. I felt something covering my body. I checked and it was a blanket of red colour.
I looked at my side. I wasn't the only one present in what seemed to be a hospital room.
They were at my bedside or on couches sleeping in what were clearly uncomfortable positions, my family, my peerage.
Koneko and Akeno were at my bedside. I could see dried tears on the face of the white-haired girl. My Queen who always looked usually composed looked like a mess, her frazzled, going in all directions and with visible eye bags on her face even though she was asleep.
Yuto was on one of the couches. It was clear that my knight had tried to fight against Hypnos' grasp and had lost. On the other couch, Asia and Issei were sleeping, the former in the arm of the latter. My pawn looked so innocent. No one would imagine him to be the pervert he was if they had seen him in his sleep. Asia and he looked cute together.
I wasn't like the canonical Rias who would have fallen in love with Issei because he had beaten her Riser and It was very unlikely for me in this timeline to fall in love with him plus I've always thought that Asia and him were better together.
My thoughts were interrupted by a wave of something I could only call wrong, dark and twisted. My peerage members stopped breathing. It was as if someone had used a remote and had used the stop button. I saw with my sight how the atoms themselves stopped in their movement.
A dark circle appeared on the ground and illuminated the room. It was made of intricate geometrical forms. Its colour was reminiscent of blood. I could through the past memories of Rias recognize the demonic runes for sin and Greed.
From it, he rose. With his shoulder-length scarlet hair, his androgynous face and his blue-green eyes, he and I looked as if we were twins the person before me could not be mistaken for someone else than my older and only brother, Sirzechs, the prince of lies, the Satan Lucifer, one of the strongest being in existence.
I watched him walk in a way so gracious it seemed that he had instead glided. He sat at my side on the bed. His emotions were laid bare on his face. I could see anger, sadness, despair. "Hello Rias," he said to me.
"Hello, Sirzechs Oni-sama," I answered.
He was looking at me as if trying to dissect me, find something that don't think I was aware of. From the memories I inherited from the original Rias, I could not remember one moment where he laid on me such a gaze. "You scared me Rias," he spoke softly. "It has been six days since your rating game. You've been unconscious since."
"I watched your rating game so many times Rias." His voice broke "I watched how you, my only sister chose to end yourself and almost succeeded so that she could win."
I felt guilty. It felt like a pang piercing my heart. I turned my head away from him. Looking at the figure that I've always seen as the symbol of strength looking so devastated was unbearable. "I won't apologize," I answered.
"I did what I had to do so that I would not have to marry Riser so that I would not be forced to be married to someone I hated for all eternity."
"You didn't need to go to such length. I am your brother. I would have found a way so that it wouldn't happen," he told me. In canon, Sirzechs and Grayfia made sure that Issei was able to crash my wedding. I could have done nothing, given up, and let myself lose but the thing was that I wasn't certain if I could count on what I remembered of Canon.
Someone wasn't supposed to be reincarnated in Rias Gremory. Riser wasn't supposed to turn into an infernal Avian monstrosity. Counting on Canon wasn't something I could have done.
There was also the fact that all the parts that made me, from the original Rias to the human I was before incarnating and fusing with Rias Gremory were exhausted, tired of being stripped of their ability to choose, to just be themselves instead of the thing people expected them to be.
I turned back my gaze on the form of my brother "Could I have really depended on you Brother?" I asked him.
I saw how his lips were beginning to move probably to confirm the fact that he would have done something. I talked before he could "You're the Satan Lucifer. You had told me in the past that you had the duty to make sacrifices for all of the devilkind. Don't tell me that there are laws not allowing you to interfere brother. I know that if you had really wished for my betrothal to Riser to be broken, you could have done it no matter what the consequences were."
When I was younger, Sirzechs had told me one thing. He had told me that he would always be there for me, that there was nothing he wouldn't move in this world to make me happy. "You're a liar. I trusted you, I thought that you would have done something and you didn't. Do you remember the promise you made to me when I was six?"
"How could I forget," he spoke softly.
"Rias, I am sorry. I never wished for things to be this way," he added.
I leaned my head on his shoulder and used it as a pillow. "I never wished to be a Satan," he revealed "or the Heir of the Gremory clan."
"What did you want to be?" I asked him.
"I wanted to be a music teacher," he answered. From my memories, I knew that one of the things that my brother liked to do when he had time to relax was playing the guitar. He used to play for me until I slept.
"I'm sure you were a good one," I told him.
A broken smile bloomed on his face. "I hope that it was the case. If things were different, maybe if we weren't devils, descendants of demons with war and savagery inscribed in our essence, maybe I would have been allowed to remain a music teacher."
"Rias, you have to understand that the world I was born in wasn't a kind one. It was one so much crueller than this one. Lucifer and his subjects had died against God." A headache erupted in my head for an instant before disappearing.
"The Descendants of the old Satans wanted to continue a war it was clear should have ended thousands of years ago, a war I knew would have resulted even if we won at the end of our kind. War is excuse me for the pun hell Rias especially when it's one between families, childhood friends, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, and Fathers. With those hands, I had to claw to victory, I had to do so many atrocities and slaughter so many that Genghis Khan would look like a child compared to me."
"I did all of those things," he continued "so that our race could live on so that devils would never have to lose loved ones in non-sensical bloodshed."
Our gazes met "You and Millicas were the greatest things that happened to me. You were the proof that everything I've ever done wasn't vain, that all the sacrifices I made were being rewarded. I knew you hated the Phenex boy. I talked with Mother and Father about dissolving the marriage contract. They refused."
I could hear a hatred so deep in his voice that it seemed as if the world itself had become darker, dull, dying. This was the kind of hate that could make someone torture another while smiling. "Everything we've built depends on our neutrality, on the fact that we follow rules made by weaker beings than us. If I had forcefully broken the contract, I wouldn't be better than the Old Satan faction, I would be showing that the only thing that mattered was strength, that the laws and conventions we had created for devilkind were worthless. If the strongest forces himself to follow the law, it means to everyone he's ruling, choosing to not impose his complete will on that perhaps things should be different."
"If you had lost, I would have found an indirect way to break the contract. I never lied to you Rias." I looked at him and could only see sincerity.
The light novel hadn't been able to show how deep the relationship between the canonical Rias and Sirzechs was. The first word that this body had uttered had been his name. The person to whom I've always cried has been Sirzechs.
Zeoticus and Venelana even with all their failings and the fact that they had intended to forcefully marry their daughter to another devil were the most loving parents that a supernatural being could ask for yet Sirzechs, my brother had been more of a parent to me than my biological ones.
It was the reason why in canon, Rias had always tried to do things without asking his help. She had done this because she had wanted him to be proud of her but looking at his face, at how he looked at me as if I was the only thing to matter in the entire universe, I couldn't call the original me anything else other than an idiot. Her brother, Sirzechs would have always loved and been proud of her no matter what she did. The love that he had towards me was one I easily recognized as unconditional.
It was the love parents were supposed to have towards their children but most of the time didn't give it to their children because those weren't what those parents wished they were.
"I believe you," I told him softly. "I won't lie to you and tell you that the same thing will not happen again in the future."
I thought about Kokabiel, the Khaos brigade, Ophis, Rizevim and so many other threats that I surely have forgotten.
I couldn't count on Issei, on Canon for my safety. I could only count on myself, that was the only certainty I had. Words were winds. Actions differed from them, from what we promised, and wanted to realize.
"I already failed you Rias. I won't do it again," my brother said with steel in his voice.
"Brother," I said regaining his attention.
"I don't want to see them for a moment," I told him. I couldn't understand how Rias after being subjected to a forced betrothal from her parents would be able to interact with them after the Riser arc as if nothing had happened, as if her choice hadn't been stripped away by them, as if she hadn't been almost married for all eternity to someone she hated.
Saying that I hated them would be a lie. I still loved them but that feeling of love was submerged by a feeling of immense disappointment.
I had heard in the past that in relationships whether they were with family members or friends, as long as there were positives, those relationships shouldn't be cut because negative things had happened. You were supposed to forgive and forget and go on as if nothing had happened because not always being a complete piece of shit was supposed to be a sufficient criterion for a relationship. You were supposed to be fine with that and not search for better.
My brother didn't try to convince me away from such action, he didn't judge and his loving gaze on me didn't change. "Consider it done Rias," he spoke.
I didn't thank him verbally. I just snuggled closer to him. I spoke after a moment of comfortable silence "Did you know that Sona and I had an argument three years ago when we came to Kuoh?"
"Serafall and I knew that something had happened. We didn't know exactly what it was. We didn't try to get involved because both of you had always talked of how you had wanted to be able to do things by yourselves without us interfering," he revealed.
Sona and I had grown together. She and I both were siblings of two Satans. We were of the same age, something rare amongst pure-blood devils due to the low fertility of devilkind. Our families had been allied for thousands of years. We both had been each other confident. We had been more than friends. "Sona had once told me that I was lazy, that I should be trying to do anything that would allow me to get out of this contract. She had told me that I wasn't doing enough, that it was as if I didn't want to get out of it."
I saw my brother wince. Sona had known how I'd hated Riser, she had known how I had hated that contract yet she had dared say that I was choosing to not escape from it, that maybe I wished for the betrothal to truly happen. Even thinking about felt as if nails were being slowly plunged into my heart.
In my past life, a lot of people had deemed Rias as a lazy, spoiled heiress, who had everything given to her, and who chose facility over what was supposed to be done. What Sona and they thought were if not identical mirrors to each other.
I was now Rias and none of them, none of them could ever understand or had tried to. They talked as if living beings were logical creatures. They talked as if doing what needed to be done was easy.
The original Rias had tried to grow stronger. She had trained when she had learned of her betrothal and the only thing she received from training was almost nothing. No growth in demonic energy, no more stronger physically while she had seen how Riser through each of his rating games grew stronger and stronger.
They didn't know the despair of knowing that all your efforts, all your tears sweat and blood were worth in the end nothing.
They talked as if the act of trying when faced with an inevitable loss was easy. The original Rias Gremory had tried and like most that did, she failed. The only ones who loved to complain about laziness were the ones who were never in the same situation as the person they deemed lazy.
It's as if a millionaire was saying to a homeless person they were homeless because they didn't work enough as if most people because of the conditions they were afflicted at or surrounded by at birth weren't already predisposed to it. What people hate to hear is that most of the time, success comes from luck. Without it, nothing done even if it was perfect would work.
This is why the original Rias loved Mangas and Japan. This was why she had loved the human world. It was her form of escapism. Here, She could escape notions such as her being a heiress, and responsibilities that she never asked for. Here in Kuoh, in her town, in my town, I was only Rias Gremory, a student and the president of the occult club, nothing else.
It was easy for Sona to speak. Unlike me, she had been given the choice of how she would choose who she would marry. She couldn't understand. She had been able to have what I have always wanted, a choice. How could she dare come to me and say that I wasn't trying enough when trying in itself was worthless when trying in itself was as if being Atlas holding the sky?
"In retrospect, Maybe she was right. Maybe I was just hoping for a solution to all my problems to present itself to me. Maybe I should have or could have tried better. It doesn't change the fact that those words still hurt."
"Unlike many, I was born strong," my brother spoke. "Even if I had done nothing to increase more quickly my strength, I would have still been one of the strongest if not the strongest of the Satans. Only those of my generation know the fact that once, I Sirzechs Gremory was betrothed to someone other than Grayfia."
I couldn't stop the gasp of shock that escaped me. "You? Bethothed?" I said disbelief evident in my tone.
The only lover that my brother Sirzechs was known to ever have was Grayfia. It was something even written in the history books of our races.
It wouldn't be wrong to say that Sirzechs and his wife Grayfia were the equivalent of Romeo and Juliet for devilkind except the fact that unlike Romeo and Juliet, they had their happy ending.
It was the tale of two different Devils on different sides that shouldn't have been together, whose love story should have ended in tragedy and who instead had been able to prevail against all.
"To whom were you betrothed?" I asked him. Even before being a Satan, my brother had been considered as the strongest devil in his generation and devilkind had always gravitated toward strenght. Our clan was also a royal one even if we were technically at the bottom, unlike the Bael clan.
It meant that for lower pure-blood houses like the Phenex clan, marrying one of us would have meant a greater status and for higher houses, an acceptable candidate to marry with. This was why my father had technically the right to marry my mother, the daughter of the great king Bael.
In any case, it was impossible that Both the betrothed of my brother or their clan accepted easily the rupture of a marriage contract.
"Few devils were born around the same time that I was and do you think our parents would have married me to someone they thought would have not brought something at our clan? Let me give you a clue. They're still alive".
I began to think using all the knowledge that I had before being inserted and the memories that I had inherited. The thing with devils was that we were natural shapeshifters. We unconsciously affect and change the way we look to appear as something we would like.
Some devils with good control over their demonic energy could do it at will. It wasn't wrong to say that there were no ugly devils.
We could change our biology in ways that shouldn't be physically possible. It was also the reason why devilkind didn't truly care about stupid concepts like sex or gender.
What pure-blood devils cared about was the bringing of new pure-blood devils into the world. If we had been human and limited like they were, things would have been way different but in a society where every member is a literal demon shapeshifter, one care less about things like gender or sex and more about finding pleasure in any way possible. It's not also as if it was a good idea to try to restrict the sexual urges of an Omnisexual devil capable of blowing up a mountain by sneezing.
There were tales of devils growing men's genitalia or vice versa. Unfortunately, most of those times, the reason why they had been doing such things wasn't what could be called consensual.
Anyway, I tried searching mentally for different Devils that had been around for five hundred years or more and that were from a similar or greater status than our clan. My analysis directed me towards only three possible candidates. "Please, tell me it wasn't one of the other Satans," I begged.
His only answer was "I don't want to lie to you Rias but you're right in thinking it's one of the other. Our father and Sona and Serafall's grandfather who was called Sreaszex are what could be called a special breed of devils. They were the only children of the demons Gremory and Sitri. They had fought together in the Great War. The grandfather of Serafall and Sona had died in the arms of our father Zeoticus. The both of them Father had told me had wanted to fuse our clans and our lineages but they were unable to because the Original Sitri already had plans for Sreaszex. When Sreaszex's son and my father brought to the world devils the same year, they had seen it as a sign from Lucifer himself."
"I was married to Serafall not even a year after my birth and I hated it just like you did with Riser Rias," he said to me.
"How did you break the betrothal?" I asked him. A Betrothal between devils was not only a physical or verbal contract. We were devils. It was a soul-binding one that could only be broken through certain conditions. A betrothal could only be enforced on a pure-blood devil by the authority of the head of his clan. Most contracts had clauses because devils liked to act as if there were chances of escaping their plots when most of the time, there were no chances of doing such. To break a betrothal contract made by devils, you were supposed either to find a way to realize one of the stipulated clauses as I did with beating Riser in a rating game or by Killing the head of your clan, usurping his authority and with it break the contract.
We were devils from the Gremory clan. Familicid was antithetic to us, in the same way, the light of either the sun or divine beings was for devils.
"I was able to break it because when I became Lucifer, usurped the lingering power our progenitor had left behind before his demise I was cast out of our clan. At a metaphysical level, as long as I hold the mantle of Lucifer, I'm unable to be bound by the decisions of the head of our clan," my brother revealed.
"Was Serafall as happy as you when you broke it?" I asked him. I couldn't imagine the Serafall I knew from both set of memories I have be happy with the fact that she would be forced into a marriage.
Sirzechs chuckled darkly "Unfortunately she and her clan weren't happy. It is said that Grayfia and her fought over the title of Leviathan but it couldn't be more wrong than this. Serafall didn't fight Grayfia, she slaughtered her. She would have murdered her if I hadn't intervened. Serafall can be called many things that are probably wrong except for one thing. She's the strongest devil our kind has ever produced."
"But you and lord Ajuka," I objected "are seen as the strongest of our race."
"Ajuka and I aren't technically what could be called devils but this is a discussion for another day. To appease the Sitri clan that had followed and supported me against the old Satan faction, I made her a satan, and made sure with the help of Ajuka that she would be able to usurp a part of the lingering authority of the great serpent, the prince of envy."
"You said it was to appease the Sitri clan but Did it appease Serafall?" I questioned him. If I had been Serafall and the one that I was betrothed to and that I supposedly loved to the point I had been ready to follow him into a civil war and tried to kill the one he supposedly fell in love with because I was jealous, even the highest title or seat of power would not have been enough to get rid of my jealousy and hatred.
"It wasn't," my brother admitted. "I had to promise her something. She wanted me to at least give her a part of the future she said that Grayfia had stolen from us."
He looked me in the eyes with a sad gaze "She asked me for a child and I gave it to her."
Shock erupted in me before being replaced by sadness. If Sirzechs had a child other than Millicas even though it was an illegitimate one, I would have known. That child would have been both a Gremory and a Sitri and there was nothing more sacred for a Gremory than family.
The fact of me not having met that child meant one thing "That child died, isn't it?" I asked even if I already knew the answer.
My brother closed his eyes "Yes," he confirmed. "A stillbirth it was said. Serafall's mind with the loss of the child broke. It took me centuries to try to put back the pieces. I had been able to have what I wanted, the freedom to love who I wanted to pass all my eternity with but in return, I broke the heart of one of my childhood best friends who had always been there for me. I had tried my best and in the end, it felt like a pyrrhic victory where I both won and lost. I tried my best and in the end, it didn't really matter. I wasn't able to completely avoid what I wanted to avoid so I understand you Rias. Maybe like you said, we could have done things differently, we probably should have but it was we who had to make those choices and no one except us really knows how it is. What they say or think doesn't matter. The only thing we can do that I would loved to know sooner is to treat ourselves with compassion, not like something that should be perfect because no being has ever been perfect Rias."
I rose with difficulty from my bed and hugged him. He leaned into it. "I love you, Brother," I said to him. I had lost many people that I had loved before without being able to say those words. You never know when you will lose your loved ones. Life was fragile. No one even if they thought they thought they were was prepared to confront death. It was better to show them that you loved them before it was too late because not doing such a thing would be something that would haunt you forever.
I felt his arms close themselves around my body. "I love you too Rias."
I could feel wetness on my shoulder. I acted as if I wasn't aware. What did Dante say? Even devils may cry.
After a moment, I retreated from his arms. My brother looked happy as if he was a construction worker and at the end of the day, all of his struggles had been rewarded.
I went back into using him as a pillow. He was surprisingly soft and comfortable for a being that had supposedly slaughtered millions willfully.
"What will you do now?" he asked me.
I thought about his question. My gaze wandered over the members of my peerage. It wouldn't be wrong to say that every one of them was at some level traumatized.
Akeno hated herself, more precisely her half-fallen angel side to the point that she chose to restrict her own strength, that she loved to hurt fallen angels in a more sadistic way than she was usually.
She was my queen, my confidant. She had known how I hated Riser and I knew that she cared for and loved me but that love and care hadn't been stronger than the self-hatred she had in her heart.
If she had used her half-fallen angel side, if she had used the light and the divine lightning she had inherited from her Father, Riser would have lost at the beginning of the rating game. She had been after all in canon able to hurt Fenrir even if he was limited, one of the strongest beings in this world with her lightning.
She hadn't and a part of me saw it as a betrayal but looking at how unkept and distressed she looked even in her sleep, this feeling was washed away.
The same could be said about Koneko and her use of Senjutsu. Most people either had Daddy or Mommy issues. Koneko had Sister issues and they were linked to her own heritage, to the senjutsu that should have been instinctual for her because of her race.
There was also the issue of her name that left a bad taste in my mouth. Koneko literally meant little kitten. It was more the name you would give to a pet instead of a person integrating what you considered your family.
Kiba or Isaiah my knight has done his best. He hadn't a secret power or bloodline like Akeno or Koneko that he could have used but thinking about it, there were so many things that my knight could have done to be better to the point that it was almost insulting.
He had been born with a sacred gear allowing him to create demonic swords with the effects he wanted. The only thing that I knew he had done with his sacred gear had been to create either sword of different forms with no effect and the light erasure that he had used when fighting against Freed Selzan.
He should have been A Shirou Emiya-lite. He could create demonic swords with the effects he wanted. If he was also using his demonic energy that produced effects only depending on our imagination, I don't see why he couldn't have created with time a sword as strong as the Excalibur of Artoria in Fate. I would have to check if Fate Stay Night existed in this universe. If it did, I would make sure that Kiba would be watching and playing the shit out of it because I could only see his actions or lack of actions as a waste of potential.
My gaze slid on the sleeping forms of my pawn and my bishop. Issei and Asia were the only ones I think that had tried their best to go beyond what was expected for my sake and it had not been more than one month and a half since the both of them are in my peerage, unlike the others.
There was also the case of Gasper who had so much social anxiety that he preferred the stay alone in a box instead of interacting with others and instead of I don't know maybe trying to send him to a therapist, the original I had instead fed his social anxiety by enabling him.
A ten-wings fallen angel, general of the Grigori that had fought against God and his seraphs and Lucifer and his Satans and that had survived the both of them would soon be coming to try to kill me to begin a new great war. It was another possible problem I would have to take care of in the future.
I felt already tired. There were so many important things to do and not doing them would only cause me a disfavour.
I knew that because of the essence, I would surely grow stronger than even I'm sure what I predicted. I know that I only needed one thing and that thing was time. I needed time so that I could grow stronger. The essence allowed me to adapt to things I faced and grow stronger but to adapt to a thing, I needed to be able to survive it at least for an instant. I lived now in a world where higher beings like my brother and gods viewed concepts like time and space more as guidelines than things that restricted them. If Sirzechs had tried to annihilate me, I don't think that my essence would have had enough time to make me adapt and grow stronger than him before he eradicated me.
"I think that I would try to focus on my peerage. There are a lot of things that I could have done better as a king and I want to do them now before it's maybe too late."
He chuckled softly. "I know you will do excellent work and even if you don't, that's fine Rias."
He kissed the crown of my head before slowly standing. I hadn't felt any difference even though he had left his duty of pillow. I don't know how but the spot where I was using him as a cushion had been replaced by a scarlet pillow. He must have used magic.
I watched how a teleportation circle lit up under his feet. "I have to go take care of the repercussions of the breaking of your betrothal. You would have thought that by being able to stop or slow time, you would have enough time but it's not the case at all. Riser didn't wake up since the end of your rating game. His regeneration isn't apparently working the way it should and the Phenex clan has been a pain on my side since."
"I wished I could have hit him harder," I told my brother.
I saw vindication and Schadenfreude in his eyes "I'll let them worry about their youngest son for a while before asking Ajuka to help them."
"You're evil," I simply said.
"I am the Satan Lucifer. It's the requisite of the job."
His expression softened "I won't let anything like this ever happen again Rias."
He began to sink into the circle before disappearing with it "I love you," I heard his voice say.
"I love you, brother," I said back to a room devoid of him.
The wrongness that I had been feeling, the unnatural stillness disappeared. I saw how atoms and molecules began to move again.
At my side, Akeno slowly opened her eyes. "Hello Akeno," I told her softly.
My voice seemed to have awakened the other members of my peers. Moments later, I was buried under their crying forms.
Yes, they weren't perfect. Yes, there were a lot of things that they either could have done or done better but they were before all my family. The only thing I was sure of was that they truly Loved Rias Gremory, that they truly loved me. I would worry about the future and what could have been done later. Right now, I would allow myself to get lost in their embrace.
Someone had asked me if Great Red was an endless. The answer to this question is yes. Comments literally feed me so if you like it, please interact
Time won't wait forever
- Location
- france
Writing this felt like pulling teeth. The goal all along was the Akeno POV. Hope you like it
View: https://youtu.be/S5PNBQMrh6Q
They retreated away from me allowing me to breathe. I could see relief all over their exhausted faces as if they had been suffering and the end of their torment had ended.
"I'm back," I said softly to them.
"Please, president never do again what you did. Next time, I'll be stronger so that it won't happen," my pawn declared.
He talked as if it was his fault as if all the blame for the actions that I had taken reposed on him. I could see the same guilt through the eyes of my peerage members, my family and in that moment, I felt like a failure.
"It wasn't your fault Issei," I spoke softly. My gaze wandered over all of them "It was the fault of none of you."
I could see how they wanted to object to my words. I didn't allow them "What happened is the fault of none of us here. You gave all of you your best. You fought and bled for me because all of you cared and loved me."
"I know I made a lot of people worry and I'm sorry for it."
I looked at their weary faces. Even with the essence I gained that should have negated it, I felt as if I was as exhausted as them. "May I ask a favour to all of you?" I asked them.
"Of course, President," Issei said.
"You can count on me," Asia added.
"I am your knight," Yuto said.
Koneko just nodded and Akeno, I didn't need her to answer to know That she would agree with me.
"Will all of you come with me to Shibuya?" I said to them.
"Shibuya?" Issei said looking confused.
"There are classes we would miss if we went," Asia added.
"I know but right now, I just want to forget about everything, about the underworld or even Kuoh. It's true that it's not the wisest thing to do but I ne-"
Akeno cut me "You don't need to justify yourself. You're my king, I'll follow you everywhere."
I don't know why but the way she looked at me made me feel warm. I felt as if I was blushing. It was probably my imagination but I swear that I could have seen Akeno's cheeks take a rose taint. I smiled at her "Thanks Akeno."
"Of course Rias. Everything for you," she answered me. She was truly a good queen.
I turned to Koneko who was now using my legs as a pillow like a cat. "I'll go with the president," she simply said.
"Thank you Koneko," I said to the younger girl. I rubbed her head the way you would do with a cat and she closed her eyes. I could feel vibrations going through my legs as if she was purring.
She didn't look as if this was what she was doing but I knew that I wasn't mistaken. She was so cute. I wanted to hug her to death.
My case slid over my pawn and my bishop. They looked at each other and a silent conversation seemed to be happening between them. It was something new, that didn't happen or that the original Rias hadn't seen happen before the rating game. Maybe I wouldn't have to do anything to push the two of them toward each other.
Asia nodded to Issei. She and The boy turned toward me. "We'll come with you, President," my pawn declared.
"Good," I said.
"Koneko," I called my rook. "I have to leave the bed."
"Not now," she purred.
"If you do it, I'll buy you ten big chocolate cakes." The white-haired girl moved like lightning away from me.
The greatest weakness of my rook was her sweet tooth. I was sure that there were a lot of things she would do even if she hated them just so that she could satisfy her craving for sweet things. It is something that would have been the reason for malnutrition and health problems for a human but we weren't humans. We were devils, beings that shaped the world only with our will and wishes.
I left the comfort of the hospital bed and stood up. There was a mirror on one of the walls and I could see my reflection in it, the proof that this wasn't a dream, that it was real.
I realized that While I had been asleep, my clothes had been swapped to a dull medical garment. It wouldn't do. Something else will have to do and that something won't be in any case the Kuoh uniform.
I knew that it was because it was easier when animating or drawing if the characters always wore the same outfit with little to no variation.
I thought about the clothes I knew I had now. I had an entire room in my manor with only clothes. I knew that I could be teleporting to it just to search for clothes that I would like but I wanted to try something else.
I closed my eyes and searched the spark of malevolence nested in my heart, what I knew as my demonic energy. It had grown significantly. Before unlocking the essence, it could be said that my demonic energy was a pool. After I unlocked it, it could have been compared to a river. Now after waking up, it felt like an ocean just waiting to be called.
So I called it. I didn't use incantations or mathematical formulas to make what I wanted to do easier. Those were crutches used by lower beings who needed them to do something worthwhile. I was a devil, I only had to wish it and as long as I had enough demonic energy, the world would bend to my will.
It was also something I didn't understand why devils didn't do more. Our demonic energy grew more when it was completely exhausted and replenished like a muscle growing stronger with exercise.
My demonic energy was of a dark black-purple colour almost like an amethyst I noted. I let it coat me. I wished and with my wish, the clothes that I wore disappeared in a flash of red letting me bare for a fraction of a second before new clothes materialized over my body.
I inspected my outfit. "How do I look?" I asked my peerage members who looked surprised because of the clothes I wore.
I could understand them. The original me favourited clothes that could be called simple. It didn't mean that she couldn't be flashy. It's just that she chose not to. I heard once that sometimes, a person looks good because of their clothes. Other times, it's not the clothes that make the person look good but it's the person who makes the clothes look good. I could say without vanity that I was in the second category.
The body that I had now could not be considered or even compared to a mortal one. It was too perfect, too symmetrical, something that shouldn't be humanly possible. It was the kind of beauty people would and did kill just to have the 1/100th of it.
With platforms Doc Martens replicas, baggy goth jeans with little belts and a black tea with a drawing of my brother with an electric guitar, I looked like a hot topic reject, a good-looking hot topic reject.
"The president looks different," Asia said before putting her hands on her mouth. She probably had thought out loud.
"Yes, I know that I look different." Japan was a country of conformism. What was the infamous quote? Ah yes, the nail that sticks up is hammered down.
I would never let myself be forced again to do something I hated, change myself to be treated like a normal person like people should normally be treated. Many would probably look at me and either avoid me or look at me in disgust but it means that the person that will still treat me as a normal person would not be shallow ones. If they couldn't see me as I was and accept me this way, I didn't want them in my vicinity.
"After Riser, I wanted to look different. The old Rias died with him." If only they knew how I was literal.
"You look wonderful Rias," Akeno told me while smiling.
I couldn't restrict the smile that bloomed on my face "Thanks Akeno. Do any of you want to change into something else?"
I saw them say no by movements of their heads. I clapped in my hands "Great. Let's go."
I turned toward my knight "Kiba, make us teleport to Shibuya," I ordered my knight.
He didn't discuss my order. "Understood President." I could sense how he began summoning his demonic energy and how a circle with the Gremory crest began to appear under us. I ejected from the sole of my feet a wave of power of destruction that erased the circle.
"President?" Kiba spoke. I could feel the question in his tone. Akeno and Koneko were also looking at me waiting for an explanation.
Issei hadn't been able to see or sense that I was the reason why the teleportation circle disappeared "Problems of performance, you good-looking bastard?" he mocked my knight. He was shut up by a touch of Asia. He looked at her and sighed "I apologize," he said sounding defeated.
"I stopped you from summoning the teleportation circle because of a reason Kiba. Do you know what it is?" I didn't give him time to answer "We're devils Kiba. You're a reincarnated one that was born with the sacred gear demonic sword births allowing you to create demonic swords with the effect you want."
Understanding passes through his eyes and the eyes of the other members of my peerage members. "You want me President to teleport us with a sword?"
"Yes Yuto," I confirmed.
"I'm not sure I could do such a thing, President," my knight spoke.
"Rias, the calculations needed for such a thing are a little bit beyond Yuto. His strength doesn't lie in magic," Akeno said to me.
I walked toward my knight and stopped before him. "Do you trust me?" I asked him.
"With my life," he answered instantaneously.
"There's something I learnt or it would be more true to say that I learnt again, something that I had forgotten. We are devils Yuto. We don't need calculations or incantations to create acts of sorcery, to make miracles. Issei created with the help of Asia a spell to destroy any clothes and it had not been two months since he had been a devil." I put my hand where I knew his heart was.
"Issei," I called my pawn without looking at him.
"Yes, president," he answered.
"Your spell, the one that you created and used against Riser's pawn. How did it come to life?" I asked him.
"I don't really know. I just knew what I wanted, a spell capable of allowing me to see all the boobs I wanted!" he yelled. I could never forget the sights" he fantasized out loud.
I could hear Akeno laugh and a whisper of pervert coming from Koneko "Issei, focus" I said to my pawn.
"Sorry president," the pervert apologized. "I just followed the instruction of Akeno-sempai. She had told me that our demonic energy is fuelled by our imagination so that's what I followed."
"Yuto," I said to the knight. "You've been a devil far longer than Issei. You have a bigger demonic energy than him. Your sacred gear creates demonic swords with the effects you want. You already know how to use a teleportation circle. You have reunited all the conditions I know will make sure you'll succeed."
"Close your eyes," I told him. He followed what I asked him to do. "Yuto, focus your demonic energy on one thing, on creating a sword capable of making us reach Shibuya."
I saw him take a deep breath. He put his two hands before him as if he was on the point of receiving something. I could feel a spike in his heartbeat and a surge in his demonic energy.
The demonic energy pooled floating over his hands formless. He had begun sweating as if he was doing an exhausting exercise "There's nothing you can't do Yuto."
"It is hard president," he spoke his voice strained.
"I know Yuto. Do you remember your dream Yuto, what you promised to destroy, what you promised to them? How would you be able to do it if you don't push yourself?" I spoke softly.
I smelt something in the air. It was sweet and intoxicating like a drug. I knew what it was. It was hatred in its pure undiluted form. A mini shockwave erupted from between my knight hands. I could hear the sound of glass breaking, of furniture flying in the air and falling.
The formless mass of demonic energy began to take form. What appeared between his hands was a longsword. Except for the ebony colour of the blade, it looked like a perfectly ordinary sword.
He grabbed the hilt of the sword and turned away from me. He slashed into the air and with the movement of the dark blade, space itself was cut.
The space distortion gave me a view from the sky. I could see on the other side colourful mega buildings. I could see thousands of people walking in every direction. I could see the Shibuya scramble square.
My knight was also looking in amazement as if he couldn't believe what he had been able to do. "I told you Yuto, there's nothing that you can't do, that we can't do. Never forget that. I could feel the steps of my peerage members coming closer to us "This is just the first step toward your goal."
"I had never thought I could do this but you still believed I could," he spoke softly.
"That's normal. We're family" I answered him as together we looked at the beautiful skyline of the city at night.
*scene*
We crossed to the other side. Behind me, I heard the noise of my peerage members releasing their wings to stay afloat. Me, I didn't do this. Instead, I used my demonic energy and made the laws of physic my bitch.
Under us, I could see thousands of people walking in so many different directions. They looked colourful and bright as if each of them were stars that had taken human forms.
"It is beautiful," I heard my bishop gasp behind me.
"It is," I confirmed.
I let my demonic energy retreat into my heart and I began to fall. It was a fall in the void, a leap of faith and it made me feel so free.
It seemed that I was falling into an alley. My back was coming closer and closer to the ground but I did nothing. I closed my eyes. Why should I be scared?
Something did stop my fall. Something soft yet firm. I opened my eyes up. My gaze lost itself in the eyes of the colour of the void.
"It wouldn't have hurt me," I spoke.
"I know," Akeno answered me. "My body moved by itself. The street would also have to be repaired and it'll come straight from your bank account."
"So you're only there for my money. I thought you loved me," I told her with a fake outrage.
I could see amusement dancing in her eyes "Of course, your bank account is the most important thing. Good whips, good collars and good handcuffs aren't cheap. Maybe I should use one of them on you because you seem to have become more reckless."
She didn't know that she had given me more rope to hang her with. I leaned on her shoulder and whispered in her right ear "I'm sure you would like to use them or maybe you would like me to use them on you Akeno," I sang her name.
A blush erupted on her face and I felt her stiffen. "Hum hum." A cough interrupted us. I turned toward its provenance. It was from my knight. There was Koneko, Asia and Issei at his side.
I realized that the three members of my peerage had probably been watching us without us noticing it. The three of them were blushing. Yuto looked as if he had wished he wasn't there. Asia had put her hands over Issei's eyes as if she wanted to protect him from watching something sinful.
I left Akeno's arms, my feet entering in contact with the asphalt under me. I acted as if nothing had happened.
I walked out of the alley and felt my peerage follow behind me. "Do you have an idea of what we would do?" Akeno asked me.
"Just broad strokes," I answered her. Looking at the neon lights, in the architecture that I could only call a mixture of modern and retro, I understood why Shibuya was seen as a must-see when coming to Japan.
"I feel ravenous. I feel like I haven't eaten for an eternity, so maybe eating something and after exploring the different shops?"
I turned toward my rook "What do you think of Sushis Koneko?" I asked her.
I wondered how she didn't receive whiplash with the way she nodded so quickly her head in affirmation.
"Is anyone here is against Sushis?" I asked my family.
The way Koneko looked murderously at them, I would be surprised if any of them disagreed. I was proven right when none of them spoke against my proposal.
We entered one of the alleys and I felt the strange but familiar feeling of crossing a barrier made so that no mundane would be able to cross. The alley expanded as if the space itself was being rearranged.
It looked as if we had travelled into the past. With lanterns replacing mega buildings, people are dressed in Kimonos or in Japanese traditional clothing instead of modern clothes.
"Wow," I heard my pawn gasp in surprise and amazement. "Everything changed".
"It must have been a barrier made so that no mundane could enter," Yuto spoke.
"No mundane?" Issei said.
"Issei, Asia, I want you to Look at the crowd and focus on them. Don't try to see like a human. Don't limit your sight," Akeno instructed them.
"It's like there was a fog surrounding them," Asia said.
"Push through it," I told her.
I looked at them. They probably weren't aware but their eyes had changed. The eyes of Issei weren't brown anymore. They shone like gold. They were slit as if they were the eyes of a reptile.
Asia's green eyes couldn't be called green anymore. They looked like entrancing toxic emeralds, bewitching eyes for who would lose their mind and kill.
Since both of them had been reincarnated, they had changed both physically and metaphysically. I wondered if they had noticed that they looked different from what they looked before. Issei had always been complaining about what he called pretty boys.
He didn't seem to have realized that he had fully entered the category. Power was everything for us devils. It impacted the way we thought, moved, acted or even looked. It wouldn't be wrong to say that The more powerful you were, the more beautiful you also were.
It was a world where Eugenics were unfortunately true. You inherited power from your parents or ancestors and from this power all the benefits that came with it.
Asia had looked beautiful before becoming a member of my peerage. She could have been said to have the girl next door kind of beauty. She was beautiful but now she looked stunning. She looked like a celestial being who had chosen to walk on earth.
I wonder how different, inhumane they would look if they arrived or even surpassed their canonical peaks.
"I see it," Asia spoke.
"I do too," Issei followed seconds after her.
The supernatural beings of Japan, They had been called many things. They were called demons, spirits, Youkaï.
What we had done was cross into an area full of them. It was a good thing that the barrier had been erected because at best, they were playful toward humans and teasing. At worst, well, there was a reason why they were called demons even if they didn't compare to the atrocities I know that my ancestors enacted.
The crowd before us could only be heteroclite. I could see children with either toad's heads or slug's heads playing together.
I could see what seemed to be a bipedal canine haggling with a merchant that looked like a human with the head of a crow.
"President, can we be here?" Yuto asked.
It wasn't wrong from my Knight to ask. Japan was the territory of the Youkai, the Shinto and the Hindu. Abrahamic beings like Sona, me and our peerages weren't supposed to be allowed here.
More than sixty years ago, the policy had been to kill or try to kill any foreign supernatural being crossing the soil of Japan.
Japan and the supernatural beings that saw it as their homeland had thought themselves superior to most beings. This is why when the fallen angels provoked the Second World War, they allied themselves with them even though all of the different factions at that time knew that it was just an alliance of convenience, that sooner or later, one side would betray the other.
Contrary to the world I came from where there were more than six million people that died the second world war II of this war had taken from the world of the living more than thrice that number.
In a world where most exceptional people had either inherited a supernatural ability or were lucky enough to be born with the good genes to stand with the greatest of the moonlit world, it wasn't a surprise that the World War II of this world was more murderous.
I learnt through the basic education given to everything pure blood devil that an endless amount of Gods fell under the hands of our ultimate class devils when they tried to invade the underworld.
Diehauser Belial had apparently ripped the spine out of the back of Raijin, the Japanese god of thunder. If Fujin hadn't been there to help him flee, the god would have faded. Apparently, the emperor of the rating games had put over his door as a decoration.
Japan would have continued fighting if Ajuka Beelzebub hadn't intervened. The super devil was the one to murmur in the minds of Oppenheimer and other scientists the formula of the nuclear bomb.
What they hadn't known when they had thrown Fat Boy and Little Man at the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that what truly made the nuclear bombs deadly wasn't the fact that they were nuclear. The super devil had hidden in them what could be considered curses.
Curses that were fuelled by dead souls, magic and negativity. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the Japanese cities except Kyoto and Tokyo which had the more leylines in the land of the rising sun.
Hundreds of thousands of mortals died because of the bombs. That had just been the beginning. The curses swept over all of Japan infecting all supernatural beings or those having an ounce of it in their blood.
It ate them alive, corrupted and twisted their essences. There had been before the bombs eight million of kami throughout all of Japan. After the curses, the number dropped to less than half a thousand.
Only the strongest Japanese gods had been able to survive and even then, they had been greatly diminished.
This was the reason why Kuoh could be given to members of The Abrahamic faction like the dead cousin of the emperor of the rating games or me and Sona.
Japan had been turned into our playground. If they could Youkai and Kami alike would have thrown us out of Japan but they couldn't. They hadn't forgotten what happened when one of the satan was indirectly involved. They knew that if anything happened to any supernatural being coming from our faction, annihilation would be the last of their worries. After all, there were things worse than death.
The remaining supernatural beings were either dispersed into little hidden enclaves like the one we just found or The last strongholds they had were East and West Kyoto governed by Yasaka and the first Nurarihyon.
"Nothing will happen Yuto," I reassured my knight.
I felt something tug on my shirt. I turned toward the cause. It was Koneko and she was pointing to a sushi stand. "I'm hungry," she told me.
"Sorry Koneko," I told her. "Let's go eating."
We walked toward the stand. What seemed to be The chef had their back turned away from us. She had black cat ears and a black cat tail coming out of their coccyx. She was humming under her breath. She was probably a Nekomata. I turned toward my rook who was completely focused and seemed to have forgotten her surroundings.
It is true that the chef wasn't a nekoshou with her lack of a second tail but I feared that being in front of a youkai with cat-like traits even if they were not identical to Kuroka would be enough to put my rook in a bad place mentally. I truly needed to hire a therapist only for my peerage members.
I could see that she was preparing the sushi with utmost care. It looked like art. I could feel myself salivating.
With a twirl, she turned to face us. Now that I looked at her, I could see that my worries were unfounded.
Sure she was of a black colouration like Kuroka but the resemblance stopped there. Kuroko could be said to have a beauty that could be called cutting, cold and one that made you want to admire from away.
It wouldn't be an insult to say that The chef looked plain. She wasn't ugly at all and would have probably been seen as something that could be modelling just because of her face by mortals but when comparing her to other supernatural beings, it would be kind to say that she looked irreverent, like a background character that hadn't even truly be drawn because their existences didn't really matter In the story.
I turned to look at Issei. That still didn't stop him. He was leering, gawking at her breath. It wasn't me yet I felt the need to take a step back.
I could also see that the chef looked uneasy with his lustful gaze. Before I could intervene, Koneko kicked him without looking between his legs. His form crumpled on the ground. "Koneko, Why?" the boy said in agony on the ground.
"Pervert," was her only answer. From the corner of my right eye, I saw how Asia kneeled to begin to heal him.
Maybe it was me but I didn't understand how Issei before becoming a devil had expected to find a girlfriend when he looked at almost every woman as if they were pieces of meat.
If it had been happening somewhere else than Kuoh Academy, he would have been expelled. He and the two other members of his trio hadn't been because a powerful sacred gear had been felt from him, his friend Matsuda had been born with a good enough amount of magic from someone coming from a mundane background and Motohama even though he was a member of the perverted trio had won trophies before and after integrating Kuoh academy.
There was also maybe the fact that Sona and I were literal devils and in the underworld, TV shows made explicitly for children would have been called hardcore porn content by most human adults so maybe they were still there and not expelled because Sona as strict as she was is still a devil and had been raised as such.
"Hi," I said to the Nekomata in front of us. "We've seen from afar what you were cooking. We would like to taste your sushi. We'll obviously pay" I added.
She looked as if she would bolt at any second as if she was literally in front of her own end like a rat before a sadistic cat "Hi dear customer," she answered.
"It's a pleasure for me that you have chosen my fine establishment," she lied. She turned away from us to take the sushis she just had prepared.
Koneko took a seat and we followed suit. The nekomata turned back with the food on a plate. "Hope you like it," she told us.
"I know that it'll be good. You should maybe cook others while we're eating those." I looked at Koneko who was completely focused on the tray placed before us. "The question is if that will be enough."
"But I wa-" I cut the words of the Nekomata by materializing five heavy bars of gold before her.
Her demeanour completely changed "Of course esteemed client. I'll go back to making others."
I smiled at her. One of the greatest perks of being a pure-blood devil more than immortality was the wealth that came with it.
Most of The greatest human industries of the modern ages had been ushered by either devil's contractors, by devils themselves or by fallen angels.
More than that, pure-Blood Devil clans had territories sometimes bigger than human countries full of exotic. resources that had been created through the spilling of blood and demonic energy of countless beings for thousands of years.
It was when you thought about it kinda sad. This humanity didn't truly rise by its own merit. Sure there were a lot of them who had been exceptional through their sheer human will but for most of the things that humanity benefited from today, it had been because of supernatural beings.
By our existence, by our presence, we shackled them, stopped them from opening fully their wings. It was both tragic and pathetic.
Anyway, the point was that being the heiress of one of the royal pure-blood devil's houses meant that I was rich beyond belief. It meant that with my allowance, I could literally buy some countries if I wished to. I wouldn't because it would be a headache and all the moral implications and whatever but I could if I wished to.
I had been on both sides of the economic spectrum. I had known the most luxurious things the world could offer and I had gone through days where I wasn't even sure if I could afford my next meal. Those who say that money doesn't make you happy are filthy liars. I preferred crying in a big mansion to a little cramped apartment.
Koneko had begun eating without us. "We should begin eating too before she finishes everything," Kiba spoke.
Asia put her hands together "O lord, thanks for this ow". She wasn't able to finish.
"We're devils Asia," I reminded her. "The love that is said to be infinite had never been turned toward us."
I took one of the sushi and ate it. The flavour invaded my mouth. It felt so soft and tasty like a piece of Heaven.
Akeno and Kiba followed suit and tasted the sushi. The way their expressions changed to show bliss showed that they found it tasty too.
The only members of my peerage that hadn't yet tasted the food were Issei and Asia. The nun looked miserable and it made me remember that she had been denied Heaven because of my evil pieces, because of Issei.
The salvation that she had always longed for was something that she would never be able to attain again. She was cast out of the love of the god she had devoted herself all of her life and it hadn't been her choice.
She should have been angry at me, the world, Issei, at everything but since she had been reincarnated, she hadn't shown any malice or animosity.
She was literally too good for this world and this had been the reason why in the end, her choices had been stripped away from her.
Issei took one of the sushi and put it before the downward-looking face of the nun. "Asia," he called her name.
"Ye-" she tried to answer my pawn but I could see how impossible it was due to the fist full of sushi that my pawn had put in her mouth.
We all kinda looked at the boy in shock. I didn't know how to react "I was the one who asked the president to bring you back to life. I'm the reason you can't pray and even if I've never truly been a believer I know that it is important for you. I'm weak and I can't change much to your situation. What I can, no must do is to make sure that the sadness you feel never overwhelms you. I'll do everything to make sure that you'll create happy memories greater than everything I've taken from you, so please Asia eat those sushis," the brown-haired boy declared.
I watched how tears began to pool from the eyes of my bishop. It felt dirty as if I was watching something I wasn't meant to. I watched how the ex-nun chewed on the sushi in her mouth and swallowed it. "It is good, I love it," she said to the boy. Her left hand intertwined with the right hand of my pawn.
I could see on both their cheeks the appearance of a pink hue. They continued eating the sushis Issei feeding them to Asia.
Ok, what was that? That was unbelievably smooth?! It wasn't what I would have expected from my pawn even in a thousand years.
I hadn't been the one the words were directed at and I had felt touched. My knight hadn't been able to hide the shock that was plainly displayed on his face. The only thing Koneko had done was to direct some of the sushis in the direction of the two newly reincarnated devils, something that was coming from her an immense amount of respect and consideration.
Akeno was smiling yet I don't know why but it was a smile that felt broken, wistful I would dare to say.
I understood now why the canonical Rias Gremory had fallen in love with Hyoudou Issei. The boy was brash, loud, perverted and so many other negative descriptives that were probably true. His parent had chosen well his name. Honest, Issei was honest in the way he proudly declared his dreams and showed his love.
Raynare had really messed him up. With the way Asia was looking at him as if he was god that had descended from the heavens, It showed that the lasting consequences of his relationship with Raynare had completely destroyed Issei's belief in him being able to find genuine love. It was something that needed to be nipped as soon as possible not only for him but also for Asia. I never loved tragedies.
We continued eating in a comfortable silence, the laughter of young Youkaï behind us serving as a symphony.
*scene*
We left the sushi shop full and with a happy-looking cook behind us. I know that it was shown in the light novel that Koneko had a big appetite but seeing something and experiencing it were two different things.
The content smile on her face and the faces of the other members of my peerage showed that it was at least worthwhile.
"What are we doing next president?" Issei asked me.
"Whatever we want," I answered him. "What do all of you want to do?" I asked them.
"I think that I saw some shops selling Katanas. I would like to be able to inspect them and maybe buy them," Yuto told me.
"You know that I'll never let you use again a sword not made from your sacred gear right?" I said to my knight. "A weapon that can be taken away from you is not one you should invest yourself in using".
It was literally a trope. Sure, you have the super powerful mega boom-destroying sword capable of destroying the world but what's the point when you're yourself weak, when it can be taken from you at any moment?
That's why Kazuma had been able to beat that guy in Konosuba or why Ronan who had literally one of the fragments of the universe in his hand was able to lose against people he should have easily annihilated.
Wait a minute, wasn't possible for sacred gears to absorb exterior things like with Issei In canon with Ascalon or Saji with the other Vitra sacred gears?
I had never seen Yuto summon directly his sacred gear, just the weapon made with it. Maybe if it was impossible for him to project his sacred gear, it could still be possible for him to create a sword capable of absorbing other swords or something like that. I smiled to my knight "You can buy as many swords as you would like."
"I don't know why but I feel like there is something amiss," he muttered under in his breath. Oh Yuto, when I'm done with you, Gilgamesh and Shirou will look like jokes compared to you.
"I wanted to explore more," Asia said. I already knew that it meant that Issei would go with her.
"Alright, just be careful. Nothing should happen but I don't want to rely on the intelligence of the Youkai not being overridden by their emotions."
I turned toward Koneko "What about you? If you want, Yuto can open a portal to Kuoh for you," I told her.
"I'll follow Yuto. Maybe I'll be able to find tasty things to buy before we leave," she answered me.
My gaze slid on my queen in a silent question "I'll follow you Rias," she told me.
"You don't have to you know."
"I know it perfectly, it's my choice," Akeno said to me.
I didn't say anything else. She looked resolute. I knew that nothing would stop her from following me. The memories I had inherited showed that she had always been loyal, devoted but now, it felt different, more. Maybe it was because of the rating game, some kind of guilt that she was harbouring or maybe I was simply seeing nonexistent things.
I walked toward my bishop and took one of the hands in mine. I let my demonic energy flow out of me on the skin of the nun to Mark her. I left her hand and took a step back. Where there had been bare skin was now a symbol, the demonic symbol of the Gremory clan.
"Normally, you would have just been given a credit card with a near-unlimited amount of money but I'm not sure that they would accept a human or modern currency. This Mark will allow you to retrieve from one of the Gremory clan vaults what you would in case you purchase something," I explained to her.
The Mark was disappearing seemingly being absorbed by the skin. "You just have to flare your demonic energy where the mark is."
The others were already connected to our different vaults. They would be able if anything caught their fancy to purchase it. I didn't do the same with Issei because the boy even after training still had an abyssal amount of demonic energy. It would have been worthless to bestow on him the mark.
"Understood president," the ex-nun spoke. "We'll try to not spend too much."
"Spend as much as you want Asia," I told her.
"Bu-"
"No, but," I cut her.
I turned toward my pawn "Issei, make sure she doesn't shy away from spending on things she likes."
"It Will be done president," the brown-haired boy answered. The girl at his side looked overwhelmed. I couldn't blame her. She had never eaten a burger before coming to Japan, which was shocking. The only clothes that Asia also had were the nun outfit she had come with in Japan and the ones that had been bought for her either by Issei's mom or by me.
This was the reason why it was easy for devils and fallen angels to whisk away from the church and its followers. They were an organization built of a lie that I don't think the God they worshipped would be proud of.
Scandals, zealotry, sins, cruelty. It's as if the roles were becoming inversed. Asia was called a living saint, had been since the first time she awoke her sacred gear healing others for free and she, who had been blessed literally by their god with a sacred gear had never eaten a burger. Maybe I was repeating myself but still.
They were the same people who decided that when Asia healed a devil with the gift, the blessing of their god that she was a witch, that she had perverted the gift of their god when they were the ones, in reality, perverting everyone of his precepts, when they were the ones selling a global lie when the new god that sat on the throne wasn't enough like his father or his brother.
All of them, all of my peerage members That each time I looked at them made me feel like everything was okay. Maybe it was because of the feelings I inherited but I wanted to give them the world, make sure that they would never feel sadness again. For that, I needed strength. It was the only thing in this world that mattered.
"I'll repeat myself," I spoke. "I want each of you to be careful but except that, do whatever you want as long as if it doesn't endanger you. If anything happens, I want you to flare your demonic energy so you will be found. Am I understood?"
"Yes president," they said together like a choir before beginning to leave one by one In different directions.
"It's only you and me now," Akeno spoke at my side.
"Like it has always been." We began walking aimlessly my gaze losing itself in all the wonders and supernatural things surrounding us.
"You look enamoured with this place," my queen told me.
"I think I am." We walked before a shop that seemed to only be selling Kimonos. "I mean Look at the way Those kimonos seemed to have been made with the greatest."
I pointed at another shop where multicoloured flowers that looked too different from all the ones I had seen in the underworld or on Earth were exposed. "Look at them. I'm not even sure that such colours could bloom in the mortal world naturally."
We walked leaving behind us both the flowers and Kimonos selling shops. "The truth is that I want to create something like this one day."
"You want to grow flowers or create Kimonos?" she asked me.
"I didn't mean it in that sense." Our steps were taking us away from the Youkaï town toward what seemed to be the edge of the barrier.
"I want to create something beautiful, something that when I'm gone be it tomorrow or in a million years meant that I existed, that something I created was deserving of praise and admiration, that I existed."
"You never talked or acted the way you acted today before like this," Akeno told me. "I still see the Rias that I know but something changed. It is all because of the rating game, isn't it?"
Our walk stopped. Before us was a river. Looking at it with the sight that I naturally had as a devil, I could see that more than a river, it was a barrier. Crossing it would mean leaving this little pocket dimension.
"Would you believe me if I said that it wasn't the case? Maybe I'm a soul that had reincarnated in an anime and because of that, I don't act exactly the way I should."
"I would tell you in such a case that You watched too many animes. You're deflecting," Akeno spoke. If only she knew. I wondered how she would have reacted if she knew the truth. Would she look at me with eyes full of despair and hatred? Accuse me of having stolen, changed in an irremediable way her oldest friend?
"The rating game opened my eyes to many things. I felt it all. Each time that my flesh burnt, each time that I was sent careening through walls and the ground. What's funny is that what has hurt the most was the despair, the crippling fear, the idea of being chained for all eternity to him. This was more painful than any physical attack launched against me."
"I had thought that nothing would change, that Riser would surely win. At that moment, when I had let my power of destruction run amok through me, it wasn't because I wanted an edge or something like that. I wanted to consume everything that would have been the reason for the loss of my freedom. I didn't care if the one that would be hurt was Riser's queen or his sister or even me. I wanted to be free at any cost. When I thought that it would be my end, one that I had at least chosen, I felt something I've always craved for. It was ironically like a religious experience, a baptism. It gave me something that I had envied since the day of my birth. It gave me power.
I placed a hand on my heart "I can feel it there Akeno waiting to unfold, strengthen me at any adversity, protect me, give me the possibility of choosing. This power, This new strength that I feel coursing through me, it feels intoxicating." I turned to look into her eyes.
'They looked sad. They were too beautiful to look this way' I thought.
"This power, It also feels safe, like a promise that everything would be okay."
"Don't you hate me?" she asked me. "You had said nothing but we both know that If I had used what I had inherited from him, you wouldn't have done through any of it."
A wing erupted from her back, a fallen angel wing. Truth be told, it looked beautiful like a piece of midnight that had taken form. "This pain that you felt, the pain I saw you go through, it is all because of me."
"What do you want me to say Akeno," I asked her.
"I want you to blame me! To yell and be angry like you should at me!" Akeno shouted. "You had more than being my king been my everything, that gave me everything yet I chose myself over you!"
I could see tears falling from her eyes "I had chosen not to be there for you like he did."
I did what felt the more natural. I hugged her. "You're not like him Akeno," I whispered to her. "You're better."
I could feel her tears falling on my shoulder. At that moment, there was only one thing that I wished for more than everything. I wanted to erase those tears from existence as if they had never existed.
"I'm not Rias. I am exactly like me. His blood, his tainted blood runs into my veins and with it madness and cruelty. I am something spoiled that could never be cleaned."
How dared she?! That was enough. I broke the hug. I grabbed her head and looked into her violet eyes. Her gaze was shifty. She didn't want to look at me in the eyes but me grabbing her face stopped her from doing so.
"Do you trust me?" I asked her "Or did you stop"
"I will never stop trusting you Rias even if in the future, you discard me," she answered.
"Then what are you insulting me? Do you see me as too stupid to not choose the best? I chose you Akeno to be my queen. The moment I saw you when we were younger, I already knew at that moment that I wanted you to have you for all eternity at my side. I wanted you to be my family and you know what? You proved me right! I don't care that you're the child of one of the cadres of the Grigori. I don't care about your fallen angel blood. What I care about is that you called yourself spoiled, the way you hate yourself. Maybe all fallen angels are tainted but for me, it's not the case for you Akeno. For me, all parts of you are perfect and even if that wasn't the case, I don't care. I love you the way you are and I would never change anything that makes you so please, for me, never call yourself such a thing again."
Above us, fireworks exploded bathing us in multicoloured lights yet my gaze didn't leave her. "Promise me," I repeated.
"I promise," she said softly.
I removed my hand from her face "Good".
"President," I heard behind us. Without looking I knew that it was the different members of my peerage. I could feel their demonic energies coming closer.
I looked at the sky that was still bathed in a sea of colours "This view, isn't it beautiful?" I spoke out loud.
"Yes," I heard Akeno agree at my side. "It's the most beautiful thing in the world.
*scene*
She, Akeno Himejima had been born the daughter of the priestess Shuri Himejima and one of the watchers, one of the leaders of the Grigori Baraqiel.
In the first part of her life, She had grown with everything one could ask for. She was given everything she wished and showered in love by both her mother and her father.
She had admired the both of them. She had admired the beauty, the kindness of her mother. She had admired the strength and the gentleness of her father.
Her mother had told her that she was like Her Father, that she was special, that the wings and the lightning that she had inherited from him were the mark of her future greatness.
She had asked her mother what was greatness. Her mother had answered that it was happiness. It was the ability to protect your happiness and the happiness of your loved ones.
She had told Akeno that it was why she thought her father was the greatest because he would always be there to make sure they were happy.
Her mother had been wrong. Her faith in her husband had been misplaced and because of it, she died at the hands of her own kin.
Her mother and she had prayed to her father. He had told them that it would always come if they called. He didn't.
If she hadn't fled like a coward after seeing the corpse of her mother, maybe she wouldn't have still been alive.
The death of her mother taught her something. It taught her the cruelty of the world. It taught her humility. It taught her hunger, it taught her fear.
She slept in the cold streets, scavenged in trash bins or stole to be able to eat.
No one helped her. Mundane walked before and away from her as if she didn't exist. Supernatural beings at the sight of her either flew away or attacked her.
She was also being chased by the Himejima clan. Their talismans burnt and marked themselves into her flesh. Had she not been reincarnated, they would have still remained on her skin.
She had been hopeful. She had taught that sooner or later, her father would come, that it would take her into his strong arms like he used to do.
Even when the Himejima clan after 6 months of being on the run captured her, she still had hope that it would come and then she had thought, everything would be okay.
She lost hope when she learnt that everything she thought true was wrong when she learnt that the love she had thought truly existed between her parents was nothing but the result of her father twisting the mind of her mother.
They had told her that it was the reason why they decided that it would be best to end the life of her mother.
Akeno they had said was the result of rape, of something innocent being twisted. They told her that it was something fallen angels had the habit of doing to humans they found attractive.
They had told her that if the love her father and her mother had was real, that if the angel of lightning had truly loved her, he would have her and her mother but he didn't come because he didn't care about any of them.
She knew that while being their prisoner it was a question of time for them before they executed her.
She had longed for it, for this end. She had lost everything. Everything she thought was true was a lie. The blood, the inheritance that she took pride in was something tainted, twisted.
When the day came and she walked toward what she knew was her end, a feeling that she thought would never feel again surfaced. It was fear.
She had seen death and she had been scared. She had used the divine lightning she had inherited from him to free herself and flee.
The family members of her mother had still been able to follow her and inflict a significant amount of damage on her. She had almost died and would have if it had not been for her, for Rias.
The heavens had never smiled at Akeno due to her fallen blood but when she had seen her, she had thought that she had been an angel.
She, with her beautiful green-blue eyes, had asked Akeno if she wanted to live if she wanted them to become a family. How could she refuse when it had been what she had longed for since the death of her mother? She had accepted and she had never regretted it.
Rias unlike him didn't break her promise. The years where she had been at her side had been the most joyous that Akeno ever had. Akeno may have damned her soul but it was a damnation that she thought was worth it.
Something happened that maybe she should have expected. She fell in love with Rias Gremory but how could she not?
What had made her fall in love had not been Rias' appearance. It had been her care, her kindness, the way she had treated something like Akeno like something with value.
She had thought about proclaiming it to the heiress until she realized how impossible it was. Rias was promised to Riser Phenex and even if she didn't marry him, she would undoubtedly marry a pure-blood devil.
Even in the impossible case, it would not happen, Akeno may love Rias but Rias will never love Akeno.
She was a half-fallen angel who had been reincarnated into a devil. She was the result of rape, of something holy twisted into a monstrosity.
It was like Heloise and Abelard or Cleopatra and Mark Anthony or Romeo and Juliet. Her loving Rias could only end in tragedy. She didn't want to taint Rias. She didn't want to lose her.
She knew that she would never be able to love Rias the way she wanted, the way she deserved but what she could do was stay at her side until eternity separated them.
Even if the devil that she loved fell in love with someone else, it was okay. She ignored how her heart at those thoughts panged in her chest painfully.
Loving was discarding everything you personally wanted or wished so that the one you loved could be happy even if it wasn't with you.
She loved Rias to the point that it hurt. She had thought that she would do everything to make her happy, that she would always be there doing all in her power so that she could be happy.
She had been lying to herself. The love she had for Rias, which she thought was greater than everything hadn't been greater than her self-hatred.
She had shown her cursed nature and had been exactly like him. She didn't use her holy lightning even though she knew that Rias losing and being married to Riser Phenex would break the woman that Akeno loved.
When she had awoken and seen a rediffusion of the rating game, how Rias' eyes had looked so hopeless, desperate, how the woman she loved, her king chose to hurt herself so that she could win, the self-disgust that she had felt blooming through her had been an endless one.
She had watched how miraculously, Rias had begun to be stronger the longer the fight went on, how even after Riser turned into what seemed to look like a primogenitor of devilkind, Rias still won.
I stayed by her side with the other members of the peerage. I didn't leave it at any moment, unlike the others. I had failed and I had expected anger and hatred to bloom in her eyes at the sight of me but I was prepared for this. It was something I deserved.
Instead when days later, she awoke, she had looked at me with the same Love and care that she always did.
I watched how she acted both so differently and like she did in the past. It was as if she had changed. It was a change I knew had come because I hadn't been the Queen, the family that I was supposed to be to her.
When the others finally left, I found in me to courage to ask her why. Why wasn't she angry? Why didn't she hate me, something as spoiled and undeserving of her love?
She had taken me in her arms. If only she knew how much I wished this instant could last forever.
She told me that I was perfect, that since the first we met, it had been what she thought of me.
She asked me to never call myself such a word again. It would be hard but for her who believed in me, I would try.
"This view, isn't it beautiful?" she spoke out loud.
I looked at her illuminated by the fireworks, at how perfect and beautiful she was. "Yes," Akeno agreed at her side looking at her. "It's the most beautiful thing in the world."
'and I wished it could be mine' she added mentally.
If you were at the place of Kiba with his sacred gear and demonic energy, what would you create or try to?
View: https://youtu.be/S5PNBQMrh6Q
They retreated away from me allowing me to breathe. I could see relief all over their exhausted faces as if they had been suffering and the end of their torment had ended.
"I'm back," I said softly to them.
"Please, president never do again what you did. Next time, I'll be stronger so that it won't happen," my pawn declared.
He talked as if it was his fault as if all the blame for the actions that I had taken reposed on him. I could see the same guilt through the eyes of my peerage members, my family and in that moment, I felt like a failure.
"It wasn't your fault Issei," I spoke softly. My gaze wandered over all of them "It was the fault of none of you."
I could see how they wanted to object to my words. I didn't allow them "What happened is the fault of none of us here. You gave all of you your best. You fought and bled for me because all of you cared and loved me."
"I know I made a lot of people worry and I'm sorry for it."
I looked at their weary faces. Even with the essence I gained that should have negated it, I felt as if I was as exhausted as them. "May I ask a favour to all of you?" I asked them.
"Of course, President," Issei said.
"You can count on me," Asia added.
"I am your knight," Yuto said.
Koneko just nodded and Akeno, I didn't need her to answer to know That she would agree with me.
"Will all of you come with me to Shibuya?" I said to them.
"Shibuya?" Issei said looking confused.
"There are classes we would miss if we went," Asia added.
"I know but right now, I just want to forget about everything, about the underworld or even Kuoh. It's true that it's not the wisest thing to do but I ne-"
Akeno cut me "You don't need to justify yourself. You're my king, I'll follow you everywhere."
I don't know why but the way she looked at me made me feel warm. I felt as if I was blushing. It was probably my imagination but I swear that I could have seen Akeno's cheeks take a rose taint. I smiled at her "Thanks Akeno."
"Of course Rias. Everything for you," she answered me. She was truly a good queen.
I turned to Koneko who was now using my legs as a pillow like a cat. "I'll go with the president," she simply said.
"Thank you Koneko," I said to the younger girl. I rubbed her head the way you would do with a cat and she closed her eyes. I could feel vibrations going through my legs as if she was purring.
She didn't look as if this was what she was doing but I knew that I wasn't mistaken. She was so cute. I wanted to hug her to death.
My case slid over my pawn and my bishop. They looked at each other and a silent conversation seemed to be happening between them. It was something new, that didn't happen or that the original Rias hadn't seen happen before the rating game. Maybe I wouldn't have to do anything to push the two of them toward each other.
Asia nodded to Issei. She and The boy turned toward me. "We'll come with you, President," my pawn declared.
"Good," I said.
"Koneko," I called my rook. "I have to leave the bed."
"Not now," she purred.
"If you do it, I'll buy you ten big chocolate cakes." The white-haired girl moved like lightning away from me.
The greatest weakness of my rook was her sweet tooth. I was sure that there were a lot of things she would do even if she hated them just so that she could satisfy her craving for sweet things. It is something that would have been the reason for malnutrition and health problems for a human but we weren't humans. We were devils, beings that shaped the world only with our will and wishes.
I left the comfort of the hospital bed and stood up. There was a mirror on one of the walls and I could see my reflection in it, the proof that this wasn't a dream, that it was real.
I realized that While I had been asleep, my clothes had been swapped to a dull medical garment. It wouldn't do. Something else will have to do and that something won't be in any case the Kuoh uniform.
I knew that it was because it was easier when animating or drawing if the characters always wore the same outfit with little to no variation.
I thought about the clothes I knew I had now. I had an entire room in my manor with only clothes. I knew that I could be teleporting to it just to search for clothes that I would like but I wanted to try something else.
I closed my eyes and searched the spark of malevolence nested in my heart, what I knew as my demonic energy. It had grown significantly. Before unlocking the essence, it could be said that my demonic energy was a pool. After I unlocked it, it could have been compared to a river. Now after waking up, it felt like an ocean just waiting to be called.
So I called it. I didn't use incantations or mathematical formulas to make what I wanted to do easier. Those were crutches used by lower beings who needed them to do something worthwhile. I was a devil, I only had to wish it and as long as I had enough demonic energy, the world would bend to my will.
It was also something I didn't understand why devils didn't do more. Our demonic energy grew more when it was completely exhausted and replenished like a muscle growing stronger with exercise.
My demonic energy was of a dark black-purple colour almost like an amethyst I noted. I let it coat me. I wished and with my wish, the clothes that I wore disappeared in a flash of red letting me bare for a fraction of a second before new clothes materialized over my body.
I inspected my outfit. "How do I look?" I asked my peerage members who looked surprised because of the clothes I wore.
I could understand them. The original me favourited clothes that could be called simple. It didn't mean that she couldn't be flashy. It's just that she chose not to. I heard once that sometimes, a person looks good because of their clothes. Other times, it's not the clothes that make the person look good but it's the person who makes the clothes look good. I could say without vanity that I was in the second category.
The body that I had now could not be considered or even compared to a mortal one. It was too perfect, too symmetrical, something that shouldn't be humanly possible. It was the kind of beauty people would and did kill just to have the 1/100th of it.
With platforms Doc Martens replicas, baggy goth jeans with little belts and a black tea with a drawing of my brother with an electric guitar, I looked like a hot topic reject, a good-looking hot topic reject.
"The president looks different," Asia said before putting her hands on her mouth. She probably had thought out loud.
"Yes, I know that I look different." Japan was a country of conformism. What was the infamous quote? Ah yes, the nail that sticks up is hammered down.
I would never let myself be forced again to do something I hated, change myself to be treated like a normal person like people should normally be treated. Many would probably look at me and either avoid me or look at me in disgust but it means that the person that will still treat me as a normal person would not be shallow ones. If they couldn't see me as I was and accept me this way, I didn't want them in my vicinity.
"After Riser, I wanted to look different. The old Rias died with him." If only they knew how I was literal.
"You look wonderful Rias," Akeno told me while smiling.
I couldn't restrict the smile that bloomed on my face "Thanks Akeno. Do any of you want to change into something else?"
I saw them say no by movements of their heads. I clapped in my hands "Great. Let's go."
I turned toward my knight "Kiba, make us teleport to Shibuya," I ordered my knight.
He didn't discuss my order. "Understood President." I could sense how he began summoning his demonic energy and how a circle with the Gremory crest began to appear under us. I ejected from the sole of my feet a wave of power of destruction that erased the circle.
"President?" Kiba spoke. I could feel the question in his tone. Akeno and Koneko were also looking at me waiting for an explanation.
Issei hadn't been able to see or sense that I was the reason why the teleportation circle disappeared "Problems of performance, you good-looking bastard?" he mocked my knight. He was shut up by a touch of Asia. He looked at her and sighed "I apologize," he said sounding defeated.
"I stopped you from summoning the teleportation circle because of a reason Kiba. Do you know what it is?" I didn't give him time to answer "We're devils Kiba. You're a reincarnated one that was born with the sacred gear demonic sword births allowing you to create demonic swords with the effect you want."
Understanding passes through his eyes and the eyes of the other members of my peerage members. "You want me President to teleport us with a sword?"
"Yes Yuto," I confirmed.
"I'm not sure I could do such a thing, President," my knight spoke.
"Rias, the calculations needed for such a thing are a little bit beyond Yuto. His strength doesn't lie in magic," Akeno said to me.
I walked toward my knight and stopped before him. "Do you trust me?" I asked him.
"With my life," he answered instantaneously.
"There's something I learnt or it would be more true to say that I learnt again, something that I had forgotten. We are devils Yuto. We don't need calculations or incantations to create acts of sorcery, to make miracles. Issei created with the help of Asia a spell to destroy any clothes and it had not been two months since he had been a devil." I put my hand where I knew his heart was.
"Issei," I called my pawn without looking at him.
"Yes, president," he answered.
"Your spell, the one that you created and used against Riser's pawn. How did it come to life?" I asked him.
"I don't really know. I just knew what I wanted, a spell capable of allowing me to see all the boobs I wanted!" he yelled. I could never forget the sights" he fantasized out loud.
I could hear Akeno laugh and a whisper of pervert coming from Koneko "Issei, focus" I said to my pawn.
"Sorry president," the pervert apologized. "I just followed the instruction of Akeno-sempai. She had told me that our demonic energy is fuelled by our imagination so that's what I followed."
"Yuto," I said to the knight. "You've been a devil far longer than Issei. You have a bigger demonic energy than him. Your sacred gear creates demonic swords with the effects you want. You already know how to use a teleportation circle. You have reunited all the conditions I know will make sure you'll succeed."
"Close your eyes," I told him. He followed what I asked him to do. "Yuto, focus your demonic energy on one thing, on creating a sword capable of making us reach Shibuya."
I saw him take a deep breath. He put his two hands before him as if he was on the point of receiving something. I could feel a spike in his heartbeat and a surge in his demonic energy.
The demonic energy pooled floating over his hands formless. He had begun sweating as if he was doing an exhausting exercise "There's nothing you can't do Yuto."
"It is hard president," he spoke his voice strained.
"I know Yuto. Do you remember your dream Yuto, what you promised to destroy, what you promised to them? How would you be able to do it if you don't push yourself?" I spoke softly.
I smelt something in the air. It was sweet and intoxicating like a drug. I knew what it was. It was hatred in its pure undiluted form. A mini shockwave erupted from between my knight hands. I could hear the sound of glass breaking, of furniture flying in the air and falling.
The formless mass of demonic energy began to take form. What appeared between his hands was a longsword. Except for the ebony colour of the blade, it looked like a perfectly ordinary sword.
He grabbed the hilt of the sword and turned away from me. He slashed into the air and with the movement of the dark blade, space itself was cut.
The space distortion gave me a view from the sky. I could see on the other side colourful mega buildings. I could see thousands of people walking in every direction. I could see the Shibuya scramble square.
My knight was also looking in amazement as if he couldn't believe what he had been able to do. "I told you Yuto, there's nothing that you can't do, that we can't do. Never forget that. I could feel the steps of my peerage members coming closer to us "This is just the first step toward your goal."
"I had never thought I could do this but you still believed I could," he spoke softly.
"That's normal. We're family" I answered him as together we looked at the beautiful skyline of the city at night.
*scene*
We crossed to the other side. Behind me, I heard the noise of my peerage members releasing their wings to stay afloat. Me, I didn't do this. Instead, I used my demonic energy and made the laws of physic my bitch.
Under us, I could see thousands of people walking in so many different directions. They looked colourful and bright as if each of them were stars that had taken human forms.
"It is beautiful," I heard my bishop gasp behind me.
"It is," I confirmed.
I let my demonic energy retreat into my heart and I began to fall. It was a fall in the void, a leap of faith and it made me feel so free.
It seemed that I was falling into an alley. My back was coming closer and closer to the ground but I did nothing. I closed my eyes. Why should I be scared?
Something did stop my fall. Something soft yet firm. I opened my eyes up. My gaze lost itself in the eyes of the colour of the void.
"It wouldn't have hurt me," I spoke.
"I know," Akeno answered me. "My body moved by itself. The street would also have to be repaired and it'll come straight from your bank account."
"So you're only there for my money. I thought you loved me," I told her with a fake outrage.
I could see amusement dancing in her eyes "Of course, your bank account is the most important thing. Good whips, good collars and good handcuffs aren't cheap. Maybe I should use one of them on you because you seem to have become more reckless."
She didn't know that she had given me more rope to hang her with. I leaned on her shoulder and whispered in her right ear "I'm sure you would like to use them or maybe you would like me to use them on you Akeno," I sang her name.
A blush erupted on her face and I felt her stiffen. "Hum hum." A cough interrupted us. I turned toward its provenance. It was from my knight. There was Koneko, Asia and Issei at his side.
I realized that the three members of my peerage had probably been watching us without us noticing it. The three of them were blushing. Yuto looked as if he had wished he wasn't there. Asia had put her hands over Issei's eyes as if she wanted to protect him from watching something sinful.
I left Akeno's arms, my feet entering in contact with the asphalt under me. I acted as if nothing had happened.
I walked out of the alley and felt my peerage follow behind me. "Do you have an idea of what we would do?" Akeno asked me.
"Just broad strokes," I answered her. Looking at the neon lights, in the architecture that I could only call a mixture of modern and retro, I understood why Shibuya was seen as a must-see when coming to Japan.
"I feel ravenous. I feel like I haven't eaten for an eternity, so maybe eating something and after exploring the different shops?"
I turned toward my rook "What do you think of Sushis Koneko?" I asked her.
I wondered how she didn't receive whiplash with the way she nodded so quickly her head in affirmation.
"Is anyone here is against Sushis?" I asked my family.
The way Koneko looked murderously at them, I would be surprised if any of them disagreed. I was proven right when none of them spoke against my proposal.
We entered one of the alleys and I felt the strange but familiar feeling of crossing a barrier made so that no mundane would be able to cross. The alley expanded as if the space itself was being rearranged.
It looked as if we had travelled into the past. With lanterns replacing mega buildings, people are dressed in Kimonos or in Japanese traditional clothing instead of modern clothes.
"Wow," I heard my pawn gasp in surprise and amazement. "Everything changed".
"It must have been a barrier made so that no mundane could enter," Yuto spoke.
"No mundane?" Issei said.
"Issei, Asia, I want you to Look at the crowd and focus on them. Don't try to see like a human. Don't limit your sight," Akeno instructed them.
"It's like there was a fog surrounding them," Asia said.
"Push through it," I told her.
I looked at them. They probably weren't aware but their eyes had changed. The eyes of Issei weren't brown anymore. They shone like gold. They were slit as if they were the eyes of a reptile.
Asia's green eyes couldn't be called green anymore. They looked like entrancing toxic emeralds, bewitching eyes for who would lose their mind and kill.
Since both of them had been reincarnated, they had changed both physically and metaphysically. I wondered if they had noticed that they looked different from what they looked before. Issei had always been complaining about what he called pretty boys.
He didn't seem to have realized that he had fully entered the category. Power was everything for us devils. It impacted the way we thought, moved, acted or even looked. It wouldn't be wrong to say that The more powerful you were, the more beautiful you also were.
It was a world where Eugenics were unfortunately true. You inherited power from your parents or ancestors and from this power all the benefits that came with it.
Asia had looked beautiful before becoming a member of my peerage. She could have been said to have the girl next door kind of beauty. She was beautiful but now she looked stunning. She looked like a celestial being who had chosen to walk on earth.
I wonder how different, inhumane they would look if they arrived or even surpassed their canonical peaks.
"I see it," Asia spoke.
"I do too," Issei followed seconds after her.
The supernatural beings of Japan, They had been called many things. They were called demons, spirits, Youkaï.
What we had done was cross into an area full of them. It was a good thing that the barrier had been erected because at best, they were playful toward humans and teasing. At worst, well, there was a reason why they were called demons even if they didn't compare to the atrocities I know that my ancestors enacted.
The crowd before us could only be heteroclite. I could see children with either toad's heads or slug's heads playing together.
I could see what seemed to be a bipedal canine haggling with a merchant that looked like a human with the head of a crow.
"President, can we be here?" Yuto asked.
It wasn't wrong from my Knight to ask. Japan was the territory of the Youkai, the Shinto and the Hindu. Abrahamic beings like Sona, me and our peerages weren't supposed to be allowed here.
More than sixty years ago, the policy had been to kill or try to kill any foreign supernatural being crossing the soil of Japan.
Japan and the supernatural beings that saw it as their homeland had thought themselves superior to most beings. This is why when the fallen angels provoked the Second World War, they allied themselves with them even though all of the different factions at that time knew that it was just an alliance of convenience, that sooner or later, one side would betray the other.
Contrary to the world I came from where there were more than six million people that died the second world war II of this war had taken from the world of the living more than thrice that number.
In a world where most exceptional people had either inherited a supernatural ability or were lucky enough to be born with the good genes to stand with the greatest of the moonlit world, it wasn't a surprise that the World War II of this world was more murderous.
I learnt through the basic education given to everything pure blood devil that an endless amount of Gods fell under the hands of our ultimate class devils when they tried to invade the underworld.
Diehauser Belial had apparently ripped the spine out of the back of Raijin, the Japanese god of thunder. If Fujin hadn't been there to help him flee, the god would have faded. Apparently, the emperor of the rating games had put over his door as a decoration.
Japan would have continued fighting if Ajuka Beelzebub hadn't intervened. The super devil was the one to murmur in the minds of Oppenheimer and other scientists the formula of the nuclear bomb.
What they hadn't known when they had thrown Fat Boy and Little Man at the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that what truly made the nuclear bombs deadly wasn't the fact that they were nuclear. The super devil had hidden in them what could be considered curses.
Curses that were fuelled by dead souls, magic and negativity. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the Japanese cities except Kyoto and Tokyo which had the more leylines in the land of the rising sun.
Hundreds of thousands of mortals died because of the bombs. That had just been the beginning. The curses swept over all of Japan infecting all supernatural beings or those having an ounce of it in their blood.
It ate them alive, corrupted and twisted their essences. There had been before the bombs eight million of kami throughout all of Japan. After the curses, the number dropped to less than half a thousand.
Only the strongest Japanese gods had been able to survive and even then, they had been greatly diminished.
This was the reason why Kuoh could be given to members of The Abrahamic faction like the dead cousin of the emperor of the rating games or me and Sona.
Japan had been turned into our playground. If they could Youkai and Kami alike would have thrown us out of Japan but they couldn't. They hadn't forgotten what happened when one of the satan was indirectly involved. They knew that if anything happened to any supernatural being coming from our faction, annihilation would be the last of their worries. After all, there were things worse than death.
The remaining supernatural beings were either dispersed into little hidden enclaves like the one we just found or The last strongholds they had were East and West Kyoto governed by Yasaka and the first Nurarihyon.
"Nothing will happen Yuto," I reassured my knight.
I felt something tug on my shirt. I turned toward the cause. It was Koneko and she was pointing to a sushi stand. "I'm hungry," she told me.
"Sorry Koneko," I told her. "Let's go eating."
We walked toward the stand. What seemed to be The chef had their back turned away from us. She had black cat ears and a black cat tail coming out of their coccyx. She was humming under her breath. She was probably a Nekomata. I turned toward my rook who was completely focused and seemed to have forgotten her surroundings.
It is true that the chef wasn't a nekoshou with her lack of a second tail but I feared that being in front of a youkai with cat-like traits even if they were not identical to Kuroka would be enough to put my rook in a bad place mentally. I truly needed to hire a therapist only for my peerage members.
I could see that she was preparing the sushi with utmost care. It looked like art. I could feel myself salivating.
With a twirl, she turned to face us. Now that I looked at her, I could see that my worries were unfounded.
Sure she was of a black colouration like Kuroka but the resemblance stopped there. Kuroko could be said to have a beauty that could be called cutting, cold and one that made you want to admire from away.
It wouldn't be an insult to say that The chef looked plain. She wasn't ugly at all and would have probably been seen as something that could be modelling just because of her face by mortals but when comparing her to other supernatural beings, it would be kind to say that she looked irreverent, like a background character that hadn't even truly be drawn because their existences didn't really matter In the story.
I turned to look at Issei. That still didn't stop him. He was leering, gawking at her breath. It wasn't me yet I felt the need to take a step back.
I could also see that the chef looked uneasy with his lustful gaze. Before I could intervene, Koneko kicked him without looking between his legs. His form crumpled on the ground. "Koneko, Why?" the boy said in agony on the ground.
"Pervert," was her only answer. From the corner of my right eye, I saw how Asia kneeled to begin to heal him.
Maybe it was me but I didn't understand how Issei before becoming a devil had expected to find a girlfriend when he looked at almost every woman as if they were pieces of meat.
If it had been happening somewhere else than Kuoh Academy, he would have been expelled. He and the two other members of his trio hadn't been because a powerful sacred gear had been felt from him, his friend Matsuda had been born with a good enough amount of magic from someone coming from a mundane background and Motohama even though he was a member of the perverted trio had won trophies before and after integrating Kuoh academy.
There was also maybe the fact that Sona and I were literal devils and in the underworld, TV shows made explicitly for children would have been called hardcore porn content by most human adults so maybe they were still there and not expelled because Sona as strict as she was is still a devil and had been raised as such.
"Hi," I said to the Nekomata in front of us. "We've seen from afar what you were cooking. We would like to taste your sushi. We'll obviously pay" I added.
She looked as if she would bolt at any second as if she was literally in front of her own end like a rat before a sadistic cat "Hi dear customer," she answered.
"It's a pleasure for me that you have chosen my fine establishment," she lied. She turned away from us to take the sushis she just had prepared.
Koneko took a seat and we followed suit. The nekomata turned back with the food on a plate. "Hope you like it," she told us.
"I know that it'll be good. You should maybe cook others while we're eating those." I looked at Koneko who was completely focused on the tray placed before us. "The question is if that will be enough."
"But I wa-" I cut the words of the Nekomata by materializing five heavy bars of gold before her.
Her demeanour completely changed "Of course esteemed client. I'll go back to making others."
I smiled at her. One of the greatest perks of being a pure-blood devil more than immortality was the wealth that came with it.
Most of The greatest human industries of the modern ages had been ushered by either devil's contractors, by devils themselves or by fallen angels.
More than that, pure-Blood Devil clans had territories sometimes bigger than human countries full of exotic. resources that had been created through the spilling of blood and demonic energy of countless beings for thousands of years.
It was when you thought about it kinda sad. This humanity didn't truly rise by its own merit. Sure there were a lot of them who had been exceptional through their sheer human will but for most of the things that humanity benefited from today, it had been because of supernatural beings.
By our existence, by our presence, we shackled them, stopped them from opening fully their wings. It was both tragic and pathetic.
Anyway, the point was that being the heiress of one of the royal pure-blood devil's houses meant that I was rich beyond belief. It meant that with my allowance, I could literally buy some countries if I wished to. I wouldn't because it would be a headache and all the moral implications and whatever but I could if I wished to.
I had been on both sides of the economic spectrum. I had known the most luxurious things the world could offer and I had gone through days where I wasn't even sure if I could afford my next meal. Those who say that money doesn't make you happy are filthy liars. I preferred crying in a big mansion to a little cramped apartment.
Koneko had begun eating without us. "We should begin eating too before she finishes everything," Kiba spoke.
Asia put her hands together "O lord, thanks for this ow". She wasn't able to finish.
"We're devils Asia," I reminded her. "The love that is said to be infinite had never been turned toward us."
I took one of the sushi and ate it. The flavour invaded my mouth. It felt so soft and tasty like a piece of Heaven.
Akeno and Kiba followed suit and tasted the sushi. The way their expressions changed to show bliss showed that they found it tasty too.
The only members of my peerage that hadn't yet tasted the food were Issei and Asia. The nun looked miserable and it made me remember that she had been denied Heaven because of my evil pieces, because of Issei.
The salvation that she had always longed for was something that she would never be able to attain again. She was cast out of the love of the god she had devoted herself all of her life and it hadn't been her choice.
She should have been angry at me, the world, Issei, at everything but since she had been reincarnated, she hadn't shown any malice or animosity.
She was literally too good for this world and this had been the reason why in the end, her choices had been stripped away from her.
Issei took one of the sushi and put it before the downward-looking face of the nun. "Asia," he called her name.
"Ye-" she tried to answer my pawn but I could see how impossible it was due to the fist full of sushi that my pawn had put in her mouth.
We all kinda looked at the boy in shock. I didn't know how to react "I was the one who asked the president to bring you back to life. I'm the reason you can't pray and even if I've never truly been a believer I know that it is important for you. I'm weak and I can't change much to your situation. What I can, no must do is to make sure that the sadness you feel never overwhelms you. I'll do everything to make sure that you'll create happy memories greater than everything I've taken from you, so please Asia eat those sushis," the brown-haired boy declared.
I watched how tears began to pool from the eyes of my bishop. It felt dirty as if I was watching something I wasn't meant to. I watched how the ex-nun chewed on the sushi in her mouth and swallowed it. "It is good, I love it," she said to the boy. Her left hand intertwined with the right hand of my pawn.
I could see on both their cheeks the appearance of a pink hue. They continued eating the sushis Issei feeding them to Asia.
Ok, what was that? That was unbelievably smooth?! It wasn't what I would have expected from my pawn even in a thousand years.
I hadn't been the one the words were directed at and I had felt touched. My knight hadn't been able to hide the shock that was plainly displayed on his face. The only thing Koneko had done was to direct some of the sushis in the direction of the two newly reincarnated devils, something that was coming from her an immense amount of respect and consideration.
Akeno was smiling yet I don't know why but it was a smile that felt broken, wistful I would dare to say.
I understood now why the canonical Rias Gremory had fallen in love with Hyoudou Issei. The boy was brash, loud, perverted and so many other negative descriptives that were probably true. His parent had chosen well his name. Honest, Issei was honest in the way he proudly declared his dreams and showed his love.
Raynare had really messed him up. With the way Asia was looking at him as if he was god that had descended from the heavens, It showed that the lasting consequences of his relationship with Raynare had completely destroyed Issei's belief in him being able to find genuine love. It was something that needed to be nipped as soon as possible not only for him but also for Asia. I never loved tragedies.
We continued eating in a comfortable silence, the laughter of young Youkaï behind us serving as a symphony.
*scene*
We left the sushi shop full and with a happy-looking cook behind us. I know that it was shown in the light novel that Koneko had a big appetite but seeing something and experiencing it were two different things.
The content smile on her face and the faces of the other members of my peerage showed that it was at least worthwhile.
"What are we doing next president?" Issei asked me.
"Whatever we want," I answered him. "What do all of you want to do?" I asked them.
"I think that I saw some shops selling Katanas. I would like to be able to inspect them and maybe buy them," Yuto told me.
"You know that I'll never let you use again a sword not made from your sacred gear right?" I said to my knight. "A weapon that can be taken away from you is not one you should invest yourself in using".
It was literally a trope. Sure, you have the super powerful mega boom-destroying sword capable of destroying the world but what's the point when you're yourself weak, when it can be taken from you at any moment?
That's why Kazuma had been able to beat that guy in Konosuba or why Ronan who had literally one of the fragments of the universe in his hand was able to lose against people he should have easily annihilated.
Wait a minute, wasn't possible for sacred gears to absorb exterior things like with Issei In canon with Ascalon or Saji with the other Vitra sacred gears?
I had never seen Yuto summon directly his sacred gear, just the weapon made with it. Maybe if it was impossible for him to project his sacred gear, it could still be possible for him to create a sword capable of absorbing other swords or something like that. I smiled to my knight "You can buy as many swords as you would like."
"I don't know why but I feel like there is something amiss," he muttered under in his breath. Oh Yuto, when I'm done with you, Gilgamesh and Shirou will look like jokes compared to you.
"I wanted to explore more," Asia said. I already knew that it meant that Issei would go with her.
"Alright, just be careful. Nothing should happen but I don't want to rely on the intelligence of the Youkai not being overridden by their emotions."
I turned toward Koneko "What about you? If you want, Yuto can open a portal to Kuoh for you," I told her.
"I'll follow Yuto. Maybe I'll be able to find tasty things to buy before we leave," she answered me.
My gaze slid on my queen in a silent question "I'll follow you Rias," she told me.
"You don't have to you know."
"I know it perfectly, it's my choice," Akeno said to me.
I didn't say anything else. She looked resolute. I knew that nothing would stop her from following me. The memories I had inherited showed that she had always been loyal, devoted but now, it felt different, more. Maybe it was because of the rating game, some kind of guilt that she was harbouring or maybe I was simply seeing nonexistent things.
I walked toward my bishop and took one of the hands in mine. I let my demonic energy flow out of me on the skin of the nun to Mark her. I left her hand and took a step back. Where there had been bare skin was now a symbol, the demonic symbol of the Gremory clan.
"Normally, you would have just been given a credit card with a near-unlimited amount of money but I'm not sure that they would accept a human or modern currency. This Mark will allow you to retrieve from one of the Gremory clan vaults what you would in case you purchase something," I explained to her.
The Mark was disappearing seemingly being absorbed by the skin. "You just have to flare your demonic energy where the mark is."
The others were already connected to our different vaults. They would be able if anything caught their fancy to purchase it. I didn't do the same with Issei because the boy even after training still had an abyssal amount of demonic energy. It would have been worthless to bestow on him the mark.
"Understood president," the ex-nun spoke. "We'll try to not spend too much."
"Spend as much as you want Asia," I told her.
"Bu-"
"No, but," I cut her.
I turned toward my pawn "Issei, make sure she doesn't shy away from spending on things she likes."
"It Will be done president," the brown-haired boy answered. The girl at his side looked overwhelmed. I couldn't blame her. She had never eaten a burger before coming to Japan, which was shocking. The only clothes that Asia also had were the nun outfit she had come with in Japan and the ones that had been bought for her either by Issei's mom or by me.
This was the reason why it was easy for devils and fallen angels to whisk away from the church and its followers. They were an organization built of a lie that I don't think the God they worshipped would be proud of.
Scandals, zealotry, sins, cruelty. It's as if the roles were becoming inversed. Asia was called a living saint, had been since the first time she awoke her sacred gear healing others for free and she, who had been blessed literally by their god with a sacred gear had never eaten a burger. Maybe I was repeating myself but still.
They were the same people who decided that when Asia healed a devil with the gift, the blessing of their god that she was a witch, that she had perverted the gift of their god when they were the ones, in reality, perverting everyone of his precepts, when they were the ones selling a global lie when the new god that sat on the throne wasn't enough like his father or his brother.
All of them, all of my peerage members That each time I looked at them made me feel like everything was okay. Maybe it was because of the feelings I inherited but I wanted to give them the world, make sure that they would never feel sadness again. For that, I needed strength. It was the only thing in this world that mattered.
"I'll repeat myself," I spoke. "I want each of you to be careful but except that, do whatever you want as long as if it doesn't endanger you. If anything happens, I want you to flare your demonic energy so you will be found. Am I understood?"
"Yes president," they said together like a choir before beginning to leave one by one In different directions.
"It's only you and me now," Akeno spoke at my side.
"Like it has always been." We began walking aimlessly my gaze losing itself in all the wonders and supernatural things surrounding us.
"You look enamoured with this place," my queen told me.
"I think I am." We walked before a shop that seemed to only be selling Kimonos. "I mean Look at the way Those kimonos seemed to have been made with the greatest."
I pointed at another shop where multicoloured flowers that looked too different from all the ones I had seen in the underworld or on Earth were exposed. "Look at them. I'm not even sure that such colours could bloom in the mortal world naturally."
We walked leaving behind us both the flowers and Kimonos selling shops. "The truth is that I want to create something like this one day."
"You want to grow flowers or create Kimonos?" she asked me.
"I didn't mean it in that sense." Our steps were taking us away from the Youkaï town toward what seemed to be the edge of the barrier.
"I want to create something beautiful, something that when I'm gone be it tomorrow or in a million years meant that I existed, that something I created was deserving of praise and admiration, that I existed."
"You never talked or acted the way you acted today before like this," Akeno told me. "I still see the Rias that I know but something changed. It is all because of the rating game, isn't it?"
Our walk stopped. Before us was a river. Looking at it with the sight that I naturally had as a devil, I could see that more than a river, it was a barrier. Crossing it would mean leaving this little pocket dimension.
"Would you believe me if I said that it wasn't the case? Maybe I'm a soul that had reincarnated in an anime and because of that, I don't act exactly the way I should."
"I would tell you in such a case that You watched too many animes. You're deflecting," Akeno spoke. If only she knew. I wondered how she would have reacted if she knew the truth. Would she look at me with eyes full of despair and hatred? Accuse me of having stolen, changed in an irremediable way her oldest friend?
"The rating game opened my eyes to many things. I felt it all. Each time that my flesh burnt, each time that I was sent careening through walls and the ground. What's funny is that what has hurt the most was the despair, the crippling fear, the idea of being chained for all eternity to him. This was more painful than any physical attack launched against me."
"I had thought that nothing would change, that Riser would surely win. At that moment, when I had let my power of destruction run amok through me, it wasn't because I wanted an edge or something like that. I wanted to consume everything that would have been the reason for the loss of my freedom. I didn't care if the one that would be hurt was Riser's queen or his sister or even me. I wanted to be free at any cost. When I thought that it would be my end, one that I had at least chosen, I felt something I've always craved for. It was ironically like a religious experience, a baptism. It gave me something that I had envied since the day of my birth. It gave me power.
I placed a hand on my heart "I can feel it there Akeno waiting to unfold, strengthen me at any adversity, protect me, give me the possibility of choosing. This power, This new strength that I feel coursing through me, it feels intoxicating." I turned to look into her eyes.
'They looked sad. They were too beautiful to look this way' I thought.
"This power, It also feels safe, like a promise that everything would be okay."
"Don't you hate me?" she asked me. "You had said nothing but we both know that If I had used what I had inherited from him, you wouldn't have done through any of it."
A wing erupted from her back, a fallen angel wing. Truth be told, it looked beautiful like a piece of midnight that had taken form. "This pain that you felt, the pain I saw you go through, it is all because of me."
"What do you want me to say Akeno," I asked her.
"I want you to blame me! To yell and be angry like you should at me!" Akeno shouted. "You had more than being my king been my everything, that gave me everything yet I chose myself over you!"
I could see tears falling from her eyes "I had chosen not to be there for you like he did."
I did what felt the more natural. I hugged her. "You're not like him Akeno," I whispered to her. "You're better."
I could feel her tears falling on my shoulder. At that moment, there was only one thing that I wished for more than everything. I wanted to erase those tears from existence as if they had never existed.
"I'm not Rias. I am exactly like me. His blood, his tainted blood runs into my veins and with it madness and cruelty. I am something spoiled that could never be cleaned."
How dared she?! That was enough. I broke the hug. I grabbed her head and looked into her violet eyes. Her gaze was shifty. She didn't want to look at me in the eyes but me grabbing her face stopped her from doing so.
"Do you trust me?" I asked her "Or did you stop"
"I will never stop trusting you Rias even if in the future, you discard me," she answered.
"Then what are you insulting me? Do you see me as too stupid to not choose the best? I chose you Akeno to be my queen. The moment I saw you when we were younger, I already knew at that moment that I wanted you to have you for all eternity at my side. I wanted you to be my family and you know what? You proved me right! I don't care that you're the child of one of the cadres of the Grigori. I don't care about your fallen angel blood. What I care about is that you called yourself spoiled, the way you hate yourself. Maybe all fallen angels are tainted but for me, it's not the case for you Akeno. For me, all parts of you are perfect and even if that wasn't the case, I don't care. I love you the way you are and I would never change anything that makes you so please, for me, never call yourself such a thing again."
Above us, fireworks exploded bathing us in multicoloured lights yet my gaze didn't leave her. "Promise me," I repeated.
"I promise," she said softly.
I removed my hand from her face "Good".
"President," I heard behind us. Without looking I knew that it was the different members of my peerage. I could feel their demonic energies coming closer.
I looked at the sky that was still bathed in a sea of colours "This view, isn't it beautiful?" I spoke out loud.
"Yes," I heard Akeno agree at my side. "It's the most beautiful thing in the world.
*scene*
She, Akeno Himejima had been born the daughter of the priestess Shuri Himejima and one of the watchers, one of the leaders of the Grigori Baraqiel.
In the first part of her life, She had grown with everything one could ask for. She was given everything she wished and showered in love by both her mother and her father.
She had admired the both of them. She had admired the beauty, the kindness of her mother. She had admired the strength and the gentleness of her father.
Her mother had told her that she was like Her Father, that she was special, that the wings and the lightning that she had inherited from him were the mark of her future greatness.
She had asked her mother what was greatness. Her mother had answered that it was happiness. It was the ability to protect your happiness and the happiness of your loved ones.
She had told Akeno that it was why she thought her father was the greatest because he would always be there to make sure they were happy.
Her mother had been wrong. Her faith in her husband had been misplaced and because of it, she died at the hands of her own kin.
Her mother and she had prayed to her father. He had told them that it would always come if they called. He didn't.
If she hadn't fled like a coward after seeing the corpse of her mother, maybe she wouldn't have still been alive.
The death of her mother taught her something. It taught her the cruelty of the world. It taught her humility. It taught her hunger, it taught her fear.
She slept in the cold streets, scavenged in trash bins or stole to be able to eat.
No one helped her. Mundane walked before and away from her as if she didn't exist. Supernatural beings at the sight of her either flew away or attacked her.
She was also being chased by the Himejima clan. Their talismans burnt and marked themselves into her flesh. Had she not been reincarnated, they would have still remained on her skin.
She had been hopeful. She had taught that sooner or later, her father would come, that it would take her into his strong arms like he used to do.
Even when the Himejima clan after 6 months of being on the run captured her, she still had hope that it would come and then she had thought, everything would be okay.
She lost hope when she learnt that everything she thought true was wrong when she learnt that the love she had thought truly existed between her parents was nothing but the result of her father twisting the mind of her mother.
They had told her that it was the reason why they decided that it would be best to end the life of her mother.
Akeno they had said was the result of rape, of something innocent being twisted. They told her that it was something fallen angels had the habit of doing to humans they found attractive.
They had told her that if the love her father and her mother had was real, that if the angel of lightning had truly loved her, he would have her and her mother but he didn't come because he didn't care about any of them.
She knew that while being their prisoner it was a question of time for them before they executed her.
She had longed for it, for this end. She had lost everything. Everything she thought was true was a lie. The blood, the inheritance that she took pride in was something tainted, twisted.
When the day came and she walked toward what she knew was her end, a feeling that she thought would never feel again surfaced. It was fear.
She had seen death and she had been scared. She had used the divine lightning she had inherited from him to free herself and flee.
The family members of her mother had still been able to follow her and inflict a significant amount of damage on her. She had almost died and would have if it had not been for her, for Rias.
The heavens had never smiled at Akeno due to her fallen blood but when she had seen her, she had thought that she had been an angel.
She, with her beautiful green-blue eyes, had asked Akeno if she wanted to live if she wanted them to become a family. How could she refuse when it had been what she had longed for since the death of her mother? She had accepted and she had never regretted it.
Rias unlike him didn't break her promise. The years where she had been at her side had been the most joyous that Akeno ever had. Akeno may have damned her soul but it was a damnation that she thought was worth it.
Something happened that maybe she should have expected. She fell in love with Rias Gremory but how could she not?
What had made her fall in love had not been Rias' appearance. It had been her care, her kindness, the way she had treated something like Akeno like something with value.
She had thought about proclaiming it to the heiress until she realized how impossible it was. Rias was promised to Riser Phenex and even if she didn't marry him, she would undoubtedly marry a pure-blood devil.
Even in the impossible case, it would not happen, Akeno may love Rias but Rias will never love Akeno.
She was a half-fallen angel who had been reincarnated into a devil. She was the result of rape, of something holy twisted into a monstrosity.
It was like Heloise and Abelard or Cleopatra and Mark Anthony or Romeo and Juliet. Her loving Rias could only end in tragedy. She didn't want to taint Rias. She didn't want to lose her.
She knew that she would never be able to love Rias the way she wanted, the way she deserved but what she could do was stay at her side until eternity separated them.
Even if the devil that she loved fell in love with someone else, it was okay. She ignored how her heart at those thoughts panged in her chest painfully.
Loving was discarding everything you personally wanted or wished so that the one you loved could be happy even if it wasn't with you.
She loved Rias to the point that it hurt. She had thought that she would do everything to make her happy, that she would always be there doing all in her power so that she could be happy.
She had been lying to herself. The love she had for Rias, which she thought was greater than everything hadn't been greater than her self-hatred.
She had shown her cursed nature and had been exactly like him. She didn't use her holy lightning even though she knew that Rias losing and being married to Riser Phenex would break the woman that Akeno loved.
When she had awoken and seen a rediffusion of the rating game, how Rias' eyes had looked so hopeless, desperate, how the woman she loved, her king chose to hurt herself so that she could win, the self-disgust that she had felt blooming through her had been an endless one.
She had watched how miraculously, Rias had begun to be stronger the longer the fight went on, how even after Riser turned into what seemed to look like a primogenitor of devilkind, Rias still won.
I stayed by her side with the other members of the peerage. I didn't leave it at any moment, unlike the others. I had failed and I had expected anger and hatred to bloom in her eyes at the sight of me but I was prepared for this. It was something I deserved.
Instead when days later, she awoke, she had looked at me with the same Love and care that she always did.
I watched how she acted both so differently and like she did in the past. It was as if she had changed. It was a change I knew had come because I hadn't been the Queen, the family that I was supposed to be to her.
When the others finally left, I found in me to courage to ask her why. Why wasn't she angry? Why didn't she hate me, something as spoiled and undeserving of her love?
She had taken me in her arms. If only she knew how much I wished this instant could last forever.
She told me that I was perfect, that since the first we met, it had been what she thought of me.
She asked me to never call myself such a word again. It would be hard but for her who believed in me, I would try.
"This view, isn't it beautiful?" she spoke out loud.
I looked at her illuminated by the fireworks, at how perfect and beautiful she was. "Yes," Akeno agreed at her side looking at her. "It's the most beautiful thing in the world."
'and I wished it could be mine' she added mentally.
If you were at the place of Kiba with his sacred gear and demonic energy, what would you create or try to?
Stars don't burn, they scream
- Location
- france
'You would have thought that after millions of years, things would be different but it wasn't the case at all,' Kokabiel mused while watching from afar a star that had consumed all of its hydrogen began to turn into a supernova.
It was always the same thing. It was always the same joy, the same issues, the same fear, the same hatred.
He missed his father and his brother to be honest. When they were still alive, things were more simple.
It was just fighting, trying to kill the other, nothing else. Unfortunately, things had changed. They were now saddled with a word that he hated so much, responsibility.
They were supposed to care about those weaker than them under their banner. They were supposed to be fine with the stalemate between the Abrahamic factions.
Kokabiel could only see it as an insult. How many have died in the goal of things changing? How many have died so that a new world order would be created? How many have died so that they could avenge their Nephilim children butchered by Gabriel and Uriel?
This stalemate, this piece was nothing else but an insult to his dead siblings. Change, Kokabiel yearned for it like a dehydrated man in the desert.
Azazel, the fool thought of ushering it! Around him, the infinite darkness of space began to burn. Azazel thought of trampling everything that they'd ever fought for.
Make peace with the devils? The Lesser spawns of the demons that had betrayed in the past their fallen brethren?
The angels, those sanctimonious winged bastards more robots than living beings that chose to slaughter their own kin with smiles on their faces?
Kokabiel was many things but one of the things he wasn't was a hypocrite. He would not accept an end where both angels and devils were not crushed.
The star, it was near its end "You lived long my child," the fallen angel spoke.
The star spoke in a language that Kokabiel was the last being to understand "My duty, did I do it well?" the star asked through hazes of solar flare and light emissions.
"You executed your duty without fail," Kokabiel reassured the dying star. "I am proud and I know that they would be too."
As if his words were the trigger, Kokabiel felt the light, the soul of the star fades away leaving behind an empty husk.
Kokabiel directed the palm of his right hand to the corpse of the star. Threads of what seemed to be light began to grow from the dead star and toward the fallen angel.
The light touched the hand of the fallen angel and for a moment, it seemed as if the universe was holding his breath.
The star lost its shape and like in a vortex plunged itself into the fallen angel's hand. The fallen Angel's eyes lit up. The darkness made form that was adorning his wings was chased away to take the shape of snow-white wings with geometrical markings and Enochian runes. A halo of gold flickered over his head.
Kokabiel has met Death. Where most feared her and did everything to hide from her gaze, Kokabiel didn't. When he had almost died fighting against one of the inheritors of the aspects of his father when he had laid broken, She was there in all her beauty and looking at the endless, Kokabiel had an epiphany.
Why should he fear death when she was so beautiful? Why should he fear nothingness when the most beautiful things never fade away?
Even if he died, his cause would endure way after he was gone if it was the right one and Kokabiel knew that he was right.
God was dead, his inheritors were either dead with him or reduced to a shadow of their former selves.
The watcher gritted his teeth in pain as he felt it crawling, moving In his back. His agony was ended by the growth of another pair of wings.
It meant one thing, that his throne was up to be usurped. The watcher, no the Seraphim let his gaze pierce through the different layers of heaven to an empty room with a throne, to the place where they had stood alone so different and more than any other angel their Father had made.
Kokabiel will win against the devils and the angels, will crush them. He will do the same thing to any pagan dating to put themselves in his way and in the end, he will claim the throne not because of birthright but because of his hardships, of his will.
"My lord Kokabiel, we've finished the task you instructed us," a fallen angel said behind him.
"I am no lord, Ariel," Kokabiel answered the fallen angel without looking. "We are siblings fighting for what needs to be done, for what is just. Lordship is a concept that was created by a narcissistic and egotistical piece of shit with an inferior complex so that he could feel that he matters, that he would be able to escape her.
He finally turned to look at the other fallen angel. Ariel had been a Cherubim before his fall. His eight wings highlighted that fact.
Ariel had fallen because he had been compassionate. The cherubim had been sent on a mission where he was supposed to kill a Nephilim child fallen angel and cadre Armaros.
Ariel had sneaked into the city where the child lived disguised as a frail old woman. Ariel hadn't known what the Nephilim looked like so he had to stay longer to determine who was his target.
While on this mission, Ariel built involuntarily what could be called a friendship with one of the children of the city. The child was called Amos.
The child had seen a frail old woman living by herself and had tasked himself since the first time he had seen her to make things easier for her.
The child each time that his mother was cooking would divide his portion to share with the disguised angel or he would try to help the frail old woman walk by letting her lean on him.
It lasted for 7 months. Ariel had admitted to him that they at that time forgotten that they were on a Heaven-sanctioned mission.
The world was cruel. It was just a question of time before something bad would happen and like everything that goes wrong, it began because of devils.
A group of devils had waited until Armaros wasn't there to attack. Most of them did little to no damage due to the fact that the city of humans they attacked had its defenders trained and instructed by Armaros.
One devil was able to sneak into the city and unluckily, the first ones that he saw were the disguised Ariel and the child.
The devil had attacked them trying to make some bloodshed before his inevitable demise. Amos had been scared not for only himself but also for the old woman that he was now considering as family.
Amos had used the power that he inherited from his fallen angel sire, the power to undo everything and had used it on the devil.
The devil had been brought back to the nothing of the before of his creation. A child had to kill and taint their innocence to protect someone.
Amos had killed for Ariel and Ariel was supposed to kill Amos. Ariel at that moment had told him that he knew at that moment that it was impossible for him to succeed in his mission.
Ariel knew that as long as he disobeyed the decree of the heavens, he would be banned at best and killed at worst.
Ariel sacrificed everything that he ever held dear, the love of his father and his siblings, the Heaven he grew up in for the child of a fallen angel and because of this, the Cherubim fell.
The disguised Cherubim had waited that night after most were asleep to leave the city. When Kokabiel had first met him, the other fallen had been in the act of ending his own life.
Armaros had known since the beginning that Ariel even disguised had been an angel but had done nothing. He had wanted to wait to see if the Cherubim had been a threat or could become an ally so when Ariel had tried to end himself, something that was unfortunately common from newly fallen angels, Kokabiel had been ready to intervene and stop him.
"Do you remember what you asked me when we first met?" Kokabiel asked the fallen angel.
Ariel chuckled "Yes, I remember. My existence is now worthless. Why do you search to preserve it?" Ariel had asked him.
Kokabiel had replied by saying "Losing your life would hurt Amos. He killed for you because he loves you, he thinks that you are worth something. You lost everything. It's not an end, just a beginning if you let us help you."
He had presented his hand to the other fallen waiting for him to grab it "Let us give more than everything you lose."
"Your life, give it to us and I promise you under the aether and over the abyss, before the endless that I'll do my best so that when you leave this world, you won't be full of regrets".
Kokabiel had felt the attention of the endless on him yet he hadn't faltered. "I don't understand why. I serve to nothing, I'm useless and yet you're here a ten-winged angel swearing before ethereal forces that you'll take care of me," Ariel had spoken puzzled while looking at Kokabiel's hand.
"It's simple, all lives are worth it. The only way we were shown that we mattered, that we deserved his love was because of usefulness but love, true love is free and unconditional. I, dream, want a world where all of my siblings can find happiness without having to sacrifice themselves for it."
The angel had grabbed his hand "That dream of yours, it is beautiful."
"What's your name?" the fallen angel had asked.
"Kokabiel, the angel of the stars," he had answered.
His reminiscence was cut by Ariel. "I still don't understand how you can still have white wings."
"I don't really know why," he replied. "Maybe my actions are in accordance with what my father would have wanted and because of this, the system that he had built before his demise gave them back to me."
There were doubts written on the face of Ariel. "Do you truly believe it is the cause?"
"No," Kokabiel admitted. "I think that those wings, I gained them back because I wanted them."
"I don't really follow you. If it was the case, all fallen would have back into his Heavens," Ariel told him.
Kokabiel could understand his line of thinking. How many fallen had thought that virtuous acts would shed the dark of their wings?
How many fallen had gone on pilgrimages, falling prey to stronger beings so that they could get back his love?
How many fallen had thought that falling on their own sword would absolve themselves of their sins so that for less than an instant, they would be able to feel again his love? All for naugh.
"Not in that sense. I did not ask for his forgiveness and even if he had given it to me,
I wouldn't have accepted it. It happened because I stopped believing that I Kokabiel deserved everything wrong that had happened to me," Kokabiel spoke.
"My fall from heaven, the loss of my children, the loss of those that fought in my banner, the lives I took. After all those millions of years of war, survival and endless slaughter, I had thought that I deserved it."
Kokabiel chuckled "The next time that I see the spectre, I'll have to thank him. He made me realize that everything I've done was right. I'm sure that it wasn't his goal but he made me realize that the loss of my children at the hands of Gabriel, that all of those things, that they weren't my fault."
Ariel was gaping at him "You are talking of self-actualization. If what you say is true, it'll change everything."
"Or maybe nothing," Kokabiel added. "Even if all fallen rose up to their former forms, do you think that they would forgive, that they could forget everything their brethren, those that never fell did to them?"
"You're right," Ariel admitted his shock having been turned into disappointment.
At the level of his right ear, a little blazing violet circle appeared surrounding it. Kokabiel went back to focusing on the stars.
Ragiel and his tools. His older brother liked to craft and create things. In the beginning, his interest had only been around weapons and He could not restrain the chuckle that escaped Kokabiel cosmetics.
Kokabiel and the others had always lorded it over Ragiel's head each time they thought that the ego of their older brother needed to be checked.
One of the reasons Kokabiel wanted to win this war was to undo every curse or mistake his father had inflicted on the world.
Ragiel even if it seemed hard to believe had before the flood truly fallen in love with a human woman. They had children. Kokabiel even to this day had never seen Azazel more happy, more proud.
Ragiel had been their leader so when the wrath of the heavens fell on them, the one that was personally singled out by their Father had been Ragiel. His name was taken from him.
His children whom he loved dearly tortured and beheaded before his eyes, the soul of the woman he loved extinguished, completely destroyed.
Their father twisted him, changed his nature and gave him the name of the scapegoat, of Azazel. When they had all been imprisoned under the Earth in the darkness, his brother was buried with the decaying corpses of his children.
If that wasn't enough, when they were able to free themselves, they would learn with anguish and sadness that Ragiel now Azazel was cursed by their father, unable to bring children into the world again.
Curses, blessings, they were all the same at their root. They were only seen as different because of whether the ones touched by them found them boons or not.
This was why Azazel studied sacred gears with such zeal. This was the reason why his brother had done things that a younger him would have puked at.
Azazel wanted to break the curse inflicted on him by studying the blessings of gods, the sacred gears and the system that their father left before his demise.
Azazel was more a living corpse than anything else. Maybe only Kokabiel could see it, but in his eyes, his brother was already dead.
He had lost the most precious thing he ever had, his wife and children. It was clear that all the debauchery the older fallen threw himself in was to forget, maybe to fill the gaping hole in his heart left by the death of his loved ones but it was clear so far that it was useless.
Kokabiel knew that the only reason why his older brother hadn't faded was because his new name of scapegoat made him unable to.
That's why Kokabiel needed to win. It wasn't only for himself and his pride, it was for his family.
"Everything is ready Kokabiel," Ariel said behind him.
Kokabiel turned his focus on Earth more precisely at the Vatican in Rome. The Pope, the supposed chosen, the bridge between the heavens and the Earth was preaching about things Kokabiel didn't see the importance in trying to know.
Around him were cardinals, modern living saints, exorcists of high rank, those aware of the supernatural world.
"Give them the signal," the twelve wings angel whispered.
"Do it now!" he heard Ariel say into the violet magic circle.
"This is why we nee-". The words from the pope were cut short by a blade in his throat, a demonic blade.
He could see realization enter in the eyes of the others by the widening of their eyes. Unfortunately for them, the surprise of Kokabiel didn't stop at that.
The sword embedded in the flesh of the Pope began to shine brightly before detonating. The fastest of them were able to rush out of the room and the strongest of them just tanked the blast. The others that were not strong enough or fast enough or even lucky enough died.
With his eyes, Kokabiel could see that other parts of the Vatican were exploding. He watched as buildings fell and crushed in a pulp shocked believers. Children, believers, non-believers, priests, nuns, Death came to all of them indiscriminately. Thousand of deaths, thousands of lives wiped away in a mere moment
He watched how they died praying and cursing a god that would never answer. "I hope that the demonic energy of the weapons was potent enough," Kokabiel murmured.
"According to our calculations, the miasma of demonic energy would be so thick that it would be able to be seen even by mundane. Because of his nature, it's just a question of time before the death count rises. Even if the angels come from heaven now, it wouldn't matter, I made sure of this," Ariel told him.
"You or the fae?" Kokabiel teased him.
"Most of the work came from me. It's just that their technology and magic are impossible to understand. It's as if the more I try, the less it makes sense," Ariel spoke.
Fairies, Fairfolks, monsters, the mad ones. They all came in many forms and They had many names. What defined them as a race was the collective madness that they had inherited from their forefather.
The first Fae had been a Nephilim. The Nephilim's name had been Absalom and he had been the only child that Kokabiel had ever brought into the world.
The Nephilim had seen how his brethren were being butchered by Gabriel and the angels under his banner. Absalom had seen how the Watchers were broken and chained before the demiurgic archangel.
Kokabiel had been connected to his child mentally and the fear that had been coursing through the veins of his child had been what Kokabiel could only call primal, devoid of all thought.
Kokabiel had taught his child how to talk to the stars and celestial bodies. His child combined the magic the Grigori taught and the power he had inherited to make something spectacular.
His child was able to make himself be noticed by Delirium. He begged the endless to save his life and the endless accepted by changing the Animus, the very core being of his child. Absalom was claimed by Delirium and with it, Kokabiel lost his child. Absalom died and Oberon was born.
Absalom and his descendants after him decided to live in the realm of the endless, something that warped them even more.
They knew things that made reality scream in agony when uttered, their magic and their craft were something beyond understanding capable of feats that were equal to the ones made by the twins Michael and Helel.
Absalom even though he has been warped was still his child and had kept even in his madness his hatred for Kokabiel's father, something that all of his descendants also inherited. That hatred also involved everything that his father had created.
When he had ventured into the twisting and maddening realm of the endless and asked the help of The Faes in unmaking everything that his father had built, they accepted it.
Even though Kokabiel would have liked to personally start the new great war, doing such would have only resulted in him losing more of his siblings fallen.
Instead, Kokabiel had decided to make his task easier simply by blaming the devils. It's as if they would be believed if they denied that the attack was coming from them because no one trusted them.
Heaven and hell would enter into war, making each other bleed. Kokabiel would wait, be patient and strike at the first good occasion.
The game was on and Kokabiel had never been fond of losing. It was time for the world to change. It was time for a new god to take and seat on the throne.
Fuck canon. I didn't want with this fic to follow it so yeah beginning of a second great war
It was always the same thing. It was always the same joy, the same issues, the same fear, the same hatred.
He missed his father and his brother to be honest. When they were still alive, things were more simple.
It was just fighting, trying to kill the other, nothing else. Unfortunately, things had changed. They were now saddled with a word that he hated so much, responsibility.
They were supposed to care about those weaker than them under their banner. They were supposed to be fine with the stalemate between the Abrahamic factions.
Kokabiel could only see it as an insult. How many have died in the goal of things changing? How many have died so that a new world order would be created? How many have died so that they could avenge their Nephilim children butchered by Gabriel and Uriel?
This stalemate, this piece was nothing else but an insult to his dead siblings. Change, Kokabiel yearned for it like a dehydrated man in the desert.
Azazel, the fool thought of ushering it! Around him, the infinite darkness of space began to burn. Azazel thought of trampling everything that they'd ever fought for.
Make peace with the devils? The Lesser spawns of the demons that had betrayed in the past their fallen brethren?
The angels, those sanctimonious winged bastards more robots than living beings that chose to slaughter their own kin with smiles on their faces?
Kokabiel was many things but one of the things he wasn't was a hypocrite. He would not accept an end where both angels and devils were not crushed.
The star, it was near its end "You lived long my child," the fallen angel spoke.
The star spoke in a language that Kokabiel was the last being to understand "My duty, did I do it well?" the star asked through hazes of solar flare and light emissions.
"You executed your duty without fail," Kokabiel reassured the dying star. "I am proud and I know that they would be too."
As if his words were the trigger, Kokabiel felt the light, the soul of the star fades away leaving behind an empty husk.
Kokabiel directed the palm of his right hand to the corpse of the star. Threads of what seemed to be light began to grow from the dead star and toward the fallen angel.
The light touched the hand of the fallen angel and for a moment, it seemed as if the universe was holding his breath.
The star lost its shape and like in a vortex plunged itself into the fallen angel's hand. The fallen Angel's eyes lit up. The darkness made form that was adorning his wings was chased away to take the shape of snow-white wings with geometrical markings and Enochian runes. A halo of gold flickered over his head.
Kokabiel has met Death. Where most feared her and did everything to hide from her gaze, Kokabiel didn't. When he had almost died fighting against one of the inheritors of the aspects of his father when he had laid broken, She was there in all her beauty and looking at the endless, Kokabiel had an epiphany.
Why should he fear death when she was so beautiful? Why should he fear nothingness when the most beautiful things never fade away?
Even if he died, his cause would endure way after he was gone if it was the right one and Kokabiel knew that he was right.
God was dead, his inheritors were either dead with him or reduced to a shadow of their former selves.
The watcher gritted his teeth in pain as he felt it crawling, moving In his back. His agony was ended by the growth of another pair of wings.
It meant one thing, that his throne was up to be usurped. The watcher, no the Seraphim let his gaze pierce through the different layers of heaven to an empty room with a throne, to the place where they had stood alone so different and more than any other angel their Father had made.
Kokabiel will win against the devils and the angels, will crush them. He will do the same thing to any pagan dating to put themselves in his way and in the end, he will claim the throne not because of birthright but because of his hardships, of his will.
"My lord Kokabiel, we've finished the task you instructed us," a fallen angel said behind him.
"I am no lord, Ariel," Kokabiel answered the fallen angel without looking. "We are siblings fighting for what needs to be done, for what is just. Lordship is a concept that was created by a narcissistic and egotistical piece of shit with an inferior complex so that he could feel that he matters, that he would be able to escape her.
He finally turned to look at the other fallen angel. Ariel had been a Cherubim before his fall. His eight wings highlighted that fact.
Ariel had fallen because he had been compassionate. The cherubim had been sent on a mission where he was supposed to kill a Nephilim child fallen angel and cadre Armaros.
Ariel had sneaked into the city where the child lived disguised as a frail old woman. Ariel hadn't known what the Nephilim looked like so he had to stay longer to determine who was his target.
While on this mission, Ariel built involuntarily what could be called a friendship with one of the children of the city. The child was called Amos.
The child had seen a frail old woman living by herself and had tasked himself since the first time he had seen her to make things easier for her.
The child each time that his mother was cooking would divide his portion to share with the disguised angel or he would try to help the frail old woman walk by letting her lean on him.
It lasted for 7 months. Ariel had admitted to him that they at that time forgotten that they were on a Heaven-sanctioned mission.
The world was cruel. It was just a question of time before something bad would happen and like everything that goes wrong, it began because of devils.
A group of devils had waited until Armaros wasn't there to attack. Most of them did little to no damage due to the fact that the city of humans they attacked had its defenders trained and instructed by Armaros.
One devil was able to sneak into the city and unluckily, the first ones that he saw were the disguised Ariel and the child.
The devil had attacked them trying to make some bloodshed before his inevitable demise. Amos had been scared not for only himself but also for the old woman that he was now considering as family.
Amos had used the power that he inherited from his fallen angel sire, the power to undo everything and had used it on the devil.
The devil had been brought back to the nothing of the before of his creation. A child had to kill and taint their innocence to protect someone.
Amos had killed for Ariel and Ariel was supposed to kill Amos. Ariel at that moment had told him that he knew at that moment that it was impossible for him to succeed in his mission.
Ariel knew that as long as he disobeyed the decree of the heavens, he would be banned at best and killed at worst.
Ariel sacrificed everything that he ever held dear, the love of his father and his siblings, the Heaven he grew up in for the child of a fallen angel and because of this, the Cherubim fell.
The disguised Cherubim had waited that night after most were asleep to leave the city. When Kokabiel had first met him, the other fallen had been in the act of ending his own life.
Armaros had known since the beginning that Ariel even disguised had been an angel but had done nothing. He had wanted to wait to see if the Cherubim had been a threat or could become an ally so when Ariel had tried to end himself, something that was unfortunately common from newly fallen angels, Kokabiel had been ready to intervene and stop him.
"Do you remember what you asked me when we first met?" Kokabiel asked the fallen angel.
Ariel chuckled "Yes, I remember. My existence is now worthless. Why do you search to preserve it?" Ariel had asked him.
Kokabiel had replied by saying "Losing your life would hurt Amos. He killed for you because he loves you, he thinks that you are worth something. You lost everything. It's not an end, just a beginning if you let us help you."
He had presented his hand to the other fallen waiting for him to grab it "Let us give more than everything you lose."
"Your life, give it to us and I promise you under the aether and over the abyss, before the endless that I'll do my best so that when you leave this world, you won't be full of regrets".
Kokabiel had felt the attention of the endless on him yet he hadn't faltered. "I don't understand why. I serve to nothing, I'm useless and yet you're here a ten-winged angel swearing before ethereal forces that you'll take care of me," Ariel had spoken puzzled while looking at Kokabiel's hand.
"It's simple, all lives are worth it. The only way we were shown that we mattered, that we deserved his love was because of usefulness but love, true love is free and unconditional. I, dream, want a world where all of my siblings can find happiness without having to sacrifice themselves for it."
The angel had grabbed his hand "That dream of yours, it is beautiful."
"What's your name?" the fallen angel had asked.
"Kokabiel, the angel of the stars," he had answered.
His reminiscence was cut by Ariel. "I still don't understand how you can still have white wings."
"I don't really know why," he replied. "Maybe my actions are in accordance with what my father would have wanted and because of this, the system that he had built before his demise gave them back to me."
There were doubts written on the face of Ariel. "Do you truly believe it is the cause?"
"No," Kokabiel admitted. "I think that those wings, I gained them back because I wanted them."
"I don't really follow you. If it was the case, all fallen would have back into his Heavens," Ariel told him.
Kokabiel could understand his line of thinking. How many fallen had thought that virtuous acts would shed the dark of their wings?
How many fallen had gone on pilgrimages, falling prey to stronger beings so that they could get back his love?
How many fallen had thought that falling on their own sword would absolve themselves of their sins so that for less than an instant, they would be able to feel again his love? All for naugh.
"Not in that sense. I did not ask for his forgiveness and even if he had given it to me,
I wouldn't have accepted it. It happened because I stopped believing that I Kokabiel deserved everything wrong that had happened to me," Kokabiel spoke.
"My fall from heaven, the loss of my children, the loss of those that fought in my banner, the lives I took. After all those millions of years of war, survival and endless slaughter, I had thought that I deserved it."
Kokabiel chuckled "The next time that I see the spectre, I'll have to thank him. He made me realize that everything I've done was right. I'm sure that it wasn't his goal but he made me realize that the loss of my children at the hands of Gabriel, that all of those things, that they weren't my fault."
Ariel was gaping at him "You are talking of self-actualization. If what you say is true, it'll change everything."
"Or maybe nothing," Kokabiel added. "Even if all fallen rose up to their former forms, do you think that they would forgive, that they could forget everything their brethren, those that never fell did to them?"
"You're right," Ariel admitted his shock having been turned into disappointment.
At the level of his right ear, a little blazing violet circle appeared surrounding it. Kokabiel went back to focusing on the stars.
Ragiel and his tools. His older brother liked to craft and create things. In the beginning, his interest had only been around weapons and He could not restrain the chuckle that escaped Kokabiel cosmetics.
Kokabiel and the others had always lorded it over Ragiel's head each time they thought that the ego of their older brother needed to be checked.
One of the reasons Kokabiel wanted to win this war was to undo every curse or mistake his father had inflicted on the world.
Ragiel even if it seemed hard to believe had before the flood truly fallen in love with a human woman. They had children. Kokabiel even to this day had never seen Azazel more happy, more proud.
Ragiel had been their leader so when the wrath of the heavens fell on them, the one that was personally singled out by their Father had been Ragiel. His name was taken from him.
His children whom he loved dearly tortured and beheaded before his eyes, the soul of the woman he loved extinguished, completely destroyed.
Their father twisted him, changed his nature and gave him the name of the scapegoat, of Azazel. When they had all been imprisoned under the Earth in the darkness, his brother was buried with the decaying corpses of his children.
If that wasn't enough, when they were able to free themselves, they would learn with anguish and sadness that Ragiel now Azazel was cursed by their father, unable to bring children into the world again.
Curses, blessings, they were all the same at their root. They were only seen as different because of whether the ones touched by them found them boons or not.
This was why Azazel studied sacred gears with such zeal. This was the reason why his brother had done things that a younger him would have puked at.
Azazel wanted to break the curse inflicted on him by studying the blessings of gods, the sacred gears and the system that their father left before his demise.
Azazel was more a living corpse than anything else. Maybe only Kokabiel could see it, but in his eyes, his brother was already dead.
He had lost the most precious thing he ever had, his wife and children. It was clear that all the debauchery the older fallen threw himself in was to forget, maybe to fill the gaping hole in his heart left by the death of his loved ones but it was clear so far that it was useless.
Kokabiel knew that the only reason why his older brother hadn't faded was because his new name of scapegoat made him unable to.
That's why Kokabiel needed to win. It wasn't only for himself and his pride, it was for his family.
"Everything is ready Kokabiel," Ariel said behind him.
Kokabiel turned his focus on Earth more precisely at the Vatican in Rome. The Pope, the supposed chosen, the bridge between the heavens and the Earth was preaching about things Kokabiel didn't see the importance in trying to know.
Around him were cardinals, modern living saints, exorcists of high rank, those aware of the supernatural world.
"Give them the signal," the twelve wings angel whispered.
"Do it now!" he heard Ariel say into the violet magic circle.
"This is why we nee-". The words from the pope were cut short by a blade in his throat, a demonic blade.
He could see realization enter in the eyes of the others by the widening of their eyes. Unfortunately for them, the surprise of Kokabiel didn't stop at that.
The sword embedded in the flesh of the Pope began to shine brightly before detonating. The fastest of them were able to rush out of the room and the strongest of them just tanked the blast. The others that were not strong enough or fast enough or even lucky enough died.
With his eyes, Kokabiel could see that other parts of the Vatican were exploding. He watched as buildings fell and crushed in a pulp shocked believers. Children, believers, non-believers, priests, nuns, Death came to all of them indiscriminately. Thousand of deaths, thousands of lives wiped away in a mere moment
He watched how they died praying and cursing a god that would never answer. "I hope that the demonic energy of the weapons was potent enough," Kokabiel murmured.
"According to our calculations, the miasma of demonic energy would be so thick that it would be able to be seen even by mundane. Because of his nature, it's just a question of time before the death count rises. Even if the angels come from heaven now, it wouldn't matter, I made sure of this," Ariel told him.
"You or the fae?" Kokabiel teased him.
"Most of the work came from me. It's just that their technology and magic are impossible to understand. It's as if the more I try, the less it makes sense," Ariel spoke.
Fairies, Fairfolks, monsters, the mad ones. They all came in many forms and They had many names. What defined them as a race was the collective madness that they had inherited from their forefather.
The first Fae had been a Nephilim. The Nephilim's name had been Absalom and he had been the only child that Kokabiel had ever brought into the world.
The Nephilim had seen how his brethren were being butchered by Gabriel and the angels under his banner. Absalom had seen how the Watchers were broken and chained before the demiurgic archangel.
Kokabiel had been connected to his child mentally and the fear that had been coursing through the veins of his child had been what Kokabiel could only call primal, devoid of all thought.
Kokabiel had taught his child how to talk to the stars and celestial bodies. His child combined the magic the Grigori taught and the power he had inherited to make something spectacular.
His child was able to make himself be noticed by Delirium. He begged the endless to save his life and the endless accepted by changing the Animus, the very core being of his child. Absalom was claimed by Delirium and with it, Kokabiel lost his child. Absalom died and Oberon was born.
Absalom and his descendants after him decided to live in the realm of the endless, something that warped them even more.
They knew things that made reality scream in agony when uttered, their magic and their craft were something beyond understanding capable of feats that were equal to the ones made by the twins Michael and Helel.
Absalom even though he has been warped was still his child and had kept even in his madness his hatred for Kokabiel's father, something that all of his descendants also inherited. That hatred also involved everything that his father had created.
When he had ventured into the twisting and maddening realm of the endless and asked the help of The Faes in unmaking everything that his father had built, they accepted it.
Even though Kokabiel would have liked to personally start the new great war, doing such would have only resulted in him losing more of his siblings fallen.
Instead, Kokabiel had decided to make his task easier simply by blaming the devils. It's as if they would be believed if they denied that the attack was coming from them because no one trusted them.
Heaven and hell would enter into war, making each other bleed. Kokabiel would wait, be patient and strike at the first good occasion.
The game was on and Kokabiel had never been fond of losing. It was time for the world to change. It was time for a new god to take and seat on the throne.
Fuck canon. I didn't want with this fic to follow it so yeah beginning of a second great war
It is called freefall for a reason
- Location
- france
View: https://youtu.be/yiMtAmH0_vU?si=kZFsLQ71oXOTzpyy
I woke up feeling anxious. It was the kind of anxiety that made it hard to breathe, paralyzed you as if there was a danger around.
I stood up slowly from my bed. My gaze turned to the person with whom I had shared this ned. At my side, Akeno her naked form under the silk covers was still asleep. She looked like a piece of art, like something that should be exposed in a museum.
She looked as if she was something unreal, out of this world. When we came back from Shibuya, she asked me if she could have slept at my side. I accepted it.
Today was supposed to be the day where I was supposed to go back to the Kuoh Academy, back to high school.
Frankly, I wasn't happy with the idea but I knew that it was something that if I didn't do would only create problems. After all, the original Rias Gremory had loved school.
I hadn't inherited that love but too many drastic changes too quickly would only bring some unwanted attention.
So I left reluctantly the divine comfort of the bed to enter the bathroom. The bathroom looked less like one and more like a gigantic spa. With the golden chandeliers, the marble engraved with red rubies. The opulence was almost sickening. I stopped focusing on the way the bathroom looked and walked toward a mirror.
The mirror confirmed that my greatest fear was not real. All of those things had truly happened. Scarlet hair, green-blue eyes that looked like crystals, a gorgeous face in the shape of a heart without blemish, alabaster skin and a naked body that could only be called sinful.
I was truly Rias Gremory. I had truly died and reincarnated into a light novel. It's only now that it was hitting me.
I had died, died alone. All the sacrifices I've made, all the hardships I've been through, they've been in the end for nothing.
I watched how tears began to fall from the eyes of the redhead beauty in the mirror. I should be sad, I should be panicking yet why was I happy? I died and I was happy!
A broken laugh escaped from my lips. I wondered how they would have reacted if they saw me like that. This was so funny yet fucked up.
I felt arms embrace me from behind. I knew that it was Akeno. I vaporised my tears with the power of destruction. "Sorry if I've woke you up."
"You didn't," she answered. "Rias, are you okay?" she asked me.
"I am Akeno, don't worry," I told her.
"It's my role to worry," she whispered in my right ear. "I'm your queen."
"Please Rias, talk to me," she said to me.
"I've got everything I have ever wanted. I should be happy yet I don't know. I feel undeserving of all of this," I admitted to her.
I hadn't lied to her. What I told her was true. I loved this new life, opportunity that I was given. I was now literally a rich and more than beautiful immortal being capable of warping reality.
"Deserving?" she spoke. "One thing that life taught me is that no one whether they think they are deserving or undeserving. Those things don't matter. Worthiness doesn't matter. What matters is you, what you do with those boons or curses."
"Is it a way to tell me to stop worrying?" I asked her.
"Sometimes, you can be so naive Rias."
"I'm not," I answered in false outrage.
"Really? Do you want me to remind you of the day you sent more than a million dollars to a Nigerian prince after he asked you?" she spoke.
"How was I supposed to know it was false?". In the defence of the original me, the scammer had been very very convincing.
"Or that time you believed that making a chicken eat a dragon peach would turn him into one?" she said. Okay, I had been very sheltered. It was also the fault of Surtr Junior. He's the one that told me this and it's not like we were not leaving in a world of wonders and magic. Anyway, rest in peace, Lord Chickenavious Wu.
"Stop. I admit it, you're right," I told her.
"Rias, the only thing that matters is that you are here free to do whatever you want, unshackled from the machinations or desires of others," Akeno told me.
"And if anyone tries to take it from you, I promise that this time, I'll do everything so that it won't happen." I felt her grip on me tighten.
"Akeno," I said softly.
"Yes, Rias."
"Thank you for being there," I told her.
"Of course, I'll always be there at your side," she answered.
I let myself lean into her soft yet firm arms. "Can we stay like this for a moment please?" I asked her. I ignored the way my heart was beating, how it felt as if I had flying butterflies in my stomach. Akeno more than being my Queen was my family. It would be like incest.
My brain chose that moment to remind me that incest wasn't criminalized by devilkind and unlike humans, marrying and having children with a relative wouldn't result in generic deformities or diseases. We were not humans even though we looked like them. We were beings made of sin, fire and brimstone, from the blood of the Archangel Lucifer and the First woman and demonic goddess Lilith.
Akeno also would never see me this way. It was better to forget, crush all those kinds of thoughts.
I felt her take a deep breath. "Of course Rias, of course."
*scene*
We had almost been late. We arrived just before the classes began. I had been wrong in thinking that it would be boring.
It was worse. Listening without really doing it the teacher drone about the one hundred war between France and Britain made me want to put a bullet in my skull.
Something that I realize would be counterproductive and useless because of my essence.
I looked through the window at the building of the occult research club. I had been able to take the chair of the protagonist. It would be cool if a death note could fall from the sky.
I would just have to write the names of all the antagonists of DxD and boom I would have been free of worries.
Wait, death was a tangible concept in this world. The existence of death gods proved it so wouldn't it be possible to create a death note?
Maybe if I killed one or asked one for a part of their essence, I could imbue it into a copybook.
Thinking about it, didn't Both Albion and Ddraig represent the modern United Kingdom?
King Arthur had been a myth in my past life but in this one, he had been real and his descendants were the ones ruling.
King Arthur was said to have in his veins the blood of the red dragon due to the shenanigans of Merlin who was also the bastard son of the Archdaemon and prince of lust Asmodeus my memories pointed at me. The same Merlin that also codified into reality a way for Humans to manipulate the cosmos like higher beings without their patronage.
Wasn't Vortigern, the uncle of Arthur supposed to be the white dragon or Albion? I should try to find a way to speak to Ddraig. Few beings reached the top by using only their strength. Wits allied with it was what made someone able to reach the pinnacle of strength or maybe I was wrong and Ddraig was just a dumb lizard in love with fighting against Albion.
Kuoh Academy was different from all other schools in Japan. Due to the fact that it had been funded by the Gremory and the Sitri clans, it had a near-unlimited amount of money, Kuoh Academy offered only the best possible to its students. Graduating from it made sure that you would be easily hired even in the most select careers.
Legally, Kuoh Academy was an international private school operating in Japan. If this hadn't been the case, our school would have had to follow the same rules that other Japanese schools did. Rules that had been created to enforce conformism and erase individuality the most possible.
What was the quote again? Yeah, I remember. It was The nail that stick out is hammered down.
This was why more than being a good school, what attracted people to it was the fact that they would not feel as if they were constricted in a box.
I looked at a clock over the still-talking teacher. Written on It was 11:40. Only twenty minutes left. 'You can do it Rias,' I tried to motivate myself.
Just twenty minutes of never-ending boredom, well twenty minutes for humans because when you're a supernatural being capable of moving faster than sound itself, twenty minutes looked more like a week than a quarter of an hour.
I was so fucking bored. What could I do to try to alleviate this boredom? My gaze lost itself in the cloud over Kuoh.
Maybe I had an idea. I turned my focus inward toward my demonic energy. It was mixed with my power of destruction. I knew that doing what I wanted to try without separating them would only create unnecessary complications.
I began slowly but surely to separate my demonic energy from my power of destruction. It was like rerooting a river. It felt weird.
Finally, my power of destruction and my demonic energy separated. That was good. I grabbed the demonic energy and I made a wish.
I wished for it to change the sky of Kuoh. I wished to change this boring and slow blue into something other and my demonic energy like an over-excited puppy granted my wish.
I watched how the sky began to rumble ominously, how dark clouds began to plunge into darkness in the city of Kuoh.
A big BOOM made everything shake. The world was illuminated by violet arcs of plasmas.
The wind was becoming faster, almost like an angry beast. It rattled against the asphalt, the ground and everything it could touch.
The teacher had finally stopped talking. I thanked mentally the probably desecrated corpse of Lucifer.
The other students and Him were looking at the sky in fright. They looked as if they were awaiting, fearing for a god to smite them.
I could feel the fear, their terror and it was intoxicating, invigorating as if I had just come back from a day of relaxation. Since I had been reincarnated, I had noticed negative emotions, it felt good to be surrounded by them.
Devils could grow in many different ways. We could do nothing, letting time pass. Our demonic energy after all grew with time so a lot of devils thought this way.
The other way was by contracts. Originally, what we were taking in exchange for those contracts were the souls of our contractors.
Souls gave power through worship, they gave power through fear. The soul was what allowed any living being to distinguish itself from another one. The soul more precisely human souls was said to have been an incomplete project of higher deities.
Some said that it was a project of the Abrahamic god, others said that it had been the project of even older gods.
What mattered was the fact that eating one, consuming one was said to be akin to consuming a golden apple of Idun.
It gave the person who consumed it a gigantic boost of power. More than that, the thoughts, the knowledge, the strengths, the special abilities of the soul consumed became the ones of the supernatural being that had consumed it.
It was said to reincarnate devils that the reason why was because we devils as a race wanted to be different. It was a fucking lie.
Most devils and by that I meant the majority of devils didn't care about morals. They only cared about strength. The demon kings were only listened to and obeyed because they were strong.
The reason why eating souls had been criminalized, why this criminalization had been accepted by most had been because of the possible negative consequence of eating souls.
Who would have thought that devouring everything a person had been, was and could be could have consequences?
Eating souls could induce madness if the devil wasn't strong enough mentally. If devils in the past had been smart in eating souls, it wouldn't have become a crime but because a devil's existence revolved around seeking power, idiots went on Earth and ate more souls than they could handle.
A lot of devils had to be put down because they became mad. Because of that, eating soul was banned. It was what had been written in the books destined for pure-blood devils that the original Rias had learnt when she was younger.
Fortunately, Ajuka Beelzebub found a way to create a system so that devils could still continue to grow through contracts.
Sure, the growth in strength was way more limited and slow than the original one but at least, this one was safe. No more devils going on rampages and needed to be put down. We already had a bad if the worst reputation amongst all the different supernatural races. Doing everything to not worsen it would be wise.
The third way for a devil to grow in strength was by training but most didn't because firstly, they thought it would be too much work and secondly, because the results of training for a devil took too much time to appear.
Saiororg didn't count. He was a freak of nature, physically at least. It made me wonder if maybe his easy growth in strength through physical training wasn't because of his lack of demonic energy like something like a heavenly restriction like Toji or Maki that made him grow stronger physically in exchange for his demonic energy.
If my memories about canon are exact, Saiororg fought against his little brother Magdaran who had the power of destruction just with his fists and won.
It would be this same physical strength that would make him one of the new Satans in ExE, the future where Issei and all the members of his harem forgot the concepts of condoms and being present for your children.
I should really stop going on tangents. Anyway, it was to say that I found myself in a situation that could only be called relaxing, very relaxing.
Unfortunately as if to prove that this world was wrong and that both God and Lucifer were indeed dead, the bell significating the end of the class rang.
How was that fair?! It was only when my boredom had subsided and I was beginning to enjoy myself that the clock rang. 'Fuck high school' I mentally swore.
I watched how little by little, other students and the teacher began to leave their chairs either to leave the classroom or go talk to their friends.
"Are you alright Rias?" Akeno asked me. "You look disappointed. I didn't know that you enjoyed this class so much."
"Yep, totally enjoyed it. I'm just trying to act wiser and all that stuff, like a king, should," I told her.
"You never were so focused when it was only the two of us studying whether it was in the underworld or here," Akeno spoke.
"Maybe it's because I didn't Have the right motivation," I told her.
"Right motivation?" she spoke looking confused.
I spoke intending to tease my queen. I came closer to her left ear so that she would hear without a fault my words "Maybe if you, my queen had been more severe, more right with me," I said speaking as if I was almost out of breath "I would have memorized it all."
I was just teasing her. I had expected her to do something similar in return or be speechless and shocked.
Instead, I felt how her body tensed, how it began to release something I wasn't sure of it. Was this anticipation, vindication?
I retreated away from her. I felt like a prey that had provoked without knowing a predator and now, it was bearing menacingly his teeth at me.
"Is that so?" she said sweetly, too sweetly. Her eyes, were as if they were burning from the inside. "It's never too late to correct an error," Akeno spoke with a glint in her eyes I really didn't like.
"Akeno, I was joking," I told her trying to get back in control of the situation.
She put her palm on the right cheek of my face "Akeno, there are people around," I told her.
Rumours grew and flew through all of Kuoh much more quickly than a deep cut could bleed. "It doesn't matter Rias. We'll handle it later."
"Bu-". Her gaze cut from talking more. "Good girl," she spoke looking satisfied. What the fuck was happening? Why did everything feel so hot? It was as if I was fighting Riser again. I felt a feeling bubbling in me and I didn't like the implications of its existence.
"Isn't it delightful," she spoke looking like a cat that had caught the canary. She stood, her hand retreating away from my face leaving a cold sensation behind.
"Time to go eat," she said.
I couldn't restrain the thought that burst out loud "What?" I said dumbfounded.
"I said that it was the Time to eat Rias. It seems that focusing too much on the class has made your thinking a little bit slow," she spoke.
That was false. That wasn't the reason at all. I also couldn't tell her that this was because I had to admit reluctantly that it was kinda hot. I needed to burn this thought out of my head.
I watched how she began to walk toward the door of the classroom and was it me or was she swaying her hips? Akeno didn't usually walk like that. I was sure of that.
She stopped at the door and turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised. I left my chair and went to follow her. I wasn't sure why but I felt as if the next days and maybe weeks with Akeno would be all but relaxing.
*scene*
I had decided to skip the classes in the afternoon. Sona would probably try to scold me later but I didn't care.
Being around Akeno had been unbearable in a good way which was bad so I had to retreat to the occult research club.
If this was an anime, that day would have probably counted as filler I think or maybe I was wrong.
So, there was now a big problem. Sure I was now away from Akeno and skipping class but now, I was bored. All my peerage members were also in class so it's not like I could go be with them.
Hold up, it wasn't true. All my peerage members weren't non-disponible. I walked toward a closed door, a door that was rarely if never opened.
It was the door of the room of Gasper. Thinking about him only made guilt bloom in my heart. Even if it wasn't technically my fault, I felt as if I had abandoned him, leaving him, never even trying to visit him because of his sacred gear.
The original Rias solution had been to seal her bishop, one of her family's members. I knew why she had done it yet I hated it.
With a burst of my power of destruction, I destroyed the seals on the door of Gasper. Slowly but surely, I opened it.
I stepped into the room and automatically I felt a wave of something I wouldn't be able to accurately describe surge toward me.
It tried to affect me and was unable to. It felt like when my brother had come to see me just after I'd woken up.
Forbidden Balor view, the sacred gear of Gasper capable of stopping time and holding in itself the king of the Fomorians and grandfather of the god of the light Lugh.
"Interesting," I mused out loud.
"I'm sorry," I heard a voice say. Another wave stronger rushed toward me. Like its predecessor, it wasn't able to affect me. It only made me understand more of its mechanism.
"I can't stop it!" the voice of my bishop, of Gasper said full of despair. The despair in his voice made hatred bloom in my heart. My bishop was on his knees trying to cover his eyes as if to stop his sacred gear. I looked at him and then at how fragile, young and vulnerable, he looked.
When the next wave came, instead of feeling it, I saw it, I saw the distortion, how it travelled from the soul of my bishop to his eyes to the surge in reality.
"Not this time," I snarled. With a push of my heel, I reappeared before my bishop, his hands in mine. I seized the power of destruction lying in me and gave him only one order, to destroy the times-altering waves from the eyes of my bishop to reach the world.
It exploded from my back like a cascade of ebony before flooding the room. I knew that nothing else would be touched, that only what I ordained him to destroy would face its wrath and viciousness.
"It is Okay Gasper," I said softly to him. "It's okay. I'll make things okay."
"I'm sorry Rias-sama, I'm sorry. I can not control it," he spoke. I saw tears falling from his eyes and running down his face. Gasper, he was just a child, one who had only known neglect and abuse since his birth, he was a child who had died only because of his nature before I reincarnated him.
I hugged him trying to ignore his tears and his sobs. I cursed the world, the god that made such a world where innocent children like him suffered. I cursed his father and the other vampires who neglected and abused him.
My gaze turned toward his soul, his sacred gear, the miracle that god had bestowed on him before his birth, the miracle that was the reason for all of his misfortunes. If Gasper hadn't been born with it, his mother wouldn't have died, he wouldn't have been feared and neglected, he would have been happy.
I could see with my gaze the soul trapped in the sacred gear, the soul that had such synergy with my bishop that it looked more like a part of him than something bestowed in his soul by the system of a dead god. I could see cracks in the prison. I saw how they were slowly but surely widening. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have known that it was just a question of time before Balor tried to possess my bishop.
I could see his goal as if information was being poured into my brain. Gasper being a dampir and a reincarnated devil was immortal. It would just have been a question of time before the crack that Balor had made would be big enough to allow him to possess my Bishop.
As if I would fucking let him realize his plot. What truly fuelled the sacred gear wasn't Balor himself. What fuelled it was the inherent power of his soul. A savage grin split my face. The sacred gear to work didn't his consciousness.
"Gasper, I'm sorry for what I'm about to do," and with those words, my power of destruction surged in the form of my bishop. The power of destruction bypassed his skin, his flesh to go directly where his target was, in the soul of Gasper.
I felt panic begin to emit from my bishop yet it didn't feel like him. It was old, it was cruel and it screamed in pain and hatred as my power of destruction reduced his consciousness to nothing slowly. Here's how ended the existence of the God-king Balor, not with a bang, of a great feat worthy of epics but in the same way nuisibles like flies were dealt with, swiftly, quickly and without mercy.
My power of destruction retreated from Gasper into my soul having done the task that I gave it to execute.
"It's finished Gasper, it's finished," I whispered softly to him. "You won't ever have to deal with that problem again."
The young boy said nothing. He just reciprocated the hug I had given him grabbing me as if I was his lifeline, something that I technically was.
I began to hum a melody. It was one I had completely forgotten the origin of and the words yet, it had remained engraved in my soul and had been what had helped me in many of the dark spirals I fell in my life.
Maybe we stayed like that for minutes or hours. Gasper had fallen asleep in my arms. I carried him softly with my arms doing everything to not wake him up.
With a flick of my will, a teleportation circle that would lead me to my mansion appeared. There wasn't a chance alone that I would let Gasper alone or wake up alone.
My family had so many issues and Gasped made me realize that I had to deal with them as soon as possible before they warped my family too much.
I wished to protect my family from the horrors of the world, make sure that they would never have to go through things similar to what had broken them. I wanted them to be able to welcome each day with sincere happiness and hope for the future. I wished to be able to protect them from suffering.
I disappeared from the club to reappear in my room. I placed Gasper softly on the bed and laid at his side hugging him from behind.
Closing my eyes, I did something that I never thought I would do again, that I hadn't done for more than ten years. I prayed to whoever would listen. I asked, no begged for a world my peerage members, my family would be happy in. I would learn when I woke up the day after that the Vatican had been bombed and we devils were blamed.
Those endless empty phases
- Location
- france
Wrote this while listening to this song
View: https://youtu.be/V8oCAOQx_1E
We were all present in the student council room. By we, I meant Sona, me and our respective peerages.
The classes of Kuoh Academy had been suspended until further notice. It was clear that the only superior force existing in this universe after the death of god was the law of Murphy.
What should have happened was Kokabiel attacking my city after stealing the Excaliburs to try to provoke a new great by killing Sona and me.
I knew that it was just a question of time before the future that I knew would become unreliable but it felt too soon.
Sona and I were sitting on different sides of a table, our peerages standing behind each of us well except for Gasper that was sitting on my knees, my arms around me.
I hadn't let him go out of my sight since we woke up. I could say that I was keeping him so close because I wanted to protect, comfort him but it would be a lie, a half-truth at best.
He was comforting me as much if not more than I was comforting him. I honestly felt scared.
I wasn't scared of fighting against gods, angels or whatever supernatural being capable of erasing this reality at will.
What scared me was my peerage, the fear of something happening to them. It's as if they were my heart walking unprotected in a world full of cruelty and pain.
I could see the grim and fearful faces of Sona's peerage members and I'm sure that they were identical to the facial expressions my family now had.
I was brought back out of my thoughts by the voice of my pawn. Sona had been explaining to them the situation. For me, it had felt like white noise.
"War with heaven?" Issei spoke. "That's a joke, right? Right president?" he asked me voice full of hope like a child having learnt that Santa wasn't real and wanting their parents to disprove that fact.
I didn't answer. How was I supposed to say to my pawn that hadn't been a devil for more than two months that soon, the universe would be plunged into a cosmic war where he would have to fight to survive?
"Why should we all fight?" I heard the voice of Asia say at his side. "Why not only punish those that are guilty of attacking the church?" Asia spoke.
I watched how noises of agreement made themselves known from the reincarnated devils. There was only one problem though "People aren't logical," Sona spoke silencing the room.
She removed softly her glasses and put them on the table. "Heavens and Hell had been at best at odds and at worst at war since the beginning of reality. Some of those beings that fought since the beginning of time from both sides are still alive and influential. It could be said that it was just a question of time."
"If maybe only the devil responsible for attacking the Vatican had been caught, we wouldn't be at war but the hatred can't have festered between us since billions of years just needed a spark. Everywhere in the world, devils are attacked. It doesn't matter whether they are reincarnated, low class, high class, half-blood, or pure-blood. Everywhere the heaven has a stronghold is the place of endless attacks by exorcists, priests, Christians, Muslims and Jews aware of the supernatural."
Her cold piercing gaze travelled on every member of our peerages. "Every second that passes is one where a devil attacked, every minute that passes is one where a devil is killed."
"There must be something that can be done president," Saji, her pawn said. "Something so that war won't break out, something that peace may prevail."
"Let's play a game," Sona spoke. "Let's all play a game." Sona's arm moved slowly to stand in the air. The heiress of the Sitri clan opened a palm and what seemed to be a hologram appeared over it.
"It's a game of choice," she spoke. Two stick figures appeared, one a dark red and the other a yellow gold. "Saji and Argento, you said that there must have been a way for peace right? That you're against the coming war. You know what would happen if devil kind followed your instructions?". Before our eyes, a golden sword materialized in the hand of the yellow-gold figure that began to move menacingly toward the red figure that had stayed still.
"What happens when you don't defend yourself is that you lose, you die." I watched how the gold figure in a grotesque showing beheaded the red figure. "Everything that you care about, all your loved ones, this is the Fate they would encounter if we do nothing." I put my hands on the eyes of Gasper to cover them. We watched how the golden figure put the head of the red figure on a stick like a trophy.
"There is no possibility of peace anymore. Do you all think that the only ones targeted by the Heavens are devils? Contractors, magicians and family members of reincarnated devils, they all are targets and if we don't fight, they will also be affected. Saji, do you want your siblings to die?" Sona asked her pawn. The boy reacted as if she had struck him in the face.
"What?" the boy said.
"I'll repeat myself. Do you want your siblings to die?" the Sitri heiress asked him again.
"Of course not. What kind of question is that?" the boy yelled.
"One of necessity, so that you'll understand what is at stake."
Her attention turned toward my pawn. "Sona," I warned. "Don't forget that he's a member of my family." Her only answer was to look into my eyes with her cold amethyst. I could see myself drowning in them, being swallowed and killed in many brutal ways by aquatic monsters. I didn't back down. I flared my demonic energy. It was time that I reminded her that even though we were similar, we could not be called alike, that I wasn't someone she could try to push around.
Windows cracked, furniture bent and all of the members of her peerage fell on their Knees. Maybe I had inherited some deep-seated frustration toward her, maybe I was still bitter over the fact that she had said that I chose, that I maybe wanted Riser to win.
She was the first one to break eye contact. Good, it appears that she could learn. The truth was that intelligence only mattered when you had a chance of winning. Being clever wouldn't matter in a close fight against an endless. Strength at the end is what trumped all.
"Sorry, I slipped," I apologized to her peerage. "You can raise. It's just that thinking about something happening to a member of my peerage made my control slip. It won't happen again," I said with a smile.
They began to rise slowly In an almost cautious way as if they finally realized that before them was a being that was higher than them at every level of the Totem pole.
Behind me, I heard a door being opened forcefully. I turned to see that my pawn was now missing. "issei!" Asia yelled before following after the boy.
Slowly, I removed reluctantly Gasper from my knees. "Akeno, please take care of everything for now," I asked my queen.
"Of course Rias." She grabbed Gasper by one of his hands. "Let's follow Issei and Asia," my queen spoke to the members of my peerage. The sound of their steps became quieter and quieter.
"I would like to talk with my dear oldest friend Sona alone," I said my gaze directed to Sona's peerage members.
They understood the message and it looked like they would begin to protest before Sona turned toward them. "Do what she says. Don't worry," she spoke. "Nothing will happen."
At the hesitation of her peerage members, she asked them one question "Did you stop trusting me?"
"No president."
"Of course not."
"It would be preposterous"
"The president is the best!"
She waited until the members of her peerage finished answering "So please, do it."
I saw how reluctantly as if they were more comfortable with kissing porcupines but they began to leave finally the room. Her queen stopped at the door sending me a scathing look before leaving.
"We are finally alone," I spoke.
"I feel that I made you mad and honestly, I don't really understand why. Better they learn from us than from the world."
"Issei had been shot and stabbed by a rogue exorcist. He saw the dead body of one of his clients nailed to a cross simply because they were contracting with devils. You just said to him that it's probably what will happen to his parents Sona," I told her.
"He had been reincarnated for more than one month. He should at least know with the way he died and was reincarnated that this world wasn't kind. You're trying to cover his ears to the truth," Sona said to me
"This is the thing with truths Sona. There is no real truth. Logically and intellectually, you're right but you forget something."
"What?"
"That living beings are inherently emotional. What animates them to reach greater height isn't logic, what make it possible for humans to slay devils and gods isn't logic. What makes them fight against what should be impossible to beat and win isn't logic," I told her.
"That had always been your problem, Sona. I'm not ashamed to say that for now, you're so much more clever than me. It had always been the case."
"You said yet," the Sitri Heiress pointed.
I continued talking as if she hadn't interrupted me. "You rely on plans, logic, simulations, chess when in reality, those things aren't what matter the most. What matters Sona is strength."
"Are you calling me weak?" she growled. There wasn't a worse insult for a devil. Strength defines our race at every level. I could have called her an idiotic waste of space and she would have taken it better.
I answered her question with another one "When we think about it, who is Sona Sitri, what makes you special? You're smart but not the smartest, you're average when it comes to demonic energy amongst pure-blood heirs of our age. It could be said that everything you are today, that you think you are is because you were given it."
"You're the one to talk Rias. You were born with everything unlike us and before Riser, you had chosen to waste it," she hissed.
"You were born with the power of destruction of the Bael bloodline, one of the greatest abilities someone of our kind can wield, the power of an endless yet you were weak. You didn't do anything to change your situation. I watched you all that time, I watched do nothing!"
"You said that I was given everything Sona but it is false. Yes, I inherited the power of destruction and you want to know something, it had changed nothing because in the end, even with it, I could not choose, decide my own Fate unlike you," I told her.
"You were given the power to choose who you will Mary Sona. I never was. You never had to fear about your future, about losing everything," I spoke.
"Stop being dramatic. Riser is a third son. You wouldn't have lost anything. He just would have been your consort," she spoke.
A sight escaped me "Sona, I'm not the last Gremory born with the power of destruction capable of inheriting."
"Not the las—. Millicas," she said realization appearing in her eyes. Millicas was the son of my brother and Grayfia, the only living child of a super devil and an ultimate devil. Millicas at birth had already had the demonic energy of a high-class devil. He was According to Ishibumi, the character that had the highest potential in the series in terms of natural talent. He wasn't older than twelve yet I knew that Millicas would have been able to beat Riser by himself before his transformation without much difficulty.
We were devils before being members of the Gremory clan and the original Rias had known that losing to Riser would not only mean becoming tied to him for all eternity but also stripped of her title of heiress of the Gremory clan. There was after all already a candidate that seemed more advantageous. "Yes, Sona, my nephew Millicas."
"Millicas would never try to usurp your title of heiress. He's a Gremory just like you and there is nothing that matters to him more than his family," she told me.
"It's probably true," I admit. "But you forget something," I added. "My mother wasn't born as one."
"She has been raised as a Bael. You saw with Saiororg some of the things they do to someone they consider weak."
Saiororg had been stripped of his status of heir. He would be banished with his mother to the edges of the Bael clan territory. His mother would, unfortunately, fall prey to the sleeping disease, the only disease that we devils hadn't found a way to heal. All of this because of his lack of power of destruction, all of this because he wasn't unlike his little brother Magdaran seen as adequate.
"you know how much my father loves her Sona." My father loved her more than anything and he would do everything to make her happy.
I saw something bloom into her eyes, something I had never thought I would have seen, shame. "I hadn't realized truly realized what it meant for you," she spoke softly, her gaze fleeting.
"No, you didn't," I acknowledged. "Sona, when did everything change?" I asked her. It was clear that both of us were harbouring toward each other feelings that could only be called negative when we were sisters in all but names. We had known each other since we were literally babies.
My first memories consisted of Sirzechs, my mother Venelana, my father Zeoticus and her. "Maybe it'll be the last time that the two of us will be able to talk with the coming war," I told her.
"Please, you owe me at least to tell me why I lost my sister," I begged her. She had turned away from me. I felt my voice crack "Sona, please."
She turned back toward me and I saw tears coming from her eyes. Sona Sitri was crying. I didn't have a memory of her crying since we were literally babies. All the anger that I had felt toward her vanished. I didn't want this. "It's because I did what I thought I would never do Rias, I became jealous, too envious of you."
"Son-".
"Rias, please let me finish," She interrupted me. "I don't think that I would be able to do it again if I stop."
I wanted to tell her that I didn't want to hear the reason for everything that had happened anymore, that there was no point if it made her cry, that It was alright, that we'd just try to be better but I just nodded.
"I had always been compared to you Rias. I was the sister of a satan like Rias Gremory. I was almost as strong as Rias Gremory. I was almost as beautiful as Rias Gremory. I tried to act as if it didn't but it did hurt Rias. It made me wish to be you Rias. Maybe if I were you, things would be better, maybe if I were you, people would listen to what I say instead of completely disregarding it," Sona revealed.
"I saw you, everything I wished to be wasting I had thought herself and it burnt here Rias," she said her right hand at the level of her heart. "It burnt so much with hatred, so painfully, so bitterly. This is the reason why Rias. With what I just said to you and the coming war, there is a lot of chance it'll probably be the last time for a long time that we will be talking."
"Rias," she continued. She was now looking in my eyes. Her amethyst had turned soft and looked like the eery but beautiful sky of the underworld. "I'm sorry for everyth-".
I stood up from the chair, walked to her side and shut her up by hugging her. "Don't say that. It won't be the last time we will be talking. I just wanted to know. I never said that I wanted you out of my life."
I knew what it was like to always be compared to a close relative who was just better at every level, and who had been blessed even more than yourself. A relative that felt like a shining sun you wanted to extinguish, so for once, people would be looking at the brightness of your moon.
I had loved and hated them. I had wanted them to fall just to know what it was to be me. I wanted them to thrive so that they could be happy. It made me wonder. Did he cry when I was gone? Did he talk with fond memories of everything mischief we got up together? Well, it didn't matter anymore.
"It would be a lie to say that I don't recognize the fact that I was born lucky Sona. Most of what you said was true. My beauty, my strength, my status, those are things that I didn't work for, that were handed to me at my birth. They were also chains, responsibilities I didn't ask for. Maybe I could have done better but I tried Sona, I tried my best and before the rating game, it hadn't been enough."
"I had feared that I would have lost you when I was watching it Rias," Sona told me. "I had feared that I would have lost my sister. I was scared the same way I am now scared."
A bitter laugh escaped her "I am scared of this war Rias. I am scared of losing everything, of losing Serafall, you, my peerage, my family.!I wished things could be different."
Her voice broke "I'm scared of dying Rias."
I continued hugging her. "I don't care what or who is put on my way. I won't let you leave me, Sona," I whispered to her. "If I have to fight against Death, I would do so, if I have to fight an endless so that you and the ones I care about live on, this is what I will do."
"Everything you just said is illogical to the highest degree yet I believe you," she told me.
She leaned in my embrace. "Can we stay like this for a moment?" she asked me.
"Of course, Sona, of course," I answered her. I was as scared as her to be honest but It didn't matter. I'll do everything so that moments of peace like this could last forever. 'I also wished things would be different Sona' I thought.
I had a comment say that I buffed too much the Abrahamic faction, that they aren't that strong in DxD. Normally, I would say that they were right but it's a crossover with the Sandman. Someone who read the Sandman or Lucifer would have said that I downgraded, weakened them and they would have been right. I'm repeating myself. It's a crossover
View: https://youtu.be/V8oCAOQx_1E
We were all present in the student council room. By we, I meant Sona, me and our respective peerages.
The classes of Kuoh Academy had been suspended until further notice. It was clear that the only superior force existing in this universe after the death of god was the law of Murphy.
What should have happened was Kokabiel attacking my city after stealing the Excaliburs to try to provoke a new great by killing Sona and me.
I knew that it was just a question of time before the future that I knew would become unreliable but it felt too soon.
Sona and I were sitting on different sides of a table, our peerages standing behind each of us well except for Gasper that was sitting on my knees, my arms around me.
I hadn't let him go out of my sight since we woke up. I could say that I was keeping him so close because I wanted to protect, comfort him but it would be a lie, a half-truth at best.
He was comforting me as much if not more than I was comforting him. I honestly felt scared.
I wasn't scared of fighting against gods, angels or whatever supernatural being capable of erasing this reality at will.
What scared me was my peerage, the fear of something happening to them. It's as if they were my heart walking unprotected in a world full of cruelty and pain.
I could see the grim and fearful faces of Sona's peerage members and I'm sure that they were identical to the facial expressions my family now had.
I was brought back out of my thoughts by the voice of my pawn. Sona had been explaining to them the situation. For me, it had felt like white noise.
"War with heaven?" Issei spoke. "That's a joke, right? Right president?" he asked me voice full of hope like a child having learnt that Santa wasn't real and wanting their parents to disprove that fact.
I didn't answer. How was I supposed to say to my pawn that hadn't been a devil for more than two months that soon, the universe would be plunged into a cosmic war where he would have to fight to survive?
"Why should we all fight?" I heard the voice of Asia say at his side. "Why not only punish those that are guilty of attacking the church?" Asia spoke.
I watched how noises of agreement made themselves known from the reincarnated devils. There was only one problem though "People aren't logical," Sona spoke silencing the room.
She removed softly her glasses and put them on the table. "Heavens and Hell had been at best at odds and at worst at war since the beginning of reality. Some of those beings that fought since the beginning of time from both sides are still alive and influential. It could be said that it was just a question of time."
"If maybe only the devil responsible for attacking the Vatican had been caught, we wouldn't be at war but the hatred can't have festered between us since billions of years just needed a spark. Everywhere in the world, devils are attacked. It doesn't matter whether they are reincarnated, low class, high class, half-blood, or pure-blood. Everywhere the heaven has a stronghold is the place of endless attacks by exorcists, priests, Christians, Muslims and Jews aware of the supernatural."
Her cold piercing gaze travelled on every member of our peerages. "Every second that passes is one where a devil attacked, every minute that passes is one where a devil is killed."
"There must be something that can be done president," Saji, her pawn said. "Something so that war won't break out, something that peace may prevail."
"Let's play a game," Sona spoke. "Let's all play a game." Sona's arm moved slowly to stand in the air. The heiress of the Sitri clan opened a palm and what seemed to be a hologram appeared over it.
"It's a game of choice," she spoke. Two stick figures appeared, one a dark red and the other a yellow gold. "Saji and Argento, you said that there must have been a way for peace right? That you're against the coming war. You know what would happen if devil kind followed your instructions?". Before our eyes, a golden sword materialized in the hand of the yellow-gold figure that began to move menacingly toward the red figure that had stayed still.
"What happens when you don't defend yourself is that you lose, you die." I watched how the gold figure in a grotesque showing beheaded the red figure. "Everything that you care about, all your loved ones, this is the Fate they would encounter if we do nothing." I put my hands on the eyes of Gasper to cover them. We watched how the golden figure put the head of the red figure on a stick like a trophy.
"There is no possibility of peace anymore. Do you all think that the only ones targeted by the Heavens are devils? Contractors, magicians and family members of reincarnated devils, they all are targets and if we don't fight, they will also be affected. Saji, do you want your siblings to die?" Sona asked her pawn. The boy reacted as if she had struck him in the face.
"What?" the boy said.
"I'll repeat myself. Do you want your siblings to die?" the Sitri heiress asked him again.
"Of course not. What kind of question is that?" the boy yelled.
"One of necessity, so that you'll understand what is at stake."
Her attention turned toward my pawn. "Sona," I warned. "Don't forget that he's a member of my family." Her only answer was to look into my eyes with her cold amethyst. I could see myself drowning in them, being swallowed and killed in many brutal ways by aquatic monsters. I didn't back down. I flared my demonic energy. It was time that I reminded her that even though we were similar, we could not be called alike, that I wasn't someone she could try to push around.
Windows cracked, furniture bent and all of the members of her peerage fell on their Knees. Maybe I had inherited some deep-seated frustration toward her, maybe I was still bitter over the fact that she had said that I chose, that I maybe wanted Riser to win.
She was the first one to break eye contact. Good, it appears that she could learn. The truth was that intelligence only mattered when you had a chance of winning. Being clever wouldn't matter in a close fight against an endless. Strength at the end is what trumped all.
"Sorry, I slipped," I apologized to her peerage. "You can raise. It's just that thinking about something happening to a member of my peerage made my control slip. It won't happen again," I said with a smile.
They began to rise slowly In an almost cautious way as if they finally realized that before them was a being that was higher than them at every level of the Totem pole.
Behind me, I heard a door being opened forcefully. I turned to see that my pawn was now missing. "issei!" Asia yelled before following after the boy.
Slowly, I removed reluctantly Gasper from my knees. "Akeno, please take care of everything for now," I asked my queen.
"Of course Rias." She grabbed Gasper by one of his hands. "Let's follow Issei and Asia," my queen spoke to the members of my peerage. The sound of their steps became quieter and quieter.
"I would like to talk with my dear oldest friend Sona alone," I said my gaze directed to Sona's peerage members.
They understood the message and it looked like they would begin to protest before Sona turned toward them. "Do what she says. Don't worry," she spoke. "Nothing will happen."
At the hesitation of her peerage members, she asked them one question "Did you stop trusting me?"
"No president."
"Of course not."
"It would be preposterous"
"The president is the best!"
She waited until the members of her peerage finished answering "So please, do it."
I saw how reluctantly as if they were more comfortable with kissing porcupines but they began to leave finally the room. Her queen stopped at the door sending me a scathing look before leaving.
"We are finally alone," I spoke.
"I feel that I made you mad and honestly, I don't really understand why. Better they learn from us than from the world."
"Issei had been shot and stabbed by a rogue exorcist. He saw the dead body of one of his clients nailed to a cross simply because they were contracting with devils. You just said to him that it's probably what will happen to his parents Sona," I told her.
"He had been reincarnated for more than one month. He should at least know with the way he died and was reincarnated that this world wasn't kind. You're trying to cover his ears to the truth," Sona said to me
"This is the thing with truths Sona. There is no real truth. Logically and intellectually, you're right but you forget something."
"What?"
"That living beings are inherently emotional. What animates them to reach greater height isn't logic, what make it possible for humans to slay devils and gods isn't logic. What makes them fight against what should be impossible to beat and win isn't logic," I told her.
"That had always been your problem, Sona. I'm not ashamed to say that for now, you're so much more clever than me. It had always been the case."
"You said yet," the Sitri Heiress pointed.
I continued talking as if she hadn't interrupted me. "You rely on plans, logic, simulations, chess when in reality, those things aren't what matter the most. What matters Sona is strength."
"Are you calling me weak?" she growled. There wasn't a worse insult for a devil. Strength defines our race at every level. I could have called her an idiotic waste of space and she would have taken it better.
I answered her question with another one "When we think about it, who is Sona Sitri, what makes you special? You're smart but not the smartest, you're average when it comes to demonic energy amongst pure-blood heirs of our age. It could be said that everything you are today, that you think you are is because you were given it."
"You're the one to talk Rias. You were born with everything unlike us and before Riser, you had chosen to waste it," she hissed.
"You were born with the power of destruction of the Bael bloodline, one of the greatest abilities someone of our kind can wield, the power of an endless yet you were weak. You didn't do anything to change your situation. I watched you all that time, I watched do nothing!"
"You said that I was given everything Sona but it is false. Yes, I inherited the power of destruction and you want to know something, it had changed nothing because in the end, even with it, I could not choose, decide my own Fate unlike you," I told her.
"You were given the power to choose who you will Mary Sona. I never was. You never had to fear about your future, about losing everything," I spoke.
"Stop being dramatic. Riser is a third son. You wouldn't have lost anything. He just would have been your consort," she spoke.
A sight escaped me "Sona, I'm not the last Gremory born with the power of destruction capable of inheriting."
"Not the las—. Millicas," she said realization appearing in her eyes. Millicas was the son of my brother and Grayfia, the only living child of a super devil and an ultimate devil. Millicas at birth had already had the demonic energy of a high-class devil. He was According to Ishibumi, the character that had the highest potential in the series in terms of natural talent. He wasn't older than twelve yet I knew that Millicas would have been able to beat Riser by himself before his transformation without much difficulty.
We were devils before being members of the Gremory clan and the original Rias had known that losing to Riser would not only mean becoming tied to him for all eternity but also stripped of her title of heiress of the Gremory clan. There was after all already a candidate that seemed more advantageous. "Yes, Sona, my nephew Millicas."
"Millicas would never try to usurp your title of heiress. He's a Gremory just like you and there is nothing that matters to him more than his family," she told me.
"It's probably true," I admit. "But you forget something," I added. "My mother wasn't born as one."
"She has been raised as a Bael. You saw with Saiororg some of the things they do to someone they consider weak."
Saiororg had been stripped of his status of heir. He would be banished with his mother to the edges of the Bael clan territory. His mother would, unfortunately, fall prey to the sleeping disease, the only disease that we devils hadn't found a way to heal. All of this because of his lack of power of destruction, all of this because he wasn't unlike his little brother Magdaran seen as adequate.
"you know how much my father loves her Sona." My father loved her more than anything and he would do everything to make her happy.
I saw something bloom into her eyes, something I had never thought I would have seen, shame. "I hadn't realized truly realized what it meant for you," she spoke softly, her gaze fleeting.
"No, you didn't," I acknowledged. "Sona, when did everything change?" I asked her. It was clear that both of us were harbouring toward each other feelings that could only be called negative when we were sisters in all but names. We had known each other since we were literally babies.
My first memories consisted of Sirzechs, my mother Venelana, my father Zeoticus and her. "Maybe it'll be the last time that the two of us will be able to talk with the coming war," I told her.
"Please, you owe me at least to tell me why I lost my sister," I begged her. She had turned away from me. I felt my voice crack "Sona, please."
She turned back toward me and I saw tears coming from her eyes. Sona Sitri was crying. I didn't have a memory of her crying since we were literally babies. All the anger that I had felt toward her vanished. I didn't want this. "It's because I did what I thought I would never do Rias, I became jealous, too envious of you."
"Son-".
"Rias, please let me finish," She interrupted me. "I don't think that I would be able to do it again if I stop."
I wanted to tell her that I didn't want to hear the reason for everything that had happened anymore, that there was no point if it made her cry, that It was alright, that we'd just try to be better but I just nodded.
"I had always been compared to you Rias. I was the sister of a satan like Rias Gremory. I was almost as strong as Rias Gremory. I was almost as beautiful as Rias Gremory. I tried to act as if it didn't but it did hurt Rias. It made me wish to be you Rias. Maybe if I were you, things would be better, maybe if I were you, people would listen to what I say instead of completely disregarding it," Sona revealed.
"I saw you, everything I wished to be wasting I had thought herself and it burnt here Rias," she said her right hand at the level of her heart. "It burnt so much with hatred, so painfully, so bitterly. This is the reason why Rias. With what I just said to you and the coming war, there is a lot of chance it'll probably be the last time for a long time that we will be talking."
"Rias," she continued. She was now looking in my eyes. Her amethyst had turned soft and looked like the eery but beautiful sky of the underworld. "I'm sorry for everyth-".
I stood up from the chair, walked to her side and shut her up by hugging her. "Don't say that. It won't be the last time we will be talking. I just wanted to know. I never said that I wanted you out of my life."
I knew what it was like to always be compared to a close relative who was just better at every level, and who had been blessed even more than yourself. A relative that felt like a shining sun you wanted to extinguish, so for once, people would be looking at the brightness of your moon.
I had loved and hated them. I had wanted them to fall just to know what it was to be me. I wanted them to thrive so that they could be happy. It made me wonder. Did he cry when I was gone? Did he talk with fond memories of everything mischief we got up together? Well, it didn't matter anymore.
"It would be a lie to say that I don't recognize the fact that I was born lucky Sona. Most of what you said was true. My beauty, my strength, my status, those are things that I didn't work for, that were handed to me at my birth. They were also chains, responsibilities I didn't ask for. Maybe I could have done better but I tried Sona, I tried my best and before the rating game, it hadn't been enough."
"I had feared that I would have lost you when I was watching it Rias," Sona told me. "I had feared that I would have lost my sister. I was scared the same way I am now scared."
A bitter laugh escaped her "I am scared of this war Rias. I am scared of losing everything, of losing Serafall, you, my peerage, my family.!I wished things could be different."
Her voice broke "I'm scared of dying Rias."
I continued hugging her. "I don't care what or who is put on my way. I won't let you leave me, Sona," I whispered to her. "If I have to fight against Death, I would do so, if I have to fight an endless so that you and the ones I care about live on, this is what I will do."
"Everything you just said is illogical to the highest degree yet I believe you," she told me.
She leaned in my embrace. "Can we stay like this for a moment?" she asked me.
"Of course, Sona, of course," I answered her. I was as scared as her to be honest but It didn't matter. I'll do everything so that moments of peace like this could last forever. 'I also wished things would be different Sona' I thought.
I had a comment say that I buffed too much the Abrahamic faction, that they aren't that strong in DxD. Normally, I would say that they were right but it's a crossover with the Sandman. Someone who read the Sandman or Lucifer would have said that I downgraded, weakened them and they would have been right. I'm repeating myself. It's a crossover
The Argonaut
- Location
- france
View: https://youtu.be/-a0uIWHNaHk
He ignored the dark angry sky, the tower of plants hovering over him like cruel judgemental gods.
He ignored the aching pain he felt, he ignored the way his body burnt from the inside and he focused only on what was in his arms.
He focused only on his son, on the corpse of his son. His son had inherited the white colour of his eyes and his hair from his father but everything else came from his mother, Jason's dead wife.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. None of this was supposed to be happening. His baby boy should have been laughing, complaining about school and how it bored him. He wasn't supposed to be so unnaturally still.
He had chosen this city of the United States because the population and even the religious members of their church hadn't been aware of the supernatural, at least, that's what he thought.
He had wanted to raise his child in a place where he wouldn't have to fear for his life OR suffer either because of devils like Jason had done due to his status as a half-blood or Exorcists, fanatics believing in the extinction of everything they saw as blasphemous against their god. Nicholas, his son had been his everything.
"Why?" he felt himself ask. The voice that came from him was the voice of a broken man who had lost everything.
"Why?" an approaching voice repeated his question. "You're really asking me that?". The owner of the voice finally appeared in Jason's vision field. He wore priest robs over what seemed to be an expensive tailor-made suit
Jason said nothing waiting for an answer, one that could explain why, why was the life of his only child taken away when he hadn't done anything.
"Woah, you're serious," the man said with surprise in his voice. The priest, no with the way the man oozed confidence, it was clear that he was more. That wasn't a mere priest aware of the supernatural. It was an exorcist. He stopped walking before Jason.
"That's simple really. You're devils, creatures of darkness and I did half of my duty, cleanse the darkness that your son represented," the exorcist spoke.
That was it? The reason why his son died was only because of his nature? He watched how the exorcist lit up a cigarette. "Do you want one?" the exorcist asked.
He presented the package of fags to Jason. He didn't move. After a moment, the exorcist understood and put it in one of his pockets. "He was just a quarter devil," Jason found himself saying.
"I thought that it was more but hey, it is what it is. He's still had the blood of a demon running in his veins. I'm sure that the lord will accept him in his kingdom because of his humanity after thousands of years of repentance." The exorcist made a cross with his arms.
The exorcist looked at his watch "It's getting late. Sister Rosa will pester me all day tomorrow if don't come back soon. I'll soon deal with you. Do you want to ask a last question before I send you to our lord?"
Pride, the exorcist exuded it as if he already won, as if killing Jason's son was just a formality. "I just want to know something. Why now? All that time, you and the other members of the church knew of our presence for all those thirteen years yet it is today without any provocation that you attack and kill my son. Why?"
"Honestly, I wanted to exterminate you and your family for a long time way before your wife even died. Copulating with Half Demons? It's a no-no in the eyes of the lord. It's one of the greatest sins, an unforgivable one but each time I unfortunately wanted to get rid of you, there was always a you can't do this, they're peaceful, the war ended, they're also part humans and all the crap."
The exorcist threw his non-finished cigarette on the ground and smothered it under his feet. "I knew it was just a question of time because things went wrong. It's in the make-up of your kind. You only bring suffering and devastation into this world. I was proven right when your kind decided to kill the pope, kill cardinals, attack the Vatican, attack god himself. Now the other recognized that I was right. I was finally given the authorization to slay you and your spawn Jason Amduscias."
"I'll pray for your soul that in the next world, you may be allowed to come back to this world as a being pure untainted from sin." Jason watched how the plants began to rush at him.
Time slowed as Jason watched them coming close. Jason wondered if he should try to fight, or do anything. What would be the point? He had lost everyone that mattered. His grandfather, the original Amduscias, the only parental figure that he had, who had loved him and didn't treat him as lesser because of his half-blood status had died fifteen years ago of injuries he had sustained in the great war.
His wife had died giving birth to their son and the son that had been his reason to continue had just died in his arms.
Was this how everything was going to end? Was he going to let the killer of his son able to leave after as if nothing had happened?
He has been wrong. There was one thing that still mattered. There was own thing that still animated him and that was to drench the fucking earth with the blood of the exorcist.
Around him, the gigantic trees stopped in their advance as if they were held away by an invisible force.
The exorcist had been leaving but stopped when he didn't hear the sound of broken bones and flesh, of his pillar entering into and cratering the Earth.
"Oh?" the exorcist said in surprise. "I thought that there was no fight in you anymore, that the death of your spawn had broken you. Well, it see-".
Jason didn't let him finish. He pushed with all of his might, darted through obstacles and punched the motherfucker in the face.
He felt something crack under his fist before the exorcist form was sent flying away to a neighbouring home.
Screams erupted from it as the inhabitants of it began to scream in terror. He felt a surge of Holy energy as if waiting to be activated at any moment.
The exorcist came walking out of the house. The punch of Jason had deformed his face. His jaw was hanging in a grotesque sight yet the exorcist didn't seem bothered or feeling pain.
Even in his state, the exorcist opened his mouth and spoke as if nothing had happened "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
He watched how reality bent with the words of power of the exorcist. He was back in pristine condition as if everything that had happened had just been an illusion, a lie that Jason's brain had believed.
"You're a saint," Jason said to the exorcist already knowing it to be true. Saints were human beings with enough holy power that they had been either lucky to be born with or faithful with such faith that the Abrahamic god himself granted them proportional to their faith authority over the world.
There once had been millions of them at the beck and call of the church and Heaven. Most templars had been saints. They had been the first of Heaven on Earth.
They had slayed in the name of the god they worshipped an innumerable number of Pagan deities and supernatural beings.
Fortunately or unfortunately depending on who you ask, with The decline and the major loss of power of the church in the last centuries, Saints have become rarer and rarer.
"This is the title that the church gave us. I prefer to call myself an executioner. It's less prideful," the exorcist said.
The exorcist stopped meters away from him. "Are you scared now that you know what I am? Will you try to run or beg for your life?" the exorcist questioned.
Around them, the silent neighbourhood had become alive. The sleeping mundane had awakened and were now acting like headless chickens. "Shit, the head sister will have my hide. So many people to hypnotize. Well, it is what it is.
Vines and thorns began to sprout from the ground coiling as if they were snakes ready to strike "I'll deal with all of this after I kill you."
Jason searched and dug inside for a spark that he hadn't touched for a really long time. He embraced it into his heart, into his soul and ignited it. Lightning, dark violet plasma surges from inside him igniting and filling every one of his cells with energy.
Sparks of electricity appeared and disappeared around him. "I don't care if I die or live Saint," Jason said softly. "The only thing that mattered to me right now is fucking annihilating you."
The exorcist rolled up his sleeves leaving his arms bared. They were covered completely by blood-red tattoos, tattoos of Bible verses. 'They were probably similar in their functionement to runes' Jason mentally noted.
Jason took a fighting stance, hands at his chest height, face exposed, his feet were heel, toe shoulder width apart.
In the next second, the saint was rushing at him, a punch directed toward his face, exactly what he wanted.
Jason slid to the right, the arm of the exorcist overextended before him. Lightning crackled and coated his right arm and with it, Jason moved to cut the arm of his enemy.
He watched how slowly due to the speed his mind operated his attack came closer to his opponent. It should meant his victory yet Jason felt as if something was wrong.
He was proven right when the spot he was on the point of striking bulged as if worms were crawling into the skin of the Saint.
The flesh distorted and exploded in a shower of gore and blood. A spike came Rushing at him from the disfigured arm.
'He knew I would dodge,' Jason realized. He wanted and counted on me doing this and counter-attacking. That was a trap.
'That was clever,' he had to admit. Fortunately, he also had tricks. He continued not trying to escape or dodge the thorn.
The thorn entered in contact with Jason's skin and phased through him. It was said that The members of the Amduscias clan had control over lightning. That was wrong. They didn't control it, they were lightning.
How could Lightning, something so unearthly be touched by something not from the Heavens?
He watched with satisfaction how the smile on the face of the exorcist was turning into shock. This time, Jason wouldn't give him a chance to survive. He targeted the heart of his opponent, piercing his flesh with his right arm, attaining his heart, grabbing it and removing it in a violent display that demons of old would be proud of before kicking the Saint in the face sending him flying again.
The heart of the exorcist was still beating in his grasp as if not aware yet that it had been removed from his owner. Jason crushed it making the organ spatter him with blood.
"Nicholas, it's done," he whispered. "Soon, I'll be with you."
Jason pumped all of his demonic energy into his bloodline making it more potent, more wild, more dangerous.
He could see light radiate from his skin, cracks that began to form. At that moment, he wondered if would his grandfather be proud.
"I tried my best," he said to himself. His gaze locked on the sun, the star of their solar system. It was so beautiful, so bright just like them.
A common activity that he had used to do with his son had been to watch the stars. With their nature as supernatural beings, they had been able to see more than mankind could ever imagine. Nicholas had told him that he had wanted to become one, to become a star so bright, so beautiful, so intense that he could never be forgotten, ignored.
Jason closed his eyes. He wondered if, for an instant, he would be as bright as Nicholas wished he could have been.
His thoughts stilled with the sound of a voice, of a familiar one "Oy, it is not finished," the voice spoke.
Jason opened his eyes. His gaze fell on the walking living form of the saint. "How?" Jason could not stop himself from asking.
The gap that Jason had left when he had taken the heart of his enemy was still there. "What kind of monster you are?"
"A monster, you're inversing things devil spawn but I understand that it can be shocking. It's simple really."
The tone of his voice changes taking what could only be called gravitas. It was the second time. It was as if he was before a deity for an instant "Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security," the exorcist preached.
Jason watched how thorns appeared and slithered into the flesh of the exorcist and began to sewn him back together replacing what had been destroyed, taken. "That's simple really, I'm a weapon, his weapon and weapons don't die," the Saint spoke.
Jason flexed his arms checking on their state. They could still move. That was good. His bloodline was still running amok in him destroying him little by little.
He could stop it but it would mean that for a moment, he would be devoid of ways to defend himself until his demonic energy replenished.
If he didn't stop, he calculated that his bloodline would destroy him in the next 4 minutes. Four minutes to kill a Saint, a being capable of shaping and transfiguring the world according to his faith.
The smart thing would be to try to run but Jason had never been smart. Lightning-shaped devil wings exploded free from his back.
Jason rose in the sky, his gaze encompassing all the city where he had lived with his child.
Under him, he felt an explosion of holy energy and saw how the Earth itself began to move. "God had said," the Saint spoke.
"I command the earth to give life to all kinds of tame animals, wild animals, and reptiles And that's what happened. God made every one of them. Then he looked at what he had done, and it was good. God also said, Now we will make humans, and they will be like us," the Saint chanted words of power.
Jason raised his hand and grabbed the entirety of it. "Never forget what we are, what you are," his grandfather had told him.
Under him, Jason watched how Metal, Iron, glass and rocks from all the city and the Earth itself began to move breaking away from their original places to bend at the will of the Saint.
'4 minutes' Jason reminded himself. Dark angry clouds covered his forms changing their nature due to his will being imposing on them, twisting due to his innate sorcery clading his body in a dark armor and bestowing in his right arm a jagged spear.
The world, the Earth attacked him and Jason Amduscias answered instead of running by flying toward it.
I kinda wanted to show what Sona was talking about. This chapter was supposed to be longer but I wasn't in the mood for writing more. I'll try to write the next chapter quickly. I also asked before writing this for people to choose between the letter B or G. They'll impact the end of the next chapter
A well-lived life is a celebration of our loved ones who passed way
- Location
- france
View: https://youtu.be/EZPxlz2rTM0
"What are you watching," Jason heard a voice behind him say.
"The stars Grandfather," he answered.
"Is it your wish? Would you like me to remove them to give them to you?" the Demon rasped at him.
His gaze fell on his grandfather. It was clear that his grandfather was unmistakably a monster. With the head of a unicorn full of jagged rusted teeth, a towering body longer than ten feet tall, with Hands and feet finishing in the shape of claws, it was clear that what was before him wasn't human at all yet he only felt comfort close to his grandfather.
"No," he answered. "What makes them beautiful is the illusion that they're non attainable."
"I worry Jason," the demon spoke. "It is just a question of time. I can feel it in my essence before I'm claimed by her. I worry about what you'll become after I leave. Your father, my spawn, the only good thing he brought to this world is you and he doesn't realize it. If it wasn't because you begged me, he wouldn't still be my heir."
"Grandfather, I am also scared," the boy admitted. "You are the only one that cared, that loved me. You were there congratulating me when I learned how to walk. You were there at each birthday. It was on your shoulders that I cried each time I felt sad. I love my father even though I know he doesn't. I am scared because I don't see other than you any other reason to live."
He watched how his grandfather kneeled. Even kneeling, Jason only arrived at the lower stomach of the Demon. The demon opened his arms and Jason engulfed himself in them.
"Jason, do you remember what we are?" the Demon whispered.
"We're the thunder, we're the light, we're the living proofs of the magnificence of this universe's anger," Jason repeated the words.
Those words had been engraved In his mind by his grandfather before he could even work. The demon had told him that it was primordial for him to never forget so he never did.
"It's in our nature Jason for us to illuminate and scarr the world. It's in our nature whether we want it or not to bathe the universe in Amethyst."
"I was scared because I knew that by leaving you alone, I would hurt you, that others like your father or his consort would try to treat you in a despicable way now that I'm not there. What I'm not scared of is of you shining. Look at those stars," his grandfather told him redirecting Jason's gaze toward them softy with a claw.
"I wish that I could see it, the day that you would shine and burn brighter than all of them. Look at the stars Jason," the demon softly repeated. "Look at them and never forget who you are Jason Amduscias."
"Grandfather?" Jason said while looking at the stars.
"Yes my child," the demon answered.
"I love you," he told the demon turning away from the stars to look at them. Stars may have been beautiful, bright and what many wished to be able to reach but it wasn't the case for him.
At that moment, looking at the monstrous form of his grandfather, he found beauty, no divinity not in the universe or in the belief of a god but by looking at him.
'The stars, I don't want to be like them,' he had thought while looking at his grandfather. 'If one day, I could become immensely vast and powerful, I wished I would be like you instead of them.'
That night, his grandfather and he watched the stars all night. At the coming of dawn, the demon king Amduscias, his grandfather faded before his eyes.
*scene*
'Thinking was becoming harder,' Jason reflected his mouth full of blood, his body laying in a puddle of it in the ancestral manor of the Amduscias clan "You are nothing but a bastard, worse, a half-blood one. Why?! What do you have to I didn't?! What do you have that your brother doesn't?!" he heard his father.
He pushed through the pain and tried to move one of his lambs "I was supposed to become the head of this clan now that he was gone! Your brother was supposed to become the heir!"
A painful chuckle escaped him. 'I wouldn't be able to protect you, my ass,' he thought. His grandfather had done one thing before leaving. He had transferred a part of his authority to Jason without him knowing it.
Because of this, according to the laws that had been established by the ancestors of the devil race, the demons, the original Amduscias was still alive and because he was still alive, it was impossible for his father to become the head of their clan. Jason was now at the age of fourteen before all devils, demons and governments the bearer of the mantle of King Amduscias.
It was not something capable of being removed. Even if Father tried to usurp him and become the new head of the clan like many devils did, it wouldn't change anything. The laws were made first by demons for demons. Devils were impacted, demons were not and he technically was one according to the metaphysical laws of the underworld.
Even bloodied the way he was, Jason couldn't find in himself the will to hate his father. If he had, the devil would have been dead before he could have even touched him.
"If you continue like this," he croaked with a mouth full of blood "you'll kill me and if you do, it will not be the other pure-blood devils that will execute all of you even if they wished they could. Gehenna itself would punish you, torturing you in an atrocious way like a sinner for all eternity," he told the devil more for the sake of his father than his.
"It's true that I can't kill you," his father recognized. "It doesn't have to be me that personally does it."
The devil walked toward his prone form. "Why?" he asked. 'Why could not you love?' he wanted to ask.
"Your mother," the older devil spoke "was supposed to be nothing but temporary fun, just a way to relax momentarily. I didn't even have to use magic to twist her mind. If you had seen her, so full of despair, of want, desiring from all of her being for someone to care about her. It was too easy and the way she broke down was such a delight," the devil spoke.
"I of course left the morning after before she woke up. I was so kind and such a gentleman that I left her ten dollars at her side. It was supposed to be the end. I already loved someone with whom I wanted to marry and finish my eternal life with so imagine my surprise when 9 months later, my father brought from the mortal world a child whose mother died in childbirth, a half-blood that he said wearing his blood, a half-blood that he fell in love at first glance with when he hated me, his own son, a half-blood, result of a lustful mistake," his father hissed.
"But today, I correct it. My father was there before to protect you but now he's gone." Jason felt himself begin to fall. "For once in your entire existence, make me happy by dying," his father told him before the teleportation circle he had fallen in and that had teleported his broken form into the sky closed.
'It hurts,' Jason admitted in the deepest part of his mind. He knew that one day, there were a lot of chances of something like this happening yet he had hoped for something he knew would never be real.
He could have stopped it at any moment but then what would have been the point, killing with his own hands his father?
'The stars, Grandfather,' he mused looking at them while falling. 'They are not as beautiful as they were.' They seemed dull, lifeless.
'I wish you were still there,' he thought before his falling form met the Earth like a falling star and everything turned dark.
*scene*
He could feel touch, careful, precise, caring. He opened his eyes with much difficulty to see at his bedside a black-haired girl with Hazel eyes who couldn't be older than he was.
She was looking at him with concern. What made it shocking and made him wonder why he was still alive was her nun outfit.
'So, that was his plan,' Jason thought. 'Making me fall in one of the territories of heaven while being injured. An injured devil in one of the strongholds of the Heavens was a sure death sentence.'
This is why he didn't understand how he was still alive, why he could feel that his injuries had been cleaned and bandaged. He should have been dead and a part of him yearned for it.
"Why?" he rasped.
He watched her eyes widen in shock. "You are already awake?".
She took a cup of water and tried to make him drink it. He looked at her with suspicion. His mouth stayed closed "I'm not trying to poison you or hurt you," she told him.
"If I had wanted to hurt you, I would have done so. I would have just left you bleeding and burning outside due to the holy energy suffusing most of this place."
She pushed again the cup of water toward his mouth and this time, he allowed himself to drink from it.
The liquid entered and with it, he felt less like a piece of coal and more like a living being. When the cup was empty, she removed it to put it on a table. "You didn't answer me. Why?" he asked her again.
He was a devil, a half-one, something considered worse in the eyes of the Heavens. He was the proof of the corruption of a human being, he was a devil with a human would and there were no greater abominations than maybe a Nephilim.
"Because it was the right thing," she answered.
"Most of your fellows would disagree with that," he pointed to her.
"I know but what's right and just is rarely accepted by most. I had thought about letting you die or calling an older exorcist to put you down," she revealed.
"It was before looking at you. I saw someone even younger than me. It was the kind of youth that couldn't be at a hundred per cent faked. That made me hesitate but what sealed the deal was something I never thought I would see, something we were taught was impossible, that could not happen. I saw tears on your face. You were crying even unconscious."
He watched how her eyes lit up with fervour. "Do you know what you did? You showed me that you had a soul. That what I was taught all my life could be wrong," she spoke.
"That way of thinking is dangerous at many levels. You are from the church. You're risking at best excommunion and at worst, execution. Also," he channelled his demonic energy into his eyes making them change shape "what is stopping me right now from hurting you. I'm a devil, you're a nun. It is a tale as old as time," he said in what he thought in a menacing way.
The thing was that she stayed smiling as if she wasn't before a being that could do easily monstrous things to her. "You just proved to me that I was right with each thing you did since you woke up. When I took the cup of water for you, I turned my back on purpose. Here you are trying to warn me, fearing for my safety when we just met. I see through what you're doing."
He looked at her for a moment before sighing and removing his grasp on his demonic energy. "It's better like this don't you think?" she said while smiling. "It would be awkward and totally uncool if you were discovered because you chose to make your eyes shine like a cat. My name is Maria. What is yours?"
He could not restrain the snort that escaped him. "Could you be more stereotypical?" he told her.
"Hey! It's not as if I chose," she said in false indignation. "Every woman here is either named Maria or Theresa or Grace," she said the last bane as if she was swallowing some kind of poison.
"Jason," he spoke.
"What?" she said in puzzlement.
"Jason Amduscias is my name," he told her.
"Nice to meet you, Jason," she told him. She took a thinking expression "Amduscias, I already heard that name," she spoke to herself more than to him.
"He was one of the 72 demons of the Ars Goetia. He was one of the surviving angels that rebelled with Lucifer against your god and that survived," he spoke unable to hide the pride and admiration he felt for his grandfather.
"I see who that is," she said excitedly as if she had found the answer to a difficult text. "A unicorn, your ancestor was a unicorn," she spoke as if she had found the secrets of the universe.
"A unicorn?" he sputtered in surprise and dismay. Maybe it was a good thing that his grandfather was dead. The slayer of millions, an archdemon reduced to an unicorn.
"What you said is so wrong and false," he said more to himself them her.
"Didn't he have the face of a horse and a horn?" she asked him.
"Yes, he had. That was the form he had chosen to use when interacting with mortals and beings not capable of withstanding his true form" Jason agreed reluctantly already knowing what kind of conclusion the girl was making in her own head.
If only his grandfather had chosen another one, Jason would not be here defending the fact that he wasn't an unicorn.
"If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck," she sang.
"Nothing that I say will change what you think?" He asked even though he already knew the answer.
"Nope," she answered. "Let me tell you where you are before I forget again. Welcome to the city of Redgrave in Alabama! She announced her arms open as if she was presenting the salvation of the human race
"Sweet, I'm an American state full of inbred. Well, it could not be worse than hell." America itself was mostly a no-go zone for all the other factions of the Abrahamic Pantheon except for heaven.
The president of the United States before swearing before the nation swore before the remaining Archangel and God. 99% of the United States was controlled and dominated by Heaven.
Most of the native gods had been killed, and murdered trying to defend the tribes that had been worshipping them.
It happened sometimes that the United States was infiltrated, and manipulated by another supernatural being than the angels like what Satan Beelzebub did with the two nuclear bombs on Japan.
"That's a stereotype," she screamed. "It's not because someone is from Alabama that they were probably some inbreeding in their lineage!
Jason looked at her lazily "Let me guess, your parents were direct cousins," he told her.
"That is false! They were half-siblings!" Her face became pale when she realized the words she had just said.
"I see, this is why you saved me. Because you are stupid," he spoke.
She looked mortified and maybe it was his devil's side but it felt good to tease her "Don't worry, now that I know, I'll do my best to try to accommodate your intellectual slowness."
"You were kinder and way prettier when you were unconscious," she spoke under her breath.
"Pretty? I'm manly," he told her in outrage.
"Nope. You look more girly than most girls do. When I first saw you, I thought you were one," she told him.
What she said wasn't false but It was not his fault that it was how his demonic energy and his genes made him look. If he could have chosen, he would have been born with the head of a horse and a horn just like his grandfather.
One day, he will find a way to become so masculine that even the gigantic Archangel Metatron or even the god of strength Kratos would look like wimps.
The sound of bells brought him back to reality. "I have to leave," the nun said looking panicked. "If they learn that I wasn't in my room that night, I'm fucked," she swore.
"You're a nun, shouldn't nuns never be swearing," he told her.
"Don't begin, if you knew how much I was told this. Anyway, I'm leaving. I left some food in the fridge."
She ran to the door and left. At least, that's what he thought. One second later, she was back, her head peeking in the entrance. "This cabin is isolated. You can leave if you want but it would be nice if you stayed. Talking with someone different, with you was a pleasant experience," she told him before closing the door and leaving.
Sunlight rays pierced through one of the curtains and illuminated his right hand. "So this is the true sun," he whispered.
He didn't know what he should do. He could go back to the underworld and his father and Jason's stepmother and brother would be punished but it was something he knew he would find no satisfaction in.
Maybe, for now, he would stay here in this cabin. He didn't know what the future reserved for him but he wished, no, Jason prayed to whoever would listen to take pity. He was already exhausted, going forward in itself, he knew a monumental and arduous task. He prayed to a dead demon, to his grandfather he knew was forever gone. The feeling of comfort almost as if he was still here made Jason Amduscias cry for the first time since the death of his grandfather.
*scene*
He was still there when she came back at night and it didn't change for days after, weeks after or even months after.
It was some new kind of normality he was clinging to. Something drove him, that gave him a goal, something to hole for the future, at least, that's how at the beginning, he saw their conversation.
It had been too easy and fast for them to become close but there was something different between the two of them.
Before her eyes, he wasn't a half-blood devil, he wasn't a bastard of the Amduscias bloodline. He was Jason.
He learned through the conversations he had with the nun that hidden under her clumsiness was a sharp and vast mind.
She came each day talking about her experiences, about her days, about her woes. It made him think about his grandfather and him.
With the way the nun poured her heart at him, it would have been easy to manipulate her. It was sometimes as if he knew her more than he knew himself.
Honestly, he was glad that she trusted him. It made him feel useful as if he mattered. In the same way, she gained something by sharing her life, the same way he did when she talked to him.
It meant that he was needed, that there was an individual in this universe other than his grandfather to whom he could matter.
They turned from acquaintances or friends to what could be considered lovers. They didn't really put a label or a definition of what they were.
Both of them didn't want to. It would make it more real than it was. It would be something that They would not have been able to come back from. The only thing they needed to know was that they were Each other's person.
He had known since the beginning of their strange friendship turned situationship that it would be just a question before the church of Maria understood that there was something afoot.
He feared that day, the day where the tranquillity and serenity he had been able to find would if not disturbed be destroyed.
At least, their utopia, what they had lasted 5 years. It could be seen as a miracle. For five years, he, a devil lived in what could be called sacred ground, had a relationship with a nun and he wasn't discovered.
It began of course with another nun called Grace. He understood now the hatred that Maria had for the name.
She was always talking about the fact that another nun with this name had been nothing more than what could be called a cross between a nuisance and a bully.
The other nun was the kind of person who loved and yearned to be at the top, be the best at everything and that was ready to do everything so that people would never rise over her.
Maria had apparently garnered the attention of an angel because of her kindness, her heart and the other Nun called Grace who had never been mentioned or noticed by one of the messengers of the Abrahamic god learned it and became jealous.
It is how one night, watching the sky together and talking they were discovered by Exorcists.
He was able to escape even though he was wounded but what had truly angered him had been the fact that he had not been able to flee with Maria.
The last expression he had seen on her face had been despair and sadness. It was as if watching someone realize that they were on the verge of losing everything.
At best, Maria would be exiled, banished from the church and she would be barred from entering after her death in heaven. The rules of the white omnipotent god were few but their breach were unforgivable.
What kind of life would she have? She had given all of herself to a god she had never seen. He has seen with his own eyes how her eyes lit up with delight when she talked of the church.
It was a punishment worse than death because it was condemning someone who believed in being cast away from everything they loved, knew and cherished in this life and the next.
At worst, they would kill her. If he did nothing, he would lose the person he loved and with the rules they had broken, he knew that her would would not rise to a heavenly abode.
He wished he wasn't a half-blood. If he had been a pure-blood devil, surely his father would have loved him. If he had been 100% human, Maria would not be on the verge of losing everything.
He looked at the stars in the night sky. "All of this time, I had turned toward you, trying to escape from reality, trying to reach what I thought was the unreachable. My grandfather told me that I would be as bright as you, as strong as you and I did something I had never done before. I didn't believe him. My grandfather never lied to me."
"Stars die, everything eventually fades," he whispered.
Those had been the words of his grandfather and they were nothing more true than this. He had found something worth it and he refused now that he had found to relinquish it.
The gashes in his back healed lightning writing from them and mending the skin. He turned toward where he knew was the church.
He crouched and jumped crossing the distance of many kilometres between the church and him falling on one knee in the courtyard of the church, the courtyard where all the members of the church of Maria were also present. All of them became silent as if Satan himself had dared to personally visit them.
His gaze fell on her. He could see injuries and bruises marring her skin. Her hair had been cut leaving her bald. Her eyes looked sunken as if all life had been sucked from her soul. She was forced onto her knees surrounded by exorcists with their holy weapons activated.
She was the first one to see him. Her eyes widened "What are you doing here. You should have left," she yelled at him.
"I probably should," Jason acknowledged "but I guess you rubbed on me."
"You! Devil, how dare you intrude on this holy land!" an old bald priest spat at him.
Around him, he looked at how The church members began to surround him from all sides, looking at him with caution as if he was a panther, prayers muttered under their breath, their holy energy rising on the surface.
He could feel a buzz on his skin as if he was too close to a fire. The Holy Light of the heavens was less a weakness, a poison and more a curse from the Father of Lucifer to all the instruments of war of his rebel child.
"Maria," he spoke. "Everything that happened, that will happen is my sin! My sin alone!"
"Please, don't do what I think you're going to do," she begged him.
A priest had enough of waiting and shot a bullet at him. The bullet stopped its movement in the air. He saw twitches in the hands of the other exorcists.
He watched from the corner how his eyes how the exorcists threw themselves at him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them back. "I am a devil Maria. It's in my nature to be selfish," he told her before he erupted in lightning.
In a swift move, he disappeared to reappear between the murderous mass of exorcists and used his lightning coating his arm with it, cutting through flesh and bone with disgustingly ease.
Some experienced exorcists were able to escape from his attack or shield themselves with holy energy.
That was an error. It meant that they were still and stillness meant in battle death. He rushed toward one of the exorcists.
To the credit of the exorcist, his eyes were almost able to follow him. The exorcist tried to shield himself counting on his holy barrier.
Unfortunately for him, Jason would not let himself be refused. He was thunder, he was violence and nothing could not cave under his might.
The shield broke the moment he touched it. His fist continued hitting the exorcist in the face and removing his head from it.
Jason watched in slow motion as the head bent in a way a head shouldn't and popped out of the neck of the exorcist. The moment the head had left the body of the exorcist, Jason chose to move.
He rushed toward what seemed to be a young exorcist. The other boy could not perceive him. His eyes were full of terror, of fear. Jason felt pity for a moment before squashing it and going through the young man at full speed vaporizing him.
He glided on the ground as if he was skating more than walking. He was the butcher and they were the pigs at a slaughterhouse.
He cut through holy energy, bit through flesh, vaporized and cooked skin and human flesh both from inside and outside.
Around him, the blood hadn't fallen on the ground. From his perspective, it was as if a halo of blood was surrounding him as if a deity of blood and slaughter recognized him as one of his heralds.
He allowed himself to stop, to deactivate momentarily the power that he had inherited from his bloodline.
Gallons of blood and guts fell on the ground like a twisted macabre rain. He felt it fall on his face, his hair and on Maria and the two exorcists that were still at her side.
He tried to ignore the gaze that the nun directed at him. He knew that he would surely lose her after this bloody display but it was fine. He preferred her alive even if she hated him than dead barred from the heavens suffering like a sinner in the underworld.
One of the priests took from his back a glowing shotgun with crosses engraved on it and tried to shoot him. Jason cut the bullet with one of his nails.
He began to walk slowly toward the two remaining priests and Maria. The priest with the shotgun was beginning to be frantic. He pulled on the trigger again and again and again.
Jason cut them all with indifference. He could see fear growing on their faces. The other priest seeing the futility of the actions of his comrade took a knife from under his robe and put it on the throat of Maria.
Jason stopped. "It is for her that you came back. If you make another move, I will slit her throat. She will directly go to hell barred from heaven, tortured for all eternity!" the priest yelled.
Maria didn't look scared. He would instead say that she looked saddened more than anything else. "All of them are dead and it is because of you Maria. We raised you, gave you everything and you rewarded us with desolation and death!" the priest told her. Her gaze fell on the ground where a piece of brain matter had flown.
"I don't know what kind of blasphemy you did to make him care but it is something that will be the cause of his downfall and yours after," the priest monologue.
"Stay still or she perishes," the priest told him. "Devils are all monsters. You destroy and ruin everything. Even with how young you seem, look at the carnage you brought. They had families, friends and you robbed them away from their families. Look!"
Jason's gaze swept over the mutilated corpses, to a field of dismembered cadaver. Agony and fear were painted on their features, proof that their demise had been a brutal one.
"If I had to do it, I would do so," he told the priest. "I don't care right now about Evil or Good right now. I don't care about consequences as long as I am only the only one affected. I only care about Maria."
A vein throbbed on the head of the priest with the knife. "What are you doing? What are you waiting for? Shoot him! He won't do anything".
The priest was right that Jason didn't do anything to defend himself. The bullet entered in collision with his skin and was the one to break.
"There are two things you need to know," Jason spoke softly. "You were able to hurt me before because I believed that I could be hurt by you." When a parent says to their children that nothing can hurt them unless they want, they are either dismissive and overestimating their child even though they believe what they said which create problems down the road or they are right.
He should have known that his grandfather was being literal When he told him this. Belief and power were the only things that devils needed. His grandfather had told him this many times and he had forgotten.
He began slowly to walk toward the priests and Maria, his steps echoing in the courtyard.
"I warned you!" the priest with the knife spoke before trying to slit the throat of Maria. He found himself unable to. He tried again and again but it was as if the knife could not cut anything.
"What kind of sorcery is this?" the priest said in shock and fear.
"The demonic one," he answered him before two bolts of lightning fell from the sky turning the priests into burnt husks.
He kneeled before Maria and with the knife that had fallen from the hands of the priest cut through her bindings.
"Why?" she asked him. "Why did you do that? They raised me and cared for me. Maybe I shouldn't have been born. All of this was because of me."
"None of those things were your fault," he told her softly.
"Those happened because of me Because I love you," he told her. She looked as if she had been struck, surprise etched on her face. It was after all the first time one of them had told it to the other.
"I don't need to you accept it, acknowledge it or anything else. Everything that happened here happened because of me, not of you Maria." Slowly, he put the knife that he had grabbed in the shaking hands of the nun.
"I will understand if you don't want to see me ever again. I will also understand if you want to avenge yourself." Lightning crackled around the knife embedding into it like a dark poison making it take an obsidian color.
"This knife will now be able to injure supernatural beings. It means that you'll be able to use it to protect yourself and that a stab of this knife in my heart would kill me," he told her.
She inspected the knife in her grasp turning it to see it from different angles. "I just lost almost everything," she spoke softly.
"The people I called father, mother, siblings, they all died to you, the half devil I had saved, my family died at the hands of the one I love and if what we hadn't done before didn't ensure it, now it is clear that I'm also barred forever from heaven."
"You are selfish. I had told you to leave but you did. You're also cruel Jason. You want me to destroy with my own hands the last thing that makes me happy. You want me to kill you so that you could find some absolution so that you could clear your consciousness. It is too easy."
She let the knife fall from her hands. It fell into the bloodstained ground and sank into it as if it was butter.
She looked at him in the eyes. He tried to turn away from her gaze but the appearance of her left hand on his face stopped him from doing so. "You're going to live Jason. We're going to live. I will never forget and forgive what you did. Your atonement will be me. You took everything so you'll become my everything Jason Amduscias," she told him with steel in her voice.
"It is understood?" she asked him.
"I understood Maria," he answered.
"Good," she said before kissing him. He felt her bit into his lips. He allowed her to make him bleed.
She retreated slowly away from the kiss. "Jason, let's leave," she spoke softly. The steel and the seriousness that had inhabited her were now gone. She now looked fragile as if she was a frail plant that would be unrooted at the first gust of wind.
He took her slowly into his carrying her as Maria was something made of glass. From his back, demonic bat wings erupted.
With a swap of them, they left the ground of the church. Behind them, the scene of the slaughter and the tragedy was engulfed by a bolt of lightning.
*scene*
They tried to never stay in one place after what happened. They moved, travelled and lived in different states and cities each month.
Even though he hadn't let an alive witness, Jason knew that it would suffice for one of the souls of the members of the church that he had destroyed to reach Heaven for the angels to know what had happened.
The relationship that he had with Maria also changed due to what happened. When she sometimes looked at him, he could only see disgust and hatred. Other times, the emotion that was present was love.
He bore it all without complaint. That was what he deserved after all. Maria had chosen to die, she had chosen and Jason took it from her.
Jason took from her all of those she considered family. He changed even though it had not been his intention her life completely.
Right now, they were for the moment staying in Los Angeles. 99% of the United States was controlled by the Heaven faction. What they didn't control was ironically Los Angeles, the city of angels that was under the control of the Grigori.
What was good or bad depending on your circumstances with fallen angels was that they valued only things that they would see as valuable.
As long as you gave them what they wanted, they would be ready to do everything you asked them.
Jason had just before entering the city notified one of the fallen angels guarding the city that he was technically the head of a devil pure-blood clan for the city and all its luxuries be awarded to them.
He had to promise in exchange for safe passage now and in the future one favour to the Head governor of the Grigori, Azazel, one of his grandfather's brothers.
He could see Maria sitting at the edge of the roof of their hotel. He didn't fear because he knew that the protection that had been lit by the fallen angels would ensure that nothing bad would happen in case she fell.
She was looking at the city and its lights. He walked toward her and sat at her side. They stayed in silence.
"I don't hate you," she said softly breaking the silence.
"What?"
"I don't hate you," she repeated. "I never did."
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked her.
She answered him with another question "Do you know that you talk while you sleep?" she spoke.
"In your sleep, you were begging me to not hate you and honestly it hurt," she told him. "There is only one person I hate and this is me. What I said to you that day at the church was because I wanted you to live."
She turned toward him "All those times we talked, all those times that we were together. They made me realize something, Jason. You stayed alive first because of your grandfather and when he died, you had wanted to join him. You let your father almost kill you. He would have if I wasn't the one to find you. If I hadn't said what I had told you, I fear what would have happened to you Jason."
He tried to ignore the butterflies dancing I'm his stomach and the arm feeling that he felt inside. He would focus on them later "The reason why you hate yourself, is it because of what I did that day in the church?" he asked her.
"It's partially the case," she admitted. "The truth was that it happened because of me. It was because I fell for one of the seven capital sins. I fell into greed," she whispered.
"I wanted both you and the church. I wanted both of you forever in my life when I knew that it was something impossible. I stayed indecisive doing nothing hoping things would never have to change," she told him "And this is why all of this happened."
"Actually, I'm lying. I didn't forbid you to take your life. I didn't choose to live because I feared that you would die. I did it for me. I did it because I wanted to live with you, Jason. I did it because I was scared of what waited for me on the other side," she revealed to him.
He turned his gaze back toward the city. With his eyes, he was able to see through every detail of the members of the crowd.
He watched what seemed to be a group of young girls dressed for what seemed to be a party.
He watched a balding man rubbing what seemed to be a proposal ring in nervousness.
He watched how two toddlers ran and played screaming around what was clearly their father both looked happy and exhausted.
"Why aren't you saying something, Jason? Are you mad?" she asked him.
"Not at all," he answered honestly. He felt as if a weight had been removed from his shoulders, as if he was a disabled elderly man now able through a miracle to walk.
"I'm just happy you're not mad at me and that you didn't change too much due to what happened. You're still as stupid as ever," he joked.
"What did you say?!" Maria said in shock and outrage.
"That you were as stupid as before," he answered without a beat. "It is not wrong to want, to desire."
He turned back toward her "You were taught all your life that it was wrong when there is nothing more human than desiring something. It is not you that was at fault. It is this world. In a perfect world, in a better one, it wouldn't matter that I am half devil and that you're from the church so don't be angry or hateful toward yourself, do it toward this world."
"This world, do you think that it could change, become better?" she asked him.
"I think it could," he lied his gaze moving away from hers.
"You're a really bad liar, especially with the fact that you're a devil. Shouldn't you be all suave and with a perfect silver tongue?" she teased him.
"A lot of devils are bad liars," he defended himself. "It's just that they are never talked about."
"Sure," she said with a smile.
He sighed "You don't believe it, do you?" he asked her.
"Nope."
"Jason," she said his name gaining back his attention.
"Yes?"
"I love you," she told him. "I'm happy even with everything that I met you," she told Jason while smiling.
The moonlight illuminated her features bathing her in a silver light and making her appear in the eyes of Jason as something divine. "May I kiss you?" he asked her.
Her answer was to kiss him.
*scene*
'It wasn't supposed to end like this,' Jason mused. Maybe he was cursed to only lose what he held dear in his heart. He was before a grave. Here lays Maria Amduscias, beloved wife and mother. His grip over the bundle of clothes in his hands tightened.
He knew due to the fact that he was a devil that the would of Maria wasn't there. The multicoloured nebulae that he came to recognize as her soul were nowhere to be seen. The only thing left was a cold rotting corpse yet he was still here maybe in search of catharsis.
They had thought that if one of them lost their lives, it would be because of a confrontation with a supernatural being. Maybe an angel bringing divine justice, by fallen angels betraying them, by devils hired by his father or maybe by any other supernatural being that hated his race.
Childbirth, it had been the cause of the death of Maria. Something so mundane, so ordinary had been the reason for the death of the woman he had loved and had been lucky to marry.
They had been able through some exchanged favours with the fallen angels to find a secluded place where they would not have to fear Heaven's wrath.
Their dream of beginning for once to live and not only survive had ceased to exist just when they could reach it.
It was in the nature of devils to destroy. This was why healing powers or items were so important for their race. This was why the Phenex clan was so rich.
Maybe it was because of the demonic nature of their child, maybe it was because of another indiscernible reason but Maria bled to Death in a hospital bed.
He knew that he could have saved her if he had used an evil piece. He would have just needed to go back to the underworld and due to his status as the new head of the Amduscias clan, he knew that he would have received them from Satan Beelzebub immediately.
He had told this to a dying Maria. Her answer was to beg him not to do it. She told him that she wanted to die as a human. She asked him to respect for once her wish.
He was the devil and she was an ex nun yet she had been the more cruel amongst them. He knew that he loved her, what her loss would do to him. They just had a child, a newborn that would never know his mother.
He had in his arms someone who would be completely dependent on him for survival, who would be shaped and moulded by him.
The only parental figure he had was his grandfather. He never knew his mother and from his father received only Pain and heartbreak. How was he supposed to be a good parent when he never truly had one?
He looked at the child in his arms. Maria had been the one to choose his name before dying. She had chosen Nicholas. She found it fitting.
He looked at the sleeping form of Nicholas already showing snow-white hair on his head even though he was a baby.
"I don't what I'm honestly doing," he spoke softly to the sleeping form of his child. "I'm far from being the strongest or the most clever. Bringing you to this world could be even called a disservice due to how harsh and cruel this world is. I can only promise you one thing, to try my best so that you can be happy."
He turned toward the grave "I'll take care of our child. I'll stay with them until the day they feel that they can safely confront the world by themselves no matter how long it takes. When I finish this, I'll come to find your soul."
He turned away from the grave "You were one of the best that ever happened to me, Maria. See you soon," he spoke before leaving behind the grave where the body of the woman he loved rested.
*scene*
View: https://youtu.be/ZKEJyDEmlJU
He had failed, his child dead and for this, Jason would make the world pay in fucking blood he thought before breaking through the pillars of the Earth controlled by his enemy.
He weaved on the left, flying in a perpendicular way. He tightened his grip on his spear and threw it at the exorcist.
A slasher grin full of teeth was present on the face of the Saint. From the Earth around him, he shaped a sword batting away Jason's spear his sword exploding in his grasp and shredding his skin.
Jason appeared before the exorcist. Around them, the Earth was moving as if to protect its master. He turned to slash the throat of his enemy, a spear appearing in his hand just before he finished his spin.
The ground moved like a liquid and appeared before the Saint taking the blow successfully protecting him by letting himself be destroyed.
A new sword appeared in the grasp of the priest. He made a smashing movement with the sword.
The instincts of Jason blared in his head. He followed them moving to the right, at his side, the Earth opened in two as if it was an ocean before Moses.
It continued its path of destruction toward the horizon where Jason lost sight of it. He turned back his attention to the Saint who was making another slash toward him.
The Earth also hadn't stayed idle trying to bury Jason into its wild grasp. His body turned into lightning losing sense of the rules of the
Mortal world, the world taking an obscure tint into his eyes.
With a push from his legs, he left the ground back to the sky. The saint had been able it seems to deduce that Jason would move because Jason realized that the place targeted had never been where he was instant before.
The saint had been able to deduce where Jason would be moving next, his slash shimmering and cutting through atoms coming toward Jason.
Turning into lightning he knew would not allow him like last time to dodge so he met the attack with one of his one. He summoned from the dark sky over him A black lightning bolt, hotter and bigger than most mortals had ever seen or imagined.
Billions of volts fell from the sky in a nightmarish sound colliding against the attack of the Saint.
The attacks touched and the world screamed in agony. The sky and the Earth opened. Jason was sent flying away, a mountain stopping him. He turned to his right and was greeted by the destroyed face of one of the founding fathers. He rose painfully and ignored the screams of panic and fear around him.
His gaze was focused, only turned toward his enemy. He could see from his vision that it was the same thing for his enemy.
The Saint had crossed the border and was now in the rubble of what seemed to be a governmental building.
The Saint's skin had been flayed due to the speed they had moved, his flesh ruptured and bones broken yet Jason could see the Saimt healing slowly.
There were only two ways to win against a regenerator. The first one was the bring such an amount of strength that he could do nothing against it, so that the regenerator would be erased in one instant.
The second one was to bring so much damage to the enemy that his healing factor would not be able to keep up.
Jason took a running stance, his gaze focused only on his enemy and pushed with his leg sending himself flying faster than sound breaking behind him Mount Rushmore and turning it and its surroundings into rubble.
The still regenerating Saint and Jason met in the sky. "When He thunders, the waters in the heavens are in turmoil, and He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain and brings the wind from His storehouses," the voice of the Saint boomed.
Jason met resistance in his control over the sky as if he were battling against a foreign authority. The Saint thought that his holy words could help him against Jason.
Such a grievous error. They met in the sky, swords and spears in hands. They butchered through each other.
Jason felt the sword of the Saint bite for the first time since the beginning of their fight into his flesh. More than that, the wound left imbued into a veins-burning fire yet Jason didn't falter.
With his slash, he opened the stomach of his opponent and made his intestines hang in the air. He used them as handles, grabbing them and ripping them from the flesh of the Saint before kicking him in the neck making his body bend in a way one shouldn't.
He finished his combo by head-butting the Saint in the face sending him flying toward the Ocean.
It wouldn't be completely right to say that there existed only two ways to win against a regenerator. There was a third one and it was madness, madness through pain, madness through helplessness.
Jason's wings batted behind him sending him flying toward the ocean, behind him, a path through the clouds appeared.
He could feel the holy energy of the Saint which meant that he wasn't yet dead, an error that Jason would be soon correcting.
He saw the holy man standing at the surface of the ocean. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers," the Saint spoke.
A gigantic wave taller than a skyscraper rushed toward him. He could feel holy energy sufficing the gigantic wave.
Jason gritted his teeth, coated his right arm in lightning and punched the wave with all of his might. Jason watched how the atoms composing the water split violently.
He hurriedly erected a shield made of lightning around him or at least tried to. The priest chose that moment to attack trying to stab through Jason's heart with a sword.
Jason knew that the Holy energy of the saint would ensure that his sword would bypass his shield. A stab into the Heart would surely mean losing.
Holy energy was already running amok through his flesh and his veins. He chose to dodge, to withstand the maddening eruption of energy that would be released by the atoms of the wave he had punched.
Not an instant later, he was filled with agony. He felt his bones break, his flesh being set aflame, his body being sent ragdolling Lucifer only knew where.
He had a brief respite from his agony when His back met with something sturdy. He stayed down in a puddle of his blood.
The flames that were covering him had disappeared. A laugh escaped him when he realized where he was, the absurdity of it.
He could see the Earth in all its glory. He could see a mushroom cloud covering a part of the sky and bathing the Earth in an eery red glow.
He was now in space. The craters at his side confirmed to him that he was indeed on the moon. Here, the stars looked closer, as if he could touch and grab them.
He swore that he could see standing at the corner of his vision his grandfather, his wife and his son. He felt exhausted. He wanted to close his eyes, to give up. "Nicholas, Maria, Grandfather, I am exhausted. I am not sure I can make it. I'm so sorry."
He blinked and when he opened his eyes back, they were surrounding him. They were looking at him "What are you all doin-".
He was cut by what felt like a shock. Another ran through him. It turned from sporadic to regular, beating to a melody he could not fully understand.
He felt strength feel him, the ache and the pain he felt slowly disappearing. "How?" he found himself asking.
They were dead. It wasn't supposed to happen. It was more than a hallucination. It felt real. No, it was real.
"Death, true death is being forgotten former from the world of the living Jason" Maria spoke softly kneeling and cradling his head into her arms. "Death's domain, nothingness, hell, it doesn't matter. As long as you are here, we will never be completely gone."
His son walked and sat at his side. He was holding in his hands what seemed to be a star. He placed it on his chest of Jason and slowly, it began to sink in. "I wanted to give you this the day of your birthday but hey, better now than never right?" the boy spoke.
"I love you," he said to the ghost of his child. "I love all of you and I'm sorry, so sorry that I wasn't able to delay if not making all of you avoid your ends," he spoke softly.
He rose on his knees and slowly stood. "You'll always be there with me?" he asked them.
His grandfather was the one to answer him "Of course Jason. Someone Living is a celebration for his loved ones who passed away."
The fight between the Saint and him had only lasted one minute before he was sent flying to the moon. He could not feel anymore The time limit that significating his soon end.
His demonic energy was beating to a symphony he could almost hear, stronger, fiercer, wilder than it had ever been. Jason would live.
He would win and live not only for himself but for all of his loved ones. "It is time for me to end this," Jason told them.
"What will you do after?" Maria asked him.
"Patricide," he answered her without missing a beat. "I've left my throne empty for too long. I had been too passive. I can feel war coming what happened to me was a symptom, an announcing sign. I'll change this world so that the one that will rise from the ashes of this one will be a better one."
He felt them disappear from his awareness. He put his right hand on his beating heart. "Overload," he whispered. He felt something crawl and grow under his skin at the level of his forehead, pierce through the flesh in an explosion of blood. Pain was absent. He felt his nails turn into claws and watched how his skin turned Scarlet. He knew that if he had looked in a mirror, the vision that would be meeting him would be the one of a stereotypical demon.
He turned toward the Earth where he could still feel the Holy energy of his opponent. The explosion instead of sending him in the air like it had done with Jason had instead buried kilometres under the crust of the Earth. The part of the Ocean they had been in had been vaporized leaving an unnatural gap, a void that couldn't be filled by the world.
Jason could see him extirping himself from the underground cavity full of magma he had fallen in. The Saint looked like a burnt skeleton, an abomination that could not be called human.
The saint was still regenerating but it was clear that it was happening in a slow rhythm. The Saint was for the first time vulnerable.
The saint looked upward and Jason knew that the Gaze of the Saint had met his. He saw the Saint shake with what was clearly barely restrained anger. The mask calm and aloofness he was exhibiting at the beginning was clearly now gone.
The skeleton opened his mouth and chanted words of power, something that should not be possible with his lack of tongue. Jason even with a distance of a hundred of thousands of kilometres heard him.
"Deliver me from my enemies, O God; protect me from those who rise up against me. Deliver me from evildoers," The saint sang.
Jason simply willed for a spear made of plasma, of stars to appear in his right arm. He understood now. Stars and lightning, at their root, were the same thing. This had been the reason for the attraction of his son and him toward them. This was Why his grandfather had told him that he would one day shine brighter than them.
He felt a divine presence surround him, trying to crush him, to erase him. He broke through it with a negligent movement of his spear.
He put his spear before him, pushed on his heels and jumped toward the Earth. The glow of his spear grew and grew. The spear drank from the light of the sun, from the Heat of his entrance into the Mesosphere.
The Saint sent him flying toward him towers of metals imbued with holy energy. Jason pierced through them.
The Saint tried to crush him with the weight of the skin. Jason continued non-hindered as if nothing had happened.
The saint sent thorns, giant constructs into armours, Jason cut through all of them and continued his fall toward the Saint.
The saint understood that nothing that he would be throwing at Jason would be able to hurt him so he tried to escape by burying himself into the ground.
"Oh no, you don't!" Jason yelled. Threads of lightning appeared at the tips of his fingers, cut through the air like hunting snakes and closed
Around the head of the Saint. Jason yanked uprooting the Saint toward him.
"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped" the Saint screamed in panic.
Jason's spear entered into contact with the hastily erected shield. A shockwave erupted at the impact making the world shake and cave around them. The spear of Jason and the shield of the saint were creating a deafening melody of discordant notes.
"Can't you see?" the Saint yelled. "As long as he is with me, you won't win. This is how reality is!"
"I'm a demon," Jason told the saint. He pushed and the holy shield cracked. "We spit at reality and the rules he made".
Another push and the barrier broke. In a desperate bid for survival, the saint tried to impale Jason by trying to stab him with the thorns in his skin. They slid harmlessly against Jason's skin.
"I told you that I would kill you," he said softly to the Saint before throwing the spear into the chest of the saint.
The impaled saint was sent careening in pain breaking through Earth layer after Earth layer after layer until he came out of the other side of the planet before the spear in his chest exploded bathing the world in a kaleidoscopic glow.
G was the winner. If it had been B, Jason would have lost. Also, if you could all choose, in which clan from the Ars Goaetia would you like to be reincarnated into?
The sun shall rise on us
- Location
- france
View: https://youtu.be/zAPhp9LYq44
I had left after a moment the student council's room. I'm not sure that it could be said that the friendship I shared with Sona was completely mended but it was way better than its previous state.
That was one crisis solved for the moment. Now, I needed to deal with the Boob obsessed dragon, AKA, Issei.
I was just walking aimlessly a part of me noticed. There were things I knew I needed to do. I had to reassure my peerage, make them feel and actually be safe.
In Canon, most of the things that happened could have been said to be tame. Sure, Kokabiel, the Khaos brigade, Rizevim, the alliance of Greek evil gods and the artificial super devils created by Hades through the corpse of Lilith were important problems, issues that had to be dealt with by the protagonist but that always felt as if they could be handled.
Such a thing never fucking happened in canon. The beginning of a new fucking great war between beings that could easily destroy the planet, beings that could destroy the little tranquillity I thought I had gained.
I tried to not think about it but it was clear that I wasn't transmigrated only in Dxd. I had memories talking of the endless, talking of the Prince of Heaven as Michael Demiurgos instead of simply Michael.
Sona had mentioned Destruction and it had been the nail confirming everything I ever feared.
The world of DxD alone was one full of hidden and obvious dangers, madmen ready to create suffering just for the fun of it but at the end, it was a world where at the end, it could be said that good, peace prevailed.
The same thing could not be said about The Sandman, the world created by Neil Gaiman. A world where the facets of reality had taken humanoid forms and we're the most dysfunctional family even before the relationship between the Presence and his sons.
This was a world where to those cosmic entities, we could have been considered lesser from their point of view than a speck of dust.
Cosmic beings that goaded suns to destroy planets just to spread misery, that decided your Fate since the creation of your soul, that loved to toy with humans just for the fun or to use us as proxies to hurt others.
Cosmic beings that could condemn you to an eternity in hell because you refused to be theirs forever. Cosmic beings that were static and that only had as relatively decent members of their family the literal concepts of Destruction, Death and Delirium.
I could feel beating in my heart that old panic I thought I was able to get rid of. Fear, I tasted it in the air.
A chuckle escaped me. Sona and the others were not the only ones to fear. I just was used to hiding it.
I wondered if the essence I had been inserted with would be able to change anything. Would it allow me to stand on the same lines as the strongest beings of this universe?
If I needed to, would I be able to survive against one of the demiurgic Archangel? My steps finally led out of the Kuoh Academy building.
I could see my peerage near the portal of the academy. I continued to walk towards them. This family that I had been able to have, will I be able to protect it?
I could see Anger written on the face of my pawn. Asia at his side had her right hand intertwined with his left hand.
Opposite them, Yuto was leaning on the portal, arms crossed, a finger ticking as if he was waiting for something.
Akron, Koneko and Gasper were not far away from my knight. Koneko and Gasper were eating sweets. Well, it would be more accurate to say that Koneko was both eating and feeding him at the same time.
Koneko was more territorial with her food than a mother bear was with her cubs. This was kinda shocking and at the time surprising in a good way that she would act toward Gasper this way.
My pawn head snapped in my direction as I almost reached them. The anger that had been there began to strengthen as if I was the cause of his ire.
It was something it seemed I could not try to deal with later. I knew that it was possible for a juggernaut drive to be activated due to heightened emotions. I didn't need a red angry destructive dragon destroying Japan.
I ignored all the other members of my peerage and spoke to Issei "You are angry," I acknowledged. "Angry at me. I want to know why," I told him.
In canon and from my memories, this was the same boy ready to do anything for me because I was in his eyes an attractive woman. It was the boy who saw how much I hated Riser and fought through pain and flames for my freedom. It is the same boy who would have in canon sacrificed one of his arms for me.
I needed to know what had changed, what I wasn't able to see. " President, since I had been reincarnated, it had always been crisis after crisis. I saw what fallen angels could do. I saw what rogue exorcists could do to normal people."
"When it happened only to me I was fine with this. I wanted to live. I will always be grateful that you reincarnated me. The thing is that my parents, they're humans, the other inhabitants of Kuoh, they're human. They don't know anything and haven't done anything so why should they suffer? My father is just a simple salary man and my mother is a stay-at-home wife but when the President of the student council said that those horrible things would happen, you didn't deny her words. You didn't say that it was false," he spoke.
"Because it, unfortunately, wasn't Issei," I told the brown-haired boy "but you're a member of my peerage, my family. Your parents, they'll be coming with us. Nothing will happen to them Issei," I tried to reassure the boy.
His next words felt as if I had been stabbed in the heart "It's all your fault, President," he spoke softly looking at me in the eyes.
"Issei," Akeno spoke her voice full of warning and thinly veiled promises of violence. "She is still your king".
The air was now thick with tension. I feel as if I could literally cut it with a knife. Asia's gaze was travelling between Issei and me as if undecided on what she should be doing.
The eyes of Yuto were now sharp sapphires directed toward Issei, looking at him as if the boy was a threat.
Koneko had put herself stealthy before Gasper as if to protect him in case something happened.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. What did I miss? A part of me ached at his words because my pawn had unknowingly been so painfully right in his anger.
None of this would have happened, should happened. Even with the presence of the endless, I would have liked to think that this world would have mostly followed the road of canon.
The only thing really different was my presence. I was now Rias Gremory and it seemed that this change was enough for the world story to change.
It was the butterfly effect at its finest. A butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the world and on the other world, a hurricane is produced.
"Maybe, it is my fault," I told the brown-haired boy. "Maybe this war that I didn't directly cause is my fault. Maybe it is my fault that you're now a devil, that your ignorance over the reality of this universe is mostly gone. I could give most of it back to you," I spoke.
It wasn't false. I was a devil and I also had the essence of adaptation. I didn't completely remember it but I knew that it was possible for me to guide my own evolution. It means that If I wished to, I could in fact turn Issei back into a human.
"Even then, I'll still take care of you and your family. I'll do everything in my power so that nothing will happen to you."
My gaze swept over the ex-nun "But it would also mean that you would lose what you gained all this time as a devil. Your power, your friends, those that you love."
My intentions could not be more clear. If Issei wanted to go back to his previous human state where he thought everything was better, it would mean that he would have to cut every link that he had with the supernatural or it would have served to nothing. It meant for Issei losing Asia.
"I know what you're thinking but it would not be possible for Asia. Unlike you, she is known by the supernatural world Issei. She was almost declared a saint before being excommunicated publically as a witch and unfortunately, she was associated with the fallen before being a member of my peerage," I told the boy.
The same option didn't exist for Asia. Telling him to tell made me feel dirty, like a manipulator. I knew Issei or I think I knew him mostly.
The boy would never give up on Asia at least voluntarily. The conflicted face that he was spotting was proof that I was right.
"It's just a question of time before someone from the underworld comes to evacuate us," I spoke.
"I received a message from the queen of Satan Lucifer that she will be there to make sure we reach the underworld safely at Dusk" my queen confirmed at my side.
"Take this time to think Issei. Take this time to think about what you really want. Don't immediately answer. Allow your head to cool," I advised the boy.
"Fine," he spat before beginning to leave only Lucifer knew where. Asia followed at his side.
Gasper came to my side and hugged me. With his height of 1m50 and mine of 1m72, his embrace reaches more my stomach than anything but this hug felt freeing, liberating as if it removing a weight. I hugged him back the best I could and allowed myself to breathe.
"Are you alright president?" he asked me.
"I am better now and it is because of you," I answered him honestly. Gasper was the only thing that could be said that I had done right since I was reincarnated.
It wasn't in the usual behaviour of my bishop to act like this my memories showed me but maybe all this time, that was how he truly was under everything and because it had been easier to seal him and unseal him only when I needed him in Canon, maybe it was the reason why he had acted in canon at first so recluse, so anxious and shy.
"Yuto, Koneko" I spoke the name of my other pieces.
"Yes president," they answered in unison.
"We won't see the night envelope Kuoh before leaving. I want you to pack everything you would like to bring with you into the underworld and help Gasper to do so," I told them.
I saw them nod in understanding. "Come, Gasper," Koneko said softly to the dhampir hugging me.
Reluctantly, the boy moved away from me. He took the hand that Koneko had held out for him and with the other members of my peerage began to leave toward the occult research club building leaving Akeno and me alone at the gates.
Kuoh Academy was silent, devoid of all life. Sona had decided to suspend temporarily its functioning. This academy, my academy looked like a ghost town. The dream, the experience that the original me had wanted to create, to be a part of was nowhere.
Everything is in a cycle I remembered. Everything had a beginning. Everything had an end. It was the same thing for dreams. They were fickled, temporary even when reached. That was what made them dream after all.
"I am exhausted," I spoke knowing that I had now the full attention of my queen. "There is always a new problem and I am not sure that I will be able to do the right things the way they need to be done."
"Is it because of Issei?" she asked. Lightning crackled around and was accompanied by a smell of ozone "I could discipline him for you," she offered.
"It would serve nothing. Things could go back to almost what they were but there would always be something different, broken. How could I consider him family and treat him the way a disobedient dog is? There is also the fact that the Axe may forget but the tree doesn't," I told her.
"It's just that I thought things were better, were going to get better," I told her. " I don't what I did or didn't do. How am I supposed to fix something when I don't know why it was broken?"
"It is not because of you, Rias that he's angry. He's angry because he feels helpless. He saw first-hand the atrocities that could be committed by supernatural beings with the fallen angels. He saw how strong and destructive supernatural beings could be due to the rating game against Riser," she spoke.
"All this time, even before being reincarnated, it could be said that he acted as a devil should. He was ready to do anything to obtain the Harem he wished he would have. Issei had never acted more human, more scared because this is the reality of humanity, why it had been able to survive all those years, it was because of fear," she finished softly. The way she was talking, it was as if she was speaking of something familiar.
I turned toward her "Is it what you really think of humankind? That what defines them, define their existence is fear?" I asked her.
"Heroes chose to slay monsters because they were fearful of what those monsters could do to them. Humans hate what's different because they fear what they don't understand. Humans kill each other because they fear themselves. They discriminate, treat their brethren as lesser, as not even existing because for them, looking and acknowledging others in difficulty is realizing that the other is just a reflection of them, of what they could have been and there is nothing they fear more than this," she answered.
I had never thought that Akeno would be thinking this way. Nothing from my memories or even the light novel indicated such a thing. Akeno was known to hate other fallen angels but it was clear that her hatred wasn't only reserved for fallen angels. If she didn't hate human beings, it was clear that toward them, she felt pity at best and complete indifference at worst.
"You never spoke of this before," I told her.
"It is true but things changed Rias. They changed for the better and the worse. For once, I want to live authentically, free, without regret," she said.
"Did I stop from doing so in the past," I asked her.
Our gazes were now locked. Even with the powers inherent to my nature as a demon, I could not really distinguish, or read in her eyes what she was feeling. It was both a boon and a curse.
"No Rias," she spoke so softly and sweetly that I felt myself shiver. "You're the one that gave me the will, the courage to do so. You talked of living fully unrestricted. I saw this and realized I wanted to do the same."
"This world is changing, everything I thought was unbreakable has been broken. Now I see that what I feared, what I wished for is possible. I don't know if I will survive this war so I want to live as if this day was my last," she told me.
"I would not let you die," I told her. "I would fight against God himself if I needed to for all of the members of our family, for you Akeno," my voice turned into a whisper at the end.
She was so close that I could almost touch her. I could smell her. She smelled bewitching not how a living being should. She smelled like an unholy combination of Ozone, sunflowers, Roses and sulfur.
Those different smells should have not together made such an aroma but here I was feeling lightheaded as if I had ingested a drug.
One of her palms softly touched the right side of my face. 'Did her hand always feel this soft?' I wondered in a haze.
Was all of this truly happening? Should I let this happen? Change meant chaos and unpredictability. Stagnation, a lack of change meant Stability.
I had already just by existing ruined everything without really wanting to. "I am a low-class devil Rias in status. More than that, I was before being reincarnated the Nephilim daughter of the Watcher Baraqiel. It is not a question of if Rias. I will be whether I wish for it or not on the battlefield. You are on the other hand a pure-blood heiress, the little adored sister of Satan Lucifer, a powerful and beautiful devil. They won't allow you to go on the battlefield unless you are the last bastion of defence of the underworld."
"I don't care Akeno. I won't let anything happen to any of you. The only thing that matters in devil society is strength. I'll crush anyone on my path so that nothing will happen to you," I said to her.
It didn't matter what I should or shouldn't do. This new family that I had just gained, I will do anything to not lose it. I already lost my family once. I didn't want to be alone again.
Over us, a distinct part of me noted that the oppressive feeling brought by the sun on me due to nature as a creature of darkness was vanishing due to the night coming.
It was dusk. It would be just a question of minutes before Grayfia came. "Rias," Akeno spoke softly looking at my lips. "May I?"
I knew what she was asking. It was something I knew could not come back from. I looked at her, at her dark hair framing her head like a dark halo, at her eyes I felt I could lose myself into, at her perfect features.
"I never had a chance, did I?" I asked her even if knew the answer.
"You didn't," she confirmed without shame, a small beautiful smile blooming on her face.
"Yes, you can," I whispered softly. I closed my eyes waiting for her to kiss me but nothing came.
I opened my eyes back. Akeno wasn't looking at me anymore. She was looking at the sky in alarm.
I understood why when I did the same. A new sun had appeared in the sky, a sun that felt divine, alive and that was falling toward us.