High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Issei 

“Geez, this is why I said we shouldn't get together before the actual meeting.”

Sairaorg-san sighed and went after Buchou.

There was no hesitation in either of them.

Which meant there definitely was a problem.

The rest of us had no choice but to follow behind our master, even though every step deeper into the corridor made the pressure in my chest worse.

The building had shaken hard enough that I was glancing at the walls to see if they’d cracked. 

Then we passed through the doors.

And I immediately understood why Sairaorg-san had come out into the corridor to begin with.

What must have originally been a banquet hall beyond was wrecked.

Tables, chairs, and decorations had all been smashed apart like somebody had taken a giant hammer to the entire room.

Even the polished walls had cracks and marks in them.

Broken pieces of furniture were scattered across the floor, and the air in the room was thick with so much killing intent that my skin prickled.

The Devils inside were split cleanly into two groups at the center of the hall, glaring at each other with weapons already drawn.

One side was made up of rougher-looking Devils with goblin-like faces, ugly grins, bad attitudes practically radiating off them.

The other side looked far more orderly, but the pressure coming from them wasn’t any gentler for it.

Very, very scary.

These weren’t enemies like the random stray Devil I’d run into before.

The quantity and quality of demonic power in this room was completely different.

Even just standing at the edge of it made me feel how far above our level most of them were.

Beside me, Asia swallowed hard.

Gasper made a tiny noise and edged closer behind me.

Xenovia’s hand drifted toward Durandal on instinct.

Yuuto-san shifted closer to Buchou and tensed slightly like she was ready to fight.

Koneko-chan stayed silent.

Yuki-san’s fox ears and tails were both making it painfully obvious she was ready to move at a second’s notice.

Her ears had gone slightly back, and the tails behind her were held tighter than normal.

It made me feel more kike we were about to join a fight and less like we were tryijg to figute out what was going on.

In one corner of the hall, there was still one table left intact.

Another group of Devils stood around it with complete calm, like they were unaware or simply didn't care about the fight that was about to break out.

In the center of them sat a person drinking tea.

In the middle of this.

A cold female voice cut through the room.

“Zephyrdor, can you not help starting a fight even in a place like this? If I end up killing you, the people above us won’t blame me for it.”

I looked at the one who was saying such terrifying thing so casually

She was beautiful.

She wore glasses, a blue robe, and had the kind of cold, sharp gaze that made it obvious she would not hesitate to say something like that and mean every word.

Her skin was barely exposed at all, which I would have normally found regrettable, but the amount of chilling demonic power pouring off her made me feel like it probably was a good thing for me that she wasn’t wearing anything that I would stare at.

I may have become the target of that terrifying glare otherwise. 

Across from her stood the obvious source of the room’s chaos spoke.

“Hah! All I said was that I wouldn’t mind teaching you some things in a private room together. You’re the one who got upset at such a kind offer. All of the women related to the Maous really are uptight virgins aren’t they? I figured I could help you loosen up a bit. I know you don’t like being without your guards, but you could bring a few cute ones with you if they’d like to watch.”

A loud, vulgar, bad news looking guy with green hair standing on end, dark tattoos over his face and bare upper body, ornaments clanking against his pants every time he moved.

No matter how I looked at him, he was a delinquent.

And a dangerous one.

He laughed like he thought himself above everyone here.

My first thought was: What the hell is wrong with this guy?

My second thought was: How was this idiot the next head of a noble Devil house?

Sairaorg-san came up beside me while I was still trying to understand what the heck was going on.

“This is a waiting hall,” he said. “Until the time comes, the young people gather here and exchange small greetings.”

I stared at the wrecked room.

“This is greetings?”

Sairaorg-san’s mouth tightened.

“When you put together enough hot-blooded people from powerful houses, this sort of thing happens. The old devils of the old and high-class families seem to think there’s value in it.” His expression soured. “I don’t want anything to do with this useless nonsense.”

Then he cracked his neck once and walked forward.

I was too surprised by him suddenly moving towards the fight that would surely break out that I wasn’t able to stop him. 

It looked like anyone who tried to step in between them would get hit from both side once the fighting started.

Walking straight into the middle of it seemed like suicide.

But Buchou stopped me with one arm before I could embarrass myself.

“Ise,” she said quietly, eyes fixed ahead. “You need to watch him carefully. Watch Sairaorg.”

“Eh? Y-Yes, but why?”

Her gaze sharpened.

“Because he is the number one ranked among the young Devils.”

My breath caught.

He was top among the younger generation gathered here.

He was Buchou’s top rival and already ranked ahead of her. 

That alone was enough to get my full attention.

Then I looked at him again and understood why Buchou had wanted me to see this.

Sairaorg-san stepped between the two groups as if the room’s killing intent meant nothing at all.

Every eye turned to him.

Including the idiot’s.

Sairaorg’s voice, when it came, was steady and heavy enough to make even me feel it in my bones.

“Seekvaira, princess of the Agares family. Zephyrdor, rebellious child of the Glasya-Labolas family. If you want to push this confrontation any further, then I will be your opponent. This is your last and only warning to step back. Depending on your next words and actions, I’ll face you without mercy.”

The pressure in those words was incredible.

The delinquent, Zephyrdor apparently, went red with anger immediately.

A vein pulsed in his forehead.

“For the incompetent of the Bael family to—”

The sound of an intense blow sounded immediately. 

I could barely follow how quick it happened.

Sairaorg-san’s fist had already connected.

Zephyrdor flew backward hard enough to slam into the wall, and then dropped from it face-first to the floor.

He didn’t move again.

One hit was all it took to take down a high-class Devil that had been giving off a large amount of demonic energy just moments ago.

I stared.

Asia gaped.

Even Xenovia’s eyes widened slightly.

Yuki’s ears twitched once, sharply, and then settled again.

Her gaze never left Sairaorg-san.

“I told you,” Sairaorg-san said, looking down at the unconscious body. “That was your last warning.”

The servants around Zephyrdor reacted at once, starting forward in outrage, weapons lifting and voices rising.

The shouted curses at Sairaorg-san and his family. 

But Sairaorg-san didn’t even shift his stance.

“Take care of your master first,” he said. “That’s what matters. Even if you wish to fight me, you would gain nothing and still lose. The meeting is about to begin. Make sure Zephyrdora is able to stand by then.”

The delinquent’s servants glared at Sairaorg-san, but turned back towards their master to try and help him. 

Because he was right, and because the difference in power between them and him was obvious enough that even anger didn’t make them stupid enough to try and face him.

Then Sairaorg turned to the woman with the glasses.

“Seekvaira,” he said coolly. “There’s still enough time before the meeting to fix your appearance. You can’t attend looking like that.”

Only then did I realize just how messy her appearance had gotten during the fight.

She stiffened, then gave a clipped nod.

“…Understood.”

And withdrew with her peerage.

Just like that, the battle ended.

The hall was still wrecked.

The air was still sharp.

My heart was still pounding.

But the fight we walked into had ended.

I stared at Sairaorg-san.

No wonder Buchou had told me to watch him.

He was unbelievably cool.

Strong, direct, calm, and able to put down a violent, foul-mouthed heir from another important family in one punch and still sound more irritated than proud afterward.

This was the strongest young devil.

This was what “number one” looked like.

“Sairaorg-san,” Buchou said, stepping closer now that the room had stopped trying to explode, “you haven’t changed.”

He let out a short breath. “I’ve tried not to, Rias. We will have to call the staff to fix up the room. I won’t be able to enjoy tea with you if the room is in this state.”

There was something easier in their voices now.

The two of them seemed to have a good relationship.

Then a voice I recognized cut through my thoughts.

“Ah, Hyoudou!”

I turned immediately.

“Saji?”

There he was, standing near one of the side entrances with the Sona-Kaichou beside him.

Saji looked just as rough-edged and earnest as ever, which was comforting in such an unfamiliar place.

Sona-kaichou, by contrast, was exactly what she always was.

Calm, intelligent, elegant, and faintly severe in a way that she always was.

“Hello, Rias, Hyoudou-kun,” Kaichou said.

“Hello Sona,” Buchou answered.

Seeing them here helped more than I expected.

Maybe because no matter how insane this gathering of future big-shots was, Saji was still Saji.

He was just another normal guy and a [Pawn] dragged into noble Devil nonsense way above his head.

He looked around the hall, whistled low at the damage, then looked back at me.

“…Rough start.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

I glanced back toward the ruined center of the room.

Zephyrdor’s people had carried him away.

Seekvaira had vanished to fix her clothes and hair.

The gentle looking guy drinking tea through the whole disaster still sat with impossible composure near the surviving table, like he’d simply been waiting for the storm to pass.

That guy was weird too.

He hadn’t even acknowledged anyone in the room since we had arrived.

I’d only really gotten a clear look at him now that the violence had ended.

Refined face, soft voice, graceful bearing.

A complete contrast to Zephyrdor and a different kind of calm than Sairaorg-san.

A room full of Devil heirs really did come in every flavor.

Asia, standing just behind my shoulder now, spoke quietly.

“Issei-san…”

I glanced back.

She was looking not at the wrecked room or Saji or Kaichou.

At the guy drinking tea.

He had been looking at her.

Only for a moment.

But I had seen it too.

I didn’t like the way he had looked at her. 

Yuki-san seemed to notice too. 

She was looking towards his group with slightly narrowed eyes.

But it was hard to tell if she had noticed something odd or was simply observing one of Buchou’s rivals.

I looked away from him and turned back towards our group.

Sairaorg-san called for the staff to restore the hall so he could properly have tea with Buchou, like the entire thing had merely been an inconvenience instead of a near full blown battle between powerful devil houses.

That alone said too much about what kind of people gathered here.

Saji came closer after that, and the room gradually shifted from combat-ready chaos into something more like what it had probably been intended to be in the first place.

It was a place where heirs and their peerages stood around chatting and drinking tea.

It still didn’t feel normal to me.

But we weren’t the only ones stepping into this mess.

And if Sairaorg-san was really the strongest among the young devils…

Then we had already seen the wall that Buchou had to overcome.

_________________________________________

Rias

By the time the waiting hall had been restored to a shape acceptable for noble company, the mood had changed completely.

The broken tables and chairs were gone.

The cracks in the walls had been smoothed away.

Fresh staff moved in and out without a trace of visible panic, as though the destruction caused by a half-finished confrontation between powerful young Devils was no more than a spilled glass at a quiet dinner.

It was a common enough scene for two Devils to cause destruction around them during an argument.

It was to the point that it was expected, especially at the young Devil gatherings.

It was even encouraged by the older Devils as a way to promote competition and focus on strength. 

I remained where I was for a moment after Zephyrdor was carried out and Seekvaira withdrew to fix herself, letting my breathing settle and my thoughts arrange themselves before the formal session began.

This gathering was never merely social.

It was not a simple reunion between children of great houses.

It was measurement of the worth of the next heads of noble houses.

A way for the older generation to place eyes on those of us who would soon step into wider public competition and show our power.

That made the earlier chaos even more embarrassing, even if some promoted it.

Though, if I was honest, only a little embarrassing. 

I had expected Zephyrdor to act like Zephyrdor.

What bothered me more was that he had proven Sairaorg right so quickly and so thoroughly.

I looked toward him now.

He had returned to his place with the same unbothered steadiness he brought to everything, broad shoulders relaxed, expression unchanged, as though knocking the heir of the Glasya-Labolas family unconscious in one blow was a tiresome but ordinary part of the afternoon.

It suited him.

Sairaorg had always been straightforward in ways the rest of us often were not.

He was what he appeared to be.

Strong.

Disciplined.

Honest.

He did not particularly care for the extravagancies that the other heirs did and preferred to focus on improving his personal strength instead.

Across the room, Diodora was still seated with impossible composure, the teacup in his hand having somehow survived the destruction around him as cleanly as his expression had.

He looked like gentleness polished into noble form.

The sort of man many girls would likely trust too quickly.

I knew better than to believe that he was as gentle and respectful as he seemed. 

Sona had arrived, so we were only waiting for Seekvaira to return once she had fixed her clothes and hair, and Zephyrdor’s servants to wale him up and get him in working order after being knocked out by Sairaorg.

He would also need to be kept calm enough not to lash out at someone again.

Once the two of them returned all six of us would be present.

Then we would only have to wait a short while longer until the meeting.

I was feeling both anticipation and apprehension at the idea of having the first of the young Devil meetings.

But no matter what happened I would hold my head up high and I would have my peerage behind me.

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