High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Issei

The armor was gone.

That was the first bad thing.

The second bad thing was that I could feel exactly how much work the armor had been doing.

Pain rushed back into every place the Scale Mail had been handling for me a second earlier. 

The heat from Riser’s fire bit harder now.

The air itself felt hostile against skin no longer wrapped in dragon steel.

My body, already hanging together out of pure stubbornness, suddenly remembered just how close to broken it actually was.

It hadn’t been 10 seconds.

“Ddraig, you said 10 seconds! What happened?!”

[No. The price you paid to attain my power was enough. But your body is too weak to control my powers. You lack training.] Ddraig said to me.

Only my left arm remained transformed.

The gauntlet no longer covered me whole, but the Dragon’s pulse still lived there—organic, red, monstrous, the one part of me still fully plugged into Ddraig’s strength.

“Is there something more I can give? Anything!”

[Using the second armour in this short time is impossible for you now.]

Riser approached me from across the ring, chest rising hard, blood still wet at the corner of his mouth from the cross strike.

[The moment the armour disappeared, I transferred a bit of power to the jewel. You can overwhelm Raiser Phoenix for a short time, but that’s it. To beat those of the Phoenix clan—.]

I need absolute power.

[Sadly, you won’t be able to. You can’t beat him down and aren't close to “absolute power”]

Riser grabbed me and lifted me by my collar.

He smiled again, but it wasn’t the same smile as before.

No easy amusement now.

No harmless superiority.

This one had real strain in it.

“I praise you for going so far [Pawn]. You really did well. To be honest, I didn’t expect it from you. The power of one of the great Dragons, I was able to feel it with my own body.” He said smugly. “If you had a year, no, six months for you to get used to your power it would have been your win.”

His wings of fire were smaller.

He continued monologuing as if this was over.

I had worn him down, but not enough.

No.

Buchou was still right there.

The nobles around us were quieter now than they had been at any other point in the match.

They had finally started understanding that this was no longer a joke the Maou had decided to host for fun.

It was still entertainment to some of them, sure.

But now it was dangerous enough to make them respect what was happening. 

My eyes flicked once to the side and found the cross lying on the polished floor where the last exchange had knocked it loose.

Still there.

Then farther, to Kusari-san.

Still at Maou-sama’s side.

Still in servant black and white.

Still in the sling.

Still watching.

Buchou was still watching too.

She still hadn’t seen me become the strongest pawn.

Asia was waiting at home.

I hadn’t fulfilled her request to bring Buchou home.

That made the next breath steadier as I grinned at him.

His expression changed as he tried to choke me more.

Too late.

“I’ll just need to extinguish your flames!”

I quickly pulled the small bottle Asia had given me before coming here.

I thumbed the lid open and splashed the holy water straight across his chest and throat.

It normally wouldn’t be enough for a high class devil.

Then I drove Transfer through it.

“Boosted Gear Gift!”

[Transfer!]

The reaction was immediate and ugly.

The holy water on his body didn’t just burn.

It exploded in effect, multiplied by the transfer of power until the room itself seemed to recoil from it.

Steam burst off him in violent white clouds. His wings lost shape for one horrible, beautiful second.

The hand at my throat spasmed open and I dropped free, hitting the floor hard and coughing while he staggered backward roaring.

Riser clawed at his own chest like the water had become acid and fire at once.

Smoke poured off him.

The nobles panicked back from the ring farther.

Even some of the older Devils looked shaken now.

He wasn’t dying, right?.

[No, even with its effect increased holy water won’t be enough to kill someone from the Phoenix clan.]

Thats good.

[However, the effect of the holy water extinguishes a lot of their stamina and their force of will. Even if their bodies are difficult to destroy, losing a great amount of stamina and force of will is devastating. He won’t be able to recover his mental strength right away.]

He was suffering.

I moved.

No armor.

Less protection.

More pain.

But faster in a different way now, because there was less to carry too. Not stronger. Just more desperate and more willing to trust the ruined body anyway.

I came up from one knee with the cross in my dragon arm.

I sprinkled a second container of holy water on it.

This will be enough.

It has to be.

I breathed once.

I thought aloud of my friends and what they had given me.

Asia’s cross and holy water.

Yuuto-san teaching me me to widen my line of sight and look not just at the enemy, but at the space around them.

Akeno-san drilling into me how to gather the flow of power and force it into one shape even if I was too stupid for elegant spellwork.

Kusari-san directing me where to move while trusting me to follow through.

Koneko-chan showing me that when I hit, I needed to hit the center and I drive it deep.

And Buchou.

Buchou was the whole reason I was still here.

What was the point of any of it if I stopped now?

I used Transfer onto the cross and holy water.

“H-Hold on! Do you realize what you are ruining!? This engagement is vital for the future of Devils! It’s not something a reincarnated devil like you can butt into!”

Riser tried to get me to stop. 

Fear crossed his face properly this time.

I took the stance Koneko-chan had drilled into me over and over when I was too bruised to complain properly anymore.

Feet.

Center.

Drive through.

And because I needed the rest of it too, because this was not only the last strike of the fight but the answer to everything I had failed to do on the rooftop and in the game and in all the places before this—

I shouted at him.

“I don’t know anything complicated!”

The devils watched. 

“But I remember one thing!”

Then I ran.

“I remember Buchou crying!”

My fist drove straight into the center of his body.

“That’s reason enough!”

Cross first.

Holy water and Transfer carrying through it.

Everything I had left behind the hit.

The impact was perfect.

Riser’s whole body folded around the strike.

He coughed blood.

Then more of it.

The hall went utterly silent.

He took one step backward.

Then another.

“No…” he said, and this time the arrogance was gone too. “To lose like this…”

His body swayed.

The fire around him guttered.

He collapsed to the group.

The silence held for one more second.

Then the hall exploded.

Gasps.

Shouts.

Outrage.

Shock.

The whole room breaking around the fact that the Phoenix heir had just been dropped in front of all of them by the same idiot schoolboy he had already beaten once.

I stood there breathing hard enough to sound broken and waited for my body to catch up to the fact that we were alive.

Then I turned.

Someone gets in my way. 

Riser’s sister. 

She glared at me silently as if she would try and stop me after what had just happened.

I point my Dragon arm towards her, 

“If you have a complaint, then come to me. I will take you on any time!” 

Ravel quickly backed down and lets me pass.

Buchou was already moving toward me.

I met her halfway.

No.

That wasn’t true.

I took one step and my legs failed on the second.

Buchou caught me anyway.

Of course she did.

“Idiot,” she whispered.

Her hands were shaking.

Mine were too.

“I won,” I said, because apparently I remained committed to obvious observations even while half dead.

“You did.”

Her voice broke on the last word.

Then I looked past her and saw Kusari-san.

Still at the edge of Maou-sama’s side.

Still upright only because stubbornness and the wall behind her had made an arrangement.

This time, though, the shape of the room had changed enough.

The match was won.

The condition met.

Her stillness broke.

She stepped away from Maou-sama without permission being spoken aloud and crossed the floor in that same pale, haggard way she had moved on the rooftop—less because the body allowed it and more because she had decided she would do it anyway.

Koneko-chan got to her first.

She came in at Kusari-san’s good side and offered support without asking, quiet and stubborn and visibly furious at anyone who might have imagined telling her no.

If Asia was here she would be fussing over her already. 

Yuuto-san and Akeno-san closed in too, we were battered but upright, the peerage reforming around our [King]. 

Very good.

Buchou saw it too.

The relief that crossed her face then was almost worse than tears.

I touched her hand once.

“Buchou.”

She looked back at me.

I smiled as well as blood and pain allowed.

“Let’s go home.”

That seemed to hit her harder than anything else I’d said all night.

“...Ise.”

Buchou’s eyes widened.

Then softened.

Then broke.

She nodded.

I turned next to the tall man standing beyond her.

Buchou’s father.

I bowed despite everything in my body protesting the movement.

“I’m taking back Rias Gremory,” I said. “I know what I did here was rude. I know I barged into your hall and caused trouble. But I’m taking Buchou home.”

The room had gotten quiet around us again.

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he closed his eyes once and said nothing.

That was enough.

Maou-sama, who was supposed to be with Rias’s father, wasn't there.

I hated that.

Not enough to stop winning.

________________________________________Rias

Issei pulled out a sheet with a magic circle.

It began to glow and a beast appeared in the room.

“Griffon…” a noble muttered.

I let the noise happen around me.

I did not care.

I had Ise at my side, still swaying and blood-marked and smiling like a fool who had just set fire to the stars and was proud of how bright they’d burned.

Koneko had already taken over helping Kusari with the sort of practical, immediate certainty that said more than any tearful reunion could have.

Akeno and Yuuto stood watchfully near.

Asia was still waiting at Issei’s home for us to return.

My peerage, broken and battered and still mine, had somehow reformed itself in the middle of the room intended to celebrate my loss.

That was enough.

For now.

Issei and I climbed onto the Griffon.

He shouted to the others as we took off.

“We will meet you at club room!”

Everything fell away beneath us.

Only one thing stayed sharp.

My Ise had come.

He had come after losing.

After sleeping through the aftermath.

After waking into defeat and walking straight into the hall anyway.

He had come.

By the time we finally reached the sky far beyond the hall my body no longer knew whether it was exhausted or simply empty.

The sky above us was purple.

Always purple in the Underworld.

Strange.

Unnatural.

And somehow, tonight, the most peaceful thing I had seen in days.

Issei sat in front of me, breathing carefully as if all the pain he’d postponed for the fight had finally come back to collect itself properly. His left arm still looked wrong under the sleeve, too alive and not entirely his. The side of his face was bruised. One cut near his mouth had reopened when he smiled too hard downstairs.

Idiot.

My wonderful idiot.

I touched his cheek.

He flinched and then leaned into it without meaning to.

“You dummy,” I said.

It came out softer than I intended.

His eyes widened in the moonless violet light.

“Your arm— You gave your arm to your sacred gear as a price to borrow that power?”

“Yeah it was a good trade. Someone like me, with little talent, was able to become insanely powerful just by giving my left arm! Thanks to it I was able to win the fight and bring you and Kusari-san back!” He said grinning.

“You know that what happened to your arm is permanent, don’t you?”

My words caused him to look sheepish.

“Well that is a bit of a problem. Oh no. What should I do about going to school?!

I chuckled before deciding to be a little cruel, “Asia will definitely cry when she finds out.”

He winced.

“You know. You broke this engagement, but another engagement might happen, you know? If you keep doing this......”

He perked up again, “Then I‘ll give my right arm next time. Then one of my eyes if they don’t learn. I will keep on protecting you Buchou. That’s the only thing I know I can do. I will always come and save you. That’s because I am Rias Gremory’s [Pawn].”

There were a thousand things I could have said.

Thank you.

Why would you do something so reckless.

You frightened me.

You saved me.

You stupid, stupid boy.

Instead I kissed him.

Not deep.

Not dramatic.

Just my mouth on his for the space of one long, shaking breath.

His whole body froze.

Then stayed frozen.

When I pulled back, he looked like I had physically rearranged his brain.

That was fair.

“My first kiss,” I said, because I wanted him to understand exactly what I had given him. “That matters to girls in Japan, doesn’t it?”

He stared.

Then his face went red all at once.

“Y-Yes! It absolutely does! W-Wait, your first kiss!?”

Adorable.

Even now, battered and half-dead and impossible, adorable.

“Is it so strange that I gave it to you?”

He looked ready to explode.

“In a good way!” he blurted. “In the best possible way! I mean—I—Buchou, are you really okay with that being me!?”

I laughed.

It felt unfamiliar after everything else.

“You did something worth rewarding.”

That answer pleased him so much it was almost embarrassing to watch.

Then, because I am still myself and because some things are too interesting not to test, I tilted my head and asked, “Do you really want my virginity that badly?”

He answered without thinking “I do! ….Ah.”

Which only made me laugh harder.

Behind us, I could see the image and the shapes of the others, now small in the distance.

Akeno speaking to my mother.

Koneko close enough to Kusari’s side that there was no point in pretending it meant nothing.

Yuuto speaking quietly watching over them.

The whole peerage slowly learning again what it meant to exist in the same room after almost being broken apart.

For tonight, that was enough.

I leaned into Ise and let my hand remain against his face a moment longer.

“Let’s go home,” he said again, quieter this time.

Not as a boast.

Not as a declaration before a crowd.

Only as truth.

I smiled.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s.”

END OF VOLUME 1

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