High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Issei

Saji groaned and put his head on the table. “Wonderful. Great. Excellent. We’re gathering all the unstable people in one place now. That’s exactly what I wanted.”

Kusari-san’s eyes stayed on my phone for half a second longer before she looked away.

“It’s a start,” she said.

That was all.

If Kusari-san thought this was good, then maybe I hadn’t just dragged us all into a worse mess for nothing.

We didn’t wait long.

Yuuto-san came in through the front a few minutes later, still in casual clothes from the day off, hair slightly disordered from the wind outside, expression composed in that careful way that meant she’d had to rebuild it before stepping inside.

The hostess led her over after she scanned the room once and found us immediately.

Her eyes went to Xenovia first.

Then Irina.

Then to me.

Then to the empty seat.

She sat without a word.

The table stayed still for a beat.

Then Xenovia said, “You came quickly.”

Yuuto looked at her with complete calm.

“You gave me a reason.”

That answer held a sharp edge.

Irina looked between them and then at me. “He really did call you right away.”

“Of course he did,” Yuuto-san replied. “That’s the kind of fool he is.”

I grinned before I could stop myself. “You came anyway.”

That got the smallest shift at one corner of her mouth.

Victory.

Tiny, but a victory.

Xenovia folded her hands on the table. “Then let us be clear. We are not giving Excalibur to Devils. We are allowing one blade to be destroyed by you because the present situation is beyond what the two of us can reliably resolve alone.”

Yuuto-san’s gaze never left hers. “And you won’t stop us from destroying it?”

“It is preferable to it remaining in enemy hands.”

Irina still looked a little unhappy, but she didn’t contradict her partner. “That is the truth.”

Yuuto-san’s eyes lowered for a second. In thought.

Then she asked the question I’d been waiting for.

“Why?”

Xenovia didn’t flinch.

“Because Kokabiel is involved,” she said. “Because three stolen holy swords remain active. Because our own two swords may also be targeted. There is a high chance that if we continue as we are, all five Excaliburs will be lost and our mission will fail.”

Her tone didn’t rise. It didn’t need to.

The numbers alone were enough.

Irina leaned forward a little. “Even if we use our final option, the chance of success is low. About thirty percent if things go well.”

Saji lifted his head just enough to look at them. “You came here on those odds?”

“We came prepared for self-sacrifice,” Xenovia said.

“Your beliefs are twisted,” Saji muttered.

Irina looked offended. “Says a Devil.”

“Yeah,” he said, “and even I think that’s bad.”

That shut her up for all of two seconds.

Then Xenovia looked at Yuuto-san more carefully.

“You hate Excalibur.”

It wasn’t a guess.

Yuuto-san held her gaze.

“Yes.”

Irina’s expression changed. Not softer. More serious.

“Because of the project.”

The table went still.

Koneko-chan didn’t move.

Kusari-san did not look at Yuuto-san immediately. She looked at the water glass in front of her, the way she did when something cut too close to old scars, then lifted her eyes and faced it anyway.

Yuuto-san’s voice was cold when she answered.

“Yes.”

Irina’s hands tightened around her cup. “I heard what happened. We all did. That incident became infamous among us.”

“Did it,” Yuuto-san said. “How comforting.”

The line was so flat it made even Xenovia pause.

Then she answered in the same hard tone she used for everything important.

“The man responsible was judged a heretic.”

Yuuto-san’s eyes sharpened.

Xenovia continued, “The one who directed the Holy Sword Project—the one who abused the children gathered for it—is no longer on the Church’s side.”

That got a small reaction from everyone.

“Then where is he?” Yuuto-san asked.

No wasted breath. No drama. Straight to the center.

Xenovia looked at her for one long beat.

Then answered.

“On the Fallen Angel side.”

Yuuto-san went still.

Not frozen. Focused.

“What is his name?”

Xenovia did not look away.

“Valper Galilei.”

The name sat on the table like another drawn blade.

Yuuto-san repeated it once under her breath.

Not because she hadn’t heard.

Because she was carving it into herself.

Kusari-san’s posture changed slightly. A tension entering her shoulders, not just from worry but from recognition.

This was what hatred wanted most: a direction.

Irina spoke before the silence could rot.

“He was called the Genocide Archbishop. After his actions were learned.

That made my skin crawl.

Even Saji looked disgusted.

“So your side threw him out,” I said.

“Yes,” Irina replied. “Too late.”

Yuuto-san laughed once.

No warmth in it. Not even a little.

“Much too late.”

I looked at her and understood, all over again, why I had done this.

Because hearing the name of the person who ruined her life changed something in her face.

Not healed it.

Gave it a target.

Xenovia looked at Yuuto-san, then at the rest of us.

“The Church is not absolved because he was condemned later,” she said. “I know that.”

Irina blinked at her partner, apparently surprised by the admission.

Xenovia either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“But if you want your enemy,” she said to Yuuto-san, “then you will find him through this case.”

Yuuto-san’s fingers curled once against the table.

That was the only outward sign of what that meant to her.

Then she said, “There is someone else we need to look for. They attacked me with an Excalibur blade after killing a priest.”

Irina leaned forward. “Who?”

Yuuto-san looked toward me.

“Freed Sellzen.”

That got a reaction from the Chirch girls too.

Irina’s face hardened immediately. Xenovia’s eyes narrowed.

“You know him?” I asked.

“Of course,” Xenovia said. “A former exorcist of the Vatican. Talented. Useful. Mad.”

Irina spoke next, voice quieter now. “He never truly believed in God. He only liked fighting and killing monsters. And eventually allies too.”

Saji whistled softly. “Charming.”

Yuuto-san’s expression darkened.

“More importantly,” she said. “He had an Excalibur.”

Irina nodded once. “Then it matches. He is one of the sword thieves.”

Xenovia’s hand tightened around her cup just enough to crack the ice in it. “And he killed the priests sent before us.”

I didn’t even need to ask how she knew.

For a second, nobody at the table spoke.

Because now we had names.

Kokabiel.

Valper Galilei.

Freed Sellzen.

It also made it feel more real.

Xenovia took out a pen and wrote on a memo pad from the restaurant’s side basket like she was drafting orders instead of alliance terms over cheap drinks and half-finished food.

She tore off the top sheet and pushed it across the table.

“This is our contact information. If anything changes, call.”

I picked it up.

Saji leaned in and immediately looked more stressed instead of less.

“Great,” he said. “Evidence.”

“You’re welcome,” I told him.

He looked at me like he hated everything about my face.

Irina raised one hand. “We already have Ise-kun’s number.”

I stared.

“What?”

She smiled brightly, entirely too pleased with herself. “Your mother gave it to us.”

The table paused.

Even Yuuto-san blinked.

Saji looked at the ceiling as if asking whatever devil oversaw paperwork why he deserved this life.

“My mother,” I repeated, “gave two Church swordswomen my phone number.”

Irina nodded. “She was very kind.”

“Without asking me!?”

“She said childhood friends shouldn’t be strangers.”

I put both hands over my face.

Of course Mom had.

Of course.

Kusari-san looked away.

Her shoulders moved once.

I realized, with horror, that she was trying not to laugh.

Koneko-chan noticed too. The corner of her mouth twitched.

Traitors. Both of them.

Xenovia stood first.

“So that is settled.”

Irina rose more slowly and gave me a cheerful wave that absolutely did not fit the atmosphere of the rest of the table.

“Thank you for the meal, Ise-kun. Treat me again sometime.”

“Yea, thank you for the meal Sekiryuuti Hyoudou Issei. We will repay you another time.”

“You are not helping my blood pressure.”

“That sounds like a yes.”

Irina smiled more brightly.

“It was not a yes!”

Saji muttered, “I want it on record that I opposed all of this.”

“Too bad,” Koneko-chan said.

“I opposed it in my heart.”

“Then keep it to yourself.”

Irina adjusted her robe and smiled at the whole table now, though the smile softened a little when her eyes passed over Yuuto-san.

Not apology.

Not exactly.

Something more uncertain.

Then she and Xenovia left.

The restaurant felt strangely empty the second the door shut behind them.

We all sat there for a moment, watching the space they’d left.

Then Yuuto-san finally spoke.

“…Why?”

I looked at her.

She was asking me, not them.

“You already know,” I said.

“I want to hear you say it.”

So I did.

“Because you’re my comrade,” I said. “Because you helped me before. I couldn’t just sit there and watch you go after Excalibur alone.”

Yuuto-san didn’t answer.

Saji let out a long, miserable breath. “If Kaichou finds out, I’m dead.”

Koneko-chan looked at him. “Probably.”

He pressed both hands to his face. “Why is everybody around Rias-senpai like this?”

Yuuto-san’s eyes stayed on the tabletop, on the empty glasses, on the place Xenovia’s memo with the contact number still lay between us like a tiny contract with too many ways to go wrong.

Then she said, very quietly, “If I acted alone, I would have caused trouble for Buchou.”

I blinked.

It wasn’t what I expected.

Yuuto-san lifted her gaze to me. Her smile wasn’t there now. Neither was that hard, empty expression from the clubroom. This was something more tired. More honest.

“I know that,” she said. “I’m not blind, Ise-kun. If I move recklessly, I drag the peerage with me. If I fail, Buchou has to clean up the consequences.” Her fingers tightened once against the table’s edge. “I understand all of that.”

Kusari-san’s eyes stayed on her.

Koneko-chan didn’t move.

Saji, for once, kept his mouth shut.

Yuuto-san looked down again.

“But understanding it,” she said, “and stopping myself are different things.”

That was her reason under everything else.

Not only revenge.

The certainty that if Excalibur existed nearby and she did nothing, she would be betraying the dead.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Kusari-san did.

Not with words.

Just by staying still and listening in a way that said she knew exactly what it meant for understanding and behavior to become two different things inside one person.

Saji ruined the silence first.

“……Ummm.”

We all looked at him.

He raised one hand halfway, like he was in class and not in the middle of a secret devil-church restaurant conspiracy.

“Do I have to do this too?”

That got a small, startled breath out of me that was dangerously close to laughter.

Saji looked around the table with increasing distress. “I mean it! I’m totally uninvolved in this! You people are acting like the team’s already decided and nobody asked me!”

Koneko-chan looked at him. “….You followed us.”

“I was dragged along! That doesn’t mean I agreed to holy-sword destruction!”

“It kind of does,” I said.

“No, it absolutely doesn’t!”

Yuuto-san finally looked at him properly.

And because Yuuto-san was Yuuto-san, even with everything else hanging over her, she didn’t hide behind politeness when there wasn’t room for it.

“You don’t know enough yet,” she said.

Saji looked offended. “I know enough! Too much really.”

Yuuto-san took a breath.

Then, very simply, she began to speak.

Not the short version.

Not the one Buchou told us at the house.

More. 

“There was a project,” she said, eyes on Saji now, “to create more users of holy swords. Boys and girls were gathered and put through experiments. Their freedom was taken. Their bodies were treated like tools.” Her voice didn’t rise. It got flatter. That somehow made it worse. “We were told it was for God. For purpose. For becoming special.”

_________________________________________

Kusari

I had heard of it from Rias, but hearing from Yuuto of how she was treated as an experiment, a resource, a tool. It struck far closer than I would have liked.

I folded my hands and kept my expression calm, hoping the others didn’t notice my reaction.

I had heard and seen similar cases of people being treated as something useful or abused for what was said to be a good reason or for no reason at all.

But this wasn’t just a stranger whose pain I could sympathize with and then ignore. 

She was part of my peerage.

Yuuto-san, like the others, was quickly becoming one of the first people I trusted and truly cared for in a long time. 

I brought myself out of my thoughts and looked at the others reactions.

Saji-san’s face changed.

Koneko went still in that way she did when listening mattered more than blinking.

Issei clenched his fist on the table and already looked angry. 

Yuuto went on.

“When the project failed, the children who could not use holy swords were no longer needed.” Her gaze dropped, then lifted again. “So they were disposed of.”

Saji-san stopped breathing for a second.

It was a normal reaction to hearing something so awful for the first time.

Yuuto’s voice grew quieter.

“They released poison gas. While we were still alive.” No change in expression. No mercy in the words. “The people who did it prayed while they killed us.”

Irina-san and Xenovia-san had left, but somehow the weight of the Church felt present from hearing the story.

Issei looked intently at Yuuto.

He looked frustrated, like he wanted to be able to do something.

But he understood that it was already in the past, and at this point all that could be done was to try and help ease the wound it had left on Yuuto.

Yuuto looked at Saji as she continued.

“I escaped,” she said. “Not because I was strong enough. Because I was lucky enough. By the time Buchou found me, I was already dying.”

At that, she finally looked away.

Out the window.

Toward a place that had probably never stopped existing behind her eyes.

I understood that.

I knew exactly what was going on in her head as she had that distant look in her eye as she recalled the pain and horrors of her past.

I also knew that it would always be there. That we could help her gain closure by completing her revenge, but those memories and scars on her soul would never really go away.

They would just become more numb. 

“Rias Gremory saved me,” she said. “So if I live now, I live because of her. But if Excalibur remains, then the people who died with me become meaningless.”

“No,” Issei said immediately 

Yuuto looked at him.

Issei said it quickly and full of emotion. 

It was a simple rebuttal to the heaviness of what Yuuto had said, but it was the exact sort of thing Issei would do. 

“They don’t become meaningless.”

Her expression shifted slightly. 

Before either of them could say more, a sound came from Saji-san.

A wet, miserable sniff.

We all turned.

Saji-san was crying.

It was ugly.

Tears, scrunched-up face, shoulders shaking, wiping snot from his nose.

“Oh no,” he said thickly. “That’s horrible. That’s actually horrible.”

Yuuto blinked.

Koneko blinked too, which from her counted as visible shock.

Saji-san leaned across the table and grabbed Yuuto’s hand with both of his.

“Yuuto-san! It must have been awful! That’s— that’s not religion! That’s not justice! That’s just cruelty!” Tears kept spilling down his face. “No wonder you hate them! No wonder you want to break Excalibur! I’d want to break it too!”

Yuuto stared at him like he had become an unfamiliar species.

I did not blame her. 

Saji-san sniffed hard, wiped at his face, failed, and kept going anyway.

“To tell the truth,” he said, “I didn’t like you too much at first because the girls in our school think you’re attractive and cool and good at everything.”

That almost got a laugh out of Koneko-chan.

“But now that I know this—” he leaned across the table and grabbed Yuuto’s hand “—I’ll help too! I’ll even take Kaichou’s punishment if I have to! But you have to live! You have to keep living! And don’t you dare betray Rias-senpai after she saved you!”

The wording was weird.

The feeling seemed sincere. 

A stupid, burning, honest thing.

Issei seemed to connect with what Saji-san was saying. 

The two of them were similar in some regards, even if they didn’t get along.

Yuuto still looked stunned.

Koneko, though, moved before the small moment could fall apart.

She turned to Yuuto fully and spoke in a voice quieter than Saji-san’s, but somehow stronger.

“……Yuuto-senpai.”

Yuuto looked at her.

Koneko’s expression was still mostly blank.

But I could see the worry and care in her eyes.

Even if she was quiet and stoic she cared deeply for our peerage 

“I’ll help too,” she said. “So please don’t go off alone.”

There was a pause.

Then she added, even more quietly:

“I’d get lonely.”

Yuuto’s eyes widened just slightly.

Koneko was a person who hated to appear weak or vulnerable. I had never heard her open herself up so directly before. 

But she said it.

And because it was Koneko, there was no performance in it at all.

This was the second time she had done this today.

First with me at the station and now with Yuuto here.

This was affecting Koneko much harder than Issei or I had realized. 

Yuuto looked at Koneko for a long second.

Then she smiled.

This time it wasn’t the false one.

Instead it was one that was tired and faintly helpless.

“Hahaha,” she said under her breath. “That’s unfair.”

Koneko did not disagree.

Yuuto exhaled.

“Fine,” she said. “If Koneko-chan says that, then I can’t exactly go do something reckless on my own.”

Koneko’s shoulders eased.

Only a little.

“That means yes?” Issei asked.

Yuuto gave him a look. “I’m still here, so unfortunately yes.”

If she was teasing Issei, then that was a sign that she was not only focused on her revenge and was more herself again. At least for the moment. 

That was good.

Issei seemed to agree. 

He sat up so fast his chair squeaked.

“Okay! Then it’s decided! We’re doing this together!”

Saji-san, still sniffling, lifted a finger. “And I just want my bravery in this moment to be known.”

“No,” Koneko said quickly.

He jabbed a thumb at himself. “Look, maybe I don’t know all the holy sword-history details, revenge-logic, and church politics, but I know when something’s wrong, and I know when somebody should help instead of standing around pretending they should do nothing.”

Saji-san, feeling the attention and getting embarrassed by it, did what some did when embarrassed. 

He talked more.

“And besides,” he muttered, “I’m not some guy with no future worth protecting either.”

Koneko tilted her head.

I knew that look from her. It meant continue. Unfortunately for Saji-san, it was too late to retreat.

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away.

“My dream,” he said.

Yuuto blinked. “Your what?”

“My dream.”

He still wouldn’t meet anybody’s eyes.

He stood as he shouted out. 

“I’m going to make Kaichou pregnant and marry her!”

The table stopped.

Completely.

No one seemed able to respond to that ridiculous statement. 

I realized that Issei and Saji-san were extremely similar.

They weren’t both just honest idiots. They were also both shameless perverts who were lusting after their [Kings] too. 

The real problem was that Issei was looking at Saji-San like he had said the most beautiful and profound thing he had ever heard.

“Saji,” he said hoarsely.

He looked at him, still embarrassed, still trying to hold onto his dignity while confessing the most deranged dream in human history.

“It’s hard,” he muttered. “Do you know how hard that is for an unpopular guy like me? There aren’t even girls around me in the first place, and the one I fell for is Kaichou. But still.” He straightened. “I’m going to do it.”

Issei also stood and grabbed his hand across the table.

Saji-san jumped at the contact.

“Saji.”

“What!?”

“My friend.”

“I’m getting worried.”

“No. Listen to me.”

He stared.

Issei looked close to tears.

I was ready to take Koneko and Yuuto and leave. 

Issei now looked at Saji-san like had found a true comrade.

“My dream,” he said, voice sadly shaking with sincerity, “is to grope Buchou’s oppai… and then suck them.”

Koneko's eyes closed.

I stared at them with open disappointment. 

Yuuto made a noise that might have been disbelief or suffering.

The two of them tightened their grips on their clasped hands.

“Hyoudou,” he whispered.

“Saji.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“Perfectly.”

“That’s the dream of a man who wishes to touch heaven!”

“I have touched Buchou’s oppai with these very hands.”

Saji stared at his hands with all the reverence of a pilgrim before a holy relic.

I was both glad that Xenovia-san and Irina-san had already left and sad that they had.

If they had stayed and heard this, they may have decided to attack us rather than work with us.

I wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or not at the moment.

Saji-san continued.

“No…”

“Yes.”

He started crying again.

“I can’t believe it! You really did it!”

“It’s possible, Saji.”

“Touching the oppai of your High-class Devil master is possible!?”

“Far away,” Issei said, squeezing his hand like a brother-in-arms. “But not impossible.”

Saji-san’s tears renewed themselves with horrifying force.

Yuuto covered part of her face with one hand.

Koneko-chan muttered, “…The worst.”

I was debating telling Rias and Sitri-Kaichou about all of this. Even if I would be dragged into some of the punishment.

Saji-san wiped his eyes and looked to Issei with determination.

“Then if you can touch Rias-senpai’s oppai… then one day…”

“Yes,” he said. “One day you can reach Kaichou too.”

Saji-san sobbed.

Issei looked moments away from joining him.

“If the two of us do this together,” Issei said said, “nothing is impossible.”

“Yeah!”

“We can fight holy swords!”

“Yeah!”

“We can protect our comrades!”

“Yeah!”

“We can reach our masters!”

“YEAH!”

“At the end of the road,” he shouted, fully committed now, “we can have sex with them and marry them!”

“YEAH!”

The restaurant looked at our table.

They did not care.

Apparently every male Devil we meet is insane.

Yuuto actually laughed.

A short laugh. Helpless and disbelieving and real.

Koneko-chan sighed so deeply that it was impressive with her small body.

She looked like she regretted following Issei in the first place. 

I turned to her.

“So if the two of them don’t survive this, we're okay with that, right?”

Issei and Saji-san were too into their moment to care.

Saji-san wiped at his face and looked around as if only now realizing how much of himself he had just thrown onto the table.

Then, much smaller, he said, “……So, yes. I’m helping.”

Yuuto looked at him for a long second.

Then nodded.

“All right.”

She would be with us.

We now had our full group.

A terrible, reckless, deeply compromised group.

But a group.

And whatever came next with Excalibur, Freed, Valper, and Kokabiel—

At least none of us were walking into it alone.

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