High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Rias 

The park in front of Kuoh Academy had become a command post.

Even before I reached the others, I could feel the barrier layered over the school grounds—Sitri demonic power spread wide and thin, elegant and stubborn, holding the worst of the disturbance inside while the pressure of Fallen Angel malice and holy power clawed at it from within.

Sona was already there.

So was Saji-kun.

Good.

If Sona was physically present instead of only directing from somewhere safer, then she had already judged the scale of this correctly.

That did not comfort me. It only confirmed that Kokabiel had moved far past the boundaries of a local problem.

Saji-kun stood unnaturally straight the moment he saw me.

The punishment earlier had clearly done its work.

“Rias-senpai,” he said quickly. “We have covered the school with a large barrier. Unless something disastrous happens, there will be no damage to the outside.”

I looked past him to Sona.

She stood beneath the park’s dim light with the same composed severity she wore in every crisis, glasses catching the glow, posture exact.

If she had been less controlled, perhaps the hatred in her eyes for Kokabiel would have shown more openly. As it was, I saw it anyway.

“According to my servants,” Sona said, “Kokabiel is already releasing power openly on the grounds. This is only damage control. If he chooses to fight seriously, not only the academy but the whole region could be annihilated.”

Issei went still beside me.

He needed to understand the scale of it before charging at it with his usual sincerity.

Asia had both hands clasped together at her chest.

Koneko narrowed her eyes toward the barrier.

Akeno’s smile was gone.

Kusari stood just behind my right shoulder, fox traits hidden for the moment, expression unreadable and attention sharpened to a blade.

I kept my own face calm.

Only calm.

Nothing softer.

“Sona,” I said, “thank you. We’ll take it from here.”

Sona looked at me for a long moment.

“Our enemy is beyond us,” she said. “It is not too late to call your Onii-sama.”

There it was.

Sirzechs.

The obvious answer.

The necessary one.

The answer I hated needing.

I glanced to the side and saw that Kusari froze up at the mention of his name.

Whatever had happened when she was taken from my peerage had made her reaction to him worse, not better.

I met Sona’s gaze and answered with the only truth that mattered.

“You didn’t call your Onee-sama.”

Sona’s mouth tightened slightly.

“One-sama is…” She paused, then continued more quietly. “Your Onii-sama loves you. Sirzechs-sama will move for you.”

“Akeno,” I said, because I already knew from the look on her face that she had done something.

Akeno stepped forward at once.

“I already informed Sirzechs-sama.”

I turned to her.

“Akeno.”

She did not retreat.

“Rias,” she said, dropping the honorific because we were long past ceremony, “I understand that you don’t want to trouble Sirzechs-sama, but this is beyond us already. It may be your territory and your base, but this is a leader of the Grigori. We won’t stand a chance against him. We need a Maou.”

I should have been angry.

Instead I found myself too tired to defend my pride from someone I trusted.

I looked away for one heartbeat.

Then nodded.

Akeno’s expression softened instantly, and she slipped back into herself.

“Sirzechs-sama’s reinforcements will arrive in one hour,” she said. “That much is certain.”

“One hour…” Sona repeated. Then she straightened further. “In that case, we of Sitri will continue to maintain the barrier in that time. I will reduce the outside damage as much as possible.”

She really was magnificent when she chose to be.

Which, aggravatingly, was always.

I took one slow breath, then turned to my servants.

One hour.

Long enough to lose everything if we spent it doing nothing.

“We go on the offensive,” I said. “We enter the barrier and draw Kokabiel’s attention ourselves.”

No one interrupted.

“Unlike the battle with Riser, this is a battle of life and death,” I continued. “Even so, I will not forgive any of you if you die! We will all survive, and we will keep attending this school!

Their answer came back at once.

“Yes!”

Even Issei’s voice cut clear through the tension.

Especially his.

Because the more impossible the battlefield became, the more he needed a reason to run forward.

Saji stepped closer to him and muttered, “Hyoudou. I’m leaving the rest to you.”

Issei snorted. “Worry about your ass before mine.”

Saji looked offended. “Don’t say that! It hurts more if I remember it!”

Akeno laughed softly.

My own hand twitched with the urge to strike Ise again just for opening his mouth and at the same time I wanted to hold him and laugh at his antics.

That, at least, was reassuringly normal.

Kusari remained silent.

I looked at her.

“Kusari-chan.”

She lifted her eyes to mine immediately. “Yes, Buchou.”

“When we enter, stay central and read the field. Use your bolts aggressively. I want openings made before they become problems.”

A tiny pause.

Not hesitation.

Calculation.

“Understood.”

She did not ask why I wanted her central.

She understood what I meant.

Because if Issei overextended, if Akeno and I needed our lines cleared, if Yuuto arrived and lost all caution, then her magical pressure from the center would matter more than generalist speed on a flank.

And because Baleful Bolt had long since stopped being merely a duelist’s spell.

Tonight, it would be artillery by precision.

I turned toward the barrier.

“We move now.”

No one argued.

Not even Sona.

Issei

The second we crossed through the barrier, Kuoh Academy stopped feeling like school.

The paths were the same. The gate was the same.

The athletic field was still where it had always been.

The old school building, the main building, the gym’s usual position on the grounds—everything was recognizable.

And everything was wrong.

The air was heavy. Burnt. Tense.

The barrier warped sound and pressure so that every step felt like it was being taken inside somebody else’s held breath.

We came in straight through the main gate.

And I promoted immediately.

[Queen].

Red demonic power surged through me in one hot rush, my body widening into that familiar state where strength, speed, and demonic output all climbed at once.

It still wasn’t as complete or overwhelming as Akeno-san’s real [Queen] piece, but it made me something that could stand here without dying in the first five seconds.

At the same moment, a darker, cleaner current of power rose beside me.

Kusari-san.

Her promotion was quieter than mine but sharper in its effect.

Black-violet curse-light gathered around her and compressed rather than spread, her power drawing inward and becoming denser instead of broader.

[Bishop].

Akeno-san noticed first.

Then Koneko.

Then Buchou—though Buchou had probably expected it already.

I looked at Kusari-san. “You picked [Bishop]?”

“Yes.”

“Why not [Queen]?”

Because if I got to choose, more of everything always sounded great.

Kusari-san lifted one hand and watched a thin line of burning violet light curl across her fingers.

“[Queen] boosts too widely,” she said. “Strength, speed, physical capacity. [Bishop] gives me more magical output. I need that more.”

Akeno-san smiled. “A very thorough answer.”

Kusari-san lowered her hand. “A reasonable one.”

That made sense.

And the battlefield proved it right almost immediately.

Because the first thing we saw when we broke fully onto the school field was not Kokabiel.

It was Valper.

The old man stood at the center of an enormous magic circle spread across the grounds, robes stirring in the night wind, his expression one of smug amusement.

Around him floated four Excalibur fragments, each throwing off terrible blue-white light as the circle fed something between them.

I became speechless for a second.

The whole field looked insane.

The swords floated in the air as if held by invisible hooks.

The circle beneath them spread over the ground like an infection.

Every instinct in my devil body told me to hate the holy glow pouring off those blades.

“What is this…?” I heard myself say.

Valper must have hear me because he smiled like he was indulging a child.

“I’m making four Excaliburs into one.”

That answer floored me.

Before I could say anything else, a voice dropped from the sky.

“Valper. How much longer?”

I looked up.

Kokabiel sat above the field as if the whole night belonged to him, perched on a floating chair with the moon behind him and ten black wings spread out around his body like a second horizon.

He looked completely at ease.

That frightened me more than if he’d looked bloodthirsty.

“Not even five minutes,” Valper replied.

Kokabiel laughed softly.

Then his eyes moved to us.

“So, is Sirzechs coming?” he asked. “Or is it Serafall?”

Buchou stepped forward. “In the place of my Onii-sama and Serafall-sama, we—”

The sound cut her off.

A massive rush of wind and power.

Then an explosion.

The gym ceased to exist.

It did not crack. It did not partially collapse. It was simply annihilated by the pillar of light that punched down where it had stood, leaving only a crater of ruin and a shockwave that rattled the remaining buildings.

I stared.

No one near my level should have been able to destroy something that large with such contemptuous ease.

[Are you scared, partner?] Ddraig asked.

Of course I was.

It wasn’t even a question of being beyond us anymore.

Kokabiel wasn’t just stronger.

He was operating on a different order of scale.

[You're enemy is beyond anything you’ve faced before. He’s a figure of legend. One of the members of the Great War. A named figure in the Bible. If need be I can defeat him by Turing more of your body into that of a Dragons. I would be able to knock him down long enough for the Maou to arrive.]

I was pulled from listening to Ddraig when Kokabiel began to speak again.

“If you’re not bringing a Maou to me,” he said cheerfully, “then you’ll have to fight my pets to entertain me.”

He clicked his fingers.

The ground shook.

A sound rose from the darkness behind the athletic field structures—heavy, rumbling, wrong. Then the thing emerged into view.

Huge.

Three-headed.

Four thick legs clawing up torn earth as it moved.

Red eyes burning out of each head.

White breath hissing between fangs too large for anything that should exist in our world.

A dog, if a dog had been built out of a nightmare and somebody’s terrible idea of humor.

“Cerberus,” Buchou said in disgust.

Even I knew that name.

The guard dog of hell.

The thing howled, and the sound made the school grounds tremble.

We didn’t have time to admire mythology.

The Cerberus charged.

“Ise! I want you to support us with your transfers. That way you won’t get worn out too quickly. How many times can you use transfer at your maximum power?”

“3 or 4 times before I run out of steam!”

“We’ll have to make them count”

Buchou was already moving.

“Akeno!”

Wings burst from her back as she and Akeno-san took to the air. One of the Cerberus’s heads spat flame at them at once, and Akeno froze the blast in a sweep of lightning-charged frost before it could touch Buchou.

Buchou answered with a massive mass of Power of Destruction at its heads. It fired another fire ball with one head, and the two attacks clashed mid air.

It fired another one that began to push Buchou’s attack back. 

While it was distracted Koneko-chan shot in beneath it, compact and brutal as ever, then up as she hammered one of its heads from the side with a strike that shook the entire creature.

Then Kusari-san acted

Kusari-san’s first Baleful Bolt cracked through the field before I even consciously registered that she’d fired.

Not aimed for the center.

For the Cerberus’s forward knee joint.

The black-violet bolt punched through fur and flesh and staggered the whole massive body sideways just enough for Koneko-chan’s second strike to land cleaner.

So that’s what Buchou meant by aggressive.

Kusari-san raised her hand again and fired a second Baleful Bolt almost immediately, this one into the base of the left neck where Akeno-san’s lightning had already opened a smoking line. The impact tore the wound wider and forced another howl out of the monster.

Akeno glanced down from above and laughed.

“[Bishop] really does suit you.”

Kusari didn’t answer. She was already drawing a third shot from her other hand.

Her first hand was stiff.

She was still dealing with the backlash.

Though it seemed more manageable than before.

The problem was that even with all that, the damned thing kept moving.

Its hide charred.

Its blood sprayed black.

Its heads screamed in different directions.

And it still had enough life in it to launch another round of fireballs upward at Buchou and Akeno-san.

I heard another howl and turned to see a second Cerberus coming towards us.

“Buchou, there’s another one!”

Buchou heard me.

“Ise! Just focus on boosting! We will handle this.

Right. Support.

That made sense, but it was coming right at Kusari-san, Asia and I. 

The second Cerberus angled toward the three is us who had been staying back under orders and trying to keep everyone alive through support.

I got between it and Asia instinctively.

Then a streak of holy light cut across my vision.

One of the Cerberus heads flew off.

I stared.

Xenovia landed in front of us with Excalibur Destruction in hand, white coat gone, black combat clothes visible beneath, face set in hard resolve.

“I have come to back you up.”

Thank God.

Or whatever counted for it in this situation.

She turned and swung the holy sword again, opening the second Cerberus from shoulder to chest. Holy damage ate into the monster in a way our attacks had not, and black smoke poured from the wound.

At almost the same moment, a familiar pressure hit the field from the right.

Demonic swords burst from the ground beneath the Cerberus’s limbs, pinning its movement just as Xenovia moved to finish it.

Xenovia stabbed it in the center of the chest and turned to the last Cerberus as it faded to dust. 

I turned and saw her, Yuuto-san.

She arrived from the flank with sword-birth spreading around her like a storm.

Her face, when I caught sight of it, was calm enough to be worrying.

Not detached. Focused.

The sort of focus that comes when somebody has found exactly the kind of fight they came looking for.

Ddraig stirred against my arm as the gem in my gauntlet flashed. 

[Now. The gauntlet is telling you that you have gathered the necessary strength to defeat the Cerberus. The Boosted Gear is growing alongside you to work with your desires. This is just one way it has changed.]

Got it.

“Buchou! Akeno-san! I’ve got enough!”

They dropped from the air at once, landing hard enough that the field shuddered.

“Ise,” Buchou said, eyes bright, “both of us.”

I blinked. “Both?”

Ddraig confirmed it before panic could.

[Two at once is possible.]

Perfect.

I put a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Boosted Gear! Transfer!”

Power rushed out of me in a hot violent stream. Not all of it—Ddraig said about seventy or eighty percent at most when splitting it like this—but enough. More than enough.

Buchou and Akeno-san’s demonic power swelled so sharply it made the air distort.

The field changed.

Akeno-san called down thunder large enough to split the night.

Kusari-san fired another Baleful Bolt into the thing’s exposed chest right before the lightning hit, widening the opening so the strike would carry deeper.

It was already wounded enough from before that it couldn’t get out of the way in time.

It worked.

The Cerberus vanished under the blast.

At the same time, Buchou gathered a mass of Power of Destruction so huge it made me take a step back without meaning to.

“Take this!”

She turned it upward toward Kokabiel and fired.

The attack was enormous.

At least ten times bigger than one of her normal shots.

He reached his hand out towards it.

Kokabiel stopped it with one hand.

One hand.

Just held it there.

Then redirected it into the sky like swatting away something mildly interesting.

“You’ve grown,” he said, smiling. “The Sekiryuutei’s assistance makes you far more entertaining.”

He chuckled as if our fight was just an entertaining joke to him.

Valper’s voice cut across the field then.

“It’s complete.”

The light at the center of the magic circle flared hard enough that I had to shield my eyes.

When it faded, the four Excalibur fragments had become one fused holy sword hanging at the center of the field and shedding blue-white aura so thick it felt like a wound in the night.

“The residual holy energy from the Excalibur fragments fusing has been used to power a spell to destroy the city by shattering the earth around us. It will activate unless Kokabiel is defeated within 20 minutes.”

Valper calmly explained how he was about to destroy my home town.

This was no longer about holding off until Sirzechs arrived.

Kokabiel applauded.

Then he looked off to the side and called, delighted:

“Freed. Use the fused Excalibur.”

And that was where the fight truly tilted toward disaster.

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