High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Kusari

The field smelled like burnt fur, scorched grass, and holy pressure.

The two Cerberus were down.

The dust of their remains blew across the ruined school grounds, and the broken field looked more like a cratered battlefield than Kuoh Academy.

My arms ached from the use of my spells, but not enough for it stop me yet.

My left hand twitched with the memory of the pain of my spells and my other hand was still stiff. 

Rias and Akeno were standing next to Issei. They were both panting with exertion from using their spells after he had transferred his boosted strength to the.

And overhead, Kokabiel lounged in the sky as if all of this had only been a pleasant distraction from boredom. 

Then he smiled and called down like he was asking for a drink.

“Freed. Use the fused Excalibur.”

Freed’s face lit up.

The fused holy sword hovered in the center of the magic circle that Valper had created.

The pressure it let off raised hairs on my neck and tails.

It was something that my body wanted nothing to do with as a Devil. 

Excalibur Mimic, Rapidly, Transparency, and Nightmare had been fused into a bastardized version of Excalibur. 

Valper spread his hands wide as Freed took the sword and gave it a few test swings.

“My Excalibur-chan has become even prettier! Now I’ll be able to slice up all of those annoying Devils!”

No one attempted to stop him from taking the sword, not with Kokabiel watching us.

“Observe carefully, devils. This is the future of holy-sword theory. Artificial wielders were only the beginning. Broken fragments, recombined. Powers layered. Functions preserved. Excalibur perfected by human will.” His grin widened. “Research always requires sacrifices.” 

Valper boasted of his accomplishments.

“Valper!” Yuuto’s voice came out low. Raw. “Do you remember me?”

His eyes on her.

Then his smile widened slightly.

“Of course I do,” he said. “You were a successful subject.”

I saw the rage in Yuuto’s eyes blaze at his words.

Subject.

Not a person.

A thing.

I understood how she felt. The anger at being treated as less than a person, as a thing.

The despair and helplessness she must have felt to be used as an object by those above her and treated like waste when her usefulness had run its course.

Yuuto raised her sword.

Then black wings cut down between us.

Kokabiel.

He descended just far enough to interrupt the line, smiling with delighted curiosity, one hand raised as though he were politely preventing two guests from speaking over one another.

“Don’t be impatient,” he said. “This is becoming interesting and Valper still has his uses.”

I watched him, ready to move between them if need be.

“He’s mine,” Yuuto said.

Kokabiel laughed.

“No. He’s still useful. So I can’t allow that.”

Yuuto looked like she had been struck.

Akeno’s voice came sharp from behind.

“You really do only speak in filth.”

Kokabiel looked over his shoulder toward her and grinned wider. “It tends to describe reality better.”

There was no point speaking to him.

He was mad and wanted to drag everyone and thing around him into it.

Yuuto was still staring at Valper.

She looked ready to end him.

Xenovia-san approached from Yuuto’s right.

“Rias Gremory’s [Knight], our cooperation is still valid. We can work together to destroy that blade.”

Yuuto raised an eyebrow at her words.

“You’d be willing to go that far? To destroy 4 of the fragmented blades of Excalibur?”

“Ha! The sword that man is wielding is no longer a holy sword. If someone as vile as him can wield it then it is now the sword of a heretic. I’ll collect its core and return that to the Vatican instead.”

Valper chuckled at Xenovia-san’s words.

Yuuto angrily stepped forward.

“Valper Galielei, I am a survivor, no, the only remaining subject of your abomination of a project. I was killed by you and became a Devil to take revenge for those you murdered.”

“Ah, such fortune. To meet a subject from some of my greatest work. Even if you and the others were failures the project was a success in another way.”

“Explain yourself,” Rias said.

Valper looked toward her with the kind of pleased attention scholars usually reserved for a good audience.

“Gladly.”

Issei looked like he wanted to hit him already.

Koneko looked like she agreed with him for once.

He folded one hand into his sleeve and gestured lightly towards the others.

“The Holy Sword Project existed because the Church had grown frightened. Frightened of devils, frightened of the past, frightened of losing its great weapons. Excalibur had been broken. Durandal remained singular. So they required replacements—new wielders, new vessels, new blades through human refinement.”

His tone was calm.

Almost proud.

I should have felt sickened, but I had seen too many men like him in my life already. Those that saw other people as things to break and tools to use.

“They gathered children with compatibility,” he continued. “Those who showed potential to bear holy power. We tested them. Conditioned them. Altered them. Refined them. Some adapted. Most did not.” His smile deepened. “That is research. Success is meaningless without failure.”

Xenovia-san’s  face hardened until it seemed carved from stone.

Issej took one step forward in open disgust. “You talk like people are objects.”

Valper glanced at him like I had spoken from very far away.

“Of course they were objects. That was their only value.” He looked back at Yuuto. “Some became fine material. This one, for example.”

She trembled

Her grip on her sword was bone white.

Koneko made the smallest sound next. Not pity. Not comfort. Pure hatred sharpened down to a point.

They were starting to understand exactly the kind of monster Valper was. 

He kept speaking.

“The weak were discarded. The unsuccessful were cleared away. That was all.” He said it as if discussing waste after a meal. “And yet even then the Church lacked vision. They wanted only imitation. Restoration. They could not see beyond their own ancient idols.”

He spoke as if everything he said made total sense.

“Now this,” he murmured, almost reverently. “This is the answer.”

He pulled out a glowing orb.

Even from this distance I could tell it was something wrong.

“With this, the research on holy-sword wielders improved. Even so, those fools from the Church called me a heretic and cast me out. By looking at you, I see that the project was succeeded by someone. That Michael. He made me look like a criminal and this is the result? Well it’s that Angel we are talking about. Even if he takes the elements out from the test subjects, he wouldn’t kill them. I guess that makes him more human than me.”

Valper laughed as if pleased.

 I see. 

He considered the project a success due to figuring out how to harvest the holy sword affinity from humans.

No matter how many children’s deaths it took.

Yuuto’s death at his hands wasn’t just to remove the failures. It was to gather parts.

“You killed my comrades to take the element needed to wield holy swords? When it was possible to simply remove it and let them live?”

Yuuto asked.

Her voice filled with killing intent.

“That’s right. It would have been too inefficient to harvest the element from living subjects. I still had some of the gathered elements ready for use, but I had used three of them on Freed though. This is the last one.”

“Hahahahaha! The other ones who tried to take the elements didn’t survive. Their bodies rejected it. I’m better than that though! It’s because Excalibur-chan and I were meant to be!”

If only Freed was one of the ones to die

Ah, Ise-kun. Were you thinking something mean about wishing I hadn’t made it instead? You wont be rid of me that easily!”

Issei flinched before shouting back.

“Stop doing that! How do you know what I’m thinking?!”

Yuuto ignored them. Only staring at Valper.

“How many lives have you ruined in your selfish obsession of holy swords?”

Valper threw away the orb.

“If you care so much you can have it. My research is at a stage where I can mass produce them. After we destroy this town and start a war with Heaven I’ll show them my results to those foolish Angels.”

It rolled until it reached Yuuto.

She reached down slowly and picked it up, holding it reverently.

“……Everyone, I’m so sorry.”

There were tears steaming down her face.

 Her expression was one of loss and wrath. 

Something in the orb changed.

The orb that Yuuto held started giving out multiple different lights that spread across the field.

In the ground, where the lights landed, multiple figures began to form.

They took the shape of people. 

They became boys and girls who softly shone with a blue-white lights. They stood surrounding Yuuto.

Akeno spoke quietly.

“The various powers on this battlefield made the spirits within the orbs appear.”

I watched with disbelief.

I didn’t know if Akeno was correct, but it was simple to me. It was a miracle.

They looked at Yuuto with saddened expressions.

She tried to speak but choked up.

They were also the ones who were involved in the “Holy-sword project”. 

There was no other explanation that made sense

They were the ones disposed.

The ones that were no longer useful.

“I-I…. I still think about it. It eats away at me. Was it alright for me to be the only one who survived? Is it fair that I get to live while those who could have had a brighter life didn’t. Is it alright for me to live a peaceful and happy life despise those that should be here not? 

One boy's spirit smiled and it seemed like he wanted to say something. 

[You don’t need to worry about us anymore. Live your life, you deserve it.]

I could read his lips, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Yuuto began to softly cry at his words as she held herself, as if she was afraid she’d fall apart. 

The spirits of boys and girls started to try and sing together, but they made no sound.

“…It’s a church hymn."

Asia mumbled.

Yuuto started to sing while shedding tears more loudly.

This must have been something that they had to hold onto. While they were experimented on and treated like tools.

They must have cling to a song as a way to make it through what was happening to them.

Koneko moved next to me.

She looked up at me for a moment before looking back at Yuuto.

I schooled my expression and continued to watch.

Yuuto smiled at the children around her through her tears.

Kokibel and the others simply watched.

Then the children’s bodies started to glow

The glow brightened, with Yuuto in the center.

[We were no good alone.]

[We didn’t have enough elements to wield the holy swords. But.]

[It will be okay if we are together.]

Their voices were audible now.

A hymn should harm a Devil or give them discomfort.

Instead I felt warmth.

I continued to watch Yuuto as Asia and Issei began to cry as well.

[Accept our holy element.]

[It’s a gift from us.]

[Even if God isn’t watching.]

[Our hearts are always…]

[ONE.]

Their spirits rose into the air and lost form before they turned into a singular light that fell down to Yuuto.

When the light struck her something changed.

Perhaps it was her accepting the holy element of her fallen comrades.

Perhaps it was her overcoming a mental block.

But something changed in her that I had heard of before, but never seen occur.

A Balance Break.

Yuuto’s answer came so low that my ears had to turn to pick up her words.

“…I will become a sword.”

The field changed around her.

Not all at once. First in the demonic swords around her.

Then in the pressure in the air. Then in the way holy power and demonic power began to draw toward one center instead of rejecting each other.

Her Sacred Gear and the feelings of her dead comrades—everything tied to Sword Birth, hatred, memory, and the peerage—started aligning into something that should not be real.

“Balance Breaker,” she said, and the sword formed in her hand. “Holy Demonic Sword of Twin Supremacy, Sword of Betrayer.”

“Valper Galilei, I will strike you down to prevent you from creating more suffering like my own”

“I can’t expect everyone to understand, but sacrifices are necessary for progress. A few lost test subjects for an advancement of this size is nothing.” Valper said while frowning. 

Issei suddenly shouted to Yuuto.

“Yuutoooo-saannnn! Cut them down! Both of those mad men and Excalibur!”

Asia and Akeno shouted too.

“Yuuto-san, we believe in you! You can do it! J-just be careful!”

“Yuuto-chan! Show them what the Gremory peerage is made of! Give them a good spanking!”

Koneko quietly joined in.

“…Yuuto-senpai…. Do your best!”

Rias waved her arm while issuing a command.

“Yuuto, surpass Excalibur! You are my [Knight]! Show them the power of a servant of Rias Gremory! Of our family!”

Rias and Koneko both gave me a quick look. 

I looked at Yuuto as she faced down the targets of her revenge.

“Show them that you are more than a tool to be thrown away. Show them how much of a mistake they have made.”

Yuuto looked at each of us, determination in her eyes, and gave a nod in response to our cheers.

Freed decided to mock her.

“First you’re crying then you’re singing. I hated that song and I always have hated it! I don’t care if you’ve got a bunch of cheer leaders, if you take me on alone my ultimate Excalibur will cut you apart!”

Yuuto lowered her stance.

“I will become a sword.”

She quietly repeated to herself. 

“I will become Buchou’s sword and the sword of my comrades! I will cut down all who oppose them!”

Freed stopped smiling for a beat.

Even more when she moved.

She moved faster than I had seen before. 

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