High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Akeno

Yuuto looked like she had remembered how to breathe only after the monsters were gone.

Not when Kokabiel’s pressure was removed.

Not Albion’s impossible intrusion ended.

Not after the holy sword was broken, Valper became a corpse, or when our schoolyard was no longer the site of a possible war.

After.

Only after.

She stood there with the Holy-Demonic Sword still in her hand, shoulders finally dropping now that there was no enemy left in front of them, and looked younger than she had on the field.

Not safe.

Just no longer held up entirely by vengeance.

Koneko-chan and Asia-chan were already talking to her.

Welcoming her back.

Issei-kun had gone to talk to Rias and Kusari-chan.

They must have finished talking, because Rias stepped toward Yuuto-chan.

I knew that expression.

Half pride.

Half the lingering panic that comes after someone you love survives doing something reckless enough that you want to praise them and shake them at the same time.

“Yuuto,” Rias said.

Yuuto-chan turned toward her at once.

Her face had gone awkwardly open in that way it sometimes did only with Rias. “Buchou. I…” She lowered her head. “ I betrayed the peerage and your trust. You saved my life and gave me somewhere to call home. I want to sincerely apologize for my actions, but I know that no words could fix what I’ve done…”

Rias lifted one hand and patted her cheek with that same familiar gentleness she used whenever she was trying to remind one of us that she was more than just our master.

“But you came back to us. That is enough for me. I understand the feelings you hold for your friends. They are something that you shouldn’t waste.” She said. 

Yuuto-chan’s throat moved like she was trying to keep from crying. Then she straightened and said what I think she had needed to say since the battle began.

“I, Kiba Yuuto, will protect you, Rias Gremory, and my comrades for the rest of my life as the [Knight] of your peerage.”

It was sincere.

Earnest.

And very, very Yuuto-chan.

Rias smiled.

“Ufufufu. Thank you Yuuto-chan. It’s makes me happy to hear that you won’t be leaving me again. But I think after that we’ve hit our limit on declarations we can make for a while.

That made me laugh despite everything.

Because we were back to poking fun at Ise meant that everything was back to normal.

Issei-kun, still filthy and scorched and running on the fumes of battle and shamelessness, pouted at the joke at his expense.

“Buchou, I was being sincere! How did you expect me to react to hearing oppai promised to me?! There is no way any guy wouldn’t push past their limits with that being said!”

“Issei-san is just….. excitable.”

“….Pervert-senpai…”

“Ise, why can’t you use your powers in a normal way.”

Asia-chan, Koneko-chan, and Rias commented on Issei-kun’s excuse. 

Yuuto-chan looked at him while he was scolded.

And smiled in the tired, affectionate way she only used when Issei-kun’s stupidity had managed to become something precious instead of merely loud.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Issei-kun is just Issei-kun.”

Issei-kun heard her and smiled before going back to complaining to Koneko about her comments.

And-Kusari-chan—

Something was off with Kusari-chan.

She was standing with the group and watching them but she wasn’t present.

She looked as if she was trying to take a moment to put herself back together without anyone noticing she had fallen apart.

I approached her.

“Kusari-chan? Are you alright?”

She turned to me first before moving her eyes away from everyone else and to me.

“Yes. I’m fine, Akeno-senpai.” She said.

Her voice was calm, but far too flat.

Like she was answering without putting any thought into what was said.

“Ara, it doesn’t seem that way to me. Really Kusari-chan, what’s wrong.”

Her eyes met mine.

She didn’t say anything for a moment as she scanned my face like she needed to remember it.

“Oh? Did you just need to see me after the fight, Kusari-chan? You could have just told me. Your Onee-san wouldn’t mind if you wanted to look at her more.” I teased her while watching how she would react.

Her eyes narrowed in that exasperated but faintly amused way that they did and I could tell she forced down a smile that almost showed.

“No, I had to make sure you were still well enough to make us tea after all of this.”

I leaned forward towards her and put on a fake frown.

“Aww, you don’t need to be shy, Kusari-chan. If you want I could show you even more.”

I moved my arms beneath my breast to emphasize them as I leaned towards her.

She let out a huff and gave me one of her dull glares before walking over to where everyone else had gathered.

She seemed more like herself again.

But something had shaken her.

I followed her back to the rest of the group

As we arrived I noticed that Rias’s face had changed.

Not her expression exactly.

The air around her.

Red demonic power gathered over her hand with a low, dangerous hum.

Yuuto-chan blinked in confusion.

I already knew what was coming.

“Yuuto,” Rias said, smiling much too sweetly, “as a punishment for leaving and acting on your own. You’ll be getting one thousand spanks.”

The entire battlefield went still.

Even after everything we had just survived.

After surviving Kokabiel.

After learning about God’s fate.

Even after Albion swooped in and saved us.

One thousand spanks had the power to alter the air.

Yuuto-chan stared.

“…Buchou?”

“It’s your punishment.”

Issei-kun looked haunted by his own punishment as he mouthed “sorry” to Yuuto-chan.

Normally I’d expect him to look excited to watch one girl spank another but it seemed that he was still recovering from his own spanking.

Koneko-chan glanced at him and then at Yuuto-chan with what might have been the tiniest hint of satisfaction.

Asia-chan looked torn between pity and relief.

Xenovia-san, still processing at least seven different theological and social disasters at once, looked like she did not know whether this was a devil custom, a noble custom, or a Gremory-specific madness she had yet to be educated on.

I turned just enough to catch Kusari-chan’s reaction to Rias punishing Yuuto-chan.

She had gone still again, but not in the same way as before.

Watching. Measuring.

Her eyes moved from Rias to Yuuto-chan and then, briefly, to me before sliding away.

There was something off in that look.

Not fear of the punishment itself.

Not whatever was bothering her before.

Recognition, perhaps.

Or caution.

Rias, for her part, had already committed.

Yuuto-chan was quiet, and looked doomed as she heard Rias’s verdict.

She accepted it because it was Rias-Buchou and because the battle had stripped all the useless resistance out of her for one night.

Yuuto-chan walked over and bent over Rias’s knee and braced herself.

Rias glanced at Issei-kun and spoke.

“Ise, turn away while I punish Yuuto-chan.”

“Yes, Buchou!”

He turned around quickly. 

Rias looked at him in surprise. 

“I expected at least some protest or complaint…”

She muttered to herself.

“Normally I would love to watch a pretty girl get spanked but I just can’t enjoy it with the fact that my ass is still sore from having the same thing done to me.”

He answered while still looking away.

Yuuto-chan looked at the ground with her face going even more red.

Issei-kun noticed Koneko-chan glaring at him.

“What? I’m being respectful and looking away like Buchou asked! Why are you giving me that look?”

Koneko-chan shook her head in response.

“Issei-senpai should repent and take Yuuto-senpai’s punishment for her.”

Issei-kun looked shocked.

Before he could respond Yuuto-chan came to his defense.

“N-no, Koneko-chan. It’s alright. I was in the wrong and I’ll take whatever p-punishment Buchou decides.”

Yuuto-chan’s face was still red as she was bent over with Rias’s hand in the air, waiting for them to finish talking before she began.

“Now, if you’re all done, I’ll start your punishment, Yuuto-chan.”

The punishment began.

Rias didn’t give Yuuto-chan a moment to react to her statement before she spanked her with a demonic energy coated hand. 

Kusari-chan flinched at the first strike, but composed herself after that.

We all stood and watched, besides Issei-kun.

He was still facing away and had covered his ears while crouched down to try and block out his own trauma.

Yuuto-chan would gasp or let out short shouts of pain occasionally, but didn’t complain or protest.

Unfortunately for her dignity, it went on long enough that the Maou’s reinforcements arrived while Rias was still at it.

Some of the Maou’s soldiers stopped and stared at Rias Gremory spanking one of her servants repeatedly in the middle of a battlefield.

A few pretended not to notice. More pointed or stared.

Sona-kaichou reached us first with her peerage.

Tsubaki-san at her side.

Saji-kun trailing with the expression of a man who had witnessed too much.

The rest of the Sitri girls spread efficiently through the grounds at once, checking the barrier integrity, confirming enemy withdrawal, verifying that no civilians had slipped through, and beginning the ugly work of turning apocalypse back into something administrative.

Sona-san herself only paused for one beat when she realized Yuuto-chan was being punished in the middle of post-battle triage.

Then she adjusted her glasses and accepted it without comment.

That was very like her.

Tsubaki-san was less composed.

Not outwardly.

She was too disciplined for that.

But I knew her face well enough to catch the tiny falter at the corner of her mouth before professionalism reclaimed it.

Rias stopped for a moment to hear her report.

“Area secure,” she reported to Sona-san after a quick first sweep. “Residual holy pressure remains high near the broken circle and the fused Excalibur fragments, but there are no further active enemy signatures.”

“Good,” Sona-san said. Then, to Rias: “You may continue.”

She did not need encouragement.

Yuuto-chan made a small, pained, whining sound of surrender before Rias continued.

It was a very educational night for everyone present.

Even Asia watched the whole thing through the cracks in her fingers while pretending to cover her eyes.

Even I felt bad for Yuuto-chan, but if Rias had asked me to take over I would have gladly done so in a heartbeat.

I hadn’t been of much use in the fight and would love to vent by dishing out a bit of lovely pain.

While Yuuto-chans’s punishment went on, the rest of us started checking each other properly.

Asia-chan went to Xenovia-san first because of course she did.

Xenovia-san would have insisted she was fine until she collapsed if someone didn’t force the issue.

Koneko-chan checked on Kusari-chan.

She made her show her her hands and moved them to see how far she had pushed her spells.

Kusari-chan tried to say she was fine, but relented when Koneko-chan showed she wasn’t going to let it go.

Issei-kun talked to both of them and complained again about his lost chance at Rias’s breasts.

They mostly ignored him.

I moved through the field the way I always did after battle: not commanding, not hovering, just seeing.

Yuuto-chan and Xenovia-san had taken the brunt of the damage in the fight.

Koneko-chan had been saved from taking some nasty hits by Kusari-chan.

Asia-chan, Issei-kun, and Kusari-chan were support for the fight, so they were pretty much fine.

That was when I noticed it more clearly.

Kusari was too pale and still off.

She seemed better than before, but she still looked exhausted and drained.

Her gaze would linger on each of us longer than before. She seemed to not realize she was doing it at this point.

I saw it because I was looking.

And because Rias was watching her too.

That was the other thing.

Rias had always watched Kusari-chan closely in battle or after.

She was useful in a fight, unstable in dangerous ways, and self-sacrificing in ways Buchou took personally. 

But this was different.

Protective and worried.

Her gaze kept returning to Kusari-chan in between everything else—Yuuto-chan’s punishment, Sona-Kaichou’s arrival, Issei-kun’s loudness, the state of the field, the arrival of the others.

Not openly enough for the others to question it. Openly enough for me.

Something had happened between them during the fight.

Something I had not been part of.

I did not like that.

Not because I needed to be part of every secret.

Because the shape of it looked painful.

I drifted nearer while pretending to check residual aura damage on the field line around them.

Kusari-chan noticed at once.

Of course she did.

She kept her face blank and said, “I already told you I was fine, Akeno-senpai.”

“I know Kusari-chan, I just wanted to check on you again.” I said.

“I think you should check on Yuuto-san first. She looks like she needs help.”

There it was again. A dry edge under the exhaustion.

She really was more herself when she was too tired to pretend as carefully.

Rias stopped Yuuto-chan’s punishment andlooked between us immediately.

A little too quickly.

“Kusari-chan needs rest,” she said.

I smiled.

“Of course she does.”

Kusari-chan’s eyes flicked toward Rias with something heavy in them and then away again.

Interesting.

It was the kind of look that tells me a line was crossed in a crisis and neither person involved has decided what to do with it.

Koneko-chan grabbed Kusari-chan’s sleeve to get her attention.

“You should sit,” Koneko-chan said.

Kusari-chan answered at once. “No, I’m fine”

Koneko-chan didn’t blink. “Wrong answer.”

“I’m still able to stand.”

“For now.”

There was no softness in Koneko-chan’s tone.

The attention and refusal to let it rest was her softness.

Asia-chan approached with worried eyes. “Kusari-san you look exhausted, so please…”

Kusari-chan looked at the three of us, then at Rias, then finally sat on the edge of a broken section of field barrier stone like someone agreeing to negotiations she had already lost.

Sona-Kaichou watched all of this from a short distance with the expression of someone cataloguing emotional absurdities for later analysis.

She came back over only after Rias had finished a fresh stretch of Yuuto-chan’s punishment.

Yuuto-chan had begun to look like she was dissociating to avoid the pain.

“The field is stable enough,” Sona said. “My peerage will secure the remaining dangerous areas. The Maou’s people are beginning cleanup.”

Rias nodded.

“Thank you.”

Sona-san’s eyes moved briefly to Kusari-chan.

Then to Rias.

Not enough to expose what she was thinking.

Enough that I knew she saw a difference too.

Wonderful.

The only thing worse than one observant woman noticing a hidden shift is two.

I stood, folded my hands behind my back, and smiled at no one in particular.

Everything was, technically, under control.

Which in our lives usually meant the opposite.

Issei

A few days later, Asia and I opened the clubroom door together.

Then I stopped in the doorway so hard Asia nearly bumped into my back.

There was a girl sitting on the sofa in our clubroom wearing the Kuoh girls’ uniform.

Blue hair with a green-highlight.

Serious face.

Perfect posture.

Xenovia.

I pointed before my brain properly caught up.

“Wha— why are you here!?”

Asia made a startled sound beside me. “X-Xenovia-san!?”

Xenovia stood, turned toward us with that same grave expression she used for everything from battle to small talk, and then spread black Devil wings from her back.

Actual devil wings.

Not a trick.

Not an illusion.

Real.

I made a confused noise that had no dignity in it at all.

Koneko-chan looked like she expected a large reaction.

Akeno-san laughed.

Buchou sat there with the sort of composed smile that meant she had engineered this reveal on purpose and was enjoying every second of my suffering.

Xenovia folded her arms.

“I found out God is gone,” she said in the same tone one might use to report the weather. “So I searched out your master and asked to become a Devil. I was reincarnated as a [Knight] by Rias Gremory. I am also transferring to this school as a 2nd year student, and will be a member of the Occult Research Club. So, please get along with me Ise-kun.” 

I stared at her.

Then said the only thing that made sense.

“Please don’t say my name in a cute way. Your face is far too serious…”

Asia looked torn between agreement and sympathy.

Xenovia tilted her head. “I practiced speaking more casually. Irina said it would be better.”

“That explains why it sounds wrong,” I said.

Xenovia nodded as if I had confirmed a useful hypothesis.

“Then I will continue improving.”

She really was impossible.

I turned toward Buchou at once. “Buchou, was it really alright to use your last [Knight] piece? No offense Xenovia.”

Xenovia shrugged.

Buchou smiled the way she did when she already knew I would object and had prepared not to care.

“Well, having a wielder of Durandal in the peerage is very beneficial. With this, I now have two sword users: Yuuto-chan and Xenovia-chan.”

I looked between them.

Yuuto-san sat near the window with a cup of tea and the kind of composed posture that made it easy to forget she had been bent over Buchou’s knee and spanked until she nearly cried just the other day.

Xenovia stood like a Church knight trying very hard to understand what “club atmosphere” meant among devils.

It was a strange but strong combination.

Xenovia crossed her arms tighter and frowned.

“I am still evaluating the situation. I have become a devil and cannot return. In one sense that was unavoidable. In another…” She frowned more deeply. “Serving under a devil who was once my enemy remains complicated.”

“That’s one way to say it,” I muttered.

Asia stepped a little farther into the room. “Where is Irina-san?”

Xenovia answered immediately.

“Irina returned to headquarters with Valper’s corpse and the five Excaliburs, including mine. The fragments that act as the cores were retrieved, so the mission to recover them was considered accomplished. If they have the cores, then through alchemy they can reconstruct the holy swords.”

That sounded awful on at least three levels.

“So they can just make them again?” I asked.

“Yes.”

That shouldn’t have been that easy.

Apparently it was.

I looked at Xenovia again. “And the Church was really okay with you coming over here? I mean… you turned into a devil.”

Xenovia’s expression flattened.

“I don’t think it mattered to them anymore.”

Her words sounded hollow, defeated.

She went on in the same blunt tone.

“When I mentioned the truth of what happened to God they were upset. They viewed me as someone who knew too much. They declared me an outsider, a heretic. Even though I am the only one currently able to wield Durandal, they still threw me out.” Her eyes shifted briefly toward Asia. “Exactly like they did with Asia Argento.”

Asia’s shoulders drew inward just a little.

I hated that.

Not because Xenovia was wrong.

Because she was exactly right.

“I spoke to Irina after that, I told her that I would become a devil if I no longer had a place in the church. She seemed disgusted by the idea. We weren’t able to part on good terms.”

Xenovia spoke while looking downwards. 

The room quieted for a moment after that.

Then Buchou picked up the conversation.

“The Church later contacted the Maou. More precisely, the Maou and the Church exchanged words because of the Fallen Angels’ actions during the incident.” She smiled faintly. “They also apologized for Valper. Or, more accurately, for failing to keep him contained after his earlier escape.”

That was more polite than I expected from ancient faction enemies.

Still not friendly.

But weirdly formal.

Xenovia looked around the clubroom and sighed.

“This school is extrodinary. Two sisters of a Maou attend school here.”

Sona-kaichou.

Right.

Because apparently Kuoh Academy was now a gathering point for every dangerous person in the universe.

“Don’t sound so unhappy,” Akeno-san said with a smile. “You’ve become part of the collection.”

“That is not comforting,” Xenovia replied.

“It isn’t meant to be,” Koneko-chan said.

I almost laughed.

Almost.

Then I noticed Kusari-san.

She was sitting a little farther from the center of the conversation than usual, though not so far that it would count as withdrawal.

Fox ears still, posture neat, expression calm, hands folded the way they often were when she wanted to look like she was only listening and not measuring every person in the room.

Physically, she looked better than she had right after the battle.

A lot better, actually.

The deep, wrong exhaustion I’d seen after Kokabiel and Albion was gone from the surface.

She wasn’t swaying.

She wasn’t carrying that same too-careful weight in every movement.

But something still felt off.

She was silent.

She hadn’t said a single thing since Asia and I had entered the room. 

It wasn’t something obvious enough to call out.

Just… off..

Or more precise in a way that made me think she was trying a little too hard to look normal again.

Buchou noticed her too.

I knew because every few moments Buchou’s eyes drifted that way before returning to the larger conversation.

Not enough for anyone else to call it out.

Enough for me because I was always watching Buchou too much anyway.

The battle, I thought.

Kokabiel. God being dead. Albion showing up. Everything.

Of course Buchou would be watching Kusari more after that.

Of course Kusari would still be a little off.

That had to be all it was.

Akeno-san said something teasing to Xenovia then—something about how she’d need to learn how to relax if she wanted to survive the Occult Research Club—and Xenovia took it completely seriously, which made the room loosen up again.

And that was when Kusari-san finally spoke.

Dry.

Precise.

Calm enough that it took me a second to realize it was actually funny.

“If Xenovia-san doesn’t learn quickly,” she said, “then Kiryuu-san will have another person besides Asia to mislead.”

Akeno-san laughed first.

Koneko-chan chuckled.

Then even Yuuto’s mouth moved at one corner.

“Kusari-san! You’ve listened to Kiryuu-san before too!”

Asia pouted.

“That’s true, but I’ve learned my lesson with her.”

Xenovia frowned. “So I should seek out this Kiryuu person to learn more about the school?”

“No, please don’t,” Kusari said.

No hesitation.

Akeno-san laughed again and even Yuuto-san joined in.

I looked at her a second longer than I meant to.

Because the line itself wasn’t that strange.

But the way she said it was.

The ease of it.

The faintly sharper edge under her usual careful tone.

It felt… more like something she would have said if she wasn’t hiding quite as much of herself.

Not a big difference.

Not enough to matter if you weren’t paying attention.

I was paying attention.

Asia glanced at her too, and for a moment I wondered if she’d noticed the same thing.

Maybe not exactly.

But something.

Xenovia crossed her arms. “Then I will ignore her.”

“That also sounds impossible,” I said.

“You are in no position to judge anyone for saying strange things, Ise-kun,” Akeno-san replied.

“That’s unfair.”

“It is fair though,” Yuuto-san said.

That got anouther laugh out of the room.

And somehow, for a little while, the clubroom actually felt like itself again.

Not fully.

There was still too much behind all of us now. Too much battle, too much theology, too much almost-dying pressed into the walls.

But it felt closer.

And when I looked at Kusari-san again, I caught her watching the others with that same hard-to-read expression of hers—only this time there was the faintest trace of something softer under it.

Not fully relaxed.

Not quite.

Maybe just less distance.

Maybe whatever happened during the fight with Kokabiel had shaken something loose.

I didn’t understand it.

Not really.

I only knew she seemed a little more like a person sitting in the room with us and a little less like someone carefully arranging herself just outside it.

That was enough for me to notice.

Not enough to know what to do with it.

But it was definitely a good thing.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!