High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Rias

The tension in the room was obvious.

Not to Gasper.

He was still half-inside his cardboard box, too overwhelmed by Xenovia’s rope and the idea of “training” to notice much beyond his own panic.

Xenovia was oblivious as well.

Too focused on torturing her new Kohai with her ideas of training.

But to everyone else?

It was obvious

Akeno knew.

Yuuto knew.

Koneko certainly knew.

Asia understood less of the shape, but still felt enough to grow quieter. 

Even Ise, who only knew that Kusari and I had spoken privately before, had gone still in that particular way he did when he wanted to ask a question and knew he should not do it in front of everyone.

Kusari stood in front me with her face smooth and her voice colder than it had been the last time we were alone.

I had heard that tone before.

Not often.

Usually when she was frightened enough to hide it inside perfect obedience.

That made it worse.

I had given all of them orders of what to do and where to go. 

All except Kusari.

She had reacted to learning about Gasper and the situation around him poorly.

I couldn’t blame her.

I should have told her sooner.

Kusari had spoke before the others could move too far.

That was when I realized that we would have to speak now rather than later.

So I refused to let her join them.

I had shot Akeno a look that she quickly understood and Kusari was asked to stay behind while the others left. 

She had accepted it to easily.

Her voice was missing any of the familiarity it was beginning to hold.

I knew it was bad already, but if I let her go with them like this, she would stand beside Gasper and look at every part of the situation through the rawest possible version of what she already feared.

Every word, every hesitation, every instruction would become evidence that I was no better than some of her previous [Kings].

She would come to that conclusion without knowing how traumatized Gasper had been even before he joined my peerage.

Ise had tried to help but didn’t know how to or if he should go against me in the moment.

I didn’t want to, but I told him to leave. 

And he listened.

I was grateful for that and guilty for it at the same time.

Then the others filed out of the room with minimal chaos. 

Akeno lingered just long enough to look at me.

With only a quiet, knowing look that said she understood exactly why I had kept Kusari here.

Then she left too.

My chest was already tight enough that it hurt.

I said her name.

She watched me expressionlessly for a moment before answering. 

That, too, hurt more than it should have.

When she did answer there was no warmth.

No willingness to help me pretend this was not as bad as it was.

I took one step closer to her.

Not enough to crowd.

Enough to show I wasn’t going to conduct this conversation from a safer distance.

“I understand why this would affect you,” I said. “Personally. And I understand why seeing Gasper’s situation would make you angry.”

She didn’t react to my words.

I kept going anyway.

“I also understand how badly this reflects on me.”

That got a reaction.

A flicker in her eyes.

At least I wasn’t speaking into stone.

I drew in a slow breath and said the hardest part first.

“My brother was the one who initially ordered Gasper to be sealed,” I said. “And at the time, I believed he was right.”

The words settled badly between us.

Kusari’s face stayed level.

Her voice, when it came, was cold and even.

“Because you couldn’t control him.”

“Yes.”

I did not soften it.

“He could not control his Sacred Gear,” I said. “And neither could I. If something had happened then and he panicked, or if someone had triggered him, or if his power had run wild, I did not think I could protect him, my peerage, or anyone around us.”

Kusari listened without interrupting.

That was somehow worse than if she had.

“Would that happen to me too?” she asked.

Her voice was still very controlled.

Very flat.

The question landed like a blade laid carefully across my throat.

“Kusari—”

“If you can’t properly control me,” she continued, not raising her voice, “or if your brother tells you to seal me again, is that what happens next?”

The worst of her fears brought to the front.

I had known, when I kept her here, that some version of this would come.

I had still hoped for something less direct.

That had been foolish.

“No,” I said at once.

She held my gaze.

The cold look she gave me did not go away. 

I went on, forcing myself not to plead too early, not to rush to the comforting answer without giving her the truth it sat on top of.

“No. I will not seal you away.”

Kusari’s expression did not change.

“Because you’re more capable now than you were then?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

That was true.

Also not enough.

She knew it too.

“What about my next seal’s release?” she asked. “Or the one after that?”

I opened my mouth.

She did not let me answer.

“What if it isn’t only one moment of lost control, Buchou?” she asked, voice turning sharper, less restrained. “What if each release makes me harder to contain, harder to command, harder to keep acceptable? Are you going to tell me then that you won’t consider sealing me? Or leaving me exactly as I am now because it’s easier?”

That struck harder than I expected.

Because of the way she said it.

Exactly as I am now.

I heard it for what it was.

Not only sealed.

Not only weakened.

Crippled.

I took another step toward her.

“Kusari-chan—”

“No,” she said.

Still quiet.

Still controlled.

Still more frightening for both of those things.

“You told them a moment ago that someone above you sealed him because he was dangerous and you couldn’t control him,” she said. “You told us that now your evaluations are higher, your power is greater, and therefore the same people think you may be able to handle him. That is what this is built on. Not kindness. Not trust. Capability.”

Every word was true enough that I could not deny it outright.

That made the shame in me burn hotter.

“I was younger,” I said. “I was weaker. I accepted something I should have fought harder.”

Her eyes sharpened.

“Both are things that you can always say. That sounds very reassuring if I become inconvenient.”

I flinched.

Just slightly.

She noticed.

Then she went on, and this time there was less control in the edges of her voice.

Not much.

Enough.

“Your brother has already had part of me sealed away by his order before,” she said. “Would you be able to tell him no if he told you to do it again?”

The room seemed to contract around us.

She had never said that part so plainly before.

I knew some of what she meant.

Enough of it, anyway.

Enough to understand that Onii-sama’s influence over her life had gone much farther than I had wanted to imagine.

But hearing her place it beside Gasper like that—

No wonder she looked at me this way.

“Kusari,” I said, my own voice tightening now, “listen to me.”

“Would you?” she asked.

I stopped.

Because if I answered too fast, she would hear the wrong thing in it.

And if I hesitated too long, she would hear the wrong thing in that too.

But most of all, the truth was not as clean as I wanted it to be.

I had failed once already.

I had obeyed once already.

She saw the flicker of that in me.

I knew she did.

Something colder entered her face.

“If he decides I am no longer useful to you,” she said, “or too unstable, or too dangerous, or too difficult, what then?”

“You are not just useful to me. You are much more than that.

“Then why does this room feel so familiar?” She asked. 

I couldn’t deny it.

I hated it more because she was not wrong to say it.

I drew myself up a little straighter and met her gaze head-on.

“No,” I said. “Listen to me carefully, Kusari-chan. I will not seal you away.”

This time I did not soften the force in my voice.

“If I have to stand against my brother over one of my own peerage members, then I will. If I have to fight harder than I did before, then I will. If I have to become stronger still so that no one can make that decision for me, then I will.”

She stared at me.

I went on.

“I was younger when Gasper was sealed. I was less capable. I accepted a solution born out of fear, authority, and my own weakness.” My throat tightened, but I did not let the words stop. “That was my mistake. One of them. I will not make the same one with you.”

The silence after that was thin and tight and difficult.

I kept going, because if I stopped now, I would lose her entirely.

“I mean everything I’ve said to you,” I told her. “I will help you remove your seals. All of them. I will not choose your crippled state because it is easier to manage. And I will not let anyone decide that one of my peerage members should be put away because they are inconvenient.”

Kusari’s breathing stayed even.

Her face did not soften.

But she listened.

“My peerage is my family,” I said. “All of you. That isn’t rhetoric, and it isn’t convenience. I failed Gasper by letting this go on as long as it did. I see that more clearly now than I did then. I don’t expect that admission to fix what this looks like to you. But I am not lying to you now.”

Kusari did not soften.

She stood there looking at me with that same cold, searching stillness, and when she spoke, her voice remained even enough that it felt sharpened on purpose.

“Was Gasper family to you when you locked him away?”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

Because there was no answer that didn’t sound ugly.

Kusari saw that too.

“Or is your peerage family only until it becomes inconvenient?” she asked. “Only until it becomes difficult?”

“That isn’t what this was,” I said, more sharply than I meant to.

“No?” she replied.“He was useful, profitable, rare, and dangerous. A member of your peerage. And when he became too difficult to control, he was sealed in a room.”

Every word landed with surgical precision.

I forced myself not to look away.

“I told you already,” I said. “I was weaker then. I accepted something I should have fought harder.”

“And I am telling you that doesn’t change what happened and could happen again.” Kusari said.

The anger in me rose with that.

Not because she was wrong.

Because she was saying the ugliest possible version of a truth I already hated.

Then she continued, and this time the chill in her voice grew a fraction thinner. Not warmer. Just less perfectly contained.

“At this point,” she said, “now that Gasper-kun is freed, only two of us in your peerage need to truly worry about becoming too strong.”

I knew where she was going before she said it.

I held myself very still.

Kusari’s eyes did not leave mine.

“But Issei is easier,” she said.

The words were simple.

I hated them instantly.

“He can be more easily controlled.”

A bright, immediate fury flared in my chest.

“Kusari.”

She did not stop.

“With lust,” she said. “With affection. With being shown enough love that he doesn’t question how tightly it also keeps him in place.”

My anger hit full force.

“How dare you.”

She blinked once.

Not because she hadn’t expected the reaction.

Because she had and was measuring it.

“You think I would pretend to love him?” I asked.

The words came out low and tight and far more furious than I usually allowed myself to sound.

“You think I would use his feelings for me like reins?”

Kusari’s expression did not change.

“That would be one way to put it.”

I took a step toward her before I realized I was doing it.

My hands had clenched.

“I love him,” I snapped. “I am not using that to control him.”

That finally broke something in the stillness between us.

Not in me.

In her.

Only a little.

A flicker. A shift. The smallest crack in that cold restraint.

Then she answered, and her voice was still quiet, but no longer untouched.

“Of course people have used love to control someone before.”

The fury in me stopped for a moment.

Kusari kept going.

“As if it’s impossible,” she said. “As if it’s unthinkable for someone to be made to believe they’re cared for, not knowing that it’s only to make them easier to control. .” Her gaze lowered for only a second, then rose again. “It is very easy to believe someone could love you until you stop being useful. Or until you it’s not enough control you anymore.”

I heard what lay behind those words immediately.

Her words were not just fear and cynicism.

She spoke like she knew exactly what she was talking about was true.

My anger did not vanish.

But it ceased to be simple anger.

“Kusari-chan...” I said.

She looked away first.

Just for a second.

Enough for me to understand what she had almost accidentally shown.

It was enough for me to realize that when she looked at me and asked these things, she was not asking only as her current self in my peerage.

She was asking with the memory of other hands still on her.

Other voices still in her head.

She was remembering promises that had once sounded like love or care, but were actually more chains around her. 

And suddenly the shape of her cruelty of the accusation towards me, that I might use Ise’s love as a leash, stopped feeling like an insult and started feeling like an old wound brought to light.

Her words were equal parts pain and anger and another part of concern for Issei being used by me. 

“You think I could become that,” I said softly.

That made her eyes come back to mine.

“I think anyone can,” she said.

She didn’t say it in an accusing way.

She said it like a truth she had learned the ugliest way possible.

I drew in one slow breath.

My anger had become something heavier now, and harder to hold.

“I am not them,” I said.

“I know you want me to believe that.”

“Kusari—”

“You asked me not to decide yet,” she said, cutting across me again, but not as coldly as before. “I haven’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see the pattern.”

I swallowed.

Because I knew which pattern she meant.

Dangerous member.

Rare ability.

Valuable piece.

Contained when control fails.

And somewhere beyond all of that, still the fear that if her power kept rising, the same logic would one day turn on her too.

“And if it were only me,” she said quietly, “that would already be enough.”

She gave a small, humorless breath that did not quite become a laugh.

“But it isn’t only me, is it?”

I knew what came next before she said it.

No wonder Ise had become part of this too.

My feelings for him had entered her fear as evidence instead of comfort.

Because in her world, control and affection were not different.

They were often the same hand.

“At this point,” she said again, “only Issei and I would have to fear becoming too much.”

I closed my eyes for a second.

When I opened them, she was still looking at me like she was waiting to see if I would deny the principle or only the details.

“Ise is not mine because I can control him,” I said.

“No,” she answered. “He’s yours because he loves you.”

The words should have comforted me.

They didn’t.

Not with how she said them.

“And because of that,” she continued, “he is easier to keep.”

The hurt in that was deeper than the accusation.

Because there was something true buried inside it.

I really did love him.

But yes, love did make people stay.

Love did make them endure.

Love did make them offer themselves freely in ways power or control alone never could.

And if someone had used that against her before...

No wonder she looked at us this way.

I took another slow breath, not trusting the first few things I wanted to say.

When I finally spoke, my voice was quieter.

“Then listen to me carefully.”

She did.

Not because she trusted me.

Because she needed to judge the answer.

“I will not pretend to love someone in order to keep them obedient,” I said. “I will not use Ise’s heart against him. I will not use yours that way either, if you ever give me enough of it to matter.”

That last made her flinch slightly.

I saw it.

Just a tiny flicker in her face.

Then I went on before it could disappear entirely.

“I love Ise because I love him,” I said. “Not because he is useful. Not because he can be directed. Not because his desire makes him easier to keep near me.” My throat tightened, but I did not stop. “And if you think I would ever reduce that to a control method, then you have understood something monstrous about the world too well and me not well enough.”

The silence after that stretched.

Kusari stood very still.

Then, after a long moment, she said, “That was the answer I wanted.”

Not believed.

That hurt too.

“It’s also the truth,” I said.

Her gaze lowered slightly.

And when she spoke again, there was less ice in it. 

It was more wounded instead.

“I want to believe you,” she said.

There it was again.

The line that hurt more than accusation ever could.

Because I knew she meant it.

I knew she wanted this to be different.

Wanted me to be different.

Wanted to place trust in me and not be punished for the mistake.

And I had just forced her to stand in front of a sealed room and wonder if she had been foolish enough to hope again.

“I was beginning to think this would be different,” she said. “That your peerage would be different. That I could trust you and the others.” She swallowed once. “I have believed that before. Or something close enough to it. And I was hurt for it.”

There was nothing I could say to make that easier while she was still saying it.

“And now,” she said quietly, “I don’t know whether I am doing it again.”

I stepped toward her.

She did not move.

But I could feel how careful the moment had become.

“I am asking you,” I said, “not to decide that today.”

Her eyes narrowed just slightly.

“That isn’t something you get to ask for.”

“No,” I admitted. “It isn’t.”

I hated how right she was.

I hated more that I had earned that answer from her.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Then she looked toward the door.

Toward where the others had gone with Gasper.

Toward the training she had wanted to help with for reasons we both understood.

When she looked back at me, her face had gone composed again. 

She had put herself back together again.

“I’ll join the others,” she said.

“Kusari—”

She stopped me with a look.

It wasn’t harsh.

Just final for now.

“I want to help with Gasper-kun’s training,” she said. “That hasn’t changed.”

That meant she had not withdrawn completely.

It also meant she still needed to see, for herself, what kind of peerage this was going to be.

I let out a breath that felt too much like surrender.

“All right.”

She nodded her head once.

Then turned toward the door.

I wanted to call her back.

To say something cleaner. Stronger. 

Something that would heal what had torn open between us in this room.

Nothing I could say now would do that.

So I stood there and watched her go, and in the silence after the door shut behind her, all I could think was that trust was not always lost in dramatic moments or large betrayals.

It was lost like this.

In small moments where the worst you had seen in others suddenly looked familiar again in the people you thought you could trust.

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