High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Rias

The room still held the warmth of dinner.

That made the tension in the air that much noticeable.

The Hyoudou house was never quiet.

Even when no one spoke, there was still life in it.

The faint scent of tea.

The lingering heat from the kitchen.

The soft creak of a lived-in home settling around the people inside it.

A domestic warmth.

The sort of warmth that made it feel wrong to drag something painful out into it.

But it was also a perfect place to have this talk.

Surrounded by comfort and people important to you.

My peerage.

My family.

And the truth I had let sit too long.

I looked at them one by one.

Asia sat nearest to me, hands folded together so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had gone pale.

Worry had already overtaken the softness on her face as knew where this conversation was going.

Koneko sat quietly beside Yuki, though “quietly” was not the same as calmly.

Her posture was too still.

Her eyes were too watchful.

Yuuto stood with her usual composed grace, but the set of her shoulders told me she was braced for the conversation to become painful again.

Xenovia had that direct, upright posture she always adopted when she expected something important.

She did not know the details yet, but she knew enough to understand this was not a casual talk.

Akeno’s expression was pleasant at first glance.

Her eyes were taking in each person as she scanned the room.

Issei had gone from confused to wary the moment he understood my tone.

He was sitting forward now, elbows on his knees, looking at me with open concern and no idea yet how much that concern was about to deepen.

Then there was Yuki.

Standing straight, expression composed.

Too composed.

I knew better than to mistake that for ease now.

I drew a breath.

“There are a few things we need to speak about before tonight ends,” I said. “The first is something Ise and Akeno should have been told already.”

Akeno’s smile faded.

Ise frowned. “Something from the summit?”

“No.” I shook my head. “From before that. From the fight with Kokabiel.”

At once the room changed.

Asia, Koneko, Xenovia, and Yuuto had already heard this.

Yuki had lived it.

I had nearly made the choice myself.

It changed because Issei and Akeno had not.

And because both of them understood, from the way I said it, that this was not something small.

Akeno’s eyes sharpened. “The fight with Kokabiel?”

“Yes.”

I folded my hands together lightly to stop myself from showing how tense I was.

“Yuki and I already spoke about this with Koneko, Yuuto, Xenovia, and Asia while the two of you were at the shrine.”

I saw the hurt flicker across Ise’s face at being left out.

Akeno hid her surprise, but I knew her far too well to miss it.

I continued before either of them could speak.

“I’ll tell Gasper myself later,” I said. “This isn’t something I want to put on him tonight.”

That, at least, needed no further explanation.

Gasper had still been sealed away in the old school building when Kokabiel attacked.

He had not been there.

He did not deserve to have it dropped on him carelessly now.

Ise nodded once, tense but understanding.

I looked at Yuki for the briefest moment, then back to the others.

“During the fight with Kokabiel,” I said, “Yuki asked me to release multiple seals and let her stay behind to delay him so the rest of us could escape.”

The silence that followed was immediate and absolute.

Ise’s eyes snapped toward Yuki.

Akeno’s expression did not change at all.

That worried me more.

I kept going.

“She did not ask on impulse. She had already thought it through. She had already built the argument.”

My throat tightened slightly.

“She believed that if I removed multiple seals at once, she would become strong enough to keep Kokabiel occupied long enough for the rest of us to withdraw.”

Asia shut her eyes briefly.

Koneko’s face remained flat, but I could tell that the topic still made her mad.

Yuuto looked down for a moment.

Xenovia crossed her arms.

And Issei was staring at Yuki as though the idea that she had suggested horrified him.

He looked hurt.

I forced myself to continue.

“She was not proposing it as a way to get me to release more seals for her,” I said. “She presented it as the only option she believed had a chance of working.”

I paused.

“I should have rejected it immediately.”

I met Ise's eyes.

“As her [King] I didn’t.”

He breathed in sharply.

Akeno glanced at Yuki before lowering her gaze for half a second, the only break in her composure.

I would not soften it.

There was no point in truth if I only offered the kind that protected me.

“There was a moment,” I said, “when I nearly agreed. The only reason I didn’t make a decision is because Vali arrived before I could.”

This time Issei stood up so fast the table in front of him shifted.

“Buchou—”

His voice cracked on the title.

I took it.

I deserved it.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

He stared at me like he was waiting for me to correct myself.

To say that I had realized that I was wrong. 

I did not.

I turned to Yuki.

“Yuki,” I said. “Tell them how you argued it.”

Her shoulders drew a fraction tighter.

Then she nodded.

“At that point,” she said softly, “we were already at the limit of what we could do.”

Her tone was calm.

She spoke the same way she had when she had explained it each time before.

Like it was a report of something that had appended to someone else.

“Kokabiel was still stronger than us. Even if everyone fought, he only needed to decide to stop playing with us for the situation to become much worse.” She looked toward Ise first. “You couldn’t have stayed behind.”

Issei blinked.

Yuki continued before he could answer.

“You had powered up the Boosted Gear, but Kokabiel was still too much for you. Plus, if you had stayed, no one else would have left you behind.”

She looked at me next.

“Buchou couldn’t stay either. Even putting aside strength, she was the [King]. No one in the group would have accepted withdrawing without her.”

That much was true enough to sting.

“Akeno-senpai had already tried to attack him,” Yuki went on, “but Kokabiel had removed her attacks with ease. Even if she tried to distract him by avoiding him she wouldn’t have lasted long enough.

Akeno stared at Yuki, the smile on her face thinning the more she spoke.

“Yuuto and Xenovia-san had both tried to fight him, and were barely able to hurt him. Koneko is a powerful, but close range fighter that wouldn't be able to distract him. Asia couldn’t be left behind in a battle like that at all.”

Her gaze flicked toward Xenovia for a moment. “Plus Xenovia wasn’t part of the peerage then. Asking her to remain behind while the rest of us fled would have been absurd.”

Xenovia gave one short nod.

It was approval of the logic.

She had said she understood Yuki’s reasoning before.

Yuki lowered her eyes for only a second before finishing.

“I believed I was the only one the group might actually be able to leave,” she said. “And I believed that if multiple seals were removed, I would have enough power to make Kokabiel take time to deal with me regardless of what it did to me.”

There it was.

Now everyone knew, even if it was long overdue.

Ise's face was gritting his teeth with anger.

Not at her.

At the fact that he wasn’t strong enough to prevent the situation from happening in the first place.

Akeno was looking at Yuki now with an expression so still it felt too calm.

With her that could only mean something bad. 

Akeno whispered, “Yuki-chan…”

Yuki kept her gaze level.

“I didn’t know exactly what removing as many seals as we could do,” she said. “But I believed the result wouldn't matter if everyone else got out.”

The room went utterly silent.

For a moment, all I could hear was the faint hum of the house around us.

The sound of an ordinary home existing while something painful sat in the middle of my peerage.

Ise spoke first.

And when he did, his voice was low and rough.

“You really thought that?”

Yuki looked at him.

“Yes.”

He stood from his seat.

“That all the rest of us leaving while you got torn apart made sense?”

The question came out harsher than he would have normally asked it.

He was too caught up in his anger to realize.

Yuki, though, did not recoil.

She just answered him.

“I thought it was the choice with the best chance of getting everyone else out.”

“That’s not what I asked!”

Issei’s voice cracked louder this time.

Asia flinched.

Yuuto looked like she was ready to stand as well.

Koneko’s eyes narrowed at once.

Akeno still hadn’t spoken.

That worried me even more.

Yuki was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, “At the time, yes.”

She didn’t sound cold or upset.

Just that same calm she had from the start of the conversation.

Ise dragged both hands through his hair and turned away from her for a second like he didn’t know whether to yell, argue, or punch something.

I understood the feeling.

I had not known what to do with it either when she looked at me on that day and presented leaving her to die as a reasonable thought process to have.

Akeno spoke then.

Very softly.

“Why?”

It held much more emotion than she normally would have allowed.

Yuki met her eyes.

“Because the others had reasons they couldn’t be the one,” she said. “And because if multiple seals were released, I thought I could force Kokabiel to spend enough time dealing with me.”

Akeno’s gaze did not waver.

“That still doesn’t explain why you decided that you could be the one to stay.”

Yuki’s fingers curled once at her side.

Then loosened.

“Because I couldn’t let one of you be the one left behind. I couldn’t let anything happen to one of you.” She said. 

Her voice was much quieter than before. 

Akeno’s smile returned.

But there was none of the normal warmth she put into it. 

“And it would have been fine for us to leave you?”

Yuki looked down rather than meet her gaze.

Akeno continued, the fake smile dropping from her face. 

“You say you were thinking of us,” she said flatly. “You gave reasons why others couldn’t stay or couldn’t be left behind, but do you think that any of us would have been alright with you not coming with us? Do you think I, or Ise-kun, or anyone else would have agreed to abandon you?”

Yuki went very still.

She looked at Akeno but didn’t say anything.

Issei swore under his breath.

Asia rose to her feet so suddenly that her chair made a soft sound against the floor.

“Akeno,” she said, shaking her head. “We already told Yuki that none of us would have been alright with it.”

Her eyes were barely holding back tears already.

“She made a decision that she thought was the best at the time.” Asia continued. “Even though it wasn’t acceptable.”

Her gaze turned to me then, and there was no accusation in it, only grief.

“Rias-san was trying to make the best decision too…”

Even though that decision had almost come with me sacrificing one of my servants, she still looked at me kindly while saying it.

Yuuto exhaled quietly and finally stepped in.

“That was why we addressed it before,” she said to Issei and Akeno. “Once we understood how Yuki-san had been thinking, it couldn’t be left alone.”

Issei turned toward her, jaw tight. “And you all just kept this between you?”

“No,” Koneko said before Yuuto could answer. “We had the summit come up. That’s why we’re talking about it now.”

Her voice was clipped and sharper than usual.

She was still angry.

The old anger she had held at Yuki and I hadn’t gone away completely.

That made Issei go still.

He looked at her, then at Yuki, then back at me.

“And you almost said yes,” he said.

This time the words were directed at me again.

His words were less angry.

Instead they were more hurt.

“Yes,” I said.

“Why?”

The answer was uglier than I wanted it to be.

Because for one moment, fear of losing everyone had made me nearly make the mistake of losing one person for saving the rest.

Yuki had argued for it well.

She had given me logical and reasonable points as to why it made sense.

And as a [King] they had been the right decision at the time.

But they weren’t correct for me.

“Because I was afraid,” I said.

No one moved.

“Afraid of losing all of you. Afraid of choosing wrong. Afraid that if I refused the only option someone was willing to put infront of me, I would watch the whole situation collapse in front of me.”

My throat tightened.

“And because Yuki knew how to make the argument as a [King] would need to hear it. She spoke in with a logical plan that would result in me keeping most of my servants.”

I looked at Yuki then.

“She did not ask me as someone who believed she had the right to come back with us,” I said quietly. “She asked as someone who believed that if her body, her power, and her mind could buy enough time, then what happened to them afterward didn’t matter.”

Yuki lowered her eyes.

Not because I was wrong.

Because I wasn’t.

The silence after that pressed on the room.

Akeno broke it.

“You should have told us,” she said.

She was looking at both of us.

Her voice was not raised.

It didn’t need to be.

“You should have told us immediately.”

“I know,” I said.

Beside the wall, Yuki said softly, “Yes.”

Akeno’s gaze stayed on her.

Then, unexpectedly, she let out a small breath through her nose.

It sounded too tired to be a chuckle.

“It’s amazing,” she murmured. “Something else that happened too late from someone I care about.”

That made my chest tighten for an entirely different reason.

Because I knew exactly what old wound that sentence had come from.

And because Yuki knew it too.

Yuki’s eyes lifted to Akeno’s face.

Her gaze changed briefly.

She looked both saddened and guilty at Akeno’s words.

Akeno looked away before the moment could deepen further.

Xenovia, as expected, chose the blunt path.

“I understand why people are upset, and they should be.” she said. “However, I understand the reasoning Yuki used and most likely would have made the same choice in her place.”

That earned the faintest huff from Koneko, of begrudging understanding.

She still glared at Xenovia.

Xenovia went on, arms crossed.

“Sometimes there is a need for one to lay down their life for something greater than themselves. I believe that is exactly what Yuki was thinking. However, that is not something easily done if there are people close to you who cannot accept that act.”

For Xenovia, that was practically tenderness.

Yuuto nodded slowly. “And we can’t accept it. That’s where we ended up discussing it before.”

I drew a slow breath.

This was as far as we could go without arguing in circles.

“We already discussed this once,” I said. “Tonight, I want it made explicit. With everyone present.”

Everyone looked at me.

“No one in this peerage will make a decision like that alone again.”

I let the sentence settle.

“Not the one offering. Not me as [King]. Not anyone acting out of fear, guilt, or the belief that they are the easiest person to lose.”

Yuki nodded slowly.

Issei’s jaw tightened again.

I kept going.

“If we are ever in a situation where sacrificing one member is even spoken of, then it becomes a decision for the whole peerage. All of us. No one gets to decide they will be left behind and say it’s the best for everyone.”

Asia nodded at once, tears still gathered in her eyes. “We should never leave anyone behind….”

Koneko’s answer came immediately. “Of course.”

Yuuto said, “Agreed.”

Xenovia gave a single sharp nod. “That is correct.”

Akeno was quiet for a moment longer than the others.

Then she said, “Yes.”

Finally, Ise looked from me to Yuki, still furious and hurting and sincere in a way that made it impossible not to love him.

“We’re a peerage,” he said. “A family. So stop acting like you’re not a part of it. You can’t just decide things like that by yourselves and expecting the rest of us to just accept it.”

It was clumsy.

It was blunt.

It was honest and full of worry.

Asia nodded harder.

Koneko’s eyes softened by a fraction.

Even Yuuto’s mouth eased slightly at the corners.

Yuki looked at Ise as though she didn’t know what to do with his concerned anger.

Then she lowered her gaze.

“…I will try,” she said quietly.

I looked around the room once more.

At the faces of the people I loved.

At the hurt I had caused by waiting to tell them.

At the line we had finally drawn together instead of pretending it would somehow stay drawn if it remained unspoken.

Then I turned to Yuki.

She straightened.

Still too quickly.

Even now.

Even after everything.

The old conditioning was still there in moments like this, sitting just beneath the surface.

Not obedience because she trusted.

Obedience because she was watching for the moment she would be noticed by her [King].

It made something twist painfully in me.

But tonight, I needed her to step forward for a different reason.

Because she had told me that she was ready to talk.

I held her gaze.

“There is one more thing,” I said.

The room quieted again.

Asia straightened.

Issei frowned in confusion.

Akeno’s eyes sharpened.

Koneko went still in that small, alert way she had around anything concerning Yuki.

Yuuto simply waited.

Xenovia, too, said nothing.

“Yuki,” I said softly, “you said that you were ready to tell us more.”

She tensed immediately.

I saw it in the way her fingers curled once, then loosened.

In the breath she took.

In the brief glance she gave the room before looking back at me.

She had known this was coming but was still not entirely ready.

Perhaps she never would be

The first part of tonight had been about what I almost allowed.

The second was about what had been taken from her long before she ever entered my peerage.

I gave her the smallest nod.

Her cue.

She looked around the room once.

At Asia’s open worry.

At Koneko’s quiet attention.

At Yuuto’s steadiness.

At Xenovia’s simple readiness.

At Akeno’s piercing, unreadable gaze.

At Ise, who still looked too angry to sit comfortably inside his own skin.

Then back to me.

She turned back to the room.

She drew in one slow breath.

“You already know my name is Shiramine Yuki. But I want to tell you why Serafall-sama and Azazel-sensei referred to me as the Fox of Ill Omen.”

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