Okay, First fic, let's see where we go.
Disclaimer: I don't own Highschool of DxD, any of the anime franchises or the characters from them, just my OCs.
If I did own, Issei wouldn't be the MC.
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Red.
It was always red.
This color defined my childhood, marked when I escaped hell and when the short period of tranquility we lived ended.
However, even with all that, I still like red and all of its shades.
That's why I was so enchanted with her hair, such beautiful crimson locks…
Personal notes, page 1
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"Got you"
It's night.
In the middle of a snowing field, there was two children.
The first, barefooted, wearing just white shorts and a tattered white shirt, is a young boy. His red spiky hair, almost scarlet, was dirty and caked with blood. His malnourished face, where a pair of unique blue eyes rested, had an open cut just above his left eyebrow. Laboring heavy breaths, he looks at the other child behind him.
The second one, wearing just dirty rags and barefooted, is a little girl with light pink hair and red hair. She looks almost untouched compared to the boy, but still has some malnourishment signals on her pale face and body. With a fearful expression on her face, she was hiding behind the boy.
Now, you would ask, "Why two children are like that in the middle of a snowfield at night?" right?
Well, the answer for this question is the group of hooded people around these two children, all of them bearing some weapon, being swords, axes, clubs, spears or bows and wearing a long cloak with a hood just showing their faces from the nose to down. One of them, taking a step forward from the mass of cloaked people, declares in obviously female neutral tone "There isn't anywhere to run anymore, brats." Making a pause, she asks in a sickly sweet manner of speech "Why don't you stop? We won't hurt you…" With a sadistic smile blooming on the showing part of her hooded face, the female concludes "…Much." A few of the cloaked ones let out a few snorts at that.
Gritting his teeth, showing his very much pointy canines, the redhead youth despair, his mind in overdrive, thinking, searching for a way, for at least his companion to run, even if means that he has to perish right here.
For her part, the little pinkette just tries more to hide behind her blue-eyed companion, being afraid of what she knows the cloaked people will do to them if they surrender themselves to them.
Impatient with the lack of response of the two kids, the spokesperson and presumable leader of the armed group tightens her grip on her spear. Getting annoyed by 'brats' ignoring her 'generous' offer, she was ready to take a step forward and end this stupidity with the brats lives when she heard someone speak close to her ear:
"I wouldn't do anything hasty if I were you."
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
Startled, the hooded figure jumps away from the voice while making a stabbing movement with her weapon on the direction of the one whom spoken.
It was a male, bald, with a scar that cut through his eyebrow and eye, going inside a cloth mask placed on his lower face. He also was wearing a strange set of blue clothes, apparently of Asian origin, with metal plates on the back of his forearms and on his shins.
"Who are you?" Asked the woman on an even tone, narrowing her eyes on this stranger for any signals of intention of attack.
He spared a single glance to the children, who now were watching him warily. "Who am I? I'm nobody important, just a family friend helping a mother to find her child." Came the answer of the masked man.
"Oh, how nice of you." came the sarcastic counter for his answer. "But as you see, this isn't your business, if you butt in one more time we would need to..." trailing, she completed with a purr "kill you." With a hand gesture, half of the cloaked figures pointed their weapons to the mysterious man.
"Leave and my group shall not kill you with a thousand cuts and stabs."
Despite surrounded by deadly tools, the blue wearing male just chuckled.
The spear user snarled "What's so funny, fool?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing, it's just that in five seconds you lot will die by the hands of the same mother whom I'm helping."
Confused about the reply, the female was about to speak once again when she heard.
A crackling sound, like electricity unbound.
The wind whistling, suddenly picking up.
Then the two words: "Fulminis Iram."
And the world, for one moment, was all white.
. . . . . .
When everything was normal again, she saw what happened: every member of her group was on the ground twitching and spasming on the ground. Some passed out, some were unconscious.
And there was a lot of red on the snow. Blood, possibly.
The only conscious person was her, even if barely,
Dammit, what… She could taste something metallic in her mouth. Being blood or because of the electricity of the attack that hit them.
Still not being able to talk, she could only hear.
"Aw, you didn't kill them. And I made that pretty badass quote just so you have your way."
"Stupid Monkey, I don't want to traumatize my child."
"Ow! Don't slap my head, dammit! It was just a suggestion, Red."
"I slapped you because you are stupid."
"I'm not stupid!"
What the hell!? Who are those people!? Wait…
Now recovering her senses enough to identify her new attacker, she noticed the red robes that hugged a voluptuous figure, a breathtaking face: heart shaped, full rosy lips, a thin nose, startling blue eyes and a red-almost scarlet-hair, long and flowing in cascades of silk. It seemed almost unnatural how her hair was beautiful, like a scarlet crown that completes an image that very much resembles a goddess.
But the most noteworthy aspect of her is her power, like gravity pressing her down and attracting everything to this woman at the same time. This woman… Isn't someone who you can mess.
It was then, she noticed the children, looking especially the boy. "Saru… I-is that him? Is that my Baby? My Little Storm?" Asked the red spellcaster with a now shaky tone.
The man, Saru, eyed her. "Yes." he replied, "Go meet him."
She took a series of unsure steps on the child direction, a breathing heavily, with a look of mixture of emotions: Sadness, anger, regret, happiness and love. Extending her arm, as if longing for something, for someone she lost.
When she was just a few steps away of touching what she most wanted when she heard:
"Wha-What are you people…?" croaked out the barely conscious woman.
"Ah, I almost forgot about you." Saru said before kneeling next to her "Time to say goodnight."
Before she could ask anything, she felt a dull pain on her cheek and it was all darkness.
. . . . . .
Well, that was cathartic" He said. However, the redhead woman wasn't listening, she was practically in front of the children, eyeing the boy with a teary visage and a hesitant smile on her face. "Hey" she began "Do you know who I am?"
The boy, lost in a succession of events that made no sense (who are those people? Why they saved them? And why he feels this strange feeling in his chest when he looks at this red lady?), made no move to answer, being tense to at the least amount of danger to move out with his pink haired companion.
The girl, on other hand, speaks. "Who are you, Lady? Why do know Onii-sama?" asks the little girl innocently. The woman is taken by surprise, but quickly recovers, before smiling.
"Why, yes, I do know him" Giggled the woman "After all, a mother knows her son"
The two kids nodded then, it was a perfect answer.
. . . . . .
Wait, what?
"Mother!?" Shrieked the girl "I don't have a mother…" said the boy as he glanced to a empty space before glaring at her. Seeing his reaction to her statement formed a frown on the beautiful redhead face. Seeing him gripping his arms, all this dirt and blood on his face and skin, seeing the protective seeing his wary and fearful tensing of his body, seeing the angry and heated glare that now returned from the boy – her son – she could only do one thing:
She hugged him and muttered on his ear "Oh my sweet, sweet Babyboy, what they did to you?". The boy could only stiffen, he didn't have good memories of contact with others, they usually just beat him, slap him, put those pointy things inside him or just cut him. And he doesn't know when he started to cry or when he relaxed in her arms. She's just so warm and gentle…
"Shhhh, it's okay, it's okay, you can cry, you have been a big boy now, don't worry, relax, relax…" she said while stroking his hair gently. She longed this for so long, to have her little boy on her arms, with her.
The little girl could just watch silently, wondering if, as her brother's mother, she was her mother too, or, she felt a shiver of fear at this idea, if she was going to take her brother and leave her alone. No, please, no, she didn't want to be alone again. It was then she was suddenly caught in a strong and gentle hug too. "It's okay, you are safe now, you can come with us if you want too, little girl" she gently whispered to the little pinkette. She broke at the same way as the boy, crying and relaxing on the woman's embrace. It wasn't long before they both fell asleep, exhausted with all the running and the starving for days, they were just so comfortable on her arms and she was so warm…
"Anna, we have to go, they must've sent reinforcements already" said Saru, not wanting to interrupt such a beautiful moment, but It was necessary. They must go.
With a shaky breath of someone on the verge of letting tears fall out, the woman now known as Anna, stood up, still holding the two sleeping children on her arms. Turning to face her companion, she tapped on the floor two times with her feet, saying "Let's go" before a light circle shined on the snowfield and in a flash, they are gone.
Within the recess of the boy's mind, a giant red dragon grins, thinking that the boy finally found home.