Highschool DxD Fanfiction/ Chapter 2
Rias' POV.
"HaHaHa… *Sigh…" The chuckling continued for a small amount of time, but nobody knew where it was coming from.
"Why are you laughing?" One of the strays says in a scared tone. Apparently, he had found the culprit for the laughing, and it seemed that it was stemming from the devil on the floor.
"So… you can speak." The unknown devil confirmed.
"You still haven't answered my question." The stray notes. The team and I just stand there, confusion growing and eventually sprouting into interest.
"I'm laughing… *chuckle… at how bad you just fucked up!" With this, he lifted his head and we saw just what his once handsome face had become: his fiery red eyes were now blazing, tears were dried to his face, his hair was a mess and he had a crazy smile so horrifying, it could ever give my big brother Lucifer nightmares.
"You idiots don't even know who you're dealing with. Do you?" After he says this, he looks at Kiba, who turns ghostly pale, afraid he had done something wrong. "I noticed that you're fighting these abominations as well, so I'll allow you and your friends to stay out of my way while I kill these things."
"You're going to kill us?" A stray asked.
"Slowly." More maniacal laughter erupted from his lips.
"Slowly?" The stray whimpered quietly.
"You fool! There is 7 of us and only 1 of him!" What seemed to be the leader said in anger. "If you're afraid of 1 devil, then what the hell are you doing here for in the first place?" This seemed to shake the pack of strays out of their stake of fear. Even the once whimpering stray was looking ready for a fight.
He started laughing again. Even I, Rias Gremory, was getting anxious. "You idiots have no idea who you're dealing with, do you?" He repeated. At this he started to stand up on weak legs. How could I have forgotten?! He's still injured!
"We have to help him. There is no way he can fight them all by himself!" I say.
"NO!" He demands. "I will tear these things to pieces… while they're still alive." Apparently, this was enough to get his smile back and start up laughing again.
"I am Furorem Marius. Elemental devil of rage. Son of the warlord Gaius Marius. I have lived for over 600 years. Do you really think that you can defeat me?" Suddenly, two wicked looking pistols appeared in his hands. They looked blood red, and then I realised that there were also two blades strapped to his back in a cross, just as red as the guns, only, they had black hilts.
"This isn't good guys." I informed my teammates.
"How so?" Koneko asks.
"That guy is infamously known by all of the religious leaders. His powers are only limited to the collective anger of all living things."
"Meaning he basically has an infinite amount of power at his disposal." Kiba said.
"Exactly. What's more, his father was the leader of a great Roman army, until Furorem here killed his entire family and became a devil."
"Hard-core." Koneko says in amazement.
"He was always shunned by the devil community. So he became a wanderer, never having a master, and never starting his own group of devil servants. He picked fights with angels and fallen angels whenever he could, and although he was alone, he never lost." I admit, I was starting to feel respect for the psychopath standing before them. "After a while though, he just disappeared. Out of fear for what Furorem could be doing, the leaders of the Underworld, Heaven and the fallen angels had a temporary truce to find and destroy him. But all of the search parties mysteriously went missing…"
Furorem POV.
Sarah. Her face was the only thing I could see. After seeing her lifeless body, I had managed to work myself into a psychotic rage. I could hear the red head talking about me nearby. Usually, I wouldn't tolerate this, and would have taught them a lesson. But right now, I simply didn't care enough to bother. I banished the image of Sarah from my head so I could focus on the stray devils waiting for me. Without realising it, I had managed to summon my duel-wielding pistols. Part of my weapons of choice. Their red-tinted metal shone in the sunlight and reminded me of the times I would use them on a regular basis. I also noticed that there was something weighing my back down. Two wickedly sharp short-swords. Blades also tinted red. But the hilt was pitch black, these were the other part of my weapons of choice.
"I hope your ready… HAHAHA!" The voice was mine, but I didn't want to say it. I was then sprinting, faster than any Olympic gold medallist, with a smile of glee on my face that wasn't my own. But then I remembered what they had done to Sarah. And that got me even angrier. I laugh again while running, and this time, it was my laugh. I didn't care anymore, I just let my own rage consume me. I felt at ease again, a feeling I haven't felt in centuries.
While running, I point one of my guns at the nearest stray, picking out my target, and pulled the trigger. The bullet met with its destination. The middle of the stray's neck, causing its head to topple to the ground with a thud. The gun shoots a bullet at the same level of power as my own powers, and considering I'm in a psychotic rage. That must have been pretty damn painful.
When I reach the feet of the strays, I switch to closer combat and pull the swords off my back instead. Guns now in their holsters, which were strapped to each of my legs, I start running up the chest of another stray, but while running horizontally, I impale my blades into the bottom of the stray's stomach and drag them all the way to the top of his shoulders, letting out a squeal of pain and falling to the ground in three separate pieces. The five strays that were still alive overcame their shock and joined the fight.
The first one tried to crush me under the palm of its hand, but missed. I then vaulted off of his hand and flew up into the air, far above the heads of the strays. The purpose of this was to assess the battlefield from a bird's eye view. I could see the group of unfamiliar devils (who I specifically remember telling to stay out of my way) charging into battle. I sheathed my left hand sword and pulled out one of my pistols, and quickly let off 6 shots. The band of devils stopped in their tracks, having a bullet hole at each of their feet.
"Stay out of my way!" I scream at them, still mid-air. I then let myself fall, along the way back to the ground, I decapitate one of them and fire two shots into each shoulder of another, who then fell to the ground, not dead, but he'll be out of the fight for a while. A stray then tried to grab me, but one swift backhand with my sword was all it took to send his hand flying to the ground, I then followed up with a single bullet between his eyes. That left two strays unharmed, but then they both had a hole going through their chest in less than a second.
I tried to calm myself down for a second, now that the fight was over. Once my blood went back to a steady pace, I walked over to the stray that had a bullet hole in each shoulder and broke his nose with a hit from the butt of my gun. The devils I told to stay out of the way were now by my side. The red head walked up to the stray and said, "You have committed the worst crime imaginable in the eyes of a devil. Murdering your master to kill other devils, you'll be imprisoned for the rest of your miserable life." She never got the chance to send him to the underworld due to the barrel of my pistol resting on the back of her head.
Issei's POV.
None of us dared to move in fear of what he would do to Rias.
"Leave it." The devil known as Furorem ordered in a small voice. Rias slowly backed away from the struggling stray. When Furorem was sure we weren't going to get in the way, he turned back to the stray. "Who sent you?" he asked.
"I don't know what you're-" his sentence was cut short by the sound of a bullet smashing through his kneecap.
"Don't play dumb," he says calm and collectively, "as you can see from your friends here, I'm not afraid of putting you down. So I'll ask again. Who sent you?"
"…" Silence.
Furorem sighed, and stabbed the stray in the heart, ending his pain. After cleaning his blade, he turned to face us. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Although he wasn't pointing any weapons at us, I felt like we were being interrogated, probably because he was using the same tone of voice as he did with the stray. Nobody said anything, so I decided to start, "My name is Issei, and this is: Akeno, Koneko, Kiba, Asia and-"
"Charlotte!" Rias suddenly said. We all looked at her in confusion. For whatever reason, she looked scared. She was trembling lightly and her skin was paler than usual.
"… Right, Charlotte." I say playing along. For whatever reason, Rias didn't want this guy knowing her real name. "Anyway, we were assigned to stop that stray devil that Akeno and Kiba just killed. We had no idea about the others that would show up."
He inspected us all closely. Until Asia spoke up. "Excuse me, Mr Furorem?" He looked at her, eyebrow raised. "Yes?"
"If you don't mind me asking. What type of devil are you?" He seemed to stagger at that question.
"What, did Big Red here not tell you?" He asked, trying to recompose himself.
"Erm…" Asia was stuck for words, not wanting to tell him what Rias had been saying, but not wanting to lie either. "Not really."
"Well, it seems that your friend, Rias…" he said pointedly, "needs to do her studying. And learn how to lie." Rias took a shaky breath at that. I think Furorem noticed how scared she was, because he put on a small smile and said, "Don't worry Ms Gremory, my grudges were all forgotten about long ago. You needn't be worried about you or your family." I don't know how, but Rias seemed more at ease with that. "And as for your question Asia, I am known as an Elemental devil. A devil that rules over an aspect of life. For me, that would be anger. If there is a person that is experiencing extreme anger in the world, I'll know about it."
"Why not join us?" The question was out of the blue, and I don't know why I asked it, but with how he spoke to Rias and Asia, patient and calm. He didn't seem like such a bad guy.
"What?" Both Rias and Furorem asked in unison.
"Well I suppose I have a few spare pieces to accept you." Rias considered.
"It would be totally rad to have someone as strong as me to spar with." Koneko said in her usual tone.
"And I just bet he's into the rough stuff." Akeno says with a slight blush.
"No!" Everyone stares at Furorem like he was from a distant planet. Turning down an offer from Rias Gremory was unheard of before. "What makes you think that I want to join you?"
"Because… Its Rias Gremory." Kiba mentions like it was obvious.
"Yes, I know that. But why would I want to blindly follow someone who just wants me at their beck and call?"
"Rias isn't like that." I state.
He looks at me. "Are you really that naïve? I can tell you were never given a choice as to whether you wanted to become a devil or not, Issei. You are literally called a servant, and you think that you can be anything more?"
"We're not 'just servants' at all. Rias helps us when we need it, same way we help Rias when she needs it." Koneko snapped.
"If you need my help, then you call me, but I don't need to pledge my life to someone to do that… now if your done trying to convince me." He looked over towards the body he once called Sarah. "I have something to do." He said in a low voice and started walking in that direction.
"Are you going to just let him go?" I ask Rias. She turns to me, baffled by what had just occurred. "I'll speak with him alone. I get the feeling that, that mortal was someone special to him, you all go home. I'll be there soon."
Rias' POV.
Once they had all left. I went to Furorem to speak in private. When I got there, he was folding her body into one that showed respect and peace. Hands folded over her chest and eyelids shut. "Furorem-"
"Call me Furo."
"Okay, Furo. I know my servants seemed to be a little bit pushy back there, but I think, that's because they saw what I saw."
"And what would that be?" Furo asked.
"Someone who is secretly gentle, but doesn't want to show it." I say kindly.
"And how exactly did you come up with that conclusion?" He asks. I can tell he's trying to humour me, so I just go along with it.
"The way you act and speak. How you managed to go from a psychotic rage to talking to Asia so nice, and forgiving my family name for wanting you dead so quickly."
"Don't be fooled, it took me a century to forgive all three factions, I was so furious that I actually considered waging war against you all, one at a time."
"Haha," the idea made me laugh, "I have no doubt you would have won either. But it's who you are now that counts. Not what you've done in the past." I say in an attempt to comfort him. He looks at me, like he was taking into account what I had just said rather than just shrug it off. "Would you like for her to be buried in my back garden? The Gremory land is large enough for it."
"She's not some pet goldfish, you know!" He snapped.
I smile, "No, I know that. The Gremory Estate garden is actually a graveyard. Reserved for only the most important people."
He looked at her cautiously, "Why would you do something like that?"
"You did save our lives after all. I know that wasn't your intention at the time, but still, we wouldn't be having this conversation if you hadn't."
He thought about it for a minute, until eventually, he nodded. "Okay. Take us there."
