And you never explained what happened to Akeno
You're right, I didn't. I said "in a future chapter". That means "a chapter that will be posted at some point", not "the next chapter".
I do not own Highschool DxD.
As Issei stormed out of the Occult Research Club building, he could hear Apophis' derisive snort in his mind.
You claim to not seek violence, yet you threaten it at the first inconvenience. We bear greater similarity than you wish to believe, Issei Hyoudou.
"Big difference there," Issei muttered. "Hurting me I might forgive. Screw with anybody I care about and all bets are off."
That, then, is your poor attempt at justification?
"Don't see what's so poor about it," Issei said.
One only seeks revenge for one's own sake. Telling oneself that it is sought on behalf of another is an attempt to sanitize this thought process. It would bring no satisfaction if it were not for one's own peace of mind. Better to shed the fabrication and allow honesty to take hold. As I have said, there is no shame in seeking vengeance.
Issei didn't have a prepared response to that, and said nothing as he entered the school. As they had the day before, the other students shrank back from him and stared at him with open fear in their eyes. And Issei absolutely hated it.
"Apophis, why do they do that?" Issei muttered, quiet enough that no other students could hear him and start wondering if he'd gone crazy.
Define the terms more precisely. Declare who it is to which you refer and what action they perform.
Issei sighed and clenched his teeth. "'They' is basically everybody except Ryuji at the ORC, and 'what' is how they look at me."
They appear frightened?
"Yeah."
No more than a side effect of the Apex Ruin's awakening. You now emit a frightening aura that draws out the primal terror of the end of one's life.
"They're afraid I'm going to kill them, basically?"
A rough translation.
Issei shook his head and rubbed at his forehead. "Any way to shut it off?"
No.
That was all Apophis would say on the subject, and any attempt to inquire further was simply given blunt, terse responses in the negative.
After the bell rang, Issei stopped bothering.
When Issei returned to the ORC building that afternoon (Rias had, rather annoyingly, sent Kiba to drag him there by force), Rias didn't even reference what had happened between them that morning.
Instead, she'd simply started talking again.
"Issei," she said, attempting to sound jovial and friendly but still failing, "I've got some news for you."
"What's that?" Issei asked, with absolutely no anticipation in his voice.
"I've decided that we ought to find you a familiar this next full moon."
Issei remembered that the moon was currently a waning crescent. "Why?"
"Well, most Devils have one," Rias said. She held a palm out, and on it, a glowing circle took shape, set with a bizarre symbol.
Issei's eyes went wide. "What the hell? What is that?"
"It's a simple magic circle," Rias quickly explained. "This is one of many, many variants. Every Devil family has one of their own. This, for instance, is a transportation and summoning circle. Once you've gotten yourself a familiar, I'll teach you how to do it."
If Issei's eyes had been wide before, they became the size of dinner plates when he saw what happened next.
Within the center of the glowing circle, a small, four-legged bat-like creature appeared in a tiny flicker of light. The creature promptly jumped on Rias' shoulder and started nuzzling her, and Rias' paper smile became somewhat more genuine.
"Familiars are a lot like pets, in some ways," the crimson-haired Devil said as she scratched the little bat's head.
"A lot more useful, though," Kiba said. Issei turned to see a white bird seated on one of the blonde's hands. "You can get them to do all sorts of things for you."
A mewling sound drew Issei's attention to Koneko, who sat as quietly as ever; Issei found himself forgetting she was even there most of the time. In her arms was a white cat, a collar with a bell around its neck. Even as he watched, the cat moved to take a seat on Koneko's head, where it promptly fell asleep.
"Best part, though, is just what kinds of creatures you can take as familiars."
It was Ryuji who'd spoken, and what Issei saw when he looked over at the vice-president confused him quite a bit.
The creature that stood on Ryuji's outstretched arm was clearly some sort of dragon if Apophis' example was anything to go by. In opposition to Apophis, however, this dragon was a beautiful ivory. Near the back and front of its serpentine body, there were a pair of feet that helped it cling to Ryuji's arm, its body nearly as long as the limb on which it stood. Along its back ran numerous wings very much like those of birds, each and every feather as white as its scales.
Most striking, however, was the yellow-orange halo that hung above its head.
Issei had seen works of art depicting mythical figure before, illustrated onto canvas by many people in various forms, and they often included such features. Unlike the ones Issei had seen in art, however, this halo was far more decorative – the halo was not just a thin ring of light or a colored circle. Instead, it was an elaborate symmetrical design, with a highly decorated core and a pair of wing-like structures spreading off of the center.
The dragon was, in short, a beautiful creature.
It would have been quite a bit more so if it wasn't staring at Issei with undisguised hostility. Even as Issei watched, its mouth snapped open and it hissed at him, revealing a mouth full of small but no doubt razor-sharp teeth, glaring at him with piercing blue eyes.
"Hey," Ryuji said sternly to the dragon sitting on his arm. "Mizar, be nice."
The dragon almost immediately shrunk down as it looked back towards Ryuji, before crawling down into its master's lap and curling its snake-like body up. It kept its eyes on Issei the entire time.
"Sorry," Ryuji said, shaking his head. "I've never seen her act like this. She's usually pretty nice to strangers, and indifferent at worst."
"Not a problem," Issei said. His anger had left him as he'd looked the dragon called 'Mizar' over. "What is she exactly? I mean, I can tell she's some kind of dragon, but..."
"She's what's called a 'Celestial Dragon'," Ryuji explained. Gently scratching the small dragon's head, he smiled. "They're thought to be a good omen."
Issei nodded, then turned to Rias and promptly felt his irritation begin to creep back into his mind as he remembered what Rias wanted him to do. But this time, he forced it down with a deep sigh.
"So then, where are the fliers?"
Issei passed out the fliers with even greater speed than he had the night prior, emptying the bag within two hours. Even Rias was surprised at his pace.
Unbeknownst to her, Issei took a large stack and delivered them to his own house, intending to burn them later.
Once he'd dumped the bag off, he simply left. He didn't bother asking permission, nor did Rias attempt to stop him.
He left a conversation in his wake.
"Why'd you let him get away with it, President?" Kiba asked.
"With what?" Rias replied, looking up from the homework assignment she was doing.
"With what he said to you yesterday."
Rias laced her fingers together underneath her chin. "I think, honestly, that he's just angry and that he'll cool off soon enough. No point in making a major deal over a poor initial adjustment. I'm not particularly harsh, am I?"
Kiba didn't get a chance to answer, however, before Ryuji spoke up.
"President, I'm not so sure it's 'harshness' that he's concerned about."
Rias turned to look at the vice-president. "What do you mean?"
"I think it's more just anger in general. Towards us and towards the Fallen Angels, too. How would you feel if you got killed off because you're perceived to be a threat for something you didn't even know you had? And that people around you knew that your attacker was there and didn't stop them?"
"Ryuji, don't start this again-"
"I'm still telling you, Rias, we should have killed that Fallen Angel when we had the chance."
"We've already had this discussion, Ryuji. Drop it. Don't you have a client to get to?"
The Knight shrugged. "I guess so." After dismissing Mizar, he stood and formed a magic circle under his feet. A moment later, he'd vanished, no doubt off to help a small-time hunter in cleaning his deer.
Rias bit down on her lip as she watched her second Knight disappear.
If there was one thing Issei could be happy about, it was that every time he and his parents had a meal together, they seemed a little more normal. There was still tension, but it was easing off. Their words didn't come out quite so mechanically or feel as forced now as they had the previous meals. Once dinner was finished, Issei thanked his parents for the food and trekked up the stairs.
He did not, however, go to his own room. Instead, he slid quietly into the spare room with a one of his textbooks in his hands. Issei had no intention of studying, however.
Instead, he locked the door and flicked the lightswitch. The light came on, a somewhat underpowered incandescent bulb that bathed the entire room in a rather eerie yellow glow. Once he'd drawn the curtains, he took a deep breath.
Then, he focused his thoughts and will upon his shoulder blades.
This time, there was no delay, and Issei felt the distinct sensation of something sliding out of his back in exactly those places. Turning his head to look, his eyes were confronted by the enormous black dragon wings he'd seen the previous day.
Something, however, was slightly different than he'd seen them the previous day. They seemed to be coated with something, as though they were the wings of a butterfly that had just torn loose from its cocoon. His fingers reached out, touched his wings. To his surprise, they were bitterly cold instead of the room temperature that they had been the previous day. Regardless of why, however, Issei's eyes hadn't deceived him.
Whatever this substance on his wings was, it had a similar consistency to water, and as he withdrew his fingers, he was greeted by another confusing sight.
This substance appeared as a liquid, and felt like a liquid, but it was visually unlike anything Issei could describe. "Black" was a word entirely insufficient to describe what sat on his fingers. It was as though someone had taken the vast emptiness of the universe and darkened it even further, to a degree that words simply failed to describe, liquefied it and spread it across his fingers like very watery and thin paint.
His fingers were going numb with the cold this substance generated, but Issei was too busy trying to determine just what this water-like blackness was to care.
"What the hell...?" Issei eventually muttered, half-unconsciously.
He hadn't intended to speak to Apophis, but the dragon answered anyway.
You find the sight of the Primordial Water to be impressive, then?
Issei blinked. "The... what?"
The Primordial Water. It is one of my simpler techniques – hardly a combative ability at all by my standard, if I may speak frankly – but it is still very dangerous by yours.
"I thought the Apex Ruin was about manipulating darkness, though."
It does indeed grant that capability, Issei Hyoudou. But that story is not complete. Other techniques lie buried within. The Primordial Water is one of them. If you insist upon a simplified description, this technique compresses darkness into a liquid state, and increases their power tremendously.
"How's darkness do anything?"
"Perhaps you might try to smear the liquid on something to which you are unattached."
Issei snorted, but he walked towards the bed nonetheless.
When he smeared the liquid on the foot of the spread, he hadn't expected anything to happen except that the unimaginably black liquid would permanently stain the bedspread.
When the brunette pulled his fingers back, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Perhaps it was a tad of an overreaction, but the sheer surprise of the result brought it about regardless.
Precisely where his fingers had touched it, the fabric had simply vanished. There wasn't even any sign of other threads poking out; it was a though the exact shape of Issei's own fingers had been a part of the comforter's design philosophy from the very beginning.
"Okay... what the fuck was that...?"
The Primordial Water possesses a strong dissolving capability, Issei Hyoudou. You can easily kill many with it, though it is of course vastly inferior to my own iteration. You will not be drowning a god with it anytime soon.
"So why didn't it hurt me? And what do you mean, "drown a god"? What, are you saying you did that?"
As the wielder of Apex Ruin, Issei Hyoudou, you are completely immune to its effects and any form of umbrakinesis. As for your second and third inquiries...I have done that thing exactly. I have dissolved gods down to their very cores before erasing even those from existence.
Issei could practically see the cruel smile in Apophis' draconic face in the gleefulness of those words. Unnerved, he very quickly changed the subject.
"So this thing lets me control shadows, right? How do I do that?"
As with all things concerning Sacred Gears, central to the Apex Ruin's function is your own will. Focus on your desire for darkness to bow to your will, and it shall be so.
The brunette bit his lip as he took in just how moronic that sounded when spelled out. But then again, it had sounded stupid when Rias had said it, and he'd grown a pair of dragon wings for following it.
So Issei turned to a readily available source of darkness – the shadow underneath the bed. Staring at it, he willed it to come toward him.
Perhaps he should have been used to the seemingly-impossible by now, but he still jumped slightly when it indeed extended a thin tendril outward in a manner that defied all his understanding of physics, exactly as he asked it to. And when he demanded it begin moving in a three-dimensional space, the shadow obediently peeled itself from the floor and rose up to his eye level like a colossal, headless snake.
Issei's hand reached towards it, and found himself surprised yet again when he found that his hand did not simply pass through the shadowy tendril. Instead, his fingers were met with a substance with a consistency not unlike a very wet wood. It had the same frigid quality as the Primordial Water.
Once satisfied, he ordered the shadow back to its origin, and it obeyed instantly, re-absorbing itself into the shadow of the bed.
"So I can summon shadows that act like water and dissolve things, and manipulate shadows of other objects to attack things with?"
Apophis gave what sounded like a mildly irritated sigh. Yes, you may perform both of these actions and others. It is also, however, possible to create darkness even in a space where there is none utilizing only your own will.
"Really?" Without prompting, he held a hand out and began to focus his will on the space in his hand, trying to create a spherical shadow in the space above his hand.
After a few seconds, a black spheroid began to take shape there, sized exactly as his will had intended, and vanished even faster when he willed it to.
After spending a few seconds taking this and everything else he'd learned in the last several minutes in, Issei felt something well up inside of him.
He began to laugh. It wasn't a powerful laugh, not a roar that would be heard by anyone else, but a throbbing, humorless, half-crazed chuckle. And it didn't stop, and he found himself continuing this little laugh as he made his way back to his room.
It was after several minutes that Apophis finally, crankily, spoke up.
What is it you find so amusing, Issei Hyoudou?
"It's so funny, all this crap," Issei said, staring at the ceiling with wild thoughts running amok in his head. "I've got a tool that can control shadows and make them physical. I can compress shadows into a liquid that's like super-powered acid. Abilities that the crazy dragon in my back claims has killed gods."
While I will argue with your labeling of myself 'insane' until the end of your possession of this Sacred Gear or my own death, your statement is otherwise truthful. I fail to see the source of your amusement.
"I've got the ability to do that stuff... and I don't have a use for any of it. When the hell am I ever going to need to fight anybody? I'm about as likely to get into a real fight to the death as the sun is to extinguish by tomorrow."
Perhaps I should kill this delusion at this moment.
"Oh, what now?" Issei said, still grinning.
Your life will be turbulent. Violence will find you, Issei Hyoudou, or you will find it. All of your predecessors found it, and you shall as well.
Issei's smile vanished. "What do you mean?"
Of the few possessors who did not destroy themselves utilizing the Apex Ruin, all became brutal combatants... particularly the exorcist.
It was then that Issei remembered Rias' comment. He hadn't paid it much mind at the time, but Rias had distinctly mentioned that the Apex Ruin was once held by a member of the church.
"Who were they?"
Mercia Rochester – a dangerous exorcist if one had ever existed. She was celebrated as the strongest exorcist in all of history during her lifetime. The woman defeated many Devils whose power was almost unparalleled among their number. Not that she ever paid me so much as a thanks or acknowledged me...
As he said that, Issei would swear that Apophis' tone had shifted. He hadn't sounded the usual calm, confident, cold and slightly smug dragon that he usually did. Issei was sure he was just imaging it, but Apophis had sounded distinctly bitter as he described this exorcist.
But Issei wasn't ready to be feeling sympathy for Apophis just yet.
"Glad I don't have to fight her, then... hopefully no one stronger than her has come along yet..."
I would doubt it heavily. Apex Ruin is classified as the third-strongest of the Fourteen Longinus with good reason.
From nowhere, a new thought occurred to Issei, and his stomach did a slight flip.
"If I've got such a strong Longinus, and shadows hurt Angels especially badly, then won't the church...?" He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought.
You worry that Heaven and its warriors will consider you an especially important target? That they will do all they can to eliminate you? This I cannot and will not deny. Your suspicion is likely to prove true, Issei Hyoudou.
Issei certainly wasn't laughing anymore.
It went on like this for nearly two weeks.
Issei would awaken and promptly be handed one of the few unambiguously good moments of his day. Each day and meal, his parents seemed to fear him less, and by the time a week had passed, they appeared to be effectively normal once more. Apophis had explained that this was merely the result of exposure to the aura and, more importantly, his parent's desire to overcome the feelings it caused.
Then, he would go to school, and be treated as though he had the plague. Apparently, almost no one in the school had any desire to overcome it, not even Matsuda or Motohama. While it certainly made moving from class to class easier when he could part the sea of students like the Red Sea parted for Moses, he'd rather have had to fight his way through the crowd like every other student. It was emotionally exhausting to constantly be the outcast and have everyone running away from you.
Then, he'd go to the Occult Research Club, retrieve a bag of fliers, pass them out, and arrive home nearly two hours later than he had before he'd become Rias' servant. The King had confessed that she'd considered putting him on contracts, but that the clients would likely be scared off.
It was the first time that he and Rias had ever agreed on something.
Then, one afternoon, when Issei asked Rias where the fliers were, she simply shook her head.
"I won't have you be doing that tonight, Issei. We've got a much bigger issue that needs resolving."
"What's that?"
"There's a Stray Devil in town, and I've received orders to kill it."
And cut.
If you want a better idea of what Mizar's halo looks like, just look up Bayonetta's Jubileus or Father Rodin and look at their halos. It's basically that. This is because I'm an uncreative bastard with no skills in visual design.
