The Love Octagon Venn Diagram
A High School DxD fanfic
By me
Rated M
Chapter 10: Pray
Taro came to the top of the stairs to find Rias, Akeno and Issei facing Vali. The three Occult Research Club members were panting heavily, their clothes slightly ripped (classic DxD fight), and with some small bruises and cuts across their body. Vali, on the other hand, looked fine. Taro slid down in the doorway, resting his head and right shoulder on the frame, and watched on. In his current state, he'd be more a liability than an aid in this fight.
"I just couldn't help myself but come back to finish you off, Issei. I'd cleared the path for me to take my rightful place as the Satan known as 'Lucifer', but I felt it was only right that I defeated you before I ascended to my new position," said Vali.
Issei growled with anger. He was coated from head to toe in red dragon armour, his fists clenched as he stared at the rival he'd been destined to fight since birth. Issei charged at Vali and released a punch infused with magical energy at Vali's face, but Vali deflected the punch away and kneed Issei in the stomach. Vali followed this with a burst of power that sent Issei flying across the room.
"Issei!" Akeno cried out.
Rias' turn came next. Red aura emanated from Rias, her hair floating in the air behind her. Her tear stained eyes had become a blood red. The 'Ruin Princess' sent a surge of magic Vali's way, her anger and sorrow blocking out her reason. Vali absorbed the power and sent it right back at Rias. Rias' eyes widened as the burst came hurtling at her, she raised her hand to conjure up a magical circle shield, but the burst of power never came into contact with the shield. Instead, Rias found that she'd inadvertently moved a few steps to the left, out of the line of fire. She looked around the room in search of answers and saw Taro lying in the doorway. Taro gave her a thumbs up and found himself slouching slightly more into the doorway.
"Taro, what happened to you? You look like shit," said Issei.
"I tripped and fell," Taro responded sarcastically.
"You need to be more careful then in future," remarked Issei.
"Wow, I've just realised who you two are," said Vali.
"What?" Issei asked.
"You and the guy in the doorway, you're 30H!3," replied Vali blissfully.
"No, we're Issei and Taro, mate," Issei said.
"Although I do think that I should know how to make love to something innocent without my leaving my fingerprints on," wheezed Taro.
"Could you guys please focus?" Rias interrupted.
"It seems that you're rather limited to physical attacks at the minute because Vali can absorb your magical attacks," said Taro, "have you tried overloading him?"
"That sounds like a very risky manoeuvre. We either burst the circuit or we give him so much power that he destroys us without breaking a sweat," replied Rias.
"I'm not sure whether we'd be able to generate enough power anyway," added Akeno.
Taro turned to Issei, "Issei, win this and you can start focusing on building your harem. It's all within touching distance."
"'Touching'… distance… as in I'll be able to touch as many as I like?" replied Issei, shaking at the thought.
"Well, it's more of a saying that a literal thing, but yeah, that too," answered Taro.
Vali coughed and, as they turned in his direction, they found a ball of demonic power hurtling in their direction. Rias and Akeno put up their magical shields and deflected the attack, but Issei was not quite so alive to things and felt the full blast of the power. As Issei crashed through the air, he found that he was now standing upright again, with the wall behind him never coming into contact. Taro had teleported him away from the wall.
"Issei, do you think you've boosted enough to really overload Vali with power?" asked Taro.
"Not yet, I'm afraid," Issei replied.
"Rias, Akeno, attack him in hand to hand combat," Taro called.
"So you want us to take a few punches whilst Issei powers up?" Akeno asked.
"Yes, although," Taro began, restarting after teleporting to the sides of the girls and drawing them in for a huddle and whispering, "I'll try and teleport his hands and get him to punch himself, because that'll be funny."
"Sounds like a full proof plan," replied Akeno dryly.
"We're building up to something special. Just have a little patience," Taro told her.
They nodded hesitantly and flew in to engage in a series of physical attacks with Vali. They let magical energy surge into their hands and feet, as they punched and kicked at Vali. Vali raised his hands and tried to block as many of their attacks as he could. He grunted and groaned. Seizing upon a space where they both kicked, he swung his arms and swiped them away. As they fell back a few paces across the air, Vali launched himself at them with his fists leading the way. So much was the amount of magical energy in his hands that it seemed like it was visible, perhaps because of how heavily concentrated it was.
'Taro better get this right, or it looks like Akeno and I are going to be on the receiving end of one hell of a punch,' Rias thought, grimacing as she mustered up a shield in front of her – although she remained dubious over how effective this shield would be.
As Vali edged closer to the girls, his fists vanished and reappeared facing the opposite direction. Vali's eyes widened, but his fists came at him so quickly that he had no time to react. Vali went flying across the room, colliding with the wall, leaving a great cavity where he made contact.
Taro couldn't help but laugh hysterically at this sight, "that just made this trip worth it. I've had my suit ruined, I've got a hole in my stomach, and I almost died. I mean, I went up to heaven and saw Hesus. Then heaven realised that I'm a devil and a sinner and sent me back to hell, where I saw Scar from the Lion King. Then I was pulled out of purgatory back into the world of the living. But seeing that has made it all okay. That's going to hold me for a while."
"Did you say 'Hesus'? Do you mean Jesus?" asked Akeno.
"No, Hesus. This cracking Spanish fellow I used to know. He was my gardener. Such a lovely guy, he couldn't hurt a fly – a ridiculously well meaning chap. The kind of guy you'd want your daughter to bring home, well at least he would be if he wasn't poor as fuck. But a nice guy nonetheless. Sadly, he was shot dead after being mistaken for his estranged twin brother, a big drug lord," replied Taro.
"I've been boosting, but I still don't think that I've powered up enough. Even in the knowledge that this will allow me to start my harem at long last, I just don't feel pumped enough," said Issei.
"Rats. Issei, win this and we'll start a co-harem. That way you get Rias and Akeno back as the leading ladies - the faces of the harem. We'll start an Instagram account together and be like Dan Bilzerian – but people will be even more envious and will become enraged when seeing us with beautiful girls like Rias and Akeno – along with the other female club members, and whoever else we recruit - because we're not muscular and 'real men' like big Dan. We'll be breaking out of the norm that society wants and accepts," responded Taro.
"That would be amazing. Okay, let's do this. Let's wreck Vali."
Vali started to laugh at this admission, "come on, Issei, I've seen how powerful you can become. You're nowhere near where you need to be to defeat me. I want this to be a battle remembered throughout the ages – between the best white dragon emperor, and the breast red dragon emperor. This got you pumped last time.
"Issei, if I need to kill everyone you care about to make you stronger I will. I'll kill everyone in this building, bar you, and then I'll move on to your home town and kill everyone there – just to make this a good fight."
"No," Issei said bluntly, rage start to build up within him. "NO," Issei screamed, and power flooded through his body.
"Okay, now channel that Issei, along with Akeno and Rias, and hit him with everything you've got," called Taro.
Issei let his rage at the prospect of everyone he cared about inspire him to unleash a burst of power the size of a hurricane at its best, with Akeno and Rias using their feelings regarding Sirzechs' death to fuel them. An eruption of magical power left them and charged through the air at Vali. The wall of power crashed into Vali and sent him hurtling across the room. Rather than crashing into the wall, Vali found himself crashing through the wall, a massive hole appearing in the wall's infrastructure.
As the dust cleared, what was behind the wall was revealed – a toilet, where a soldier sat, doing his business. This soldier was looking directly at them, with Vali sprawled across the floor at his feet. The soldier quickly covered his nether regions and began to blush.
"Um, occupied!" the soldier cried out.
"Soz," replied Taro, taking up an ambassadorial role.
"Is it over?" Akeno asked.
"I'm not sure," replied Rias.
Vali eventually got back to his feet and brushed himself off, "that was a tough one to take. But now you've just powered me up beautifully, giving me the strength to kill all of Issei's friends and families. Thank you."
Issei roared and found that he was evolving in his rage. Issei went through a full 'dragonification', as a dragon body enclosed around him. Issei let control slip away and allowed rage to take over. Issei's arm stretched out and seized Vali. Vali fired several beams of power at Issei, but Issei ignored it, as if they were mere pinches on his skin. He smashed Vali against each wall, holes developing everywhere, and he ripped Vali's armour off. Issei dropped Vali to the floor and lunged upon him, shoulder first. The floor below gave way and Vali and Issei found themselves dropping to the basement floor where it had all began.
Upon reaching the bottom, Issei let his massive dragon arms come down upon Vali, with successive punches beating Vali into the ground. Once Vali was seemingly out of action, Issei stood up and roared, still unable to get control and calm himself down.
"We need to get Issei to calm down and get him to change back or he'll end up draining his own life force and dying, and possibly accidentally killing us too," said Rias.
"I've got this," replied Taro, and he allowed black wings to sprout out from his back as he floated to the basement floor and found himself face to face with a dragon. Again. He gulped and found strength in the knowledge that it was possible for him to reason with this dragon. Or at least he hoped he could.
Taro stared deeply into the dragon's eyes, pouring all his concentration and energy into his eyes, as silver flickered over and over again across his eyes. "Calm down, Issei, you're causing a scene and a situation. And you know how I feel about situations. We don't want you to develop the nickname 'Issei 'the Situation' Hyoudou'. Sort yourself out, lad."
The rage started to seep out of Issei and he morphed back into his human form, panting heavily. "Sorry about that," he muttered.
"No worries," replied Taro.
Issei and Taro then heard spluttering in the background, as Vali struggled to stand behind them. They turned around and saw him. Issei attempted to boost again, but instead found his boosted gear shorted out and he was rendered powerless.
Vali laughed, "oh, no, it looks like you're going to bottle the final encounter. Thank you for making this a good fight."
Taro called up to Rias and Akeno, "get down here, we need backup." As they floated down, Taro turned to Rias and asked her, "I'm given to understand you can power Issei up with your breasts. Would you be a lamb and do that now, please?"
"And that won't piss you off?" Rias questioned.
"I only have a short, short while left to live. I don't want to pass my final minutes being jealous. Go for it," replied Taro.
"What do you mean by 'final minutes'?" Rias demanded.
"I am fated to follow Sirzechs and Vali in dying today," said Taro calmly.
"No, I won't let you die! How will you die?" Rias said, tears filling her eyes again.
"I don't know. It might be this wound, it might be another wound, or maybe my heart will give out randomly," he responded, turning away from her. He didn't want to see her cry. "Just power Issei up and let's win this."
Rias stretched out her hand to put on Taro's shoulder, but he brushed it aside and looked intently and deeply at her. She nodded hesitantly. She unbuttoned her shirt and allowed a red light to surge from her nipples. The red light hit Issei and a new found strength occupied him.
Issei turned to Rias and wept at the sight of her breasts shrinking slightly. Taro put a reassuring arm around Issei, "come on, man, stay strong. They'll go back to normal soon," with tears beginning to develop in his own eyes over this.
"But now you'll die with Rias not at her best. I want you to have the best death possible, buddy," Issei wept.
"I know, it's not ideal – but such is life. At least I die with Rias by my side this way, rather than alone like I almost did after I got stabbed in the stomach by Bikou," Taro cried in response, "go on and win this. Vali's still weak, you no longer are. This next move will finish him."
Issei let the power flow into his left dragon armour coated arm. He leapt into the air and threw propelled himself in Vali's direction. Vali tried to muster the strength to respond but found he was too weak. His eyes widened as Issei's fist met Vali's face, with the punch continuing on until Vali thumped against the wall. Issei removed his hand from Vali's face and let Vali slip to the floor. Vali then found himself battling to remain awake, floating in and out of consciousness.
Issei walked away from Vali slowly and triumphantly. The rest of the Occult Research Club returned from their own fights to congratulate him, a still unconscious Asia being held by Koneko. Issei didn't look back at Vali. He knew how cool guys do it in films, they don't look back. He wanted to be cool too.
Vali stirred slightly and raised his hand, magical energy gathering in his palm, with the hand directed so that it was facing Issei.
'No,' Taro thought and leapt across the room and grabbed hold of Vali's wrist, and the two vanished.
/
"Oh, no, why did I bring you here?" Taro grimaced as he looked around the dimensional gap he had mistakenly returned to, he lifted his hand up to clutch his chest - he could already feel the pain emanating from his heart.
"What a futile attempt at stopping me this is? Once I regain my strength I'll be able to return home in no time. You, on the other hand, don't look quite as likely to ever be able to make the jump home. You don't look too good, my friend," said Vali.
Taro coughed up some blood and lowered his body, with his hands gripping his knees. He wheezed and threw up. "You won't be returning home, Vali, you will die here."
"Really? And who is it that will kill me? You? Don't make laugh; I was stronger than you whilst I was still a foetus in my mother's womb."
Taro stretched his left hand out in front of him, his fist clenched around something. "Are you aware of my abilities?"
"Not particularly, I don't concern myself with insignificant devils like yourself."
Taro laughed, "I can teleport people's body parts away from them. They continue to function as if it were attached, even though the two are no longer actually in contact."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Taro opened up his hand to reveal an oddly shaped red ball-type thing, "this is your heart."
"I don't believe you."
Taro squeezed the heart and Vali cried out and gripped his chest.
"Okay, okay, I believe you. So you'll stop my heart somehow. Very well."
"No begging then?"
"I'm too proud."
"Fair enough. Before I kill you, how did you kill Sirzechs?"
"I reduced his existence in half until he disappeared from existence."
"Okay, that was what I hoped. Thank you, good luck in the afterlife," said Taro, as a black dagger slipped out of his left sleeve and began to slowly fall down towards the heart in Taro's hand.
"No, wait, please, don't!" Vali cried out, the will to live suddenly hitting him. But his pleas were in vain, as the dagger pierced through his heart, blood spurting out. Vali screamed in pain at first, but he eventually stopped and went lip – the life having seeped out of him.
Taro dropped the heart and fell to the ground, sprawling his body across what felt like ground, but in reality it was just space. 'Looks like I might be dying alone after all.'
Taro closed his eyes and frowned. 'No.' He was not going to die alone. Taro drew on the last of his strength and teleported back to his own dimension.
/
Taro appeared back at the destroyed base of the Vali faction of the 'Khaos Brigade'. Issei, Rias and Akeno swarmed around him, as he lay across the floor, tears flooding their eyes.
He put his hands to the facial cheeks of Rias and Akeno, "all I do each night is pray, hoping that I'll be a part of you again someday. All I do each night is think, of all the times I closed the door to keep my love within."
"Oh, Taro," Rias wept, taking his hand away from her face and gripping it tightly, "please don't die."
"Taro, let me transfer to you the last of my strength so that you can teleport to somewhere where you can be healed," Issei said.
"No, this is my time. You need your power for another task. Vali reduced Sirzechs to nothingness. But all matter is energy. Sirzechs' energy will remain. You have the power to turn that energy back into a something, if you concentrate your power correctly. I have given the death gods Bikou in return for Sirzechs, I cannot let them lose me as well or I risk incurring their wraith," Taro replied, with tears beginning to fill his eyes too.
"But we were going to start a harem together," said Issei, the emotion becoming too much for him as he broke into loud sobs.
"Yes, and how wonderful it would've been. A Love Octagon Venn Diagram of sorts," said Taro, looking towards the fourth wall and winking.
"We were going to go to Magaluf with Matsuda and Motohama in the summer. We were going to come back experienced lovers ready to pass our knowledge on to the virgins in our harem after learning from the sluts in Maga," Issei cried out.
"I know, I know. And it would've been great, but you're going to have to go without me. Those tickets are non-refundable. Maybe bring Kiba with you as my replacement," replied Taro.
"No, then all the girls will be distracted him and we won't get any of the pussay," blubbered Issei.
"I'm sorry, Issei, I really am. I apologise to all of you, my fellow club members," Taro wept, looking across the room at the congregation of his peers. "Rias, Akeno, you're both right – I'm not like Batman. I'm like Iron Man. I've got money, cool suits, a heart condition, a beard, and I'm a playboy. Or at least I wish I was the last one. I'm a work in progress when it comes to that one."
"Sure, Taro, you can be Iron Man. But only if carry on being my Iron Man for a long while yet," Akeno wept burying her head into Taro's armpit to hide her crying.
"I don't think we have that luxury anymore I'm afraid," Taro responded, putting his hand gently on her shoulder.
It all began to blur and the noise around him became distant. He let his eyes close, as his body became weak. Whilst his heart was causing him an intense amount of pain every time it beat, elsewhere he could feel that the strain of trying to breath was becoming tougher and tougher.
'Looks like I'm dying a virgin. Absolutely devastating, that. For fuck's sake.
And the holocaust was complete (that's a Great Gatsby reference, by the way – it's what Nick wrote after the deaths of Myrtle, George Wilson and Gatsby). '
Taro pried his eyes open one more time to gaze upon Rias and Akeno and forced a small smile at the vision of them, still beautiful in spite of their tear stained faces. What could be a better to look upon as his final memory?
'Surely we must be in sight,
Of the dream we long to live.
If you stop and close your eyes,
You'll picture me inside.
I'm so cold and all alone.'
And the life seeped out of Taro Tokushumono.
/
John's phone chimed across the room, as the sound of Take That awoke him from his slumber. He forced his hand out of sleep paralysis and grabbed his phone and turned off the alarm. It was his day off, why was his alarm on? Stupid glitch-ridden phone. John groaned and settled back into his pillow, surrendering himself once more to sleep.
/
'No, I refuse to die a virgin,' as thought echoed again through Taro's head. Today was not his day to die. No, a greater destiny was planned for him.
He sprung up off of his back and turned to face those around him.
"Taro!" they cried with joy.
"Ladies, ready my coronation for becoming Satan is my new path," he said defiantly.
"Um, you're not really powerful enough to be a Satan. You're one of the weakest in the club, as you're only, really, good at running away. There are hundreds of devils with bigger claims to power than you," Rias said, her tone suggesting she was trying to be nice and sympathetic to avoid hurting his feelings.
Taro ignored her and stood up and walked away from them, looking into the sky as a newfound belief of a great destiny occupied his mind, "wipe away your tears, the new devil king is here. Have no fear, unless you are a mortal mere. The time of Taro draws near, so, ladies, bring to me your wonderful rears."
In the corner of the room, a spinning top spun freely. It began to slow down, slightly, possibly giving the impression that it might perhaps stop spinning soon. Perhaps. But not certainly (if you don't get the significance of this, look up the ending of 'Inception').
ROLL CREDITS.
Author's note: So I'm just going to review my own piece of writing. I'm disappointed with how I built up the romance between Rias, Akeno and Taro, if I'm completely honest. I should've spent a couple of chapters building up to it – forcing Taro to do more to woo them, and perhaps causing less outrage amongst some readers (I love Issei x Rias x all other DxD girls too, but he lacked certain qualities to be my protagonist – he isn't English enough in how he goes about things). But I was impatient and was too quick to bring Issei back, and wanted things between Rias, Akeno and Taro to be at a certain place when Issei returned. I may have spent too much time developing the bromance and not the romance after that, but romance is a lot trickier and awkward to write about. My lack of favour towards drama is what stopped me from causing a bigger incident between Issei and Taro over Taro 'stealing' his women. I think that the 'witty' back and forth between characters has been good though, although I may have spent too much time on this too, and not on developing character relationships. I may have focused too much on the comical and the action, and not enough on the romance – which is an annoyance.
On reflection, I didn't develop my characters enough, other than Taro – albeit he is meant to be my main man. If I'd written more chapters pre-Issei I could've spent more time on other characters, so this is another regret of mine. Although I don't particularly like big teams like this, and I would've preferred to focus on a compact unit of five or six people.
I am considering whether to write a sequel, as I have had a new burst of ideas recently. If I was to write a sequel, I would focus more on character relationships and focus more on the themes of being at school (I have an idea for a bit regarding driving lessons and the first to pass their driving test – what this series needs is a high speed car chase to complete the action genre elements). There would be sagas away from school, but this guys have been taking truancy to a whole level throughout the story. I would also like to improve the quality of writing in any sequel, as I've been slightly lazy with the descriptions so far – perhaps a reduction on the number of boner jokes would be beneficial (but I would never completely stop them. No, no, no).
I rushed these first ten chapters as I wanted to finish writing before I went to university, so any sequel I write may not be for a while and it won't be as frequently updated as things have been so far. Rather than starting a new story, I think that I will just continue to add to this one – this is why I've now made the first ten chapters 'Chapter 1, 1' as the sequel's chapters will be called 'Chapter 2, 1', if I am to write one. I also need to decide on whose songs to name chapters after, as I'm running out of Take That songs as most are far too lovey dovey.
Thanks for reading, here's hoping that there will actually be a fourth season of DxD in December!