S.R: This was actually delayed a bit. I had to reread this arc a few times and tweak a couple things so that it makes more sense. The biggest reason for this is if you recall Sirzechs and Serafall are sending their peerages to watch over the teens. Which means they'll be the ones to step in, but I still had to find a way for Vali to make his appearance.

Issei: So what's going on?

S.R: A surprise. I'll say no more so I don't spoil it.

Issei: So go read the story to find out?

S.R: Yup, let's read!

After having both Serafall and Sirzechs tell her to hold out until their peerages could help, Sona tuned back into Issei's argument with Xenovia on if they would be able to beat Kokabiel. Signaling for them to stop, she relayed the words of the two Satan's to the group.

Nodding at her words Issei began planning how best to proceed. Since they didn't know Kokabiel's entire plan, they had to find a way to get more information on the subject.

"We need more information about his plan. After all I'm fairly certain he doesn't need the Excalibur fragments to defeat us."

"The only reason I can think is he plans to use it to kill us and blame it on the church, causing the devils and angels to go to war so he can sweep in with his loyal followers and attempt to finish both sides off."

"But that wouldn't happen since the Satan's have known for a while now that he's gone rogue right? They'd know he was the one that did it and target him, not the church."

"True, but maybe he doesn't know that. After all he went rogue after Azazel told his fellow fallen-angels about his intent to call a truce with the devils. There's a possibility that he doesn't know how much Azazel has shared with the Satan's."

Issei, Rias, and Sona debated why Kokabiel would steal the fragments but they couldn't come up with a definitive answer. Sighing Issei declared that it was time to do a bit of recon. He hoped that even if they didn't find Kokabiel himself they'd find the mysterious Freed Sellzen that Irina and Xenovia thought attacked Kiba. After all if they could pin him down then Kokabiel would lose one of his Excalibur fragments and they might be able to ferret out his plans by interrogating Freed.

Kiba stepped forward declaring himself to be part of the search group, but Rias pulled him aside for a moment, telling him if he wanted to join he had to explain to the other his reasoning and hatred for Excalibur. He was about to mouth off and say it was none of their business when she slapped him. After all he was getting a little… narrow minded.

"Yuuto I'm only going to say this once so listen up… Your friends did not save you so that you could throw your life away to avenge them. They did not die for you just so you would hate Excalibur so single mindedly. Or do you believe they were that shallow, shallow enough to drive you to the brink with hatred?"

Her words struck a chord in Kiba, who since Irina's explanation about the possibility of it being an Excalibur fragment that Freed used against him had been seeing nothing but red. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, slowly opening them so that Rias could see his determination to see this through.

"Even so, I've already given my word that I would do this. But I promise you I won't run off on my own."

Rias nodded at his words, and the two rejoined their fellow teenagers. Kiba explained how he came to be part of Rias's peerage. Years ago the church had a secret project running that was supposed to produce artificial holy sword wielders, but this program was focused on creating wielders for Excalibur. Kiba was one of those chosen to be part of the program, enduring harsh training and experiments to be able to use a holy sword. Besides the experiments and harsh training, Kiba and his fellow Holy Sword Project test subjects were treated horribly. They were barely fed, had little to no medical help, and were abused by the ones in charge. Because the project was failing they decided to kill off the test subjects and bury all evidence of their misdoings. Kiba only managed to escape and survive long enough for Rias to find him and resurrect him due to their efforts towards allowing one of them to live.

The two girls from the church were silent, one not wanting to believe the church capable of such an atrocious act. The other silent because of doubt. Not that Kiba's story was true, but doubt that he would stay calm and rational if she told him what she knew of the one in charge of the project.

After everyone had recovered from Kiba's story it was decided that for now only a small group should be sent out to look for clues. Kiba, Irina, and Xenovia all made perfect sense, but because of how impulsive Xenovia was and Kiba could be Issei and Sona went with them making a group of five.

It made more sense that way as Issei was the one to offer the help so he should be part of the group with the two from the church. Sona and Issei would keep an eye on Kiba and hopefully prevent him from blowing his top. And Irina could use the time to study how Issei and Sona interacted to see if there was even a remote chance she could break them up.

Why would she want to do that? Well part of the reason she reacted so loudly when it was revealed that Issei and Sona were engaged was due to her crush on the boy. Though she was still struggling with herself being able to admit her crush to herself, let alone out loud.

Once they were certain their group was ready the quintet of teens set off mostly silent. Mostly, instead of completely because Irina couldn't take the silence and tried to make small talk. She tried to get Issei and Sona to talk about their relationship but the two kept brushing it aside with comments like 'We can talk later, we've got a job to do' or 'Stay focused, there's still a chance of being attacked by Kokabiel.'

However despite the two not revealing anything vocally Irina was able to piece together a bit more about them from their body language and how close they were. Even though they were tense and focused, both of them prepared to react if their group was attacked, the two engaged devils were touching. Ironically the only reason Irina was able to notice how tense and focused they were was due to the fact she studied them carefully.

Especially since they walked hand in hand, arms slightly linked as Sona rested her head on his shoulder. Normally things like that would help mask how tense Issei's muscles were and help hide his alertness from all but the most trained eye as the physical connection between the two would partially block a persons ability to see said muscles and how they bunched together. It would also be due the fact that their embrace would lead to at least a little bit of tension in the muscle anyway as it would be used in a supportive way since Sona's head was on Issei's shoulder.

Since Irina was studying the two so closely her fellow companion from the church also kept an eye on the two, though Xenovia had to suppress a snort at just how much like a couple they were acting. After all she was still smart enough to realize that they were trying to be subtle in their search, making anyone that might see the group think it's just a bunch of teenagers spending time together and hanging out.

As the group had no leads it was decided that Kiba would lead them to the spot he battled Freed at and they'd try to pick up his trail. Surprisingly it worked better than they thought it would. Being as attuned to holy energy as they were Irina and Xenovia were able to register the faint traces from Kiba and Freed's battle. Following the lingering wisps of power the group tracked Freed down. They found him in a nice open clearing in a small forest just outside the city limits. But Freed wasn't alone.

Despite the strong want to confront him immediately Issei and Sona were able to hold the trio of sword wielders back from attacking. At least they were able to prevent them from attacking until after the group had confirmed Kokabiel wasn't part of the group Freed was chatting with. The reason they had failed was Kiba had recognized one of the men Freed was with and he saw nothing but red, followed quickly by Irina.

Even though she had seen enough to tell her that Issei and Sona truly cared for each other, Irina was hoping that she could show off enough for Issei to start falling for her instead. Since Kiba went for an older man with gray hair, Irina went for Freed. Her reason for going after Freed, was that out of the small group they had come across Freed was the largest threat as far as the group knew.

Kiba's target saw Freed's eyes widen when Kiba and Irina burst into the clearing giving the gray haired man just enough time to dodge Kiba's attack. Frowning at how vicious Kiba was being the older man continually dodged, even as he cast a signal flare for Kokabiel to come to their aide.

Freed had seen Irina coming and reacted accordingly, pulling out his Excalibur Rapidly fragment quickly overpowering her and throwing her into a tree. Though Issei and Xenovia wanted to help her, they couldn't both being charged by exorcists wielding swords like Freed. What set these two exorcists apart was the fact that like Freed they were wielding holy swords.

Xenovia had no trouble dealing with the man that attacked her, keeping him at bay with her Excalibur destruction, swinging it in such a heavy handed way as to create blades of air to push him back. Issei called out his Boosted Gear but didn't have any time to attack as his opponent suddenly vanished. Letting his instincts guide him Issei was able to protect himself from his hidden enemy, managing to prevent any harm to himself. He lashed out with a quick counter once or twice buy wasn't able to successfully land a hit.

Irina despite the advantage Freed started the battle with was able to come back from being thrown into a tree and hold her own effectively, their fight escalating. The four teens current battling the stray priests working for Kokabiel weren't struggling in their fights per se, but they weren't going to win easily either. Their opponents fighting just hard enough to essentially keep them at bay, or just flat out dodging everything the teens threw their way. Fighting harder and harder Issei, Xenovia, Irina, and Kiba tried to overwhelm their enemies eventually leading their fights to reach a point where Sona had to shield herself after being struck on accident and even then a few stray attacks got through.

Everyone in the clearing froze when a massive power was suddenly felt, turning to look skywards they found a black haired man with red eyes looking down on them. Flaring his power the red eyed man purposefully used it to hold the teens in place. Issei was able to power through the feeling though, and the first thing he did was check on Sona. It hadn't escaped his notice that she had gotten hit by a stray attack earlier.

"Valper, take them and finish preparing for the ritual. I'll deal with the trash here."

Kokabiel's minions followed his order, though right before they got too far Issei flared his power just enough to free his companions. Without turning to look at Kokabiel or the fleeing opponents Issei let his power show as he carefully looked over his Fiancee. Irina couldn't stand not being the one Issei was looking at, nor could she stand that her battle was unfinished. Crying out in anger she charged after Freed, wanting to distract herself from her crush.

Xenovia and Kiba both quickly thought about backing her up, but chose to hold Kokabiel off while Issei wasn't bothering to fight. The two struggled to hold the Cadre class fallen-angel back, both barely surviving his assault long enough for Issei to finish his examination of Sona's injuries.

"Kiba, take Sona and find Zoephiel. After that regroup with Rias. Xenovia I'll keep him busy, attack when you can"

Issei spoke before vanishing, suddenly reappearing right behind Kokabiel with gauntlet clad fist streaking towards the dark haired mans head. Kokabiel blocked it, with an arm while his other hand summoned a spear of light to block Xenovia's sword.

Taking a quick breath Issei leaned back before unleashing a small fireball from his mouth, right into Kokabiel's face. However Kokabiel just brought a set of wings up to block, the only sign of Issei's attack being a few singed feathers. Xenovia tried to attack from Kokabiel's blind spot only to once again be blocked by a spear of light.

"humph… I'll be late if we continue this farce. You only have till midnight anyway. If you think you can defeat me I'll be starting my rampage at your base of operations."

With that Kokabiel disengaged from his fight with Issei and Xenovia before teleporting away. The two shared a look before dashing off to find Irina since she went after Freed. They didn't get very far before being confronted by a silver haired teen who was carrying Irina.

"She's still alive, but I wasn't quick enough to prevent them from taking her Excalibur fragment."

"Who the hell are you?"

"The name's Vali… Azazel sent me. Since he's currently dealing with a legion of Kokabiel's followers, he sent me to represent the Grigori in this situation. Honestly though I was told that unless you couldn't handle the situation that my job is only to bring Kokabiel back to headquarters for punishment."

"So you wouldn't be willing to help defeat Kokabiel then?"

"If I get tired of waiting I'll step in, but until then this is your problem."

"Then why save her?"

"Azazel hopes that this incident could be used as an excuse for a proper meeting between the three factions. Letting her die wouldn't really help that now would it?"

"Fair enough I guess. Since you said you'd step in if or when you got bored I guess you'll be keeping an eye on things, so we'll take our leave now."

With that Issei took Irina from the silver haired boy. Turning, he and Xenovia left to regroup with Rias and Sona. As they moved Issei called his peerage and his two familiars asking for them to join him as he talked strategics with Rias and Sona about how to deal with Kokabiel. Luckily when they arrived Sona had already been seen to by Zoephiel so she could take care of Irina's wounds. Sona had called her peerage together as well, Rias following their lead after hearing that Issei wanted to come up with a plan.

He told his red headed aunt and his fiancee about Vali and mentioned that they could theoretically attempt to whittle Kokabiel down enough for Vali to join in.

"Why would that matter though?"

"You weren't there so you didn't feel his power. Vali is pretty damn tough. At least as tough as me after a few Boosts."

"That's because he's the host of my rival Albion. Of course he'd be strong, Albion wouldn't accept anything else."

Ddraig spoke up, with his words leading the group to plan to survive long enough for Vali to join in. After all the White and Red Dragon Emperors together would be quite the challenge.

"I wonder… if you give an evil piece to someone does it increase their power?"

"It should, though now you have me wondering why you ask?"

"Well I just thought of something that might help out even more."

Issei said turning to his fiancee. He looked her in the eyes to see if she could figure out what his idea was. Fortunately her genius level intelligence let her figure his plan. Though she didn't want to specify completely so she only responded with a general statement.

"You are thinking about boosting my powers even further by giving me one of your evil pieces are you?"

"Would it work since you already have a king piece?"

"Don't you remember when we assisted Tannin? He has the queen piece for Mephisto's peerage, but Tannin is also the king of his own peerage."

"So it would work then. Good. Let's boost your power even further by giving you my queen piece then."

The two stepped away from the group to perform the ritual. It also gave them a chance to talk in private.

"My Gorgon's eye is hard to control… Even if your idea works and it becomes strong enough to be used on Kokabiel I have no idea if I could make it happen."

"I have faith that you can do it."

Issei kissed her forehead, as she laid down and allowed him to place his queen piece over her heart. Finishing the spell, Issei was pleased to see it work. Sona was now his queen.

S.R: I thought about going further, but in the end I decided that this was the perfect place to stop the chapter at. After all I don't want to overwhelm people with things. Now for anyone who saw this coming, or thought that I would do something like this, I give you an internet cookie.