Before she had even knew it, things went from bad to worse. She prepared breakfast like she promised she would, and as soon as she went looking for Issei, he was gone. She tried to not let panic reach her, so she summoned her guards, who had watched over everything that happened around her house. But the response she got sent her heart further into the abyss.

They had only seen him disappear. He sat down on the ground, sword in his hand, and disappeared after a few minutes. And now she had spent 4 hours searching for the boy she loved. She was worried for him, his safety and she already missed him dearly. She had spent her day looking through the streets of Kyoto, asking strangers if they had seen him. None of the people she asked, human or Youkai, knew where he was. But the reactions she received from her question varied from individual to individual:

"The Red Dragon is missing?"

"Issei is gone?"

She felt like breaking down. Where had he gone? Why? He was nowhere she could find, and nowhere she could sense. Her thoughts betrayed her and moved to darker things… what if he was taken? That was what had happened after the first two hours…

At first, she was filled with grief at that thought alone, but that grief turned into unaltered rage. She clenched her teeth together as she sat down in her living room, Irina, Xenovia and her daughter not daring to mutter a word to her.

She would kill anyone who harmed him. She closed her eyes, trying to calm herself, and as she did so, she began to carefully think about where he could be. The only people she knew off the top of her head were the same people who had attacked them before. And they were out for him because he was the reincarnate of Merlin. Which made him the enemy of Magicians. But how they acted… it wasn't a rag-tag group of people out on a suicide trip—even though it was—no, it was planned. She thought back to yesterday, thinking of everything Issei had said that could be a key detail in all of this.

Run back to the other magicians… he had said. That meant there was a group who worked together. Which meant they had a base of operations, and if they have Issei, he would be held there. She needed to figure out where that place was. She stood up from her seat suddenly, trying to think of who she could talk to who would know where the magicians base of operations was.

She knew where she should go. Kuoh. Since there were two groups of devils there, humans using 'magic' contracts to summon devils, exposed them to the world of the supernatural, which also meant it probably had a few people who could be magicians living in it as well. And if that was the case, there was a chance one of them knew something about where the magicians had set up base. She looked at the three girls who all sat with downcast looks in their eyes.

"We are going to get help. And I think I know exactly how to find Issei. We are going to Kuoh." She said, moving into the center of the living room and summoning a magic circle at her feet, large enough for everyone to fit in. They each had questions as they moved into the circle with her, she decided to wait and answer them each before she moved.

"What's in Kuoh?" Xenovia asked. The girl seemed as stoic as a wall, but deep down, Yasaka could tell she was starting to care for Issei the same as Irina loved him. She couldn't understand what feelings she held, or where they came from, but she knew they were there, nonetheless. And it was a fair question from the normally silent girl who was only just starting to show that she had emotions.

"We need help from the group of devils there. I know you don't like devils, but I promise you they aren't bad people. They can help us find Issei, and they will be more than willing to help us." Yasaka explained. She examined the face of Xenovia and Irina both as they heard her mentions working with Devils. They were both easy to read, and clearly didn't feel comfortable, but she could tell they were hiding their negative feelings for the sake of Issei. "They have access to information there we need. In Kuoh there are humans who form contracts with them, and that brings them closer to where I think Issei is. If one of those devils has even one human that knows the location of where the magicians are who I think have Issei, we can rescue him."

"So… you think magicians have Issei? I suppose that's fair. After they attacked us, it seems logical." Xenovia seemed to cave in to what Yasaka had said, as well as Irina. But her daughter—who was too much like her—had the hint of worry behind her eyes that she knew was something she had thought about too.

"What if they don't have Issei?" Kunou asked, causing her and the other two to flinch. She hoped that wasn't the case. But if it was… she would never, ever stop searching for him until she found him. And if they didn't have Issei… she would get her revenge for what they did to her daughter. Whoever had put the group up to attacking them at the clothing store… she would make them regret it.

"Kunou... I will find him." Yasaka replied. Her daughter grabbed her hand and the golden circle began to glow brightly. The last time she had been to Kuoh was when she watched the hospital Issei was at burn to the ground. She hoped her people would be able to carry on without her for a while, but seeing how they had been just fine when she was caring for Issei, she doubted they would have any problems.

She refused to be bound to one place while her man was in trouble. She hadn't ever felt such anger boiling inside of her before. As the glowing disappeared, she was standing in front of a group of four. Each standing ready to attack her, until they realized who it was that had appeared in their room.

"Y-Yasaka?!" the red-haired girl sitting at the office table across from her said, standing at her spot, completely and utterly shocked. She wasted no time at all, not feeling the need to drag this out.

"Issei has gone missing, and I need your help finding him."

Chapter 15: Extremis

Extremis – "In the furthest reaches; the choices made at the point of death."

It was a series of dripping that he had awoken to. Rhythmically puttering as the room was dark and silent enough to make his ears ring as he tried to focus on anything other than the dripping. The longer he listened, the worse everything seemed to become. He struggled against bounds that held him down, his arms were locked in thick straps like he was on some restraint bed in an insane asylum. His chest was strapped, as well as his legs, his ankles and knees and arms at his wrist and elbow.

He stopped bucking against the restraints, and the sounds that came after were more horrifying than before. His pulse was heightened as his heart pounded in confusion, but his ears picked up on the sounds alone in addition to the dripping that sounded far too close to him now for comfort. He heard his body began to make noises that were simply horrid for him to hear. The sound of his blood gushing, mixing with the sound of the fluids in his stomach swishing in hunger made him feel sick, and his brain felt like it was swishing around as his head moved, almost as if he had some form of head damage.

He moved in discomfort; his joints creaked under what little movement he was allowed under the restraint bed. The dripping got louder and louder, echoing in his head. But the room was dark, and he couldn't make out anything at all.

He felt his eyes began to water up, but he knew he wasn't crying. So… where did the water come from? He couldn't see where anything was, and he knew one thing as he struggled against the restraints. He felt weak. And with each droplet of water he felt, he only felt more and more fatigued. And suddenly, he was blinded by the lights that flickered to life with a loud grinding noise.

He shut his eyes as tight as he could, his retinas feeling like they were burning alive as they refused the light. As his vision came into focus, he began to see the room he was in, but instead of seeing colors, he saw a completely black room. But it wasn't a simple flat black, no, it was almost like a void itself. He couldn't distinguish the corners of the walls around him, and even the light seemed to be pressed as if it struggled to stay lit in the darkness. It was a surreal darkness, and he didn't know such a darkness existed.

"Amazed by the paint, are we? It's Vantablack. Made of carbon nanotubes. Only one company in the world creates it and applies it. It's the darkest substance on earth." Came the voice of the man he recognized almost immediately to be the same person behind all of this. He felt like snapping at him, but he couldn't move his body, and even the smallest amount of struggle tired him.

He heard the sound of wheels scraped against the floor towards him, and his eyes shot to his side and landed on a moving cart loaded with surgical equipment, devices and needles of various sizes. Tubes filled with liquids unknown made his heart start to pound harder in his chest. He struggled against the restraints once more, trying desperately to pry free in one last futile attempt. After he was finished struggling and felt too exhausted to do anymore, the fear began to settle in and the gravity of his situation began to take over his rational thought. He was about to get tortured.

And he was terrified.

He didn't understand why anyone would do this. What had he ever done to deserve any of this? Tears stung at his eyes, and his heart began to hurt more than he could explain. He was always the pervert that tried to live his life to the fullest. He was always the person to laugh everything off and give a goofy smile to reassure people. He lost his parents and discovering that it was an intentional killing by the man before him only made it worse. He refused to let his tears fall to such a coward.

Why was he always given such a bad hand? Why? He clenched his teeth together, ignoring every mocking word the man spoke to him as he watched a glowing blue liquid fill a syringe through a needle that would quite clearly designed to cause pain. He knew any substance that color meant bad news for him, and he had a feeling it was tied to his fatigue and his lack of magic.

"I won't lie to you. I'm sorry about this. You've been dealt a twelve-carat stroke of bad luck, kid. I'm sorry it had to be this way." The man said, his voice dripping with a tone that only made Issei more pissed than he already was.

He watched, anger clouding his vision and pounding at his temples, the water that entered his eyes came from above him in still steady drops as he watched the needle make sweet love to his arm. Immediately, as the liquid plunged into him, there was a vicious burn that moved from his arm to his chest, then through his body rapidly. His head pounded, each pulse shaking his surrounding and his head felt heavy, so he let his head fall back as his eyes looked above him, but the pain was what kept him awake. Above him was a small funnel, dripping a large drop of water on his head every few seconds as a constant reminder that everything around him was very much real.

He yelled as the pain began to soar to new heights. It felt like his body was stick in a constant state of burning as his muscles ripped themselves apart and reformed in a continuous process. His hunger slammed into him like a sledgehammer, adding to his pain as his stomach began to squeeze and make him feel sick. His throat began to feel course and soar, but the burning and pain continued long after his screams failed to come out.

And the heavy drops of water that landed on his head forced him to stay focused. He wasn't allowed to be peaceful. It wasn't fair.

"Agaaaaaahh!" Issei's scream of anguish echoed through the room that had returned to being pitch black. The man had left and with him the lights went out. The pain began to come back to him in full as his adrenaline slammed through him, forcing him to overexert himself.

The fact that the pain came to him in waves that faded just for long enough for him to catch his bearing proved to him that it was supposed to cause him only the most extreme amount of pain until the very end. His arms fell limp at his side once more and he couldn't find the energy to scream anymore. He knew he wouldn't be able to handle much more of this, how long had he even been here?

In fact, he was already on the verge of unconsciousness. But still he squeezed every last ounce of strength out of himself to keep himself conscious. He gazed blankly at the dark ceiling above him, not being able to focus on anything once more.

He began to recall events from his past. The times he played with Irina at the park, all the way up until he transferred into Kuoh Academy. He recalled the time him and his friends first started hanging out. It wasn't fair. He didn't want to give them up. He wanted to live.

'So, this is what they mean when your life flashes before your eyes…' he thought to himself. He went over his life, from preschool, to elementary, to middle school and finally to high school. Memories flew by him, each one bringing new waves of emotions over him, until at last they stopped… on the night he had made his first girlfriend. The night his parents was taken from him just to torment him. He recalled the moonlight as he was slashed down and thrown out of his bedrooms window and left to die alone.

He felt his consciousness began to finally fade as he began to recall the fond memories of his time with Yasaka, Irina, Xenovia and Kunou. He closed his eyes, feeling grief take him over as he thought about Kunou and how he was about to fail to stay with her and Yasaka and the others. How he wouldn't be able to meet his friends again after telling them he would be back. He began to sink into unconsciousness.

Drip!

Before he sank fully into unconsciousness, he felt water drip onto his forehead, warm like it was someone's tears. And as he opened his eyes once again, he realized it was the device and the funnel above his head. The contraption was designed to keep him awake.

He couldn't understand why anything was happening. Why was he so hungry? It felt like he had been starved for days, but he knew it couldn't have been that long.

'Why is this happening to me?' he continued to think about it. Why him? Why had every bad hand been thrown at him where the stakes were infinite. The pain he got from the liquid injected into him had reached its threshold and abated, but that was the calm before the storm. His starvation came back in full force, winched forced excruciating hunger pangs to hit him back and forth. His fingers clawed at the table he was on making his nails feel like they were being peeled off one by one.

His thoughts began to turn dark, and it didn't take much of a push for the shift in his mentality to take over in full force. He had already been bottling hatred and anger since that night, that he still remembered so clearly. It was like his life had been balancing on the tip of a knife. And with hardly any more convincing needed, his mentality shifted.

'Why do I have to suffer so much…? What did I ever do to deserve this? Why me…? Why did it end up like this? It's not like I chose to be the reincarnate of Merlin… and then that bastard had my parents murdered his thoughts only grew darker. Like black ink slowly spreading through white parchment, Issei heart began to slowly grow full of unadulterated instinct. His ego had faded, and instead was replaced with the desire to survive.

'Is anyone coming for me? Yasaka… if not, what do I do?' he had faith in Yasaka. He believed her. He loved her. He moved his head that was still planted, he knew she was on her way. She wouldn't rest until she had him.

'Fight back…'

It was a voice in his head that urged him to his decision. He was going to be free… and he was going to do it on his own. To prove to himself that he was more than able to protect the things he had come to love. He didn't want to burden Yasaka anymore by being pathetic.

He steeled his nerves and began to think of a way out of this place he was in. For some reason he felt powerless, like he was drained of his magic. And for someone, Ddraig hadn't been talking, and given his situation he knew that wasn't natural. He needed to know if Ddraig could hear him, he needed a hatchling of power to multiply. Any amount.

'Ddraig… if you can hear me, now would be the time to lend me your strength. Can you do that for me?' He thought, hoping to himself the dragon could hear him. And it would appear his luck had returned. He felt his fatigue disappear slightly as the warm feeling that he began to love so much formed once again in his chest. That was good enough for him. He hoped the ability the dragon had would work while he was drugged.

And prove to him the dragon did. The lights flickered to life in the room, and the same man who had walked in before, the man behind his suffering, stepped into Issei's view. His eyes moved just as the man was about to speak to him, and the droplet of water began to fall. It was like time slowed for him in that moment. The droplet stopped and floated an inch off Issei's face. The man backpedaled, but the smile that graced Issei's face confirmed there would be no escape.

Issei, who had been nothing more than something he had looked down on only moments ago, stared at the man with a ferocity similar to a monster's blood lusting trance. His right eye was a piercing emerald green with a slit center deeper than his surrounding cells. The water droplet that he used to keep him awake to drive him to insanity, was going to be the same thing that killed him.

Chinese water torture. It was a method performed to make time seem slower than it actually was, all while forcing the subject to stay as aware as possible. And the drug he used on Issei was purpose-built to make him feel as drained as possible. It was also used to cloud his parietal lobe and hinder his thoughts. That was—according to his studies on his fellow magicians—supposed to interrupt his flow of magic and render him basically useless.

The droplet shot forward towards the man at neck-snapping speeds. As it moved through the air, the singular droplet flattened into a blade, becoming almost completely transparent as it moved towards it's intended target. But… it looked like it was going to slightly miss. The sound of water splashing against a wall resonated in the walls, and the smile Issei have was ear to ear. The man turned, looking at the damage on the wall, failing to notice if the attack dealt damage to him.

"Haha, even with magic you're still to drugged to hit a still target!" he mocked turning around to look at Issei, only to immediately hear a thud at his feet. For some reason, the left side of his body felt light. It was like he was imbalanced now. He looked down, and his eyes widened as he saw the one thing he knew he shouldn't have seen on the floor. His arm.

The water had cut his arm off so fast and cleanly that he couldn't feel it. After his shock was over, the pain slammed into him and forced him to his knees as blood pooled below him.

Once the second droplet of water fell, he thought for sure he was going to lose another arm. But no… this droplet zipped around the boy strapped to the examining bed and sliced through the thick leather straps that held him. He floated away from the bed and turned to look at him with the same smile that set his fate in stone. The boy floated before him, red energy flowing around him, doubling in size the longer he looked at it. As Issei moved towards him with the smile that hid a demon, he began to back away summing a magic circle that shattered only a second later.

"Ahh…" Issei said, cracking his neck and looking at him. "Finally. I can spread my wings. I've waited so long… I'm going to enjoy every second of this, even if its for a short time."

He back had connected with the wall behind him, and he was forced to watch, horrified, as Issei reached down and picked his arm up.

"Here, let me help you…" Issei began, summoning his fire in his hand and moving towards the man once again.

What had he done? What monster had he unleashed? Under the gaze of Issei, he felt as little as prey. And Issei was playing with his food. Tormenting it… throwing his arm around like it was his first meal. He tried to move, but he couldn't, it was like a spell had been casted on him.

"Now, now. Don't move too much. Issei really is something, don't you agree? I saw a special kind of magic in that book before you played foul tricks on him. It was called 'Paralyze.' Want to guess what it does?" Issei said, kneeling down so their eyes were flat with each other. The part that only added to his own terror was the fact that behind Issei's eyes, he saw only enjoyment. But how Issei had said it… it wasn't Issei at all.

Issei moved his hand that was covered in flames to his severed arm. And grabbed the tender flesh roughly, burning the skin around his arm until it deformed. The sound of cackling filled his ear, much like the sound of beef getting seared in a skillet, as his arm was getting cauterized… without any amount of pain suppression. He couldn't scream, but mentally he had already decided the fate he wanted.

He just hoped the suffering wasn't long.

"Ah… there we go. The blood stopped. Wouldn't want you bleeding out while I took you on the show, right?" Issei asked rhetorically, standing and turning. He snapped his fingers and almost instantly, the man floated behind Issei and he moved to the door that had haphazardly been left open. What was Issei going to do to him? The boy still held his arm as they moved through hallway that led towards an elevator an extreme distance away, each step he took left a drop of his blood, like he was marking a trail.

In the hallway, there was a magician that watched the horror. He was supposed to guard the door, and now in the appearance of Issei and him, he stared shell-shocked. The power that radiated off Issei moved as if it were angry. And he knew that he, along with everyone in this building, was severely outmatched. For a second, it looked like Issei was going to spare the man, but once the man started to summon his magic, he was dead. The concrete walls cracked behind the man as blood coated it.

"How many people have you lied to? Such fragile, pathetic human bodies. Should I allow them to live? Or should I slaughter them all like livestock?" Issei asked, turning and looking at him as he floated. "It all depends on you."

He knew exactly what that meant. The dragon wanted him to confess. He tried to nod his head, but his body betrayed him as he looked at the dragon in human form.

"How many of you magicians do you think I can slaughter? You're all pathetic excuses of humans, and even worse supernatural entities. You're frail. Small. To defeat a mere child, you use a dragon. I'm interested how you obtained the assistance of such a slimy lizard. I'll slaughter him again! Every incarnate of him!" The boy began to yell, almost sounding daring.

"I'll… tell them." He confessed.

The dragon stopped his laughing, abruptly.

"They're here. No… there are others too." He began to laugh once again, continuing his movements towards the end of the hallway.

End of Chapter 15: Extremis

Yeah, so last chapter got a whopping 5 reviews. That's alright though, here's to hoping this one and the next two are better and people like those more. I wrote this on my way to Pennsylvania to pick up an engine, so pardon my mistakes. It was written on my phone.

Speaking of cars, I came home and put a decal of Karen Kujo on my newer SS Camaro with the quote 'Ayaya!' in bold black. Then I drove that to my recruiter with big energy. I'm sure some of you can respect that xD

I want to give the fans of this story, or anyone who likes it even remotely. How do you want the next chapter to go? Ddraig is in control of Issei's body, and explanation as to why will come next chapter, but it revolves around this mystery drug.

But should Ddraig act off Issei's revenge himself, or let things end peacefully and let most of the magicians who were tricked live? I have worked out a resolution for both choices and am willing to act on each, but I wanted to give readers the chance do pick this one.

One day after this is posted is when I will start writing the next chapter and have it planned.

So, leave me a review! They are also appreciated, and be sure to critique my work!