Imagine actually updating your stories. Big AN at the bottom, about the story and delay both. Not going on hiatus or anything like that, though with the recent time between chapters, what's the difference?

-o-o-o-o-o-

Azazel

A dagger was at his throat. Even without drawing blood, he could feel his life energy pouring out of him and into the enchanted steel. A droplet of thick, chilling liquid fell from the blade and crawled over his skin, making him shudder. He was sober now, completely snapped out of the delirium caused by the visions from the scroll. There was only one person who could be there behind him. He gulped.

"Cato," he said. His voice came out weaker than he intended. Everything he knew about the man behind him had been overturned since he opened the scroll that he now clutched tightly.

In the final memories he had seen of Cato, the man had been wild, erratic, without any care for life save for ending it. It didn't match the man he had come to know – or thought he had come to know – over the past half year. Nonetheless, the Cato from his visions was one that filled him with fear as he now felt his life balancing on a poisoned knife's edge. Was Cato as murderous as he had been in the later visions? Azazel swallowed a lump in his throat. Why isn't he saying anything?

Azazel resisted the urge to turn his head, acutely aware of what such an action would do to his neck. A silly thought popped into his head as he stared ahead at the bottle of brandy he had reached for, and before he could think it through, he spoke. "Care for a drink?"

His voice cracked from the dryness of his throat. I sound like I'm the one in need of a drink.

The knife pressed into his flesh. He closed his eyes, feeling his body instantly weaken and go limp as the poison from the blade did its part. What the hell kind of poison is that?

Azazel collapsed backwards, stumbling for a moment before Cato gave him a small nudge that made him land on his couch instead of the floor. He felt the warm pulse within him slowly return his motor functions and strength, purging whatever made him weak in the first place. His hand went unconsciously to rub his neck. The cut had already healed. He looked at Cato, taking in the odd expression on the man's face. To Azazel's relief, Cato didn't look murderous as he had in the last vision. But appearances could be deceiving. It was dangerous to assume he understood the man in front of him.

"You broke into my house."

"I did."

"I don't know what you think you had planned."

Azazel furrowed his brows. It was an odd turn of phrase – what did it even mean? Cato didn't elaborate. "What I had planned?"

"Perhaps you already know, or perhaps you'll need to think hard about it. You had no plan. There was no reason for you to do any of what you did," Cato licked his lips, and Azazel followed his eyes as they drifted to the scroll in his arms. "Yet somehow, you ended up with that. And you don't even know what it is."

I don't need to think hard. His decision to break in had been made in the spur of the moment, though the events leading up to the decision were beyond question. When he stood there in Cato's secret basement, numerous treasures and secrets laid out bare in front of him, he didn't know what to look for. It was true that even now, he wasn't certain what the scroll was. Azazel nodded to show that he at least understood a little. "What do you mean?"

Cato made a point of sheathing the dagger. It drew Azazel's attention to the man's clothing – an ill-fitting shirt that looked about to burst and skin-tight shorts that might well be swimwear. He refrained from commenting on it since the situation was too serious for a jab that would formerly be commonplace between them.

"Do you even have any idea what you're holding?" Cato asked, his voice uncharacteristically heated. As was to be expected.

The only vision in which he saw the scroll was when Cato had found that woman trapped in some tomb-like prison. It had offered him no knowledge of it other than it being an ancient relic. "I don't know," he said, hoping that he soon would.

"I see." Cato stopped in thought for a moment. "It's a strange thing. The way that we sometimes do things that are hard to explain afterwards. The way they force us down paths that we never saw or even imagined."

Azazel nodded slowly, uncertain.

"Do you feel changed, Azazel? Do you feel that this is the beginning of something beyond your wildest imaginings?"

He shook his head. He had felt nothing of the sort. "I thought this was the end of me."

"I won't hurt you." Cato sat down next to him. Ordinarily, the gesture would've made Azazel feel at ease around the man, but after seeing snippets of his life, he knew that sitting was not truly a gesture of peace – the bowstring that was Cato was ever taut, ready to snap into action. "I won't even tell you what to do."

There had been a similar scene in his visions, when Cato had confronted some criminal mastermind in his own home. Mercer, the name came to him as though the memory of the man was his own. The vision had ended with Mercer suffocating on his own blood on the stone floor of his basement, cut by his own blade. Azazel shuddered at the memory. There was no reason to trust Cato. Not anymore. There was too much blood on the man's hands, too much deception in his words. But… had he changed since then?

"Then what will you do?" Azazel said dryly.

Cato shook his head, dismissing the question outright. "Tell me what you saw. What did the scroll show you?"

Azazel sighed, ruffled his own hair and reached again for the bottle of brandy and took a swig to wet his throat when Cato made no move to stop him. "I saw your life."

Then the oddity of the question struck him, and it must have shown on his face.

"What is it?" Cato asked.

If the scroll showed Cato's life, why would he be so interested in what was seen? Surely, he would already know. Could it show something else, or was Cato perhaps unable to read it? "It's nothing," Azazel said, uncertain how and whether to put it into words. "It's just – what did you think I saw?"

Cato cleared his throats, weighing his words. "The scroll you read was the Elder Scroll of the Dragonborn."

Dragonborn, a title that was used to refer to Cato. So, the scroll was about Cato after all.

"By reading it, you have tied your destiny to mine." Cato frowned. "No, I suppose your destiny was tied to mine from the beginning, given everything that's happened. Though that's not to say nothing has changed."

"I'm not much a believer in destiny." Azazel said wryly. Nor were any of the fallen for that matter. That was their entire operation, defiance of the framework of rules and inclinations that others called fate or destiny – to be fallen meant to have forsaken their purpose. They had forsaken the chains of guidance. "You know that."

Cato huffed. "If destiny stopped for nonbelief, I would be in the arms of an angel, yet this is the company I find myself in."

You seem rather a believer to me, Azazel thought, managing despite the urge to speak to keep it internal.

"Things are about to change, Azazel. Of course, they were already changing while you toiled to keep them the same. I don't fault you for your effort; I once did the same," Cato said before shaking his head lightly, perhaps realizing that Azazel had seen as much in the scroll. "I don't know what you've seen. Just remember that the past is in the past, untouchable. What matters is how we handle things moving forward."

There was wisdom in that stance, and it was a not necessarily borne of deceit. It was something he would've expected from Cato, in fact. Cato wasn't one to linger on losses, never one to fall for the fallacy of sunken cost. Except when it came to that woman, but Azazel supposed every man had his shortcomings when it came to women. Cato would cut his losses and focus on the next threat, just as he was suggesting Azazel do now. The 'thing' they needed to handle was undoubtably the Khaos Brigade. Azazel shuddered and let a shaky hand trail to his stomach where Vali had pierced it. The cold eyes of Ophis had bored into his soul as he lay dying there – she was an enemy they had to deal with sooner rather than later. And what happened afterwards… that's right. Cato had saved him. Why?

"For the sake of peace," Azazel said slowly, taking another gulp of brandy straight from the bottle and relishing the way it burnt as it travelled down his throat. "It would be better for everyone if we all lived and let live. The ones who dissent from that notion should be removed, cut away, is that what you're saying? Will you be the arbiter of peace with me?"

Cato huffed. "Absurd. Your idea of peace was undesirable to begin with, Azazel." Azazel furrowed his brows but pushed down his indignation. "Your ideal world of art, creativity, and lovemaking was never real. It was only you, indulging in hedonism, while people openly struggled and you ignored them. You know I'm right."

Cato sighed, letting the energy of his words dissipate.

"You can fight for your peace if you want. I'm not here to tell you what to do."

"You keep saying that," Azazel snapped, finally losing his cool. "But you're here for something. You tell me I'm wrong, that I understand nothing. My peace, absurd? You're the one being absurd! You push a dagger to my throat and then I'm supposed to believe you're not here to force me to do anything?"

"You stole from me."

"You-" Azazel felt anger flaming within him. "You lied to me. You didn't even tell me what you are."

Cato shook his head, looking a little sad. It only made Azazel angrier.

"I didn't lie. Not to you." Cato sighed. "You're the one who kept your nature a secret. Everything I've done is what you asked me to do."

Cato was lying.

He had to be.

The dagger that even now lay on his desk was the proof of that. Cato had used that same dagger, which meant something happened between him and Kokabiel that Azazel was unaware of – rather, something he was kept in the dark about. "Then what about Kokabiel? Were you working with him from the start? Why did he have your dagger to give to the devils with some incomprehensible warning?"

"Kokabiel…" Cato looked away for a beat. "It's as I said. I took care of his accomplices like you asked me to, and I set him up to be taken down by you. It's true that I could've taken him down on my own, but it was your fight, not mine. I did what you hired me to do, down to the very last detail."

It added up with the way the events had played out on the surface, that much was true. Then why don't I believe you? If Cato was lying, there was no way to know for sure either way, but Azazel just couldn't bring himself to believe the man. Not now. But he could set aside his mistrust for the sake of peace. The threat that Ophis posed, the threat they all now faced would already have overwhelmed them if not for Cato's efforts. "I don't believe you. Not one bit. But for the sake of ending the Khaos Brigade, for the sake of peace…"

Cato shook his head, looking truly tired for the first time since Azazel met him. It was an unbecoming look for the man. "You still don't understand. You're too focused on this one interruption to your debauchery, this one problem. You miss the bigger picture. Your peace was never real."

"Then why don't you tell me? Explain this bigger picture of yours to me."

"It's not like…" Cato grimaced. "Imagine a girl – deadbeat father, mother alone to raise her. Her mother is murdered by goons who hate her father, and they go after her, a young girl who never had a chance in life. She could've been your daughter just as well as his. You might've left many like her along the way." Cato stood up and faced Azazel. "Am I wrong?"

Azazel shrugged. "What's your point?"

"A boy. Relentlessly experimented on along with many others of his age. Innocent children gathered and tortured in the hopes of giving them the power to fight. They're all discarded, but he survives, broken and alone. A tragedy caused by the threat of the factions."

Azazel couldn't stop the frown from showing on his face. Both situations Cato had listed were undoubtably the small picture. They were individual instances, as far from the big picture as one could imagine…

"How about this, then," Cato said, looking him straight in the eyes. "An old war veteran, desperate to avoid another war like the last, he steals away children in the night in his unending search for a weapon to keep the peace."

Azazel froze. Cato knew about his sacred gear research. The question of how popped in his mind, but then he reminded himself of who he was dealing with. Of course he would know…

"That, at least, garnered a reaction. Though that only underlines how your world is centered on you alone." Cato turned away for a moment, but then glanced at the Elder Scroll. "Your peace was nothing more than the tyranny of the strong and unscrupulous. The tyranny of the factions. Regardless of what your understanding of the present is, regardless of what you think the world should look like, your claim that there was a peace worth keeping is inane. The people in this city walk around with faces like cattle being herded to the slaughterhouse as they go to work day after day. And they don't even know of the horrors taking place around them. Skyrim was a kinder place."

Skyrim. Images of blizzards and hailstorms that tore the flesh right off your bones appeared unbidden in Azazel's mind.

"It's clear that you won't heed my counsel no matter what I say. I had hoped… no, it doesn't matter." Cato gestured with his hand. "Give me back the scroll."

Azazel hesitated.

"It's not that I don't want you to see its contents, Azazel," Cato said patiently. "But if you try reading it again, it will surely damage your mind, perhaps beyond repair."

It was a strange kind of scroll to do something like that, but Azazel knew it to be true. Perhaps the only thing keeping him safe throughout it all was the warm pulse from Cato's potion. Guilt welled up within him. He tried to think of something, opening his mouth a few times to speak before finally managing to. "Won't you stay for a drink?"

Cato shook his head slowly as he made to leave.

"Were you to serve me the most exquisite aged wine or the sweetest of cordials, they would taste like ash in my mouth."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Cato

Cato pulled on his skimpy shirt, sighing as it failed to cover his stomach properly. It was just one thing of many that wasn't working out. Would be that everything else was as simple to fix as an undersized shirt.

What a disaster.

Azazel was no longer an ally.

Cato stopped on the empty sidewalk, deciding to sit down. He unceremoniously plopped the Elder Scroll down next to him. There was the chance that Akeno was still at his office, and he was in no mood for anyone to see him. He had hoped to learn the kind of future Azazel had seen in the Scroll and then persuade the fallen to join him in exterminating the dragons. He could've angled it as the only way to build peace. Something like the factions can't maintain peace when the celestial dragons can topple that peace at a whim. In that sense, Vali's betrayal could've worked out in his favor. But he had failed.

It had been a mistake to create a dynamic of force in the confrontation. By pressing his knife to Azazel's throat, by showing the disparity of power in the situation directly, he had lost his only advantage. Force worked if Azazel had seen the future and felt its fear. Cato cursed under his breath. He should've played it the way that he always had with the leader of the fallen. But from the way Azazel looked at him, the open mistrust he showed when he stiffened every time Cato moved, perhaps even that was a lost cause. Azazel had seen something that changed his perspective entirely. Cato had tried to salvage the situation by appealing to his own competence and the work they had accomplished, but he had been too bitter by then. Compromise hadn't felt like an option. Perhaps if he'd stayed for a drink, things could've worked…

He shook his head.

What had Azazel seen to make his previous efforts meaningless? While Azazel was, of course, right to suspect his involvement, everything should, at surface level, look like he had been working hard as Azazel's asset. Knowing who he was shouldn't change that so dramatically. It couldn't have. It was something else. It's all because of Kokabiel. The dead fallen general had played a number on him in the end. His dying laughter rang in Cato's ears. He slammed his fist into the ground. Molag Bal take him. If only the scroll had shown Azazel the future, perhaps he would've understood.

But no, Azazel saw nothing of the future. Azazel couldn't even see the present, stubborn and foolish as he was in accepting the status quo just because he was on top. Azazel had seen the past. Azazel had seen his life. What did that mean? He couldn't have seen his whole life, at least Cato didn't believe that to be the case. The Elder Scrolls never fully revealed anything to a reader unattuned to them – even a moth priest nearing the end of his life would be unable to grasp a concept revealed by the Elder Scrolls in its entirety. So, he should've played it slow, let Azazel talk, have a drink, do everything the way he used to.

But he had panicked.

The idea of someone seeing him as he resolved himself to leave Tamriel, the idea that Azazel might have gleaned his hope, his endgame, had thrown him off balance. Even now, remnants of that panic remained, now laced with regret. If the factions coordinated to work against him, he stood no chance.

"So goddamned stupid!" he hissed as he stood up, making for the walk back to his office. "Just had to play the power card? Couldn't just…"

He sighed. His patience never seemed to last quite long enough.

Why am I like this?

When Cato got back to his office, Akeno wasn't there. He paced back and forth in front of his desk, going over everything in his head. His first idea upon getting to the world had been correct. He had seamlessly weaved into the life of the city from the prophecy. He had set things up so people would come to him whenever something was wrong – the opposite of how it had been in Skyrim. Instead of searching for problems to solve, the problems came to him. His initial subtle approach had been correct. It allowed him to ingratiate himself with the important actors while squeezing out personal gain whenever possible. The results spoke for themselves.

It was only after Kokabiel that he'd made mistakes. A long string of mistakes from the moment that the fallen general joined the game and threw a wrench in its works.

He sighed again.

He missed Serana. Someone to ground him. He felt a pull toward the Elder Scroll as he always did when he thought of her, a wish to see her there if nothing else, but the Scrolls were stubborn in refusing him that relief. The only hope was to keep fighting.

And so, he would.

Nothing ever seemed to change in that regard. Maybe I should try not doing anything? He almost laughed at the idea. He was alone. There was no giving up. The question was how to proceed. He had a lot of experience with changing his plans along the way. That didn't mean his plans were bad. There was an old saying, which had made its way to popularity in the new world and Tamriel alike, a plan doesn't survive first contact with the enemy. When your work was primarily backstabbing, most people were the enemy, so plans were made to break.

Orchestrating everything from the shadows had worked. It had been supremely effective, in fact. The problem with that tried and tested method was that once you were out of the shadows, entering them was that much harder. Besides, he was on a spree of impatience as of late, and restlessness lent itself poorly to subterfuge. So, he had to find a new approach. Or double down on the current course. No, there was something he was forgetting. Something Akeno had said. He stopped pacing. It was time to get changed.

-o-o-o-o-o-

There is no rest for the weary.

He didn't have the weapons and armor he normally used. He had forgotten to retrieve them at Azazel's place given everything that had happened. It might serve as a later excuse to speak to the fallen. Arriving heavily armed might be counterproductive down the road, and a dagger would be of no use to him given what he was about to face. Daggers were weapons for taking out people. They were ideal for poisoning, enchanting, hiding, discarding. While easy to hide, they were useless for his current endeavor.

He was headed for a certain Hyoudou Issei's house. Though he'd been there that very same morning, it was a new experience for him to consciously visit. Perhaps they would ask him to stay for dinner – no, it was too late for that sort of thing now. It was more likely that they had gone to bed, in fact. Not the kids, though, they were night prowlers. The biggest concern with them was that they might be out and about in the city. Hopefully they were licking their wounds in base. There was something small that he needed to investigate before he could continue. It was more of a hunch than anything concrete. Like an earthquake rippling through the air, those were Akeno's words, or close to them at least. The effect of a shout, perhaps something more. It meant nothing on its own, only that the dagger had worked. But the shout had only one possible effect. So, where was the dragon?

First order of business was confronting the Issei boy. Then, depending on the boy's answers, an excursion back out into the night.

He couldn't bring any of his spare weapons to the boy's house, but then, the dragonborn was never unarmed. He raised his arm, calling upon the magicka to reach into Oblivion for a weapon, and a strange translucent sword answered his call and appeared in his hand. Of course, he couldn't actually reach Oblivion from this world, connected as Oblivion was to Tamriel specifically. That was more of a blessing than a curse seeing as it ensured no daedric influence here, but it did mean he had to work around it in order to use the conjuration school of magic. Azura's star had been repurposed for that, acting as a mini-oblivion and mini-soul cairn, sized down to be portable in a way that would make the technology of this world proud. He smiled lightly at the thought, letting the sword return from whence it came.

It worked as intended. Not that he expected otherwise.

He was invited into the house by the redhead devil, Rias. She was a friendly sort, though the usual fire in her eyes appeared dimmed after the conference. Issei's parents weren't in the living room, they had probably retired for the night. Cato noted with some satisfaction that Baraqiel was still there, sitting by the window alone. They offered each other a short nod before moving on. Akeno and Kiba weren't present either, which made it all the easier for Cato to speak with Issei, who was currently doing his best to pretend that Cato wasn't there.

"Akeno left, but she'll probably be back later," Rias said after she had helped him to a seat. It was a reasonable assumption for her to make, he supposed.

Cato shook his head. "Issei," he said, forcing the boy to acknowledge his presence. It would be a sore subject for the boy. He tried to make his voice and expression as accommodating as he could. "How are you feeling?"

"Me?" Issei pointed to himself, sounding genuinely surprised. It shouldn't be that surprising when someone who saved your life was interested in how you were holding up, but then, perhaps Issei didn't feel saved. "I, uh… I'm good."

The boy schooled himself at the end, trying to appear cooler than he was. There was a wariness there as well that had no place when faced with one who had saved you.

Cato weighed his words. He could frame it as an accident caused by Issei's use of the juggernaut drive or as an unforeseen side-effect of the soulstone dagger. The former would leave room for Azazel to tell them the truth, and in the end, it would be Azazel's word against Cato's, and there was no doubt in Cato's mind that he held the greater sway over the devils. The latter might make him appear as a dangerous individual, and the trustworthiness of his character would be irrelevant if the devils deemed him too great a threat because of it.

"And your sacred gear?"

The boy clenched his jaw. Easy to read. He'd obviously kept it a secret from the others, but after seeing the boy's reaction, Cato knew that he had grasped the situation. The dragon was gone.

"I see. I worried that you might've been lost when I reached you," he said, noting that Baraqiel was listening intently from his seat by the window. "It seems my fears are confirmed."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Issei said.

"Your gear is silent, isn't it? Its power, gone."

Rias gasped and looked about to interrupt, but she held back. Issei looked at her before his eyes just wandered around the room, looking for anything to hold on to. He looked hopelessly lost. It must be strange, being given such immense power, tasting the sweet wine of influence and importance, then having it stolen away in a heartbeat.

"It was only a weapon. You will make do without it. The alternative to losing your power would've been your life," Cato said when no one else spoke. He was done. He could visit again in the morning for appearance's sake.

He stood up and turned to leave, offering one final thought before leaving.

"I wonder what happened to Ddraig."

He felt Baraqiel's gaze snap to him as he left, the old fallen having probably come to some mistaken conclusions. The dragon hadn't moved on. Issei would be the final wielder of the Boosted Gear, though the thought was unlikely to comfort the boy.

Back into the night, Cato's steps carried him toward a battlefield, as they sometimes did. This one was empty, barren, with faint hints of the magic that was used in the place but without any of the wreckage or rubble or death that one would expect. The cleanup crew had been efficient, but they hadn't been looking for what Cato was now out to find. A chill ran down his spine. Yes. This was it.

He's here all right.

Cato clenched and unclenched his fists a few times, taking deep breaths as he did so. There was a dread anticipation within him. Something had happened here which had scared away Ophis and the Khaos Brigade, and he would be a fool to take it lightly.

When the name left his mouth, it did so almost of its own accord, like it wanted to be spoken. Ddraig!

The shout echoed out into the silent night, shaking the wind, ripping through the air in the way that Akeno had inadequately described.

It seemed as though nothing would happen, but Cato had no doubt. After a moment, he could feel it. He stood, turning ever so slowly, keeping watch, keeping ready, like a beast anticipating a predator's pounce.

A sigh came from around him, enveloping him in its depth. A sudden chill in the air made him shiver. The space around him began to shimmer before it slowly coalesced into a white, glowing mist, shapeless, filling up the ruined ground that once made up the city's academy grounds. Slowly, a shape manifested in the mist. A great dragonhead.

My name?

Whether the words were spoken or simply a feeling he got here, enveloped in the mist of Ddraig's ethereal form, Cato couldn't tell. He didn't care to hold back his smile. No one was there to see him, nor would anyone understand the sense of victory he felt deep in his soul. The dragon had been dead for thousands of years. The resurrection was slow – of course it would be, the resurrection spell was never made to give Ddraig its full power back. When Alduin had resurrected his brethren, it took some minutes for them to regain their old form, and that was with their corpses there for the ritual. They were vulnerable during this time, weak enough that even the amateurs that made up Skyrim's fighting elite stood a chance during the first hour of a dragon's resurrection. The people of Skyrim had learnt that eventually, harsh a lesson as it was.

Ddraig – a dragon so monstrously powerful that the weapon made from its soul could make a pathetic boy a powerhouse strong enough to demand the respect of the factions – would of course take longer to resurrect, especially without the presence of its remains.

The dragon's words were only a primal reaction to its name being spoken. There was no will in its ethereal form. It was the opposite of a husk, more like a seed which would at some point sprout into its true form. Something which Cato would never allow to happen.

He summoned a sword and swung at the head, earning a whoosh for his efforts. In truth, he had never fought a dragon in its ethereal form. Whenever he had switched forms himself when fighting a dragon, the dragon had failed to hurt him for the duration. Ddraig would be invulnerable until it regained a corporeal form, which meant it had to regain more of its power. It wasn't surprising that it would take a little more than a swing at a ghost in the dark.

While Cato didn't loathe the idea of a grand battle, what he wanted from a battle was victory, not a thrill. A certain devil would feel otherwise, he mused. It would be paramount to keep the slow resurrection of Ddraig a secret from Vali Lucifer, lest the fool decide to defend the dragon's spirit until it reached the apex of its strength. It seemed to be a universal theme that while those who lived for thrills were never the biggest threats, they would always be the biggest pain in the ass.

That was a worry for another time. Already, Ddraig's form was receding, leaving no trace for Vali or any other battle-maniac to follow up on. He would have to figure out a way to monitor it… or was it possible to catalyze the resurrection? Cato sat down, feeling the cool of the ground seep into his body. Dragon bones might help – could he have simply bound Ddraig's soul to a vessel and killed it in the first place? He slammed his fist into the ground for the second time that day. Looking at the aftermath, it seemed as though his plans had been very shallow indeed. It was to be expected though. No one in the history of this world or his own had ever attempted what he did. There was no way for him to have known the exact details of how it worked.

If he let the resurrection run its course, it could well take years, even decades. More worryingly, the idea lingered in Cato's mind that the dragon might regain its consciousness and will itself into hiding until it regained its full strength. Dragons, though often depicted as unrestrained forces of nature, had a knack for patience in a way that mortals could never compare. They would act on their instincts, rage with all the fire of their souls, but they could also sit, perched upon the mountaintop for millennia in meditation. Even if inaction was the safer choice still, Cato's own patience with this world had run out. There would be no more waiting. He would not perch upon that mountaintop.

Speeding along the resurrection ran with the risk of lending too much power to Ddraig. The entire plan had hinged upon the dragon's initial weakness being the moment to strike decisively – that was the only way to be certain of victory. But the factions were somewhat united now, weren't they? They had the strength needed to take on a dragon. And they believed in him. That was the beauty of never burning your bridges, of always doing everything you could for those around you. It meant that even though he felt alone, especially now, he still had allies, a formidable army, to rely on. Even Azazel would have to fight by his side when faced with the might of a reborn celestial dragon.

Back in his office, he sat by his desk, mulling it over in his mind. Though his body was tired, sleep was unlikely to come easy. The peace conference was blundered. Not for Cato's goals, but for the factions. That meant they would have to reconvene, perhaps immediately, which would give him a chance to present them the findings. For that end, it was paramount that they gather in Kuoh again. That way he could accidentally stumble upon the beast with prominent members of the faction, perhaps even catalyze the resurrection and unleash the dragon upon them like he had initially envisioned. As long as no faction took catastrophic losses, he could angle the entire debacle as a win for everyone.

Knock, knock.

The question of how to resurrect the dragon remained. Dragon remains were a little troublesome to procure, but that in itself was not too much of an issue. He could, perhaps, plant an entire dragon carcass on the academy grounds and conceal it with illusion magic. But would a dragon from Skyrim be enough to aid in reviving Ddraig? The presence he felt there in the mist was immense. He had felt nothing truly like it before.

Knock, knock.

Cato's eyes snapped to the door. "Azazel?" he muttered. Had the old bastard decided to come back, perhaps with Cato's weapons and armor? An unbidden smile played on his lips as he walked to the door.

The face that came to greet him made his smile drop instantly.

"Either you were expecting someone nice, or you must hate my guts," she said.

"Jeanne."

She nodded, looking somewhat unsure what him saying her name out loud did any good for. Jeanne, a member of the heroes' faction. Her clear blue eyes and blonde hair would've made her right at home in Skyrim, but her features were too clean, too pretty to be a Nord. She had none of the sinewy roughness that made up a most charming people. But why was she here? Why wasn't it Azazel?

"May I come in," she said expectantly when Cato made no move to let her through. He opened the door fully and gestured for her to enter and take a seat on the couch after she took off her shoes.

Cato started making tea for them. It was a custom in this land, and he could use something warm and stimulating himself. Jeanne made a few sounds to protest, but never committed to any of them.

"You killed Perseus," she said.

Cato hummed in agreement.

"But you let Heracles live."

Cato nodded absently and handed her a cup before sitting down across from her.

"Why?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Why what?"

"I understand killing Perseus. He was… well, he was annoying. And strong. And I can see that it would be hard to avoid killing him in a fight."

It wasn't what had happened, but there was no sense in correcting her.

"But Heracles is annoying, too. And he's stubborn as a bull. He might even try to fight you again. So, why did you let him live?"

Cato frowned. Why had he let him live, was there even a reason? They had fought and… what? They just stopped fighting. It didn't need to make further sense than that. Heracles wasn't part of any of his plans. He had barely even considered the man's existence before being challenged to a fight. "I don't know."

Jeanne grimaced. "You don't know? Really, I'm supposed to believe that?"

"I can't think of a reason why I would've spared him. Perhaps," Cato touched his lips, "perhaps it just wasn't his fate to die?"

She huffed. "It was you who stayed the blade, not fate."

Cato was about to respond, but another knock on the door stopped him. Is it perhaps Azazel this time? He put down his cup and went to the door. He hesitated at the door, glancing at Jeanne who seemed happy enough to sip her tea in the middle of the enemy base. A carefree woman indeed. He sighed. What would Azazel think about a member of the Khaos Brigade sipping tea in his living room? For once, it was a silly truth that needed no coverup, so Cato just opened the door and was greeted by the unexpected, again.

"Greetings."

The voice was clear and powerful. It was the voice of a leader, a charismatic individual. The man in front of him was not a fallen angel, he was an angel real and proper. Cato had mused that Jeanne was too pretty to be a Nord - she showed none of the enduring ruggedness of that proud race, she stood beautiful, unmarred by scars or the hardships of daily life. The man in front of him was at least as beautiful as she, but the compassion and understanding in his eyes gave him another presence entirely. He would not be a Nord, no, but he might well have a place in their stories.

"Metatron." Only through great effort was Cato able to keep his voice calm. Unexpected didn't cut it. He had barely been able to recall the angel's name, having considered the existence to be so far removed from any of his plans as to need no extensive dossier in Cato's mind. With a start, he realized that he was staring. Why is he here?! Cato resisted the urge to look at Jeanne, the presence of the Khaos Brigade in his home even more pressing now than ever before. Would the angel listen to an explanation? Would it descend into a bloodbath here, in his own house? At any rate, turning away the angel or trying to otherwise hide the presence of Jeanne was bound to backfire.

So, he didn't.

"Come on in. There is room for another." He walked calmly over to the sink to make another cup of tea, focusing all of his attention on the angel and the terrorist, ready to spring into action as their eyes locked.

-o-o-o-o-o-

A dragon in a Skyrim crossover? Unheard of. What a pioneer.

Metatron is more of a goof character in DxD, barely featured and not much to go on. The reason I include him in this story is because I thought he had potential as a not-fallen angel equivalent of Kokabiel, well, of the Kokabiel that I wrote in this story at any rate. I realize upon writing this that I literally wrote an almost identical AN about Metatron a few chapters back, when he was first introduced. It's just been so long – at least my visions for the character hasn't changed.

We got Cato's thoughts on his initial role as a P.I. in Kuoh. When writing that part, I loved the concept of the Dragonborn being a reverse quest giver. It fits very well with Cato's general M.O. of cheating the system at any turn. I still love the idea, and I honestly think it's one of the best things to come out of this fic so far.

About Jeanne and Heracles: I realize that it might not be ideal writing, but when I wrote the fight between Heracles and Cato, this was what I had in mind. Whether Cato's excuse for not killing Heracles was half-assed or whether it was something else, I meant the writing of Cato's reasoning to be ambiguous enough for you to think 'really, that's what you're going with?', but also leaving some room for it being a valid reason to let someone live. Whether fate is real or not, Cato at least believes in it, and self-fulfilling prophecies are a thing even if fate is not.

I'd also like to address the snail's pace of a release this was.

I've not been handling this quarantine well at all. University classes have continued with the only difference being that the endless lectures and reading and studying are done in isolation, which has not exactly worked out great for me. To make matters worse, I caught covid-19 and was very sick for two weeks, genuinely worried about not making it, though in the end, I didn't need to go to the hospital. I have a long history of bad health, so I was scared when I started having trouble breathing. I'm almost fully recovered now, some five weeks after getting infected, since I kept having a bad cough after getting well – presumably some other infections that were having a field day in the wake of the big bad.

With all that said, I had a lot of non-sickness trouble writing this chapter as well, and I ended up rewriting an important section after great deliberation and an overdose of self-doubt. It's honestly a weight off my shoulders to finally post this chapter. I will try not to bask in it lest I forget that the story isn't finished yet. Exams are coming up though, and this semester has obviously been awful, so I have some studying to do.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. It was therapeutic writing the last part out here in the AN.

I hope you're all doing well. Stay safe.