Yubelluna looked at the trail of destruction leading from the forest where Rias' peerage made their base to the remains of the gymnasium.
Next to her Siris whistled, "Rias must have been hiding an ace up her sleeve. That is one hell of a shot."
Karlamine practically snarled, "It was a cowardly attack. You should look your opponents in the eyes as you fight them, not just destroy them without even giving them a chance to respond."
Yubelluna spoke up before Siris had a chance to restart the two's old argument about the place of honor on the battlefield, "Focus you two. I need you to check the ruins for survivors then fall back to Riser for further instructions. I'm going to go and make sure whoever did this doesn't get a chance to take another shot."
The two knights nodded then sped off towards the crater without another word. Yubelluna hoped that Riser would see sense and actually keep the two nearby as a guard for himself. She didn't like this, from what Riser had said Rias seemed all too eager for this Ratings Game. Riser had written it off as naivete but Rias was already showing that she had some reason for that confidence. They needed to end this quickly before she had a chance to reveal any other secrets she had been keeping.
Yebelluna turned and flew within the trees following the trail of destruction back to its source. Heading into the enemy base alone was normally stupid but this attack needed to be stopped. If they could keep firing these from the safety of their base then they would pick off the rest of the peerage bit by bit until they could all gang up on Riser.
Luckily the attack opened up an opportunity. Rias' peerage was hopelessly undermanned, they just didn't have enough people to hold a proper defensive line. They likely depended on Taylor to keep track of the battlefield so they could respond to her peerage's movements. But that was a weakness, an attack this strong certainly killed any insects that were near it's path, she would need time to move her swarm back into position. Plus there was no way she could focus on the entire battlefield at once, she was probably distracted watching how the other main group responded to the destruction of the gym.
Yubelluna was certain if she moved quickly she should be able to pull a hit and run attack off on whichever member fired the shot while they were still recuperating.
She felt validated for her analysis as she crossed into Rias' territory without any response. Rias may have planned for this better than they had expected but she was still inexperienced. As she approached the end of the trail she pulled into a tree to look for her target.
After a moment she found Rias' pawn sitting on a stump looking like he was trying to not pass out. Yuebelluna felt herself raise an eyebrow, that was a lot of power for a single unpromoted pawn. She wondered how many pieces Rias used to get someone who could do that. Still it looked like he lacked the endurance for another shot. Well there was no reason to risk him getting a second wind.
Yubelluna raised her hand and felt the magic begin pooling, ready to blow the little pawn away for what he had done, but before she could fire the entire world disappeared into a void of pure black.
Yubelluna released her attack early in surprise at the inky black void.
She frowned, this was odd, she must have been spotted but why this darkness and not an attack. She launched straight up into the air to escape the darkness but found nothing. The air didn't even seem to move as she flew. She shot off in another direction zigzagging around and looking for any escape but there was nothing but the dark.
She forced herself to calm down. The only member of the peerage who had a power remotely like this was Rias herself, that meant the king must be nearby maintaining it. She smiled if the king was close she had a chance to end this. Sure she wouldn't be able to aim but that didn't matter much to her magic. If she just saturated the area in enough explosions she would likely land at least a glancing blow on the King.
She raised her hands and poured her magic out all around her, saturating the air. Then she triggered it and nothing happened. She felt the magic leave her but there was no sound, no shockwave, and the darkness remained.
She opened her mouth to call out Rias but no sound came out. As she did she noticed that something had changed, gravity no longer seemed to work. She reached up and felt her hair, it was no longer seeming to fall in any direction, just floating around her head.
She twisted and ordered herself to fly in another direction but nothing happened and the darkness remained.
Karlamine wrinkled her nose at the arid smoke in the crater. None of the peerage had made it out of the gym, they were all teleported out of the pocket dimension before the strike had hit
She hated Ratings Games against opponents like these. Long range attacks with overwhelming power, ambushes, traps. There was no honor in any of it. These games should be a contest of skill between equals not a game of who was better at stabbing who from the shadows.
Still she supposed it made sense. Rias had been roped into battle before she had the chance to even complete her peerage. This was never going to be a fair fight. Still she didn't like that they chose to resort to such tactics.
Sher lifted off and called out, "Siris, I don't think anyone made it out. Let's get back to Riser."
She saw Siris turn to her and nod and then a blade emerged from her chest and she disappeared.
Karlamine shot down to the location of her fallen comrade swinging her sword but finding nothing but air. She fell into a defensive stance listening for any hint movement. After a moment she heard a rush of air. She twisted around and swung her sword where her back had been facing. She hit naught but air but her attack must have thrown her assailant off since she felt a blade glance off her armor rather than any of her exposed skin.
She shouted, "Show yourself knave. Fight me head on rather than skulking in the shadows."
The air seemed to stand still for a moment and then she saw a dagger cut through the air and a moment later Rias' Knight stood before her. The knight had a disappointed look on his face as he responded, "Has anyone told you that you are way too into the whole knight cosplay thing? I mean 'knave'? Really?"
Karlamine fought down a blush. "Better that than skulking around in the shadows like some assassin."
The other knight shrugged, "When you have a knife that makes you invisible stealth attacks just make sense. I'm assuming you calling me out means you wish to duel me, oh honorable dame."
Karlamine ignored the sarcasm. "I do. Though I am surprised that you actually came out."
The knight smiled. "Well I do want something from this. I will duel you fairly if you tell me how you knew where I was going to attack from, otherwise I'm going invisible again and heading off to stab your allies."
Karlamine snarled at the casualness with which the knight threatened her comrades, "Fine. I figured anyone cowardly enough to attack while invisible would try and attack me in the back even if they could not be seen.
The knight paused for a moment then sighed, "Taylor is going to lecture me so hard about that."
The knight then dropped the dagger he was carrying and a long sword appeared in his right hand and a dagger in his left. Then he settled into a combat stance.
Karlamine felt a moment of shock, "I had thought you would disappear again after what I told you."
The knight snorted, "I am ruthless but I'm not going to back down from a duel once I have agreed to one."
Karlamine smiled as she fell into her own combat stance, at least Rias' knight had that much honor. "I am Karlamine, Knight of Riser Pheenex. Let us have a fair duel."
The knight returned her smile, "I am Kiba, Knight of Rias Gremory, and there is no such thing. But I will try to approximate one."
In a flash both charged and their blades met. Kiba's fighting style was nimble. He avoided her strikes rather than engaging in any parrys and his own strikes seemed more like they were trying to create openings for his dagger than to take her down with his sword. Still his skill was undeniable.
After a few probing attacks he finally got her to overextend and went in for a strike with his dagger. She shifted so it hit her armor rather than her exposed breast and made a note to pull the recording of this to use as evidence to Riser that he should get her some proper plate mail. She rather liked the way he looked at her when she wore it but it left something to be desired in an actual battle scenario.
As they fell back to a neutral stance Karlamine withdrew her own dagger and smiled at the other knight, "Well I think that is enough feeling eachother out, how about we take this seriously." With a small effort of will she ignited both her blades.
Kiba smiled, "Oh, good. I was just thinking this was getting boring." He then dropped his two blades and a single thick heavy looking blade dropped into a two handed grip.
She rushed in swinging her knife, with her magic blowing wind over the blade extending the fire towards Kiba. Kiba jumped back to dodge the blow and Karlamine pressed forward to continue her assault.
She swung in with her sword. This time Kiba responded by blocking her blow. She spotted an opening caused by the block and stepped in to strike with her dagger but Kiba released his blade and sidestepped her blow. As he did she felt her own sword twist from her grip. She glanced over to see what happened and saw that Kiba's blade was firmly stuck to her own.
Karlamine tried to turn her attention back to Kiba but it was too late as she felt a blade press into her stomach and then found herself in a medical tent before it did more than knick her. She turned to find Siris sitting up her cut having apparently been healed and a young blonde human that Rias had contracted as a healer for the match.
Siris was looking up at the projection of the match her eyes wide. She turned to Karlamine, "I don't think we are going to win this."
Yubelluna floated in the endless black void. She did not know how long she had been here. She presumed at the very least that the rating game had not ended since she was still here but time seemed meaningless in the darkness.
She had tried to call out but got nothing, unable to even hear her own voice. She had flown around more but still found no escape. She no longer even knew what way was down. She pulled her arms as if she was hugging herself.
'Yubelluna' She smiled, that was Riser's voice! He must have won and come to get her. She turned around but there was nothing there, just darkness.
She continued to float, not sure what she was hoping to find anymore just hoping that there would be any indication that she was even moving.
Finally she felt her fingers touch something. She felt at the thing, it was thin and smooth. Realizing she was holding a leaf she pushed forward and felt the rough bark of a tree.
She took a deep breath as she held onto the tree, it was real and proof that the world was out there. Then she felt her heart beat like a hammer as the tree seemed to dissolve under her fingers. She didn't know what to think, was the tree just another hallucination.
She went to float in the way she thought was down but stopped as she heard a whisper, 'Yubelluna'
She did not recognize the voice but she turned in the direction she thought it had come from and started floating again. After a time she wondered if it had just been another hallucination like the tree.
She continued to search but there was nothing but darkness.
Riser flew up to the roof of the main building to get a better view of the wreckage. Looking down on it he snarled. It pissed him off to see half his peerage crushed by Rias' half formed group that had never seen real combat before without them even getting a chance to fight back.
He considered flying over and putting an end to this charade. He forced himself to calm down, his peerage was strong, they didn't need him to rush out there and avenge them. They would crush Rias' peerage. Even if she had enough dirty tricks to take them all down it wouldn't matter, he was immortal he could never lose. At worst this would be a learning experience for them.
He was about to turn around and fly back down to his base when he felt two blades stab into his back. Before he had time to react, another stabbed into his heart and one more into his liver. He released a massive blast of fire around himself and turned around to see Taylor landing a few feet back having dodged the blast. Two portals appeared next to the Queen and she pulled out two more daggers.
Riser smiled as he removed the blade that was stuck into his heart. Rias had practically handed him this win on a silver platter. With her Queen stuck here uselessly trying to bring him down she was no longer monitoring the whole battlefield his peerage would pick Rias' apart.
He tossed the dagger aside and pulled the one out of his liver. "What did you hope to accomplish with that? If you just wanted to give me a massage I'm sure we could make arrangements after I marry Rias."
Taylor said nothing to his provocations behind her two more portals opened up and insects swarmed out of them keeping a safe distance from him.
Riser gave a dramatic sigh, "So Rias sent you after me, I knew she was too inexperienced for this kind of battle. What good are your bugs against my fire? I guess I will need to show her the error of her ways. I promise I will teach her proper strategy after this so you don't end up in this situation again. It would be a shame for my wife to lose a rating game against anyone but myself after all."
That finally seemed to get a response from the Queen as she smiled and the swarm made a sound as if it was laughing with a million voices. Riser forced himself to suppress a shudder at the unnerving sound. Then the swarm spoke, "She wanted to crush you herself but we flipped a coin. Honestly we considered sending Issei after you but decided it would hurt your family's reputation too much for you to lose to a two month old devil."
Riser snarled and shot a fireball at the queen. She dodged elegantly and stepped back into her swarm disappearing into the darkness.
"You should not mock your bett-" He was cut off as the swarm suddenly rushed him and he felt fire across his stomach as another dagger carved through his flesh. He breathed out a spurt of fire where he thought Taylor must be standing in the swarm but apparently missed as he felt another dagger enter the back of his thigh.
He spun around and unleashed another blast of flame incinerating a portion of the swarm behind him but they immediately surged back into the space he created and continued attacking him as another one of Taylor's daggers sliced into one of his lungs. He felt the fire under his skin respond to all of the damage but noticed that his stomach was stinging heavily. Reaching down he found the wound on his stomach had yet to close.
Riser shot a hand into the air and forged a sun above it. The swarm started making a popping noise as the bugs exploded in the unrelenting heat of his sun. The swarm retreated away from him to escape the heat.
Riser used the opportunity to look down at his wound. It was a disturbing sight. The skin surrounding the cut was black and festering. Around the cut he could see the flames of his regeneration working on repairing the damage but it was a slow process. He surged his flames and felt all three of the cuts she had made on him close.
Looking back up at the swarm he shouted, "What did you do?"
The swarm responded back, "I was curious to see how this would work. My daggers are coated in a mixture of Holy Water and Brown Recluse Venom."
He felt his stomach roil at the thought of the horrifying concoction. What kind of devil experimented in mixing poisons with Holy Water? Whatever she had created was an abomination, more immediately concerning was the fact that it worked on him at all.
The swarm ignored his discomfort as it continued, "It is a very unstable concoction the Holy Water rapidly loses potency with the impurities of the poison. I had to commision a device to mix the water and poison as I drew the blade in order for it to have any actual use in real combat. And I needed to get my hands on Holy Water that had been blessed by a Saint so it would be potent enough. Very expensive."
Riser was finding it difficult to breathe properly while maintaining the sun that was keeping the swarm at bay. He didn't know why Taylor seemed so interested in explaining the workings of her poison to him but as long as she was doing so she was not focusing on a way to get past his defense so he asked, "That still shouldn't work on a Pheenex like myself."
The swarm once again laughed in its unnerving voice. "Correct, a high ranking devil like yourself is largely immune to holy water but it still does deal some damage. That is why my concoction works on you. As your flames work to battle the holy water the venom takes hold causing the flesh to die and rot while it is still attached to your body. And you can't heal what is already dead."
Riser looked back down at his stomach and paled. The wound had shut but his flesh was still black and sickly looking. He would need to remove the dead flesh if he wanted to fully heal from the wound.
Then he felt a shot of panic, her surprise attack at the beginning of the fight had got him in the heart. He could still feel it beat so the poison must not have spread but that could not be good. A Pheenex could live without any of their organs but it would be a constant drain on his power until he fixed the problem.
At that thought he realized why Taylor had suddenly gotten so talkative, the fucking sun he had made. Maintaining it was a serious drain on his power and the longer he did so the closer he got to being unable to regenerate. He was still a ways away from that threshold but now he understood Taylor's plan. She was trying to get him to waste his power dealing with her poisons and maintaining this defense so she could eventually land a decisive blow. He needed to go back onto the offensive.
Scowling he caused his sun to implode and let the fire from it roll down onto his skin. The swarm closed in as the heat dissipated but they still could not get close to him to attack through the armor of flames that now sat on his skin. He launched himself into the thickest part of the swarm incinerating the insects with his flame.
"This is over Taylor! Your insects are useless against my fire. You cannot attack me through these flames without hurting yourself. And you have no idea how much power I possess, a mere mid-class devil li-"
He felt a blade slice through his jugular. As soon as he did he surged the flames of his armor outwards creating another gap in the swarm. This time the swarm did not collapse in on him, instead leaving an opening where he could see Taylor standing across from him putting out the fire covering her left arm leaving it charred black from his flames when she was done.
He pulled back his flames returning them to the burning armor he had made before. He smiled magnanimously at the Queen, "You did well all things considered, but now do you see the difference between us? Everything you have done to me and I will be fine in a few minutes but one hit from me and you can barely even use that arm anymore. Surrender now so you can get that fixed. I would hate for you to have to lose an arm from this pointless game."
Taylor looked down at her arm, a strange almost curious expression on her face and then back up to him. Taylor's swarm shifted and giant millipedes crawled onto her and up her body and under the remains of her sleeve until they were covering her burnt flesh. Riser then watched in horror as the millipedes seemed to melt into her skin, restoring it into perfect condition.
Taylor smiled at him and for the first time since she had shown up on this rooftop spoke to him with her own voice. "Did you really think your family was the only one capable of something like this?"
Riser couldn't comprehend the question, he was too focused on her newly repaired arm. That ability was what made his family invincible. It was why they survived the war with Heaven. It was why his victory in this game was assured. But if she could replicate it, how could he be guaranteed to win? How could he beat an invincible opponent.
He looked up at the Queen, her swarm flanking her as she pulled out two fresh knives from her portals. As she stepped forward Riser stumbled backwards. He then shot a fireball straight down blowing a hole in the roof of the building they were standing on. He shot down into it and released a torrent of flame setting the building on fire.
He looked up to see Taylor looking down at him before floating away. Riser breathed a sigh of relief as he fled deeper into the building spreading fire as he did so. He needed to buy time to figure out what he could do to stop that monster.
Yubelluna floated curled in a ball. She had stopped trying to go anywhere, there was no escape from the darkness. The only evidence she had that she existed, that anything existed was the fact that she could touch herself.
'Yubelluna' Another whisper, another hallucination. All they ever said was her name. Sometimes she recognized the voice as a member of the peerage and sometimes it was the girl's voice she could not place. Maybe it was Rias but she could not be sure. It didn't exist. Nothing existed in the darkness, nothing but her.
'Would you like to escape?'
Yubelluna twisted. She should ignore the voice but this promise, she needed it she needed to not be in the darkness any longer.
'If you want out then scream it.'
Yubelluna opened her mouth and screamed, 'Let me out!' but there was no sound, no break in the endless void. Yubelluna shut her eyes and pulled back into her ball.
'You need to keep going. Just three more times.'
Yubelluna kept her eyes shut. The voice was nothing but a dream. Still it was a dream worth having.
So she repeated, 'Let me out!'
'Let me out!'
'Let me' "out!"
Yubelluna felt tears well up in her eyes but she did not dare open them for fear that it was nothing more than an illusion and that the darkness would be there.
"Let me out!"
Her voice rang out loud and clear and she cracked her eyes seeing light pool in. She began to sob.
"Let me out!"
It was the sound of escape, the most wonderful thing she had ever heard. She tried to open her eyes but the light hurt too much so she just repeated again.
"Let me out!"
She felt something change. Gravity returned and she was on something soft. It didn't matter. She could hear. Light existed. She was out!
"Let me out!"
She felt warmth and arms wrapping around her body pulling her into a hug. A voice she recognized rang out.
"Yubelluna, calm down. You're out."
She tightened the hug and tried to open her eyes as she sobbed. "I'm out! Oh Lucifer I'm out!"
A/N:
Me: I'm going to write the next chapter of Those Who Fight Monsters
Muse: You mean I'm going to end your two year writer's block on The Lady of the Flies
Me: That works I guess.
So yeah this is back. I'm hoping to at the minimum complete the next two chapters which will finish off this arc. For actual notes about the chapter Yubelluna's scenario was inspired by the one time I tried a sensory deprivation tank. Apparently they can be a wonderful experience for some people that help them relax and think about their life and place in the universe. For me, well I lasted thirty minutes of the hour I was scheduled for and I could have sworn I had been in there for days.
Taylor turned monologuing into a strategy which I found amusing, of course she has yet to show most of her cards (next chapter will probably have a content warning involving arachnophobia). Kiba showed that under Taylor's ruthless pragmatism training he still wants to play at being a knight. Next chapter we finish the fight.