The Rating Games loomed before Issei's peerage like a living doom. Issei had been challenged and had chosen the training ground that he and his peerage used over the last few days in an attempt to give them some measure of advantage. The massive red walls with giant chess pieces around the rim with a very high ceiling felt oppresive but familiar. A giant field was all that existed inside the walls as he saw the small dots of Risers peerage on the other side.

"We trained for this," stated Issei projecting confidence as best he could for his peerage. "We have a few plans and we are prepared as we can be, worst case we lose and get teleported out so do your best everybody."

He stood in a group with his peerage as they all took on serious faces at his words. He was back in his black sweatpants only adding a small pouch below his back filled with all the diffrent items he may need. Everyone else was in some form of black lightfit workout gear, relying on their high density skin to protect against anything they couldn't dodge. Pulling out lower face masks in the shape of a dragons maw they attached them. The dark black of the masks helped focus on the now sharp contrast of green and black eyes.

Seeing the prepared faces Issei focused his eyes up as they all released their Kagune and prepared. He knew Riser tended to send his bomber up high like be had in the fight with Rias. He slowly built up energy in his curved horns making a rotating green crystal grow between them. He had practiced this move time and time again to take care of the bomber.

"Touka, get your squad, Hinami, protect the healers, Healers stay back and prepare, Eto get ready for the rooks, just like we practiced," Issei started slowly building up the crystal.

Issei saw it a minute later, "Wait for me to take her out," the bomber of Risers peerage. She was floating high but he had the roof turned a lighter shade so he could see her with his Ghoul eyes.

"Cum, Cum, Cum, Cum, Cum," he intoned deeply and quickly. He found he could stack the effect if he wasn't touching someone and focus it into a specific kagune or limb. His now quickly rotating crystal shard glowed brighter and brighter with each word as his other kagune dimmed. His natural devil power consumed by his kagune had regenerated quite a bit after he gorged himself on all the crab like parts of the stray this morning.

As she neared the point she would need to hit them she stayed relatively linear as his peerage stayed all in the same spot keeping an eye out for any other enemies. Just as they hoped.

Firing his now brightly glowing crystal it shot off with a sound like a cannon blowing him back onto his ass. Watching as it neared the tiny appearing devil he held his breath and prepared to spread his wings to absorb bombs.

"Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh," screamed the suddenly impaled woman as she felt unimaginable pleasure and intense pain as the crystal pierced her stomach. Issei watched as she fell knowing the wards should have teleported her out by now.

BOOM. She hit the ground like a meteor in front of him a few meters.

"Why didn't she...healer to the front make sure she's ok," Issei panicked. She should have been teleported out with heart problems from the extreme pleasure response. Not...

He saw her as they all approached...splattered across the ground in a crater of blood and organs...

"She's very dead my King," stated Hinami's mother after she rushed foward toward the body a little faster then everyone else.

"Let me call a misgames this needs to be investigat...," Issei tried to say before something no one expected happened.

BOOOOOOOOM.

A massive explosion consumed the entire peerage centered from the very dead Bomber of Phenex. It erased all thoughts from the peerage as they failed to react and were thrown clear. All Issei saw before blacking out was his bishops disintegrate into blood and viscera.

--

Everything hurt. He never felt this bad before. Where was he? Rating Games he bleary remembered. Looking around he saw a crater. The bomb. She was a living bomb.

His peerage laid around him. Well what was left. Touka was missing the lower half of her arms and appeared unconscious. She had thrown up her arms at the last second. Hinami was lying to his left crying about something he couldn't hear through the resounding ringing in his ears...missing her left eye he bleary noticed. That half of her face was a mass of charred tissue. She must have been right behind her parents...

Eto was the only one that seemed aware. She glared at Riser and most of his peerage as they rushed toward her position. Exploding into a mass of kagune she entered a form he saw during training. The Kakuja of the One Eyed Owl. She was a fearsome creature when in that form he knew personally.

As her transformation completed Risers pawns reached her and she lashed out with massive white clawed arms. Her form enhanced by her queen piece seemed to do well till he understood his mistake. The pawns saw this whole territory as enemy territory and had all become Rooks. Smashing into the great Owl who was feared in the Great War like a wreaking ball they tore into the beast battering away at her form. She fought back valiantly throwing shards and tenticles and claws around herself as she was overwelmed.

Riser's pawns were winning decidedly, Issei saw thet clearly as he saw what Eto was protecting. He noticed them as they tried to stand, Touka's parents, his pawns, wings slowly extending as they tried to help the overwhelmed Queen. They were shooting crystals as they rose up enraged. The green tinted red crystals flew fast toward the pawns but were batted away as they neared by the quick moves of Riser's knights as they appeared.

Issei saw as they were punched into paste the moment the bishops made it past Eto and took advantage of their still barely aware state. He saw their wings ripped off, he saw them die as they were consumed by flames. Riser was advancing with his full peerage.

The prick was throwing spears made of fire at the still standing members of Issei's peerage. He had the biggest smile on his face and Issei just knew he had something to do with the failsafes not working. His people were dying and the bastard knew it would happen. Dying for real. This wasn't how things were supposed to work.

Issei watched as his people fought and grew desperate, desperate and angry. Riser would not take any more from him. He grew to care in the last few days for his peerage as they fought and trained and bled together. The kindness of Hinami's mother, the genius of her father, the loving care of Touka's father, the heated drive of her mother...Touka's calm resilience...Hinami's gentle ways...Eto and her drive to get whatever she wanted...no more...

There had been a moment during training he had tried not to think about. Attempting what the white dragon emperor had done dividing dimensions he had accidentally made a small tear in what he found out was the barrier between reality and something...else. A line of thoughts seemed to enter his mind as he did and an...offer...a deal...was proposed by something invading his mind.

It wanted to have a book enter his realm...just a book. But Issei saw that their was more in it's thoughts. It wanted everything. It hungered for more and the massive red dragon who guarded his plane wouldn't let it in.

He slowly raised his hand as he remembered the feeling of breaking dimensions as Riser advanced more and more.

Focusing all his will time seemed to stop as a small void filled with unspeakable writhing tentacles and a small black book took shape.

A slimy alien cadence enter his mind as a deal was to be made.

"What do yooooou ask for in exxccchhhange my yoooung frieeeennd?"

"The power to defeat my enemies," Issei growled out as he stared across the frozen time at Riser with more hate then he had ever felt before.

"The deal is made...hehehhehe...simply open my book."

Issei reached out and grabbed the dark leather book from the tentacles inside the void and shivered at the feeling of unknown insanity...he slowly opened it and stared into it's pages...maddness...maddness was what he saw as dark writhing tenticles erupted and consumed him.

--

It felt like his whole body was being ripped and teared and violated as he appeared in a twisted endless library made of flesh and maddness. He was on a maze of platforms made of green living flesh suspended above a massive black lake filled with maddness and huge tenticles writhing up and out of the dark waters. Looking up he saw the green skys filled with forms he couldn't look at for long before he felt his sanity leak out of his eyes and ears like a viscous fluid.

Suddenly he screamed as dark alien thoughts consumed his mind. They searched and probed desprately searching for knowledge and secrets before leaving suddenly to his sighing relief. They had left something behind he realized as he caught his breath.

His word was really a simple form of pleasure and they left behind that and it's sister word...suffering...the power he asked for. The ability to use a word that would make Riser feel the agony he wished upon him. But they left behind one more thought as he paled and looked around...trying once again to not look at anything tooooo long as maddness seemed to bind this endless library.

How would he leave after the deal was struck...Herma Mora had a simple solution in the form of another deal. Simply wear his mask and become his champion and he would show the way out...for his eternal services...

No...no...this thing would not be his master...he would find a way out...