The Mask loomed before Issei as he turned the corner of the accursed library. Looming walls filled with books and made of green writhing flesh adorned the end of the hall he saw in front of him. Sitting quietly whispering subtle thoughts was the green dull mask made of petrified tenticles in the shape of a face.

He didn't know how many times he saw it. It seemed to be at the end of the constantly shifting mazes every hallway...he had tried to mark time by clawing into the hallways but everytime he found his marks he grew more despondent. There were always more marks then he remembered and more signs then he left...he wondered if this was his first day or his hundredth.

Bleary noting that his slowly whitening hair was now down past his knees again he sliced with his constantly combat ready kagune and it fell free once again. His hair was the only way to tell time but after the first dragging weight caused him to slip up against the things lurking around every bend he had forced himself to slice it off.

--

Waking dead eyed again he realized he had colapsed in a side room filled with books and the mask whispering it's subtle praise and promises. He had stopped caring where he slept after the first few days of wandering around and around and around...

Getting up he looked at the damned mask for just a moment before turning his head toward the door and the completely new hallway outside. He may try left today...hadn't tried left in a few sleepy cycles...there was no such thing as day or night here anyway.

--

He tried to remember what he was here for every moment he wasn't fighting or sleeping or wandering...his peerage had needed him and he had made a deal he didn't understand to defeat that damned Riser...mabye dying would have been easier but he wasn't one to give up...or mabye he was now...he felt the time weigh on his soul more day after day...

--

The two legged giant tenticled monstrosity rising from the waters in the intersection of paths made Issei almost shit himself once upon a time he was sure...but now he just flicked himself upward with his tail on the ground and grabbed its back. He knew it would regenerate and react quickly so he stabbed his horned head into the beasts own head. Uncaring for the green ichor mixed with red flowing blood from the cuts in his face he used the few seconds to rip and tear with the sharp talons on the tips of his wings...

The unholy screams leaving the creature caused him barely any discomfort anymore as he knawed with his teeth toward the somewhat familiar spine. It tasted like fresh meat to him and he clawed faster with his hands looking for the delicious organs somewhere inside. He found the greater version of this creature always made his stomach feel fuller then the lesser prowling monstrosities.

--

Of course he had tried to use suffering...pleasure...any thing he had at his disposal...but the creatures barely registered either and after a while it just became easier to let his brightly glowing kagune and eyes light his path through the endless night. Especially in the sections that seemed to bleed into his skin and burn away his flesh if not lit brightly...

--

As his flesh grew back from a particularly large and angry dragon like being of all things he ate and noticed the glowing ghosts around him again...

"Go away," he growled at the phantoms of his lost peerage members floated around him...they were annoying illusions that followed him when he stared too long at the mask...

"Take the deal and all this suffering need not be," came the soft, silky, wrong voice of the master of this place from their mouths...he hated that voice...it made him remember...

--

The bright glow of his kagune almost banished the darkness as days and weeks and months and years passed in the endless library. They glowed brighter as he ate and consumed the endless horrific monsters found in this place. He learned how the spikes on his back could launch themselves and act as traps if needed. How to use his wings defensively facing some of the more potent spells sent his way by the invisible floating beasts sometimes found in large stage like areas. How to use his tail to bat and batter the creatures. How the crystal shots could impale or immobilize foes who moved to quickly to catch.

He felt the seeping maddness more and more everytime he found the mask at the end of another path. It taunted him with the faces of the dead and the living longer and longer each time he stared into the void of its eyes. He needed to get out...back to Rias and Eto and Koneko...back to his people...

--

He was devouring yet another giant monstrosity that shot tentacles out of whatever it touched. He had lost a good bit of skin and a large chunk of leg to the first punch and needed the meat to regenerate as he watched out for those invisible fucks. They had started to attack as he ate recently...

A floating green glow appeared near him and he almost lashed out before he saw the color...it was the same color as his kagune...and he felt the connection dimly as it drew on his stored power...

"Issei...Issei...it's time to go back...I can't help you like this for long...this way...," he heard whispered from the orb...another delusion or illusion...mabye...but those always spoke in the manner of the monster...

It reminded him of a voice he heard long ago...a memory now distant but familiar...the woman who healed his soul...

The orb floated off in the direction of one of the putrid smelling flowers he found in some of the rooms...could be a trap...

He crept slowly forward as the glow interacted with the flower..it opened to reveal a glowing stem...and a large section of wall filled with cracks opened to reveal a door...

--

He didn't know how long he followed the light...his energy draining away faster and faster as the thing moved...door after door and enemy after enemy flew past his vision as they moved deeper into the library.

He was almost sprinting on all fours by the time they reached one last petal bigger then the others and far better hidden in a alcove. As it opened and reacted a tunnel stretched into existence behind it and opened to show a massive pedestal containing a single book covering it's entire expanse.

The book opened as they approached and he saw the maddness scrawled within as well as three legible sections.

Choose a power and be returned to whence you came.

Could he dare to bring himself to hope?

"Quickly now," whispered the orb, "These were not meant for you and as soon as he notices they will move."

Forcing his hand forward quickly be placed his hand on the blue orb floating above the words secret servant and felt a wave of pain as a sharp crack in his soul signaled the binding of what he immediately felt was a familar...massive void made tenticles erupted from the book as the pain continued and he was reminded of being consumed like he was all those years ago...

"Thank you," came his dark and raspy voice as he looked one last time at the floating ball fading away...