Sirzechs

I idly ran my hand through crimson hair as I stared blankly at the gaping hole in the wall.

I was too late.

Maybe if I'd taken the fight to the Old Satan Faction instead of pushing for peace…

What did it matter now? My sister was dead, and I wasn't there for her when she needed me most.

"Sirzechs, we need to respond. I am sorry about Rias, I cared for her, too, but we have to act."

I turned my dead stare to Ajuka and said, "What can we do now? The Phenex clan is extinct and the pillars are fleeing to the Old Satan Faction in numbers so large that we won't have a faction by this time tomorrow. Name one thing we can do?"

Ajuka's eyes hardened as he said, "We cut loose. All of us. We remind the Old Satan Faction, the Grigor, the Angels, everyone why peace is in their best interest. All four of us take our peerages and annihilate everything in our path. Do it for those we can still save. Do it for Rias."

I looked down at the body of my younger sister. Her once beautiful hair had been singed and burned. There were multiple deep gashes where she had been cut and stabbed. And her once vibrant eyes were now no more alive than stones.

Leaning down, I placed a gentle kiss against her forehead, then laid her down on the ground.

"Ajuka?"

"What is it?"

"I need to work off some rage."

"I'll call Serafall and Falbium."

It may not allow us to save our people, but if nothing else, burying the people who had done this to my sister would allow me a small measure of pleasure.

X

Azazel

"Are all of you fucking stupid!" I yelled at the room full of war-horny morons. "The four Satans decide to take off the kid gloves, butchering everything in their path, and your brilliant scheme is to attack now?"

"They are on their last legs!" Kokabiel cried, looking to the other in the room for support. "Why else would they finally involve themselves? This is their last option; if we strike now we can defeat them!" A loud cheer rose in the wake of his declaration as several other Fallen offered their support.

"Alright." I said, stunning the entire room. "We'll attack them now. I'll even let you lead our forces."

Kokabiel was shocked, but his shock quickly turned to a victorious sneer as he said, "Good! I will make the arrangements and-"

"But you're fighting Sirzechs."

Kokabiel froze. "What?"

"Sirzechs? One of only three Super Devils to ever exist? Who just lost his sister and is now pissed off enough to violate every principle he ever stood for? Who, again, is a devil, meaning his powers get stronger when he experiences vibrant emotions that would crop up when, say, you cradle the mutilated corpse of one of the few people you truly loved in your arms as you look around the ruins of the home of people who trusted you to protect them? That Sirzechs. You get to deal with him, Kokabiel. I'll be sitting right here watching the fight on the TV while I munch on some popcorn." There was dead silence in the room in the wake of my statement.

"Yeah, none of you fuckwits thought that far ahead, did you? You didn't think about how you were going to deal with the walking ice age who just lost a good friend. You didn't think about how you were going to combat the man who can predict almost any event that will transpire around him just by seeing it. You didn't think about how you would fight the man who has never been hit in any fight even against gods. And you sure as fuck. Did. Not. Think. About how you would fight a man whose power is to unmake things from existence while his power is boosted beyond reasoning by the absolute hurricane of pain, anger and loss bouncing around in his head. So, when any of you come up with any plan to stop one of these walking apocalypses, I will face the rest down on my own. Because none of you have even a hope of beating any of them without me." Standing with so much force I knocked my chair into the ground, I stormed out of the room, leaving the cowed idiots to reflect on their poor life choices.

Retreating to the safety of my lab, I locked the door behind me and fell into my thinking chair.

Things were bad. No; that was an understatement. Bad was when you stubbed your toe on an orichalcum ingot. This was an end of the world scenario.

The New Satans were reminding everyone why they were able to single-handedly end a war, and now every faction, pantheon and idiot magician was quaking in their boots.

When supernatural entities got scared, mountain ranges disappeared. And all of them were terrified.

I could not see a single scenario in which we all came out of this in one piece. No one, and I meant no one, had a stick big enough to force the Satans to stand down and keep everyone else in line. The amount of power that would take was on par with Ophis and Great Red, but neither of them gave two shits about what happened to us gnats. Hell, the only other dragons who might be able to do it were the Red and White Dragon Emperors in their true bodies. And even then, they would need to be working in unison. Something that would never happen unless-

My eyes fell on a heavy chain laying on my desk, and a horrible idea took shape in my mind.

"No." I said aloud, trying to force the image from my mind. "No!" I stood from my chair in a rage, all twelve of my wings exploding from my back as I screamed, "NO!" the entire base shaking under the might of my despair.

Huffing, I turned to look at the chain once more.

It was the only option. It was the single worst option I had ever conceived since the dawn of time, but it was all I had.

Extending a trembling hand, I picked up the Sacred Gear extractor from its place on my table, then grabbed a small cylindrical pyramid that held up a dark gem with an amorphous, violent energy trapped inside it.

"Fafnir, I need your help."