Nephalem of Gremory

by SlashFan2018

Roxas Gremory, the son of Sirzechs Lucifer and Grayfia Lucifuge, a Devil who no Devil has seen hide nor hair of in two centuries, makes himself known to the Underworld again. But this time, he is different. Stronger, sexier, and... are those white Devil wings? Is he a Nephalem! Why yes, yes he is. Fem!Vali, Fem!Issei, X-Over Characters, Roxas/Harem. Lemons.

47. Chapter 47

I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROAAAAAAAACHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING, PROVOOOOOOOOOOOOOKING, BLACK CLOUDS IN IIIIIIIIIIIIISOLAAAAAAAAAATIOOOOOOOOOOOON~ I AM RECLAIMER OF MY NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME~ BORN IN FLAMES, I HAVE BEEN BLESSED, MY FAMILY CREST IS THE DEMON OF DEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAATH~

...

So, September 19th was my birthday. I'm 19 now. Yay me.

Anything you recognise isn't mine.

"Alright, everyone into your groups!" Raven called out to all the second-year students that were gathered in front of her, just outside the entrance to the hotel that they, plus Roxas, were all staying at, the morning after they had all arrived. "Make sure to stick together, don't go off on your own, I can't keep an eye on all of you."

"Yeah, you're not that amazing, Raven." Roxas' voice could be heard from within the hotel lobby, as he walked outside to join his fellow teacher and students. "Which part were you at?"

"The part where we warn them that we'll always have an eye on them." Raven replied, in a deadpan voice, at a high enough volume to be heard by all the students that were listening to her, sending a collective chill down the spines of all but five of them. "And the part where we dismiss them."

"Right, so I was just in time." Roxas remarked, turning back to the students. "Anyway, you heard the woman. Don't go too far from each other, look out for each other, remember to grab something to eat in a few hours' time, and above all, have fun."

There were general murmurs of goodbyes, see-you-laters and the beginnings of intra-group conversations as all the groups obediently split off from the rest of the class at large, and began walking down both sides of the streets of Kyoto, on either side of the hotel that Roxas and Raven stood at.

Once everyone was out of sight, Raven looked over at Roxas with a smirk.

"You good?" she asked. "Fully woken up?"

"Yeah." Roxas replied, giving Raven a thumbs-up. "I think I'll survive the morning aftermath of the fun we got up to last night."

Raven let out a short chuckle as she began walking past Roxas, delivering a light slap to his jeans-covered ass as she did so. Only looking around to offer a quick wink to Roxas, she disappeared down an alleyway to the direct left of the hotel, out of Roxas' sight. A few seconds later, Roxas noticed a bird flying up into the sky from the alleyway, slowly circling around and flying off behind him, following the groups that went that way.

Shrugging, Roxas walked forward, in the opposite direction to where Raven was flying, with full intention to catch up to Isane, Kiba, Asia, Xenovia and Irina. Making the quick decision to NOT teleport to their location (would have been too risky if he ended up teleporting into a crowded place), he pulled out his phone and punched in Xenovia's number.

Half a minute's conversation and five minutes of walking later, Roxas caught up to the group, who were mingling around a small marketplace. Asia and Irina were looking at statues of Japanese monsters (which they both found adorable), Kiba and Xenovia were looking at replicas of miniature replicas of famous Japanese swords, and Isane was browsing through the wares of a shop that apparently sold obscure manga.

After everyone had paid for what they wanted to buy, putting a sizeable dent in their trip's budget (which Roxas silently promised to fill up himself, once everyone was back at the hotel), the group of five students plus one master/teacher moved through the streets, making idle conversation as they went.

"You think that shop sells good food?"

"Let's check it out on the way back!"

"So, we'll be allowed near/in the temple we're going to because we're Nephalem and/or Angels, huh?"

"Yes. Rias told us before we set off."

"Ahh. That makes sense."

Roxas only paid idle attention to the group he was watching, and walked on what was basically autopilot as he looked around. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he, and his group, were being watched and followed. The former Gremory Heir shook that feeling aside as he walked alongside the five Kuoh students, making their way towards Kitano Tenmangu: the temple dedicated to Tenjin, Shinto God of Learning.

Just as they walked through the entrance, Roxas looked to the left, hearing a small noise above the general din and chatter of the public, and noticed a pair of males dressed in kimonos that seemed to be watching the group he was with, and Roxas specifically. Though they looked human enough, Roxas was able to identify them, almost instantly, as Youkai: Nekomatas, to be specific.

Almost the second that Roxas clapped eyes on them, they seemed to notice him, and walk away a couple of seconds later.

"Hmm." Roxas hummed to himself, narrowing his eyes as he watched the two Youkai leaving. He was, however, snapped out of his focus when Isane tugged on the sleeve of the shirt he was wearing, prompting him to follow her, Kiba, Asia, Xenovia and Irina into the temple.

The six supernatural beings spent a good hour and a half in the temple, having a good time in the Maple Tree Garden and around the flea market in the general area in and around the temple, before heading out and to a nearby food court, where they got a cheap but tasty lunch.

As Roxas calmly slurped up the noodles that he had brought, his eyes wandered from the ass of a nearby hot woman who was dressed in a fashionably short skirt, to the flickering sign of an electronics shop near the end of the street that he was on, to... the same two Nekomata that he spied when he first entered the temple.

'Guess that rules out the possibility of them just being guards for the temple.' Roxas thought to himself, as he looked to his other side, and widened his eyes momentarily at the sight of a pair of dark-skinned men wearing hoods (one of them had two conspicuous-looking holes in the top of his hood). Men who, despite their lack of animalistic features, he was also able to identify as Youkai: this time, they were a pair of kitsune.

"Roxas?" Isane, who was sitting next to him, spoke up in a hushed tone. Evidently, she had either also identified the Youkai who were slowly approaching them, or Ddraig had identified them and informed her. Roxas was personally betting on the latter. "What's going on?"

"I don't know." Roxas replied, in a similarly hushed tone, as he paid for his and Isane's noodles and hopped down from his seat. "Go find the others, and act natural while you do it. If those Youkai are dumb enough to be looking for a fight, I'll lure them away from here. If that becomes the case, get Asia to sense my location so you can all come to me."

"Got it." Isane nodded, walking away from her King's King. Roxas watched her go, and would have chuckled at how poor of a job she was doing at 'acting natural' in any other scenario. Once she was out of sight, the Nephalem scanned the positions of the other Youkai. If there wasn't an abundance of humans here, they would have been perfect targets for a quick bolt of Twilight energy, that would knock them out extremely easily.

It was then that Roxas spied another pair of Youkai approaching him. But this time, it was a pair that he recognised.

Considering that he had seen them both before, but not for a while, the sight of Blake and Akame prompted a slight raised eyebrow out of Roxas. As they approached, he noticed that the human population of the specific street that he was on was beginning to thin out. Almost as if the respective auras of him and the Youkai in the area were giving the people an unconscious urge to get the fuck out of this area before someone got hurt.

"Alright, that's far enough." Roxas spoke out to Blake and Akame, once they were only several paces away from him. Both black-haired Youkai girls stopped silently, and quick looks shared with the two Nekomata and two Kitsune prompted them to stop as well. "Don't you know that it's rude to try and get between a guy and his food?"

Blake and Akame didn't reply, as more and more humans left the street, leaving it damn near deserted except for the six Youkai, plus Roxas. Until Isane, Asia, Kiba, Xenovia and Irina approached down the street, and stopped in a group. They began to prepare themselves for battle, though they did so far less subtly than Roxas had done.

"Hm." Roxas hummed. "Though I guess that if you didn't know that, then not knowing that whoever sent you would have to do better than this if they wanted to try and assassinate me. Or fight me in any way, for that matter."

"We're not here to fight, Roxas." Blake put her hands up for a second, with Akame imitating her. "It's just... can you come with us, please?"

Roxas' other eyebrow went up at this point.

"Who's asking?" he asked. "I mean, I know you're asking, but did someone else tell you to come?"

"Yes." Akame replied. "Kyoto's Youkai Council had us come and find you. Particularly Blake's mother Kali, and my grandfather Matsuba."

"Hm." Roxas nodded. "Alright. I'll come. Though they could've asked you to look a lot less threatening. Seriously, I thought you were looking for the opportunity to attack me. Also, can my group come too?"

"I'll put a word in." Blake replied. "And I don't see why not."

Roxas nodded, and gestured for Isane, Kiba, Asia, Xenovia and Irina to follow him as Blake, Akame, the two other Nekomata (who were introduced to him as Koko and Oken) and the two Kitsune (who were introduced to him as Corsac and Fennec) escorted them into the supernatural portion of the Kyoto city, which they entered via a secluded torii gate that was guarded by a pair of disguised Youkai.

Though Roxas had been there before a few times, he didn't care to look around at much of the more mythical-looking aspects of Kyoto's supernatural side, but that didn't stop the five second-years with him from looking around as they walked (which made sense, as this was their first time). Youkai walked around the streets with their animal features on full display (Blake even revealed her cat-ears and tail, just for the hell of it), attractions that surely wouldn't fly in the human world were openly advertised, the houses that could be seen looked far more ancient than the ones that were seen before, and the city just seemed to have a darker, more eerie air to it than the regular city.

It wouldn't have been inaccurate to describe this side of Kyoto as another world entirely, but Roxas and co. all knew damn well that they weren't here to sightsee (at least, not yet). Though, Roxas thought, it would be pretty damn difficult for him to sightsee, if the looks and whispers he could hear from the Youkai lining the streets were anything to go by.

"Is that... Roxas Gremory? The Nephalem? Queen Yasaka's mate?"

"What's he doing back in the city?"

"And who are those school-age people with similar life-forces to him?"

"One of them's an Angel, and another has the aura of a Dragon."

"Ooh, interesting!"

Roxas sighed, and shoved his hands in his jean pockets as he continued walking behind Blake, Akame and the other Youkai. The walking went on for just over ten minutes before they reached a large mansion-like property that loomed over them.

"This is the official gathering place of the Kyoto Youkai Council." Akame explained. "And also... the home of me and my grandfather." she added, after a short pause.

"Hm." Roxas remarked, as they reached the front door of the mansion, which was far grander than the house that Blake, Kali and Sienna lived in. The door was opened before Blake or Akame could reach out for it, and Roxas felt a stab of surprise to see Raven standing on the other side.

"Oh, hey. You're here." she remarked, before standing back and allowing Blake, Akame, Roxas, his group and the other Youkai to enter the mansion. As they did so, Roxas turned to Raven. Before he could even open his mouth, Raven spoke up, answering Roxas' question before it could even leave his throat.

"I don't know what's going on. Your guess is as good as mine."

Raven joined Roxas and his group as Blake and Akame took them through what looked like the mansion's main hall, before they reached a large door to their left at the far end of the room, which Blake opened and entered after asking Roxas, Raven and the group to remain outside, closing the door behind her.

After a moment or so's silence on the outside, the door opened again, revealing Blake on the other side.

"They only want Roxas and Raven in the room with them, so everyone else'll have to wait outside." she informed everyone.

"That's fine." Roxas replied, as he and Raven entered the room, with Blake and Akame accompanying them.

The room that they entered would have looked like the regular format of meeting room that Roxas had probably been in a few dozen times within his lifetime if it weren't for the large chabudai table, with ten zabuton cushions laid around the table, seven of which were occupied: six of which by Youkai who Roxas could only assume were other members of the Kyoto Youkai Council, and the other one... by Serafall Leviathan, who had an uncharacteristically serious expression on her face.

Serafall shared a quick smile with Roxas as he sat down on the cushion directly next to her, while Raven sat down on a cushion between a grey-haired Tengu with olive-green eyes and wings with grey feathers (that Akame immediately moved to stand behind), and a mature-looking Kappa with a dish on his head.

Silence reigned throughout the room for the next half a minute before a transportation-circle opened, with Kali Belladonna stepping out of it. Nodding to everyone in the room, she knelt down on the only zabuton cushion that was left, in between Raven and a Youkai with a single eye and a large face. Blake moved to stand behind her mother once she was settled.

"Thank you for agreeing to join us, Lady Raven, Roxas." the grey-haired Tengu, whom Roxas could only assume was Akame's grandfather Matsuba, spoke up. "We understand that you're here on different business, but once we learned that you were both in the city, we couldn't ignore the benefits that your help in this affair would bring us."

"What affair?" Roxas replied. "What's going on?"

"Oh, you don't know." Serafall spoke up. "I'll give you the short version so we can save time here."

She then took a breath, before speaking up again.

"Yasaka has gone missing."

There was another silence. This one only lasted a few seconds before Roxas spoke up, his voice uncharacteristically cold.

"What?"

Kali took a breath herself, before she spoke.

"A few days ago, Lady Yasaka left Kyoto and travelled to Mount Olympus for a meeting with some of the Gods there. However, we never received a confirmation that she had arrived. We've investigated as best we can, and the best conclusion we can come to is that she was kidnapped by an unknown group. The bodyguard that was assigned to her on the trip hasn't responded to any calls, so it can only be assumed that they're either missing as well, or they were straight-up killed."

"Somehow, I suspect the latter." Roxas remarked, balling his hands into fists momentarily. Serafall noticed this, and gently laid a hand on Roxas' hand, which had the effect of calming him down... somewhat.

"You and the rest of this council." Kali replied. "Anyway, speaking of this council, some on it initially suspected the Underworld, because of the ties to it that you, Lady Yasaka's mate, have. But I, as well as Lady Leviathan once she arrived, with initial intentions to form a new alliance with the Youkai of Kyoto, were able to convince them otherwise."

"Good to... know." Roxas replied, the gears in his head beginning to turn. "Unknown group... no."

"What?" Serafall, Kali and Matsuba asked, in unison.

"I got to make a call." Roxas replied, standing up and pulling his phone out of his pocket. After unlocking it, he punched in a specific number at top speed, holding the phone up to his ear. "Come on, please pick up!"

Evidently, whoever was on the other side picked up, because Roxas began talking before whoever was on the other side even had the chance to say hello.

"Doc, no time to explain, I need you to get to where I am as fast as you can. Get Wukong and bring him along as well. I don't care what he may or may not be doing right now, this takes precedence!"

He then hung up.

"What was that all about, Roxas?" Raven asked, an eyebrow raised.

"I think I know what 'unknown group' is responsible for Yasaka being kidnapped." Roxas replied. "Or at the very least, who could very well be the leader of it."

Not even a moment later, a transportation-circle opened, and a slightly tired-looking Dr. Strange, alongside a less tired-looking Sun Wukong, arrived through it.

"What's going on, Roxas?" Wukong asked.

"I had to come away from a date with Medea for this, so yeah, what's going on?" Strange added.

"Wait, you're dating Medea?" Roxas blinked. "Actually, that doesn't matter. What does matter is... fuck it, I'll get to the point quickly. I think I know what Cao Cao's been doing since he went rouge."

The reactions from Roxas' three fellow SSPCH members were instant, as well as varied: Strange's was of mixed surprise and curiosity, Wukong's reaction was pure surprise, and Kali just blinked. She seemed to think for a moment, before speaking up again.

"Roxas, are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"

"Probably." Roxas replied. "If what you think I'm thinking goes along the lines of 'Cao Cao was behind Yasaka going missing', that is."

Kali nodded, as Matsuba and Wukong spoke up at the same time.

"Who is this Cao Cao character/Yasaka's gone missing?!"

Kali proceeded to fill the Youkai, plus Serafall and Raven, in on Cao Cao and who he was, while Roxas filled Strange and Wukong in on Yasaka's kidnapping and the circumstances surrounding it. Once they were done, Strange took a breath.

"So, you believe that Cao Cao is behind Yasaka's kidnapping, as opposed to some member of the Greek Pantheon?"

"I do." Roxas replied. "Maybe someone in the Greek Pantheon was helping Cao Cao, but I don't think anyone here can know for sure. Maybe if we get Yasaka back, or get Cao Cao in custody, we can get information out of them about anyone in the-"

"Good idea, Roxas." Raven cut across him. "Yes, I'm still here, by the way." she added. "But have you got any evidence that it's Cao Cao in particular that's behind Yasaka's disappearance?"

"I was getting to that, Raven." Roxas replied. "You all heard Kali talking about how Cao Cao, or Bergin as he's better known, became an arrogant prick who wanted to prove that he was as great as his ancestor, right?"

Everyone nodded.

"Well, a couple of weeks ago I got a visit from a human who was approached by a pair of individuals who were working with Cao Cao, who wanted to recruit her to what I can only assume is a little team that he may or may not be building up."

"Yes, I recall your Queen talking to me about that." Strange nodded, as Wukong closed his eyes. "I also recall informing Kali about that, pretty much the second I got off the phone with Valian."

"Ahh, so that's why you started campaigning so hard to have extra guards assigned to Lady Yasaka." Matsuba spoke up. "And you chose to not tell us this why?"

"Probably reasons that kind of don't matter right now." Raven replied. "Not to be rude, but I doubt that anyone you could assign to guard Yasaka would have done much good against Cao Cao, if he's the one behind her kidnapping."

"Indeed." Serafall replied. "As Kali said, Cao Cao possesses the True Longinus, a.k.a. the most powerful Sacred Gear of all time. If he's even mildly competent with it, he'd probably be able to stand against just about anyone in this room, never mind any bodyguards. And that's not even taking into account the possibility of members of the Greek Pantheon helping him out behind the scenes. Especially if these hypothetical members are Gods."

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room for a couple of moments, before Sun Wukong broke it after opening his eyes.

"I've sensed Cao Cao's life-force in Kyoto. Either in the supernatural or human side of the city, I can guarantee it. He's here."

"Then there's no point sitting around here wasting time." Matsuba replied, standing up. "Kyoto's city borders magically sealed and secured, to help keep Cao Cao in."

"I'll go and do that." Strange replied, opening a transportation-circle. "Wukong?"

The former Monkey Youkai nodded, and stepped through the circle with the Sorcerer Supreme, with both beings disappearing after a couple of seconds.

"I'll search for Cao Cao on the street level." Roxas volunteered. "I think you all know how strong I am, and I can vouch for the kids that I brought with me. They're not pushovers."

"Thank you, Roxas." Matsuba replied. "We've heard about your strength, too. To assist you in your street-level search, I'd like to offer Akame as an additional fighter to your little team."

Akame widened her eyes at her grandfather's words, but otherwise offered no verbal objection.

"And I'll offer Blake." Kali replied. "She was trained by Esdeath, who I believe has gone on to join your peerage. I think that should say enough about her battlefield capabilities."

"Sure does." Roxas nodded, smirking at the small blush that formed on Blake's face as he stood up himself. "And I'll take both your words for it." Inclining his head to everyone in the room, he left the room, with Akame and Blake following him after a couple of second's hesitation. Once he left the room, it only took him a second's looking to find Isane, Asia, Xenovia, Kiba and Irina, who were all gathered together and quietly talking about some unrelated topic. Though they immediately ceased their discussion as Roxas approached, with Blake and Akame in tow.

"What's going on?" Isane asked. "We're... not in trouble for anything, are we?"

"No." Roxas replied, sighing. "But it's safe to say that our little school trip got a little bit more interesting." he jerked his head to the door of the mansion. "Come on. I'll explain on the way."

Line Break

"So, the leader of Kyoto's gone missing?" Xenovia asked. "And we're supposed to be searching for the suspected kidnapper?"

"That's right." Roxas replied. "Chances are he's not working alone, given what Jeanne told me about him. So be on your guard in case you need to fight at a second's notice."

Everyone gave some indication that they heard and agreed with what Roxas said as the five Nephalem, one Angel and two Youkai walked through the streets of the human side of Kyoto, where they had decided to start their search after Roxas received a text from Raven that informed him that she would be looking over the supernatural side of the city.

"Speaking of Jeanne..." Asia spoke up. "Are you going to ask her to come here?"

"Almost certainly not." Roxas replied. "I don't know how good she is in a fight, so there's the chance that she could just be a total deadweight. Plus, she made her way across three countries, on foot, just to make it to me and stay away from Cao Cao. Asking her to come here, where Cao Cao is, doesn't sound like a very inviting concept."

"R-right." Asia replied, hanging her head down for a second. As they all kept walking, Roxas could hear Isane striking up a conversation about Pokémon with the young former nun.

The group's walk took them past the food court that Blake and Akame had collected Roxas and his group from a couple of hours before, with the beings making a quick stop to allow Blake and Akame to get something to eat: Blake got some fish and noodles, while Akame got some fried chicken.

Roxas got a little chuckle out of how the normally reserved and serious-looking pair of Youkai so easily chomped down on their respected food purchases as they walked. It took them barely a couple of moments to completely scarf down their fish/chicken, something that brought the Kuoh second-years some amusement as well.

The group of eight walked through the sightseeing streets for a few more minutes until their walk took them towards the Togetsukyo Bridge. They had barely taken a few steps onto the bridge when... it happened.

A strange mist began to float up from underneath the bridge, and before anyone, even Roxas, had the chance to open their mouths and comment on the phenomenon, the mist rose up and seemed to engulf the entire bridge, with Roxas, Asia, Xenovia, Isane, Kiba, Irina, Blake and Akame all on it.

"What the hell?" Isane was the first to voice her general thoughts. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure." Roxas replied. "Be on guard, everyone."

On command, everyone drew their weapons. Isane activated her Boosted Gear, Xenovia drew Durandal, Kiba drew the Sword of Betrayer, Irina drew Excalibur Mimic, Akame drew the katana that Roxas had seen her carrying when he met her before his Rating Game with Imogen and Sairaorg, and Blake drew a katana in one hand and what looked like the katana's sheath (which had a bladed edge, similar to an oversized cleaver) in the other hand.

Roxas himself held out one hand, preparing to call Clarent Galatine to his hand as he narrowed his eyes at the mist that had gathered at the other end of the bridge. He couldn't hear any of the sounds from anywhere off of the bridge, and the silence was slightly eerie.

'So, this is either an insanely powerful barrier we're dealing with, or something that's transported us into another space entirely.' Roxas thought to himself. 'I remember Azazel telling me about a Longinus with the latter power: Dimension Lost, I think it was called. Is that what we're dealing with?'

Roxas shoved his thoughts aside as he noticed the silhouettes of seven individuals slowly coming out of the fog. The one in the middle seemed to carry a spear-like weapon, which he raised before pointing it at Roxas and the group.

"WATCH OUT!" Roxas yelled to everyone in his group as the spear-wielder fired a bolt of light at the eight of them. The son of Sirzechs managed to get a large Amalgamation-hole in between the bolt of light and himself just in the nick of time, catching the attack with ease. Using a second hole to merge the light with a powerful explosion spell, he returned the light to its sender, forcing the seven individuals approaching to all jump aside, with the exception of one, who just remained in place as the mist seemed to intensity around them.

Roxas then watched as, before his eyes, the Amalgamated attack that he had fired back seemed to be absorbed by the mist, until it was gone entirely. Summoning Clarent Galatine, the Nephalem got ino a battle-stance of his own as the seven individuals in the mist continued their walk, coming into sight for the first time.

The one in the middle was a handsome young man with short black hair and blue eyes, who looked to stand at the same height as Roxas. He wore a combination of a Japanese school uniform (particularly the kind that boys wore in the autumn months) and ancient Chinese attire. He carried a long, ornate-looking spear. Though Roxas had never seen him before, he could only assume that, judging by the intense Holy aura coming from the spear, that that was Cao Cao, carrying the True Longinus.

The one who stood to Cao Cao's direct left was a young man with silver-white hair and red eyes, dressed in a Japanese school uniform underneath a priest-like coat. He looked kind of similar to a certain Stray Exorcist that Isane had told Roxas about. Though he couldn't recall said Exorcist's name, wasn't it something like Creed?

Either way, the one who stood to Cao Cao's direct right was a young man with black hair and glasses. He wore a mage-style robe with a feathered cape, over what looked like a school uniform, similar to what Cao Cao was wearing.

The one who stood two places to Cao Cao's left was a huge, burly-looking guy with a well-built body and shoulder-length grey hair. His uniform (that seemed to be the theme with at least most of the people with Cao Cao) looked to be covered by Greek-inspired armour.

The one who stood two places to Cao Cao's right was a more normal-looking guy with black hair tied into a bun. He wore a pair of shades that obscured his eyes, and wore a black uniform. It seemed he enjoyed the colour black.

Only two individuals out of the seven (including Cao Cao) weren't dressed in Japanese school uniforms. The first of which was a bespectacled young man dressed in a business suit, with blond hair tied into a braid that went down one side of his face, with a strand of hair across his face separated from the rest of his hair.

The second non-school uniform-wearing individual out of the second was the only girl in the group. She was a cute, foreign-looking girl with a slim body, shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She wore a sorceress-like dress with a huge blue hat with black bow and yellow stars, and a matching cape with pink flowers and a white interior.

"Not bad." The spear-wielder remarked. "You're as quick as they say, Roxas."

"Oh, I'm so happy you approve, Bergin." Roxas replied, his expression hardening. "What the hell are you doing in Kyoto and where the fuck is Yasaka?"

Cao Cao's expression hardened, just as Roxas' had done.

"Way to answer your own question, though I could ask you the same thing with the first part." He remarked. "Though since you're so curious, we're planning to use the fox Youkai leader for a simple experiment."

"I'm afraid that's not going to happen." Roxas replied, inwardly happy that Cao Cao had just gone and confirmed that he was the one behind Yasaka's disappearance. "A friend of mine's got some business to do with her, so how about you give her back and piss off? Maybe go pay Sun Wukong a visit, he'd like to see you so much."

"I can imagine. That old fool." Cao Cao replied. "But if you want your dear Youkai leader back... you're welcome to go through us."

And that was all the warning anyone got before five out of the seven individuals in front of Roxas and his crew dashed forward, all at the same time (curiously, the bespectacled guy in the suit and the cute witch girl were the only two that did not dash forward to attack.

The white-haired priest guy pulled two swords out of a pocket-dimension, both of which Roxas instantly recognised as the Demon Swords Gram and Balmung. Gram was a large double-edged sword with gold pommel, red and purple handle, black and gold crossguard and a long blade that curved upwards then back in (with a golden design that looked somewhat like a sword along the side of the blade), coloured black with a red edge. Balmung was a long sword, the blade of which had a darkish-purple colour on its lower half and a silver colour on its upper half, and a purple crossguard with a small yellow circle in the middle that made it look like an eye, a yellow two-handed grip and a purple pommel.

Both swords gave out a dense demonic aura, which he could see made Irina shiver from where she stood as Xenovia and Kiba both engaged the man with their respective swords.

"Siegfried?!" Xenovia cried, as she felt herself beginning to be pushed back by the man's use of Gram, and pushed back as hard as she could in turn. "I-it can't be!"

"Oh, but it is, Xenovia." Siegfried replied. "Nice to see you again!"

Siegfried suddenly disengaged from his struggle against Xenovia and swiped at her neck with Gram, but the bluenette swordswoman was able to roll out of the way of the attack just in time, and reply with an upwards slash from below. Siegfried then disengaged entirely from Kiba and went after Xenovia with both Gram and Balmung, with Kiba giving chase on the ground as Irina took to the skies on four white Angel wings and prepared to strike at Siegfried from behind with Excalibur Mimic.

However, just as she got close, a silver arm popped out of Siegfried's back, wielding a broadsword with a much wider and shorter blade, coloured dark blue in the middle and silver on the edges, with a golden handle. Siegfried expertly clashed with Irina with this arm before pushing her backwards and jumping up into the air, spinning and then landing on the ground, in a battle-stance.

Blake and Akame dashed towards the burly-looking guy, swords drawn and down low, preparing to attack from below. With pin-point accuracy, they both swung their swords upward towards the guy's centre, and would have hit him if the guy hadn't rolled backwards, out of range of their respective sword-strikes, with surprising agility. The guy grinned at the sight of the two pretty black-haired Youkai girls attacking him, before raising his leg up and stomping the ground with such force that it caused a shockwave that staggered Blake and Akame for half a second.

Once Akame recovered, she had to quickly raise her sword to get it in the way of the guy throwing a heavy punch her way. The force of the guy's fist hitting her sword was enough to send her staggering backwards: she was forced to stick her sword down into the ground to slow herself down to a stop before she dashed back at the guy, who had turned his attention onto Blake.

The guy dressed in all-black looked towards Asia, and extended his arms out towards the young blonde. After half a second, shadow-like tendrils began to extend out from his hands and towards Asia, who quickly began forming a barrier of her own to protect herself with. Though she found that that barrier wasn't needed as Isane jumped in front of the shadows, quickly entering into her Balance Breaker armour and promoting to Rook as she did so.

'Would be a bad idea to go full Dragon-form here.' Isane thought to herself as she raised one armoured arm and allowed the shadow-like tendrils to wrap around her arm. 'I'm limited to just this bridge in terms of where I can fight. If I were in an open space, I'd have a lot more room to manoeuvre.' Digging her armoured feet into the ground, Isane held on as the guy used the tendrils extending from his hands to pull himself towards her and Asia. Just as the guy entered close-range, Isane swung at the guy with her other armoured fist, but only barely managed to catch the side of the guy's face as he seemed to see this punch coming, and did the best he could to move himself out of the way of the punch.

Isane then jumped into the air and span around, taking the guy with her before the tendrils around her arm seemed to release themselves, sending the guy in black flying upwards as she landed back on the ground, and began Boosting up energy to fire at him.

While all of this was going on, Cao Cao looked over at Roxas, a smirk on his face.

"Well, it looks like your kids can stand up alright against my Hero Faction." The True Longinus wielder remarked, readying said Longinus and pointing it at Roxas. "Now, how about I be your opponent, Roxas? I'd hate for you to feel left out."

"Hopefully you can put on a good show for me, Bergin." Roxas replied, getting into a more hardcore combat stance as Cao Cao did the same. It brought the Nephalem slight satisfaction to see a scowl forming on Cao Cao's face. "Let's go!"

The Nephalem and the Human then charged at each other at the same time. Cao Cao thrust his spear forward in an attempt to stab Roxas, but Roxas batted the spear down with Clarent Galatine in one hand, and summoned the Vindicator in the other to fire a shot at Cao Cao's face. Cao Cao ducked out of the way of the shot, rolled to the side and attempted to swipe at Roxas' legs, but Roxas jumped over the attack, de-summoned the Vindicator and instead fired a bolt of Twilight energy out of his left hand at Cao Cao, who dodged out of the way again. Though the bolt of energy caught the clothes he wore, tearing through them. The part of the bridge that Roxas fired into also came out with a hole in it.

As Cao Cao straightened up, his head was nearly taken off by a swipe from Roxas' own sword, causing him to have to bend back down and roll to Roxas' right, before he slashed up at the Nephalem, who turned around and blocked the attack. Though Roxas was slightly caught off-guard by the force and power behind the attack, and was forced into the air. Cao Cao was all too glad to follow him with a jumping thrust upwards and forwards that would have impaled Roxas there and then had he not dodged out of the way. As Cao Cao rose up into the air from the momentum gained by his thrust, Roxas spread his ten Nephalem wings and gave chase.

'So, he's not all talk.' Roxas thought to himself as the two clashed again. 'He actually does have skill and strength. I'm still stronger, though.'

Using his free hand, Roxas fired more bolts of energy towards Cao Cao as he approached, clashing with the True Longinus wielder with his sword again. Chuckling as all the bolts of energy flew past him, Cao Cao disengaged from the clash after half a second and prepared to fire another powerful bolt of Primordial Light from his True Longinus. Roxas dodged the attack, and de-summoned Clarent Galatine in favour of giving Cao Cao a punch to the gut, sending him flying backwards into the Twilight bolts, which had turned around and flown downwards without his knowing.

Growling in frustration, Cao Cao dashed at Roxas, firing another bolt of Primordial Light at the Nephalem, from too close a range for Roxas to be able to dodge. The bolt got him full in the chest, sending him downwards with such speed that he fell through the wood that the bridge was made out of, landing in the Katsura River below as Cao Cao lightly landed on one of the rails of the bridge.

As Roxas rose out of the water, dripping wet, sword in hand and a scowl of his own on his face, Cao Cao smirked, as if he had just realised something.

He readied his True Longinus as Roxas dashed forward, slashing through tentacles of water created by the guy in the Magician's robe as he did so. Roxas clashed again with Cao Cao, who took a more defensive stance as Roxas slashed at him, which gave him an easier time of dodging the bolt of lightning that Roxas chose to fire towards his head.

"Not pulling any punches, are you?" Cao Cao remarked, under his breath, disengaging from the clash and jumping back, landing on a magic-circle of his own creation as the True Longinus glowed. "Very well. I won't either."

The True Longinus began to glow in Cao Cao's hand.

Line Break

Kiba, Xenovia and Irina

At one end of the bridge, Kiba, Xenovia and Irina were trying their damndest to fight against Siegfried and his three Demon Swords, though they could only barely keep up with him. He seemed to be fast enough to at least react to and dodge Kiba's sword-swings with his Sword of Betrayer, parrying a couple of his strikes with Balmung as he went. The same went for Xenovia, though he was parrying and swinging back to meet her attempted strikes with Gram, whose demonic aura was enough to counteract, or at least match, the holy aura of Durandal.

And Irina was only able to fight at a distance via firing bolts of light and occasionally throwing Excalibur Mimic (which she morphed into a large throwing knife) and then summoning it back to her with another throw, in order to stay a safe distance away from the powerful demonic aura of Nothung.

"Why in God's name did you leave the Church, Siegfried?!" Xenovia shouted at her white-haired opponent, as Durandal clashed with Gram. The Holy and Demonic auras of both swords combined to the point that it made both combatants sweat, but neither let up as they pushed against the other.

"Cao Cao found me and told me that I could do so much more than fight for a dead God." Siegfried replied, momentarily disengaging from his clash with Xenovia to parry and slash back at Kiba, who had attempted to approach him from behind. "And after I heard his ambition, I believed him and left to follow him. It's that simple."

Siegfried then swung all three Demon Swords at Xenovia, sending waves of powerful demonic energy from all three swords towards her, forcing her to raise Durandal up in order to block all three waves. Though she came out of the attack unscathed, she was still forced to slide backwards from how powerful the attack was.

After some distance was put between himself and the Durandal wielder, Siegfried turned his full attention onto Kiba, rushing towards Rias' sole Knight and using his skill and aptitude with the three Demon Swords to their full effect. Using a wave of powerful demonic aura from Gram to force Kiba to jump far enough away from him that he couldn't slash at him, slicing through a magical barrier that Kiba quickly threw up to keep the distance between the pair of them with Nothung, while also raising Nothung's wide blade to shield himself from a number of bolts of Light energy fired by Irina, and pulling Balmung backwards to summon a drill-like whirlwind from behind Kiba, pulling him close in towards the white-haired former Exorcist, which left him open to a kick in the stomach that took the wind out of Rias' Knight.

A shout from behind alerted Siegfried's attention to Xenovia, who had recovered from his previous attack on her. As he turned around, he could see the bluenette former Exorcist now running at him, Durandal lowered slightly in order to slash at him from below. As Siegfried looked to his right and saw Irina there, preparing to fire several more bolts of light at him from the side, the former Exorcist with the nickname of Chaos Edge pointed Balmung at Irina and pulled it backwards towards himself, performing the same move on her as he had done on Kiba.

As Irina flew towards him and Xenovia, letting out a cry of surprise as she did so, Siegfried neatly stepped back, causing Xenovia and Irina to nearly crash into each other. Their momentary lapse in concentration on Siegfried while trying to steer out of each other's way gave Siegfried the perfect opportunity he needed to slash at both females with Nothung, catching both Xenovia and Irina and leaving moderately deep gashes.

Xenovia let out a hiss of pain, gritting her teeth as she tried to ignore the stinging pain around her stomach area (which was where Nothung caught her), as well as the immediate bleeding on her school uniform, but she let out a gasp of shock as she saw Irina.

Heaven's Ace of Spades had fallen to her knees and dropped Excalibur Mimic. A smoke-like substance that had the colour of blood rose from the gash on her stomach, and her eyes had widened as she looked down at the demonically-charged wound. She looked like she could barely process the fact that she had been cut by a powerful Demon Sword, especially one that literally specialised in sharpness and cutting.

"Irina!" Xenovia cried, rushing over to Irina and catching her with one hand when she keeled over backwards. "Are you okay?!"

"Xenovia..." Irina spoke, sounding like she was trying her hardest to force out the word. "I'll be okay... I just feel w-weak. That and I'm b-bleeding."

Xenovia gave a small sigh of relief at the confirmation that Irina was (at least somewhat) okay. Re-summoning Durandal to her hand, she stood back up (in spite of her own pain from the slash in her stomach) and prepared to face down Siegfried, who slowly approached her with an odd look on his face. Though, when the bluenette Knight felt her arm being grabbed by her former partner, she thought better of it, de-summoned Durandal, reached down to lift Irina up over her shoulder, and rushed away from Siegfried, with Kiba (who had picked himself up after having all the wind taken out of him by Siegfried's kick) quickly following.

Blake and Akame

Blake and Akame weren't faring that much better against their large opponent. Nothing, not even the poison that the blade of Akame's Demon Sword Murasame was imbibed with (which the grey-haired big guy had been injected with thanks to the several cuts that Akame had delivered to him over the course of the fight) could do much to slow him down.

Blake was barely hanging on: creating purposefully-flimsy clones of herself in order to simultaneously distract their opponent from the real version of herself (plus Akame) and keep herself as strong as possible. All while she did so, she converted her katana sword into a pistol and began shooting at the grey-haired man.

She aimed for the man's eyes: not only were they decently big, making for serviceable targets, but they were the only possible weak point left that Blake could reasonably identify, considering that striking at anywhere else, with as much strength as she had, seemed to do all the good of smacking a brick wall with a broken stick.

Blake ducked out of the way of Akame as she rushed towards the guy (who had introduced himself as Heracles) and prepared to swing Murasame at him. However, Heracles just raised up his armour-coloured arms and let Akame's sword bounce off of them, before reaching out to try and grab Akame by the head.

However, Akame was able to sidestep Heracles' attempted grab, duck down and slash at his unprotected thighs, giving him another couple of small gashes there before she was forced to roll away as Heracles (seemingly unaffected by the immediate effects of being cut in the legs) reached down to tray and grab her again. Akame dodged this, too, and jumped backwards, out of grabbing range. She flipped backwards and landed just beside where Blake was stood, as she reloaded the pistol function of her sword.

"This isn't working." Akame surmised, narrowing her red eyes as Heracles slowly approached the pair of them, a grin on his face. "Not even my poison can hurt him much. Only way I think we can win against him is if I cut down his body bit by bit. But that requires time we don't have.

"As if I didn't notice." Blake replied, her tone a deadpan. "But we can't exactly run away now."

"Damn right you can't." Heracles replied, stopping in front of Blake and Akame. "I'll be honest, if I didn't love fighting as much as I do, I'd totally be dating the pair of you right now. You're certainly cute enough for me."

Blake and Akame both decided to ignore the implication that Heracles literally didn't know what being told 'no' by a woman (or even anyone, for that matter) was, and readied their weapons again.

Isane

After Boosting up enough energy, Isane fired a large laser up into the air towards the guy in black, and spread her armour's Dragonic wings to fly up into the air. Just as the laser was about to hit the guy, Isane began Boosting again to store up more energy for another shot of energy.

However, before that could be done, she heard a male voice yelling "Balance Breaker!", quickly followed by a number of shadow-like tendrils flying towards Isane's right arm and wrapping themselves around her, followed in turn by what looked like a human-shaped shadow flying towards her. The Boosted Gear wielder was forced to fire the laser off early with her left arm, and fly out of the way of the human-like shadow (which she could only assume was the guy that she had thrown into the air), while charging up more energy to fire at the shadow.

She noticed that the guy still had his tendrils attached to her arm, and was using them to pull himself towards her in mid-air. Isane also noticed that the guy's speed had drastically increased since he had activated Balance Breaker. She dodged an incoming kick from the human shadow, and returned in kind with an attempt to punch the guy in the stomach. The punch definitely connected, though Isane's fist just travelled straight through the guy's body, dispersing shadows at it went.

'He's immune to physical attacks?' Isane thought to herself, spinning around to try and throw the guy off her. Eventually, she managed to get the guy off of her, throwing him back onto the bridge that they had initially begun their fight on. She landed on the bridge seconds later, next to Asia (who had Promoted to Bishop and created a magical barrier to keep herself in, only opening it for a split second to allow Kiba, Irina and Xenovia inside before closing it up again.

["Sure seems that way."] Ddraig's voice sounded from within Isane's head. ["Try hitting him with those boosted-up energy lasers, those might be more effective than just punching the shit out of him."]

'I was just going to try that!' Isane mentally replied, slightly indignantly. 'Also, hi. Been a while since you decided to talk to me.'

["Couldn't stand to talk while the wielder of the white prick was close by."] Ddraig replied, as Isane began to Boost up her power again. ["I'll let you know when you're at your limit, so you can blast that shadowy prick to kingdom come. Keep him occupied until then, what you were doing earlier seemed to work pretty well."]

'Got it.' Isane replied, smirking underneath her armour as the guy attached his tendrils to her again, and pulled himself towards her. Isane jumped up into the air, pulling the guy with her. As her power kept Boosting, she noticed the guy sending tendrils towards her head. She quickly moved her head out of the way of the tendrils, and yanked her captured arm backwards with her superior Nephalem strength, which had the desired effect of pulling the guy up towards her. Once she was close enough, Isane infused her right arm with lightning for a split second, jolting the shadow-man to the point that he was forced to let go of her, which Isane took advantage of by quickly flying further up, to the very border of where the shadowy border was at, just so the shadow-man couldn't re-attach himself to her.

Even from where she was hovering, Isane could see the look of surprise and horror on the shadow-man's face after he had extended his tendrils to try and grab onto her again, followed by him falling towards the bridge that they were initially fighting on.

["Isane, you're at max power now!"] Isane heard Ddraig calling. Silently acknowledging the red Dragon's words, Isane flew down towards where the shadow-guy was falling, and after conjuring a small ball of light energy (she figured that it'd be the best thing to conjure up in this moment against this opponent, considering the fact that he was made of shadows), she transferred the Boosted-up energy to said small ball, transforming it into an enormous laser that completely engulfed the shadow-man as he fell. The Boosted Gear wielder heard a loud scream of pain from the shadow-man as she landed lightly (or as lightly as she could, clad in red Dragon armour as she was) on the bridge as the laser faded away, revealing the guy that was once a shadow-man lying there, barely conscious.

"I'd give up, if I were you." Isane remarked quietly, as she left her Balance Breaker armour and folded her arms. The guy that was once a shadow-guy didn't seem to agree with her sentiment, considering that he was trying his hardest to get to his feet and continue the fight.

"N-never!" the guy shouted, successfully getting to his feet but still visibly shaking from the strain that getting up seemed to put on him. "I-I can't... for Cao Cao, I-"

"That's enough, Connla." the voice of the guy in the Magicians' robe sounded, as said guy appeared. "You can't fight as you are right now. Come on, I'll get you out."

"R-right." The newly-named Connla replied. "Got it, Georg."

Georg opened a transportation-circle that Connla hobbled into with one hand, while he looked over towards Isane, tilting his head in slight curiosity. After a second or two, he extended his other hand out towards the Red Dragon Empress, and tentacles made of water began to extend out from his arms, slightly slower than Connla's shadow-tendrils. However, before they could even reach Isane, the tentacles were cut through by Roxas as he dashed across the bridge, between Isane and Georg, in an attempt to get to Cao Cao.

Georg blinked a couple of times from the unexpected interruption, sighed, and left the scene in a swirl of the same purple smoke that made up the barrier that everyone was currently trapped in.

Roxas

Roxas swung at Cao Cao again as he approached, though the spear-wielder easily raised the glowing True Longinus to block Roxas' strike, and quickly swiped back at the Nephalem, far faster than he had done anything before now. Something that Roxas almost instantly noticed as he jumped back to dodge the attack. Though he escaped harm, Cao Cao's spear still got so close to Roxas' stomach that it cut a hole in his shirt, burning the garment slightly as it went judging by the smell that came from the hole made by the spear.

'Where did that speed come from?' Roxas thought, surprised as he took another jump to put further distance between himself and Cao Cao, with the Ultimate Longinus wielder dashing forward and slashing at him again. He was barely able to dodge the two swipes aimed for his head, and raised his sword to parry the third. 'Is the Gear influencing him somehow? Is he using Touki?'

Roxas went back on the offensive, slashing at Cao Cao again, though Cao Cao easily raised his spear to block Roxas' strike, before lifting it above his head and thrusting it forward in a downward stab. Roxas quickly leant out of the way of the attack, jumped backwards while creating a magic-circle behind him, landed on the magic-circle, and used it as a springboard to launch himself forward and slash at Cao Cao in an attack that he was barely able to dodge out of the way of. Roxas flew past Cao Cao and landed on the bridge, only clapping eyes on the two other people who showed up with Cao Cao and his Hero Faction (who just seemed to be watching the battles going on: not doing a damn thing) for an instant before he turned around just in time to block another slash from Cao Cao.

As the True Longinus wielder approached Roxas at lightning speed, he slashed at him again with enough force that Roxas, when he blocked it, was forced to slide backwards a few metres, almost crashing into Isane, who was standing guard in front of the barrier that inhabited Asia, Kiba, Irina and Xenovia.

'This is why I'm not the best in enclosed spaces.' Roxas thought to himself as he used a quick pulse of magic to shove Isane, Asia, Kiba, Irina and Xenovia away from him and Cao Cao with his free hand, while raising his sword with his other hand to block another swipe from Cao Cao's spear. 'I could have probably beaten this guy and his so-called Hero Faction by now if we were in a super-open space.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Roxas noticed Isane trying to use a transportation-circle to teleport herself and the others (not including Blake and Akame, they were still fighting the grey-haired big guy) out of the space that they, plus Roxas, had been pulled into. From where he was looking, it wasn't working.

As Roxas re-focused on Cao Cao, he noticed that the blade of the True Longinus was glowing far more intensely than before. He summoned the Vindicator and tried to fire at Cao Cao at close range, but the spear-wielder simply swung his spear to deflect the bullets away from him as he ran towards Roxas, beginning an almost never-ending assault of thrusts and slashes, mixing in a few kicks as well in order to really force Roxas onto the back foot.

Cao Cao wasn't just faster than before, either. Since the start of the fight, he seemed to have become stronger and faster. The only other human that Roxas remembered experiencing strength from on this scale was Vasco Strada... which wasn't the best sign.

Roxas and Cao Cao clashed again for a couple of seconds, doing their best to overpower each other, break the other's guard. Roxas came out on top, forcing Cao Cao to disengage. Roxas took advantage of this by swinging down at Cao Cao with such force that his sword hit the wood of the semi-broken bridge that he and Cao Cao were fighting on, bouncing off the wood as it did so.

Cao Cao, who had leant back to dodge the swing, smirked at this and dashed forward, de-summoning the True Longinus as he did so. In the split-second between Roxas swinging Clarent Galatine into the bridge and him realising that he had missed, Cao Cao stepped ONTO Roxas' sword (the rebated edge as opposed to the sharp edge, fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on one's point of view), and used it as a springboard to jump over the Nephalem as he lifted his sword up. Summoning the True Longinus (the blade of which was still glowing) while in mid-air, Cao Cao span around and slashed at Roxas' upper back, landing the first major hit out of either of them throughout the whole fight.

The effects of Cao Cao's attack on Roxas were instantaneous. The immediate beginning of the stinging pain that came with being slashed in the back was replaced by a much worse burning pain, causing Roxas to yell out. Growling, he turned around, tears suddenly coming to his eyes from the intensity of the pain in his back.

However, he didn't even get the chance to take one swing at Cao Cao, given that Cao Cao dashed forward and... thrust his spear into Roxas' stomach.

…

"Aaargh... fuck!" Roxas groaned, now feeling the same burning pain in his stomach as in his back, except four or five times more intense. His eyes swam as he looked over at Cao Cao, who had a smirk on his face. "The fuck... did you do?"

Cao Cao's smirk increased.

"Like I'd tell you that." he replied, pulling the True Longinus out of Roxas' stomach. He then turned away from Roxas, looking at something that Roxas himself couldn't quite see, given the state that he was in.

His eyes now streaming, Roxas could only look down and get a vague sight of blood oozing from the stab-wound in his stomach, before he fell to his knees and lost consciousness, with the last thing he heard being the sound of Isane screaming his name.

Line Break

Rias Gremory had a spring in her step as she walked out of her favourite book shop, an artbook for Violet Evergarden (an anime that she and Roxas both loved: she more than him) under her arm. It was something that she had been looking for, for months on end, and when she found out that the artbook in question was in the store closest to where she lived in Kuoh, it was all she could do to not start foaming at the mouth right there and then.

Either way, she now had the book in her possession, and she could hardly wait to head back to Roxas' Kuoh apartment (where she had now fully moved everything into) and look through every goddamn page of it. Ignoring the perverted looks that she always seemed to get from her fellow classmates (as school had just let out, many of them were milling around town), Rias walked down the street and turned right, heading down a quieter route to the apartment that she and Mirajane were currently the sole inhabitants of. As she headed down that route, she heard her phone's ringtone go off, and pulled it out of her bag, unlocking it to a text from Mirajane.

Going on a summon. Bigwig client thinks a curse has been placed on him and his business. Will probably take several hours. Don't wait up for me.

Rias sighed, put the phone back in her bag, and continued walking, transferring the VE artbook to her bag as well. It seemed that ever since she had joined Roxas' peerage, bringing her own peerage under the seemingly ever-growing umbrella of individuals that worked under her nephew, the number of job summons that she and her peerage had gotten had increased: prior to Rias joining up with Roxas, it was considered a busy week for her peerage when everyone had an average of 2 to 3 summon-contracts going throughout the week. But now, everyone was getting a good 5 or 6 summons per week, every week.

It was lucky that a) summons seemed to come in more often on the weekends, so school days were relatively free, and b) Devils/Nephalem (and supernatural beings in general) seemed to require less sleep than humans, so they had more time to do the summoning work, while also keeping up with schoolwork and training.

Though when Rias thought about it, it made sense. Palutena (she was delighted at the news of Palutena's pregnancy, and felt the same kind of excitement to be a great-aunt to her and Roxas' child: whether it was a boy or a girl (she was personally hoping for a girl from her nephew and his top wife)) had told her that Roxas had connections in places that she never would have thought she would get summon-contracts from, which was what allowed him to have summon-sheets delivered to those places.

It would have been quite impressive for someone who had next to no noble standing in the Underworld... had she not known that Roxas didn't exactly play by the rulebook of being a noble Devil (rather, he seemed to have torn his copy of the rulebook up and thrown it down the toilet... after using the pages as toilet-paper, of course).

Speaking of Roxas, Rias felt herself getting hot as her teenage mind wandered from him to the many... intimate, sessions that she had had with her nephew/King. Role-plays were by and far her favourite thing to do with him: Princess and knight, Masseuse and client, good daughter and bad boy, interrogator and prisoner, stripper and customer... Rias almost felt herself getting wet from just the memories of some of the hottest role-plays that she and Roxas had done together.

Rias was shaken from the reminiscence about the sexier times that she and Roxas had had together by a yell coming from a dark street to her left. Looking down the street, she saw a purple-haired young woman in the Kuoh girl's school uniform smacking a larger figure (Rias could easily see, with the natural night vision that came with being who she was, that the person that the purple-haired girl had hit was a man) in the head. The man stumbled, clutching his head, and tried to attack back, but the purple-haired girl swung her wooden sword at him and hit him in the head again, which caused the guy to spin around before falling to the ground.

Rias blinked, and briefly considered walking away from the fight, as it seemed to be over, but the sound of an animalistic growl coming from the man that the purple-haired girl had knocked down convinced her otherwise. As she took a couple of steps down the street, she saw that the man had gotten back to his feet, and seemed to be changing before her (and the purple-haired girl's) eyes.

The guy grew up to three times his original size, his hair grew from ear-length to below shoulder-length, his teeth sharpened and adjusted to the point that they looked like the teeth of a wolf, and his skin took on a sickly-looking dark brown colour. Rias didn't know just what kind of creature the man had transformed into, but one quick read of his wild aura told her that this was a Stray Devil.

Luckily, it didn't seem to be a particularly powerful one, so it could be taken out without the need for backup. Though there was the factor of the purple-haired girl in question.

"Get out of here!" Rias shouted towards the girl, who turned around, her blue eyes widening at the sight of Rias Fuck-Mothering Gremory standing behind her in some kind of combat stance.

"I... what..." she tried to speak, but she didn't seem to have the energy to force the words out. Her bokken hung loosely at her side, and she didn't even seem to notice the Stray Devil extending one of his arms towards her. Rias, however, did.

Quick as anything, she reached out her hand and cast a transportation-circle right below the Human girl's feet, activating it just as the Stray Devil was about to grab her, teleporting her to a location a few paces behind Rias: she was safe, good. That meant Rias could take out this Stray Devil without any distractions.

And take out that Stray Devil she did. Conjuring up several small magic-circles with nothing more than a thought, she fired a dense, powerful ball of her Power of Holy Destruction out of each circle, and watched them all fly towards the Stray with the speed and power of an above-average baseball pitch behind them. When the balls of Holy Destruction hit the Stray, they obliterated the part of his body that they hit, and once all six balls had hit, the Stray's head was all that was left of him. That was dispatched by a slightly-less controlled blast of Rias' regular Power of Destruction, ending the Stray for good.

Clearing the remains of the Stray away from the street in order to get rid of the evidence that there had been a fight of any kind here, Rias turned around to where she had teleported the girl, hoping that she had run away... she hadn't. She had done just about the opposite of run away.

She had fainted.

Rias sighed and walked over to the girl, re-adjusting her school uniform and bag as she went. Once she reached the girl, she knelt down, checking to see if the girl was injured. Luckily, it seemed that that was not the case. As she checked, she realised who this girl was after a second or two.

Her name was Saeko Busujima. She was a third-year student (though in a different class to Rias), and was the captain of the school's Kendo Club.

Upon this realisation, Rias thought for a second. After getting an idea, she opened a transportation-circle for herself and Saeko. Lifting her up with magic, she stepped into the transportation-circle, and vanished back in a soft flash of light.

Line Break

Roxas had no idea how much time had passed since the battle on the Togetsukyo Bridge as he slowly opened his eyes. Even though he felt slightly woozy, he could tell that the room he had woken up in wasn't his.

Blinking a couple of times as his vision came to him, he looked around and saw that he was in a traditional-looking Japanese bedroom. The bed he was lying in was lower to the ground than most beds he had lain in, and the room seemed more sparse than other bedrooms, especially his own: there was just a low table directly beside the bed, a nice painting of the city of Kyoto on one of the walls, and another small table with two smaller cushions on either side of it.

Roxas attempted to pull himself up, but he let out a hiss from the sharp pain that suddenly flared up in his stomach.

Almost exactly on cue, the door to the bedroom slid open, and Sun Wukong stepped in, carrying the staff that he always carried in one hand. A tray with two cups and a steaming kettle on it floated beside him, probably controlled by magic. Wukong immediately noticed Roxas, a small smile coming to his wrinkled, creased face.

"Oh, you're awake." the former Monkey Youkai spoke. "Good. It's been four hours."

"Hey, Wukong." Roxas replied, trying to slowly pull himself into a sitting position. Wukong swifly stepped forward, sitting down beside Roxas (with the tray with cups and teapot following him and descending beside him), and held a hand up.

"Careful." he spoke. "I wouldn't try that, if I were you."

"G-got it." Roxas replied, just as the pain began coming back, prompting him to lie back as Wukong poured some tea into a cup for himself, and then into a second cup for Roxas. As he did so, Roxas spoke up.

"So, uh, what happened?" he asked. "Is everyone okay?"

"The kids that you had with you? They're fine." Wukong replied. "Raven was alerted to your danger when you, I assume, began fighting against Cao Cao, and called everyone to try and break through the Dimensional Lost's fog when she found out that she couldn't get through it. By the time I was able to break through the fog, the kids were all inside a barrier created by one of your Pawns, Blake and Akame were still fighting the descendent of Heracles, you were unconscious and Bergin was standing over you."

"So that's why he didn't try and finish the job on me after he stabbed me." Roxas replied, looking down and noticing that there were bandages wrapped around his midriff, over where Cao Cao had stabbed him. "I owe you for that, you were just in time."

"Don't mention it." Wukong replied. "Anyway, Bergin and his group retreated after we all arrived. He also was kind enough to let slip that he's going to be at Nijo Castle tomorrow night. Raven's putting together a group to go and take him down as we speak. Also, we're at Kali's house now. I brought you here."

"Sweet." Roxas replied, ignoring the last two sentences from Wukong as he tried to sit up again. "I'll have to pay that prick back for getting me like he did."

"Not so fast." Wukong replied, holding up a hand again. "There's still a couple of things that we need to discuss. Firstly, what Bergin did to you."

He pointed at Roxas' stomach. When Roxas looked down, he noticed that the wound in his stomach seemed to be mostly healed. What was a lance-blade-shaped hole in his stomach was now just a small scar that would probably fade away within a day or two.

"After the Twilight Healing girl got a hold of you," Wukong spoke. "She managed to fix of the physical aspect of your wound. As far as the flesh-and-bone side of you is concerned, you're fine."

Roxas furrowed his brow.

"Physical aspect?" he repeated. "You saying Cao Cao did something to me beyond stabbing me in the stomach?"

"That's exactly what he's saying."

Roxas and Wukong looked up to see Dr. Strange pulling one of the sliding doors open, and pulling it to after he walked in. He sat down beside Wukong.

"Nice to see you awake, Roxas." Strange remarked. "Let's not waste time: Wukong has reason to believe that Cao Cao targeted one of your life-forces."

"Life-forces?" Roxas blinked. "As in plural?"

"Yes." Wukong replied. "You're a Nephalem, right Roxas? Hybrid of Angel and Devil?"

"I am." Roxas replied. "At least, that's what I'm told. Am I... not?"

"No, no, you are." Wukong replied. "Though, you were born as a Devil, right?"

"I was." Roxas replied. "What's up with that?"

"How did you become a Nephalem in the first place?" Wukong asked. "Because it could line up with my hypothesis of why what Cao Cao did to you was able to happen."

"Well..." Roxas blinked. "Palutena, who was my girlfriend at the time, tried to turn me into an Angel by pumping an Angelic life-force into me. But, according to her, it didn't have the desired effect, and I came out as a Nephalem. With both angelic and demonic-" Something seemed to dawn on Roxas. "Ohh, I think I follow. Wait, how could Cao Cao target just one of my life-forces?"

"Advanced Senjutsu technique." Wukong replied. "He must have learned it himself after he ran away from me and my teaching, because I sure as hell didn't teach him how to do that." he sighed. "Anyway, Roxas. With what you told me, the possibility of my hypothesis being correct just went from 'This is likely, but there could be other options' to 'This is certainly true.'. You have two life-forces, one Angelic, one Demonic. Cao Cao must have used Senjutsu to target one of your dual life-forces, probably the Demonic one considering that he has the true Longinus, which would do far more damage to that one than the other one. That would have been bad enough, but the fact that you were born a Devil, and had a demonic life-force from the very beginning of your life, a demonic life-force that is now massively unbalanced from your Angelic life-force due to being partially wiped out by Cao Cao stabbing you with the True Longinus, could very well lead to... complications."

"What compli-" Roxas tried to ask.

"Being unable to use some of your powers that rely on demonic energy to their full extent at best, and likely some kind of new uncurable illness that would lead to a slow, painful death at worst." Strange replied, cutting across him. "But you seem to be stable right now, so those complications don't matter yet. What matters now, is fixing what's happened to you.

"Right." Roxas replied. "So, If I have two life-forces, can't either of you merge them into one?"

"I could, but that would be incredibly risky." Wukong replied. "I have many areas of expertise, but the merging of life-forces isn't one of them. I could certainly devise a ritual that, in theory, would unify your two life-forces into one, but I'm not sure I'd be able to do it right, which could make things worse for you. Plus, as I said before, your life-forces are majorly unbalanced, which I'm sure you don't want."

"Right." Roxas replied, looking from Wukong to Strange. "So... how do we fix that, then? Hopefully it's not as complicated as the idea of fusing my life-forces together." he added, with a chuckle.

"Even in a scenario that you could very well die in, you're still able to make a light remark out of the situation." Strange muttered, with a sigh. "But, luckily, yes. The solution is simpler than the idea of merging your life-forces, and is, in fact, being worked on as we speak."

"Cool." Roxas replied, a smile coming to his face. "So, uh, what is it?"

"An old magical ritual that Magicians of the past used to increase their innate magical power." Strange replied. "It's fallen out of favour among Magicians recently, but that's beside the point. I won't bore you with any long-winded explanations regarding how it works or what it requires. The important part of it, that you'll probably take interest in, are that Gondul and her granddaughter have devised a modified version of the ritual that will increase your demonic power, as well as restore your life-force. It'll take a while to complete: in your case, I'd say it would take a day and a bit."

"A day and a bit..." Roxas repeated, blinking. "Whatever Bergin's going to do to Yasaka at Nijo Castle is in a day and a bit." he pointed out.

"Which is why, if we're going to go through with this ritual, we must move quickly." Strange calmly retorted. "I'm told that the ritual will be perfectly safe for you, as your body will be able to handle the amount of energy that will float into you, unlike the bodies of humans that attempted the un-modified version of the ritual that we're going to do."

"I'll hazard a guess and say that that's why it fell out of favour." Roxas replied, a small smirk coming back to his face. "But anyway."

Roxas winced slightly as he pulled himself up into a sitting position, and gave Strange and Wukong a determined look.

"Let's do it."

Line Break

"Ahh..." a certain black-haired host of Vritra sighed, flipping herself over before sitting up and sliding off the massage table that she had been lying on. "That really hit the spot. Thanks so much, Ayaka."

Ayaka Kagari inclined her head in a short bow to her naked King, before opening a transportation-circle and disappearing, leaving Imogen alone to send the massage table back to a pocket-dimension of hers, before she summoned her underwear, a black tank-top and pair of jeans back onto her body, and then flopped onto the nearest couch, reaching for the TV remote.

It had been a couple of days since her Rating Game with Achilles Astaroth, in her second round of the Young Devils Rating Game Tournament. She had destroyed Eneely Vassago in the first round of the tournament nearly a month ago, and she had heard that Sairaorg had dispatched Zephrydor with just as little trouble.

The Belial Heiress' match with the now-Heir of the Astaroth Clan (who seemed to give as much of a fuck about being Heir to his Clan as her mate apparently did about being the Heir of the Gremory Clan, when he still held that position. In fact, she had heard rumours that Fianna Asmodeus had taken him on as an apprentice to make him her successor as a Satan) was certainly not an easy one. Her peerage had been mostly-overwhelmed by his, and she was damn sure that, had she not used her Balance Breaker like she had done in her Rating Game with Roxas, she would have come off worse out of herself and Achilles.

Ever since the match had ended in Imogen's victory, and her moving onto the final of the Tournament (which would be fought between her and Sairaorg Bael), she felt a pretty goddamn large need to unwind. Which was where Ayaka came in. Even though she was a licenced masseuse (taught by her mother, who was a Bishop in Serafall's peerage), Imogen had actually never had a massage from her Bishop before... until a few minutes ago.

And fucking hell, did she feel relaxed now. Relaxed to the point that she could probably sink into the couch she was relaxing on and sleep for a solid day or two.

'Man, I'll have to ask Ayaka for another massage once I beat Sairaorg.' Imogen thought to herself, trying her hardest to pay attention to the show she was watching when she heard a knock on her apartment door. The Belial Heiress couldn't even be bothered to get up, walk over to the door and open it, so she just swung it open with a little bit of magic: from where she was lying, she could see Wanda Maximoff standing in the doorway, prompting a giggle from her.

"You know you don't have to knock if you know I'm in, right Wanda?" Imogen asked, as the youngest Avenger stepped into her friend's home.

"Sorry." Wanda replied. "Force of habit. Congratulations on beating Achilles, by the way."

"You saw my Rating Game?" Imogen asked, pulling herself up into a sitting position and regarding Wanda with an amused look. When Wanda nodded back, she let out another short giggle. "Thanks. Was damn hard, but I still came out on top in the end. And that's what matters."

"Yeah." Wanda replied, walking over to one of Imogen's other couches and sitting down on it as Imogen lay back into the same position she was in before, her legs lazily hanging over one of the armrests. "I mean, I only saw the end of the Game, since I spent most of that day training as a Magician, but I still caught the highlights later."

"Oh yeah, how's that going, by the way?" Imogen asked, looking over at her Avenger friend as the TV played in the background.

"Pretty well, actually." Wanda replied. "I'm told that my magical power level is already comparable to a Bronze-Rank Magician, it's just my lack of training and experience that's currently keeping me at Blue-Rank."

"Blue's the one below the one where you graduate and get certified, right?" Imogen asked. She didn't fully remember the inner workings of the Magicians' ranking system off the top of her head.

"No, that's Purple." Wanda replied. "Blue's the one below that. It goes Green, Blue, Purple, Red, Bronze, Silver, then Gold. Then there's the whole Ten Platinums and Sorcerer Supreme thing above that."

"Ahh, gotcha." Imogen nodded. "Knew it was something like that." she added, with a yawn accompanying her remark as she summoned a can of Wanda's favourite soft drink from the fridge in her kitchen, and silently offered it to her. Wanda took it with her telekinesis, opened it and took a sip.

After a good half an hour of Imogen and Wanda casually chatting about random and not-so-random topics, Wanda had finally gotten through her second can of soft drink, and burped quietly as she looked over at her friend.

"Imogen, can I... ask you something? Something that's- uh, a little more serious?"

"Sure." Imogen replied, calmly, as she pulled herself back up into a sitting position. "What's on your mind, apart from all the stuff we just talked about over the past, I dunno-"

"It's about... Roxas." Wanda spoke. "You know. Your m-mate."

"What about him?" Imogen asked. "He hasn't cunt-punted Natasha again, has he?"

"No!" Wanda replied, resisting the urge to let out a smile of her own. "Since you know him the best out of anyone I know, I wanted to come and talk to you about it. Ever since I fought alongside him during the Zeppelin Incident, it's like I've been... hungry, but not in the kind of way that you can get over by eating." she looked down, a small blush coming to her face. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure how exactly to describe it."

"It's fine." Imogen replied. "And I get what you're feeling. I had the feeling myself, a while back."

Wanda looked up, her eyes wide as Imogen gave off a small smirk.

"You want to f-"

The sight of a red and black portal opening in Imogen's living room caused Imogen to stop mid-word in surprise, and look towards the portal, which Raven Branwen stepped through. Almost immediately, Imogen could tell that the Branwen Head was tense about something or other.

"Imogen." Raven spoke directly to the Belial Heiress, all-but-ignoring the sight of an Avenger in the same room as her. "I need you to come with me. There's something going down that some people would quite like your help with."

"-uck Roxas." Imogen finished her remark to Wanda, without looking back at her. Wanda's slight blush increased in intensity tenfold, which Imogen didn't see. Raven did, however, and Imogen could have sworn that she saw one of the Branwen Head's eyebrows raising a centimetre or two.

"I'll ignore the question regarding what you were talking about regarding my partner with an Avenger, Imogen." Raven remarked. "And I'm sure you're recovering from your Rating Game with Achilles, but your help would be massively appreciated with the matter I'm involved in."

"Well, if it's got you asking for help, then it has to be big." Imogen replied, looking back over to Wanda. "I guess we'll have to pick up on this conversation another time, Wanda. Sorry to leave you hanging and all that."

"It's f-fine." Wanda replied, standing up and quickly exiting the apartment via her own transportation-circle, her blush still present on her face. Once she was fully gone, Imogen turned back to Raven.

"So, what's this matter that you're involved in that needs my help, Raven?"

"I'll tell you when I've gathered everyone." Raven replied, taking a step back towards the portal that she had come through, which was still hanging in the bedroom. "If you're in, then come on."

Imogen nodded, and without another word, followed Raven through her portal, exiting her apartment altogether.

FORRRRRRRRRRSAAAAAAAAKEEEEEEEEEEENED, I AAAAAAAAM AWAKEEEEEEEEEENED, A PHOENIX'S ASH IN DARK DIVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE~ DEEEEEEESCEEEEEEEENDIIIIIIIIING MISEEEEEEERYYYYYYYYYYYY, DESTINYYYYYYYYYYYYY CHASING TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME~

*ahem*

Bury the Light fucking slaps. And the Little V. cover is just as badass. Can't wait for DMC5: SE.

And that's the 47th chapter of Nephalem finally done! Sorry that this one took longer than my more recent chapters have done, was feeling under the weather (not Covid, thank fuck) and pretty much lost all motivation to write at that point. But now I'm back, and I'll try to get more chapters out to make it up to you readers.

With this chapter, we get the (official, I guess) debut of Cao Cao (or Cunt Cunt, as I like to call him), his Hero Faction, and Saeko Busujima... aka Highschool of the Dead's only good character. Or rather, the only good thing about that whole fucking show (shots fired, I guess). I got decently big plans for Saeko, so hope that fans of her (and just anyone in general who came across this fic and has stuck through it for this long) stick around to see what those plans turn out to be... though the fact that she's been saved by RIAS and is one of the most famous sexy swordswomen in anime (can't imagine why) will probably be able to guess what at least 66% of those plans are.

Actually, not 66%. Number's probably closer to 70%.

Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! Whether you did or you didn't, please leave a review and let me know, because I really do love hearing feedback of all kinds. If you fancy letting me know about some possible ideas you might hae for later in the story, or just have questions for me (because I'll be happy to answer them), let me know in a review, drop me a PM or hit me up on Discord (name for it is on my profile)... preferably the latter, because fuck this site's PM system.

Next Time: Rias' Offer, Battle of Kyoto Part 1

Preview of Next Chapter:

"Send her in, Winter." Fianna calmly replied to her top agent.

Three Sizes of New Girls:

Le Fay: 77-56-78

Saeko: 83-56-86

Seeya!

…

DIIIIIIIIIIIIISAAAAAAAAAAAAAPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAR INTOOOOOOOOOO THE NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT, LOOOOOOOOOOST SHADOWS LEFT BEHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND~ OOOOOOOOOOBSSEEEEEEEEEESSION'S PULLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING MEEEEEEEEEEEE, FADING I'VE COME TO TAKE WHAT'S MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE~

Fucking hell, I'm gonna be singing Bury the Light for MONTHS.