Juggernaut
I, who shall awaken.
I'm floating through a huge ocean. It's red, just like my armor, just like the president's hair, just like the blood that came from my nose a few moments ago, though more reflective than opaque, like a pond shining from the city's lights.
My thoughts are wandering, I need to focus. A few moments ago? What was happening? Diodora, and that other devil, Shalba, I remember them being there.
Asia?
Ah, so that's how it is.
My rage from just before, it feels numb. No, that's not right. It's like it's being drained away. Everything does actually, everything's fading away.
I look around me. It's all just water, still and dark. Oh, it's night then? The red tinted water is reflecting crimson stars. The stillness is eerie, I'm pretty sure even an untouched lake would shake from tidal forces. It's as if something is draining all the energy from the water.
I try to paddle and adjust myself, but my hands catch grip on the water. Is this one of those semi solids we learned about last week? No, it's something else, I can feel it. I push myself up onto the water's surface and try to catch my bearings. But there's nothing around, no landmarks to orient myself.
Think, Issei. Where are the president and the others? Nothing should've happened to them, the pillar of light only took Asia, and the crimson only took me. No, orient yourself first, they should be able to deal with Diodora and that Shalba guy, you need to focus on getting yourself out of here.
But where is here?
"Within yourself."
That's not exactly helpfu- "Huh?"
"This place is within yourself."
There's a voice that's neither mine nor Ddraig's. It's a girly voice, one that's familiar and foreign, yet also toneless.
"Who are you?" I ask the voice.
I am the heavenly dragon who stole the principle of domination from God.
"I am the Red Dragon Emperor." She answers plainly. Ah! I look behind me and sure enough, there she is, dressed in a cream-white robe. With her blonde hair and emerald eyes beneath her hood, and those large boobs under that robe, I can't help but think of her as pretty.
"Ah, hmm… Uh! Ddraig, you were a girl dragon this whole time!?"
"Though I am a dragon spirit residing within the Boosted gear, I am not, strictly speaking, the heavenly dragon himself." What?
Her grace seems to understand my complete lack of understanding, though, and courteously informs me. What a nice lady. "I am the spirit of a previous wielder of the Boosted Gear, residing within after being consumed by it in such the way that you are currently. In this way, we are linked in the same way that we and the dragon of domination were. I am a past Ddraig, as you are the current." Oh, what a clean and succinct explanation that even an idiot like me can understand.
Hold on a second.
A cold sweat falls down my neck. "Consumed…?" But I don't need her wonderful voice to explain it to me. I already know. I could feel it the moment I got here, after all. "Then, am I going to become like you? A depressed spirit in the Boosted Gear while it moves on to the next guy?"
"That is correct." Damnit, of all the times to not be stupid, why did I pick now?
"So?" I ask. "How do I, er, not?" She used the thing too, right? She's gotta know how to get out of this.
"As you are, you cannot." Damnit. But before I think of anything else, she starts talking again. "Issei Hyoudou, to save yourself, you must want to save yourself." Eh?
"What do you mean, senpai? I clearly want to get out of here! I've gotta kick those guys' asses and help everyone else!"
"You know what I mean, Issei Hyoudou." There's a softness in her voice now, but for some reason I can't find any comfort in it. "Let go, and you can free yourself from our prison." I want to say more, I want to ask more, but before I can get anything out my shadow grabs me by the ankle and pulls me under the water's surface.
My last sight is of pitch-black wings consuming all I can see, blotting out a gentle smile that looks much more fitting for her face than that blank look.
"I truly wish you the best of luck, Issei, that you might overcome this grim fate of ours."
I mock the infinite, and fret over the dream.
When I open my eyes, the quiet red ocean is gone, and I'm behind the old school building, where I fought Vali. There's another presence here, one I notice immediately this time. Dressed in a stark white suit, his clothes look rich, like a noble. Well, that's what the ascot says to me, anyway.
"Are you a Ddraig-senpai too?" I ask him, the only thing I can think of.
"No and yes, respectively." He answers in a way I don't understand. "In your terms, I'd be an 'Albion-senpai,' I think." Eh? You think? "Yeah, I think. At the moment I'm in kind of the same situation as you. I must, how did you put it? 'Get my bearings?' But for now, we should help you first, yeah? I'm going to need solid ground before I can decide what to do with you, after all." His face is set in a grin, but it's mostly for show, I can tell, like there's something he doesn't quite get himself.
"First order of business." He interrupts my thoughts. "Red Dragon Emperor, what is it you're so afraid of?"
I'd like to say I was surprised at the question, but worryingly, it seems that I don't have the energy for that, so I settle on being confused. A common trend of my life, it seems. "What do you mean?" I question him.
"You know what I mean. Even I can tell, the darkness shackling you isn't despair like the rest of the red dragons, at least not yet. It's fear. You're afraid of something, and you know that you are." And he's right, so then…
I shall become the red dragon of domination.
"That's the key." He said it for me, huh? "It might not cancel the Juggernaut Drive but acknowledging that fear should at least open the way to have someone out there help you out of it." And he just kept going. This handsome bastard really has no tact for tension.
"So that's it? I just look at my fear and say, 'you're real and I see you,' and then wait?" I impatiently ask. "That seems a bit easy, don't you think?" I knew the catch was coming the moment he opened his stupid handsome mouth.
"You are absolutely correct, Red Dragon Emperor. One could consider it the easiest thing in the world." But? "However." There it is. "Since when were easy things ever easy?" What.
"No, seriously. What?"
The Albion-senpai bastard chuckles at that. "Allow me to explain. You already knew about it, yet you've gone this far without even acknowledging its presence. So, what makes you think you'll do so now?" He asks the most obvious and least wanted question he could've.
"Because I have to." I answer, mustering all the strength I have left into resolve. "Because the others depend on me."
"Ah, that's not quite the right answer, Red Dragon Emperor." This guy…!
"Then what the hell-""Our time here is up." He interrupts me, and the ground rumbles. "Issei Hyoudou, though we are rivals, or rather, it is because we are rivals that I know the despair that would come should you fail to find the correct answer. You must look within yourself; you must open yourself up to yourself, and you must find it yourself." He looks away and as the ground opens up and swallows me those black wings devour my vision again. "To say my expectations are high would be a lie." He offers one last remark. "But my hopes couldn't be higher." And I see nothing again.
I shall drown you in the depths of crimson purgatory.
For the third time, I open my eyes and find myself somewhere new. There's a water fountain, and I'm surrounded by trees. I know this place, it's where I died, after all. I look over to the fountain and find exactly what I expect. Just there, floating above it is a dark shadow with pitch black wings. I can't make out any details, but I don't need to, I know who it is already.
"Raynare." And though I speak, knowing now what they all meant in an instant, the shadow makes no response, simply floating there looking down on me. I simply sigh. "I'd say you were stubborn, but you were actually a coward when it came down to it, weren't you? So, I guess the stubborn one is me, isn't it?" I consider for a moment, and my own wings erupt from my back and carry me up to her, putting me at what I would say was eye level, if she had eyes.
"Yeah, I really do hate you, don't I?" My left hand reaches out for her, and she reaches back. "But you also hate me too, don't you?" Her arm unravels and begins covering mine in darkness. "But, more than that, you betrayed me. Even though I was really, really happy to meet you, you betrayed me."
Juggernaut Drive.
"You killed me." I close my eyes. "But more than that, you made me afraid." I grip my hand into a fist, grabbing hold of her. "Afraid that everyone else would leave me alone too."
I feel the Boosted Gear appear around my arm, inside the darkness consuming it.
"I know they wouldn't, but that doesn't make me any less afraid of it. It's something I can't explain. But I know it, and it's you."
[Boost]
The dragon's light— my light— bursts forth from the gauntlet, and the darkness evaporates, leaving the shadow armless.
"I don't know if I'll ever really face this fear."
[Boost]
The light destroys her lower body this time.
"And I don't know if I'll remember this experience."
DRAGON DRAGON OPPAI DRAGON
[Boost]
Her midsection is obliterated, and I can feel my energy returning.
"But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt!"
CLICK-CLICK
"Even if I'm a weakling like you thought I was, Yuma!"
[Boost]
The rest of her unravels and disappears; her black wings are the last thing I see before this world fades one last time.
"Before I die, I will definitely become a harem king!"
ZOOM-ZOOM IYAAAN
