Life 3. As the Blue Dragon…

Part 1

When I woke up in the morning, I started thinking about the matter of Baraqiel. I remember clearly when I met him. It was some time before I joined middle school.

My house was attacked by a black haired Magician who had wings; the left one was black feathered while the right one was bat-like. My mom held me close to her so I would be safe, while my dad, who could use Buddhism magic, tried to fight him off.

The Magician was about to kill my dad, but Baraqiel appeared and used his Holy Lightning on him. At some point of the battle, the Magician mentioned the words that have been engraved on my head since then.

"Human isn't a word that can describe my unique existence. I have the blood of the greatest existence, something a lowly Black Angel like you won't understand. I'm not a human, neither a Devil nor a Fallen Angel; I'm a being that goes beyond all those labels."

Even now, I don't understand what he meant, but what I remember is that he just disappeared after saying that. Baraqiel told us that he would be living with us to protect us if he ever came back.

Baraqiel… you conquered my mom while dad was alive, and when he died, you proposed to marry her. Just a week after my dad died, you married her… you have no respect. I owe no respect to you.

"Urgent reunion!"

The one who yelled that was Seiryu. After that, Oryu wakes up, and he dresses up on his regular sleeveless clothes.

"Seiryu-san is calling. We must go."

We get out of the room, and I see everyone is on their way to where Seiryu is. When I get close to Silverage and Ram, I put my hand on his shoulder and say my honest feelings.

"You did a great job with her last night."

Ram gets extremely blushed, but Silverage just says "thanks". Maybe their relationship is more complicated than I thought…

Part 2

When we got to Seiryu's bedroom, Byakko is lying on his side. However, there are burn marks all over his clothes.

"Byakko… is dead."

Everyone is shocked after hearing Seiryu's declaration. He then continues to talk.

"He was burned while sleeping. As a good member of the Five Principal Clans, I investigated about the opponents I face. And I can say; the Phenex Devils control fire."

He looks at Ram with his eyes filled with both hatred and killing intent.

"You killed him! I knew a dirty Devil shouldn't have entered here! Now you'll pay for this!"

An intense pressure comes out of his body as a blue aura covers him. He then creates a ball of the bright water from before and throws it at Ram!

"Ahhh!"

I can see Ram is feeling a huge pain. He then starts punching her while his punches are filled with that blue aura!

"Senjutsu is power that cannot be underestimated, and my touki is not an exception."

This is bad! His mysticism is extremely dangerous to Devils! And he's clearly going with everything!

Then, from his aura, a blue Dragon appears! So this is the Blue Dragon from the Four Sacred Beasts that lends his power to the Kushihashi clan.

"As the Blue Dragon… I have a mission. Purify evil beings. And you, Devil, should die here and now!"

The Dragon growls as he says that! I want to help, but there's someone even angrier than me.

"You bastard… no one touch my Ram!"

An intense black aura covers Silverage's body! He's totally going to protect his fiancée!

He summons a blade from his shadow and charges towards Seiryu! However, the Blue Dragon stops the blade by biting it.

"So you're willing to die for her… fine then, let's see what you can do!"

The Blue Dragon shots multiple balls of water, but Silverage protects himself with a magical barrier! He then starts creating more blades from the shadows.

"Blades from the shadows? I'm sure I read about this power before…"

Seiryu says my thoughts. However, unlike him, I know how Silverage can do that.

Silverage takes another blade and charges towards the Blue Dragon! The Dragon tries to defend himself by launching huge amounts of water, but Silverage dodges and slashes the Dragon!

"If that is all you can do, I'll finish you quickly."

Silverage creates 3 clones of himself, with each of them wielding a sword. The first one has a katana, the second one has a European long sword and the third one has a short sword. However, Silverage himself is wielding an extremely thick and long sword.

"This sword is that most powerful sword I can create with my power. Now go ahead."

Seiryu jumps towards the clones and punches them with both his touki and mysticism! Meanwhile, the Blue Dragon charges towards Silverage and-

"Did I mention this is a [Dragon Slayer] sword?"

Right after Silverage says that, he slashes the Blue Dragon!

"Ouuurgh!"

The growl of pure pain coming from the Dragon says it all. Even when the clones were defeated, Seiryu has severe injuries and the Dragon seems to be in extreme pain.

"Go back Blue Dragon; I cannot let such an important being like you die here."

As the Dragon disappears, Seiryu puts an expression of sheer anger.

"You! The Blue Dragon of the Four Sacred Beasts is in bad condition because of you! Damn you, Devil! You'll pay for doing that!"

Seiryu's blue aura gets even stronger and charges towards Silverage, landing a hit with mysticism and touki right onto his head!

"Agh!"

Silverage coughs a little bit of blood from the impact. However, he hasn't broken his stance.

"You felt for it. Now!"

From Seiryu's shadow, a blade appears and stabs his right leg!

"I can see what your strategy was, so I'm going to do this!"

Seiryu holds the blade and starts pulling it out of the shadow! Then, something comes out of it…

"Wha-What?! What is this?!"

What appeared form the shadow was a black dog. It is rather a large one; it has three red eyes and a blade coming out of its forehead.

"[Canis Lykaon]; it's one of the [Longinus] and Silverage's [Sacred Gear]."

As Goldentime says that, Seiryu panics even more.

"[Canis Lykaon]?! The Dog God of the Black Blade?! Get this monstrosity out of me!"

As he says that, the Dog God moves his blade to the right, cutting off Seiryu's leg. Seiryu directs his angry look towards Silverage after losing his leg.

"You… What are you?"

"I'm Silverage Lucifuge, the Devil of the Dog God."

While this is my first time seeing it in person, I'm not surprised. When [Destiny Deck] was promoted to [Longinus], I looked on Grigori's database to know more about the other ones.

One of these, [Canis Lykaon], was mentioned to be in possession of Silverage Erklight. Thanks to that, I finally understood what Azazel-sama and Penemue-sama meant; Silverage is the one gifted by God with the Dog God of the Black Blade.

Ram then gets close to Seiryu's cut leg and uses a Phoenix's tear on it. Ram then extends her arm towards Seiryu, holding his leg on it.

"Just put your leg on, otherwise this battle isn't going to be fun."

Silverage says such thing with a serious tone… only this man can do that. As Seiryu puts his leg back to its place, Suzaku interrupts the battle.

"I'll like to see a battle between the Four Sacred Beasts and the Dog God as much as everyone here; however, this battle is pointless: Byakko wasn't killed by her."

We all look at Suzaku who wants to explain something.

"Fire from the Phenex clan has similar properties to mine; the main difference is that one is made with demonic power while mine is made with Shinto mysticism."

She then points at Byakko.

"This fire, however, wasn't a normal fire. It was the Impure Fire."

The inheritors, Rina and Subaru are in shock after hearing that. I, however, have no idea what she meant by "Impure Fire".

"So it is true, the Dog God brought the Four Fiends here…"

Genbu says that while sighing. I remember the name "Four Fiends". Those are a group of 4 high class independent avatar type [Sacred Gears] that have a group of evil beings sealed within them.

"Gluttony, Ignorance, Chaos and Deviousness; they're the four Devils who betrayed both factions during the civil war. These four were terminated by the Shinto followers and sealed inside [Sacred Gears] in ancient times. I learned this story when I studied history in elementary school, back when I lived on the Underworld."

Ram explains that to us… it's weird to think that there are two Devils who share the nickname of Gluttony… the Sin of Gluttony and the Fiend of Gluttony.

"Our enemies from old times are here… let's go."

Seiryu says that before leaving to face the enemy who apparently is close. Both Suzaku and Genbu go short after him. However-

"Yuma-senpai, I'm scared."

Oryu tells me that while having teary. Since he's still a kid, facing such a dangerous enemy that killed one his friends must be extremely scary.

"Don't worry, I'll find a way to be with you."

"Seiryu-san won't allow you…"

Hmmm, he's right. That Seiryu clearly hates Devils and feels a huge pride of being the inheritor of one of the Sacred Beasts. He isn't going to allow me to help him.

"There must be another way…"

I look at the people gathered here, and I get an idea.

"Ham, do you think I could be there if you use [Dimension Change] on me?"

Asking Ham to use his [Sacred Gear] is hard. He doesn't like to use it, so unless you give him a really good reason, he isn't going to help you.

"That isn't a good idea; you'll have a huge change of being killed if you go there being small enough to not be noticed."

He's right… damn, I really want to help Oryu, but I'm unable to find a way.

"You can flatten Rito by eliminating one of his dimensions, right?"

"You're not wrong, I can do that; however, if Oryu blends him in that state, he would break a bone or maybe something even worse."

Thanks for trying, Mint…

"I think there's only one way."

Ham says that. So he's the one proposing something this time? That's new from him.

"María has been helping to get over my hatred towards my [Sacred Gear], and she told me a really interesting way to use it."

"If you can manipulate the amount of these dimensions, is it possible to manipulate what is inside them? Like, instead of size shifting, you could use it for shape shifting."

María repeats the words she said to Ham. So instead of changing my size, he'll change my shape…

"If that's the only way to be with Oryu, I'm willing to do it."

I look at Oryu, and he seems to have lightened up.

"You can turn into my necklace, they won't suspect if you do that."

Oryu gives Ham his golden necklace. So I'm going to look like these in a few moments, huh…

Ham takes off his eye patch and tells me a warning.

"Since I'm still working on this ability, it's a little bit unstable. Sorry if it hurts."

As Ham says that, a purple aura covers my body. I feel like it is restricting my movement, since I cannot move. I feel some pain before everything goes black.

I cannot speak, feel, hear or see. I feel like I'm on total and absolute darkness. Probably this is how being affected by [Number XII: The Hanged Man], which makes my opponents lose their senses for 30 seconds, feels like.

After a few seconds of darkness, I'm able to feel, hear and see again, but I'm still unable to move or speak. I can only look up. And everyone looks really big from this perspective.

"He should have returned to his senses by this moment, so you can take him."

As Ham says that, Oryu looks at me with a smile. I'm happy that he's happy.

However, when extends his hand towards me, I can see that it just gets bigger and bigger. After the hand gets bigger than my entire body, he holds me up and ties me to his neck string.

"He's able to think on that state, right?"

Haruka asks that while pointing at me. Off course I am!

"Yes, when Ham did that to me I was able to think."

Mint answers his question. Then, Ham follows with a deeper explanation.

"Consider this ability like transferring his consciousness to that object. He's able to see, hear and think; however, because of his body, he's unable to move or speak. Something I found interesting is that if Rito's psychic connection to the one who touches his body is strong, then that person would be able to hear his thoughts."

"That's true, when Ham turned me into mint flavoured gum, he was able to hear when I was asking to not be chewed."

Oryu looks at me. He clearly is wondering if he's able to hear me.

"Yes, I am able."

Oh, so you can hear me? That's going to make everything easier.

"You're right, Yuma-senpai."

"It seems like your connection is strong enough. Now, go and help the others."

Yeah, let's go Oryu!

"Let's go!"

As Oryu runs, the string on his neck moves from side to side, making me move with it. I think I'm feeling sick for this…

"Sorry for that Yuma-senpai, but I need to run!"

Don't worry, I forgive you. Just try to not move me that much…

Part 3

After running for a long time, I'm finally able to see Seiryu and the others. They're all in shock, and going by Oryu's expression, he's in shock too.

"Oh, Yellow Dragon of the Nakiri clan, you finally came. We were waiting for you."

A man with long black hair says that to us. I totally recognize his voice. What I don't get, however, is who the four people close to him are. They have blank and lifeless expressions, just staring at us.

"Now that he's here, answer my question. Who are you and why are you on our territory?"

"I'm Gluttony from The Seven Deadly Sins. I'm trying to stay close to your territory, but I'm not close enough to be affected by your shrines."

So this is Gluttony! However, that doesn't explain the other four. Since I don't see Pride, Envy or Greed, they cannot be the other sins.

"As for my goal, I came here with the Four Fiends so they can have their fated battle against you."

So these four are the owners of the [Sacred Gears] with the Four Fiends. So the Seven Sins were the ones behind Byakko's death…

"The Four Fiends, Devils who opposed Shintoism, have been our opponents since ancient times. You didn't need to bring them here; we would fight against them anyway!"

Seiryu is being overly honest about his thoughts like always. If he were to be in charge of the inheritors, the Five Principal Clans would be on war against who knows how many things.

Seiryu summons the Blue Dragon, Suzaku the Vermillion Bird, Genbu the Black Turtle and Oryu the Yellow Dragon. They're ready to fight!

"I'll just wait here while you fight. Now, go after them, Four Fiends."

The Four Fiends start moving towards us. The fated battle of the Four Sacred Beasts and the Four Fiends is about to start… and I'm just a necklace!