Hello everyone. A quick update this time. Next chapter will be a little short so think of this as compensation.
This chapter may finally offer some insight and answers for you guys. Enjoy!
Shoutouts:
: Magnificent comment. Please write more soon.
DatGuitarGirl: Yeeeees. It hapeneeeeeed. But he is not deaaaaaaad quite yeeeeeeeeet ;)
LightningSquall: how about this 4k chapter then? ;)
Primordial champion13: I am honored you would say that. I will try my best to make that statement stand.
Guest: no i guess you didnt ;)
Underworld - Rating Game Spectating Room
"Issei!" The collective shouts of Asia, Koneko, Rias and Akeno echoed through the room. "He is still breathing! Get help, quick!" Srizechs commanded. Not a minute later, Issei was on a stretcher, being carried across the expanse of the Underworld, with Rias, her peerage, and Sirzechs in tow. His back was charred, as well as his fourteen wings, which hung lifelessly from his back. Nothing of their original splendor, strength, or color remained.
White streaked across the sky, arcing down to the ground. "Gabriel." Sirzechs said, his expression dark. Soon her white robes flowed across the cracked ground of the underworld. "What happened? The shift of power was felt all the way into Heaven and it originated right here. Are you plotting a war against us? The Seraph demand an explanation right now!"
Then she noticed who was on the gurney. "Issei!" She cried in agony, rushing to his side. "My love what have they done to you?" She cried. Asia, Rias and Akeno groaned. "Not another one." They cried. "Why is he not in anshara?" Gabriel asked worriedly.
"Hell if I know, now get the hell out of here so we can get him to a hospital!" Rias shouted, pushing Gabriel out of the way, who fell to the ground. She remained there, kneeling on the ground as she watched her love be carried away, followed by the group of devils. "What is anshara?" Gabriel turned to see Sirzechs standing behind her. "And why are you here, Gabriel? I should kill you where you stand."
The doctors labored on Issei for hours. But Issei was a unique creature. Without any knowledge of what medicines or procedures would help, they were confined to the removal of dead tissue and cleaning of wounds. Now Rias, Akeno, Koneko, Asia and Kiba sat around the bed of the unconscious angel.
It was not looking good. Issei's breathing noticeably shallowed over time, his skin turned a color close to ashen and he was sweating profusely. Something fundamentally changed within Rias right there. She was not going to idly sit by as she watched the person who saved her twice now die. "What are you doing, Rias?" Akeno asked, as she watched Rias rummage around. "I will not sit here and watch him die, Akeno." She took out her eight pawn pieces, her knight piece and her rook piece. "You can't resurrect a full angel, Rias. Stop this madness, you will only cause harm." Akeno said in a futile attempt to stop her king.
"He will die regardless if I don't do something!" With that she gathered up all the pieces and smashed them into Issei's chest.
The Dark
Akeno, Rias, Koneko, Asia and Kiba found themselves in a void of darkness. They stood on something, so there probably was a floor. If there was one, however, it couldn't be told from the rest of the… whatever place they were in. Continuous whispers floated through the dark. Most of them indiscernible. Every once in a while a few words would spike out.
Fight the darkness, fight the silence.
"Where are we?" Akeno asked, walking a few paces in each direction, seeing if it would influence their surroundings in any way. "I don't know. The last thing I remember was Rias trying to use her evil pieces on Issei…" Kiba replied. "… and then we were here." Rias finished, looking around her with a sense of wonder.
It's better if I don't, but what if I do?
Are we dying?
"Do you think Issei made this place?" Akeno asked. She fired a bolt of thunder, which flew on into the nothingness around them. "Regardless if he did, I don't like this place." Rias replied. "I want out..." Asia whimpered.
We must not feel. To feel is to hurt. To hurt is to be weak. To be weak is to fail.
"Ok Rias, that's it. When we get out of here, I'm telling Sirzechs never to trust you with evil pieces ever again and take away your remaining ones." Akeno said. "Koneko, you have been quiet so far. What do you think?" Rias said, ignoring Akeno's comment. "…" Rias huffed, discontent with the lack of input her Rook gave. "Guys, do you notice something?" Kiba asked. "The voices stopped…" Koneko said.
"Hello." They all swirled around. Issei stood behind them, clad in grey clothes. "Issei!" Rias said, rushing over to him. She stopped a few paces short. "How did you heal so quickly?" She asked when she noticed he had no wounds. "I am not Issei." Was the curt reply. "But you look exactly like him! If you are not Issei, then who are you?"
"I am, or rather used to be, Faith." "What is that supposed to mean?" Rias asked. "I am… used to be the embodiment of Issei's faith." "Where are we?" The emoticlone tapped on the side of his head. "Welcome to the vast expanse of my… our mind." "There are more of you?" Faith didn't respond, instead he turned and walked. "Come with me."
The members of the ORC briefly exchanged glances before following the gray suited boy. Six more gray clad Issei's fell into step next to them. The darkness around them began to change, molding to a form. A meeting room with twelve seats.
"Sit." They did as instructed. "You are probably wondering why you are here." Faith said. "I will keep it short, for time is limited. We," he gestured to himself and the other six Isseis, "are dying. Though the damage dealt to our body is substantial, it's not irreparable… under normal circumstances. Like higher class devils have the ability to heal themselves or their servants from grave wounds in sleep, angels can heal too. We enter a meditative state called anshara, in which we can swiftly regenerate our bodies, but are very vulnerable."
Faith paused for a moment, letting the information sink in. "Anshara's strength, is determined by the selfless love an angel feels. That is why Issei… we are not regenerating right now." Rias frowned. "But everyone feels selfless love of some kind. Even we devils do." "Not Issei." Koneko's word's echoed in her mind "not him. He feels nothing."
"So we are trapped in Issei's mind, while he is dying and there is no way he is gonna save himself. That's the short version, right?" Kiba asked. "Pretty much." One of the unnamed emoticlones said. "We used to be Issei's seven base emotions." Faith said, "we are Ego, Fear, Joy, Anger, Selflessness and Love." Faith said, going down the grey Issei clones. "Throughout his life, Issei shut us out one by one. If you had known him in his glory days… That time is behind us now. Issei has forgotten the power of feeling. He doesn't realize this, but we… his unconscious does."
"He used to visit us so often…" Selflessness said dreamily. "Your evil pieces will fail, Rias Gremory." Faith said. "If you want to save him, you will have to make Issei feel again. Only then can he enter anshara again. Do you wish to help?" Faith asked. "Yes." Rias, Akeno and Asia said in unison. "… Yes." Koneko followed a bit later. Kiba grumbled something. "The asshole still owes me answers."
"Very good. Before we allow you to talk to the conscious us, we would share a few memories with you, to help you understand why we are in our current state." Rias nodded. "Please know, should you fail, you will be locked in this oblivion forever. And we will not be here anymore to get you out." "Really, Rias. No more evil pieces for you after this." Akeno said. "Are you ready?" Unexpectedly Koneko walked up to Love and grabbed his wrist. "… We will save you."
The darkness twisted around them once more, turned a bright hue of blue. The ground under their feet turned a bright fluffy white. Heaven. Laughter filled their ears. Around them angelic children played and shouted, running and flying around, happy. Amidst the jumble of children stood a lonely boy, six or seven years of age perhaps. His hair was messy, his body frail, but when you looked in his eyes it was unmistakably Issei.
A stray soccer ball rolled to his feet. Issei reached down and picked it up. "Hey! What are you doing? Give our ball back!" One of the kids shouted, running over. Issei handed the ball to him. "Can I play too?" He asked in a shy tone. "Who would want to be seen with a freak like you?" The boy said in disdain, then ran back to his friends. Issei looked so sad, but no one reached out, no one cared. He didn't matter.
"And so Ego was locked away" Faith's voice sounded.
The scenery around them twisted again. They were in a dark place. Issei, now slightly older, was huddled away in a corner. He was locked. Stuck in the darkness. No one would think to come look for him, Issei had no friends. Oh, how he feared the darkness. He knew within reason of course nothing could be there, but his mind still projected his fears onto his senses.
They would put him here, Michael and the others. Every time he stepped out of line they would throw him in here. They feared him, he knew. They would drug him up, spike his anxiety and make him live through hours of nightmares. Fear was such a useless emotion. It shut out everything else, completely disabled a person. How much easier life would be without fearing. Next time Michael locked him up, he would not fear the darkness!
"And so Fear was locked away" Faith's voice sounded.
Once again the shadows around them twisted. A quant house, start of autumn, the leaves hued in bright colors around them. Laughter, clear like droplets of water on a mirror, clear like a crystal. It was Issei's laughter. Issei, now perhaps thirteen or fourteen, rubbed the hair on the hair of a young boy. The child had fox ears and a tail. "You really do take after you parents. Where did you leave your sister?" A young girl with jet black hair bounded out of the house behind the two. "Issei!" The girl shouted, throwing herself at him, knocking him to the ground.
"Kuroka! How you have grown. It's been so long…" A woman in the later stages of pregnancy followed Kuroka out of the house. "Young lady! You have been taught better than that" With a pouty face, she got off Issei, who nimbly hopped to his feet and brushed the dirt off his clothes. "It's good to see you again." He said, carefully embracing the mother. "Have you thought of a name for your child yet?" he inquired. "Yes… Shirone." The mother replied dreamily, gently running a hand over the swell of her stomach.
The family was happy. Issei would not feel such happiness, ever. Nobody cared about him, only his skills, after all. But he valued his bond with them more than anything else. He had saved the life of the father, Helion, countless times, saw him grow up, take his woman and create a legacy for his children. He remembered the wedding like yesterday. It was a joyous occasion and Issei could feel the happiness he couldn't experience himself through them.
The scenery shifted again. It was now winter. Something was wrong. All the windows in the house had been shattered, some of the woodwork showed signs of charring. That wasn't what mattered though. Red seeped through the snow. In the middle of the shattered remains of the parents lay three children, bleeding out. Issei trotted over, kneeling next to the oldest child, the boy. He whispered words of comfort to him as his breathing shallowed, eventually stopped.
Bitterness filled him as he realized the two girls would meet the same fate. He turned away from the house. Nothing but death reigned here now. Never again would he hear their laughter. Nor would anyone hear his.
"And so Joy was locked away." Faith said.
The snow started to rage around them in a storm, hiding their surroundings between a blanked of pure white. "What did you do?!" Issei's voice radiated fury. The blanket of white lifted to reveal Issei, standing over the cowering form of a devil. "I… I only wished to get the best out of my servants…" the man stuttered apologetically. "You tortured them into submission!" Issei said, the last word rising to an ear shattering cry. "You tried to turn a power loose not you or they can control. Do you know what the possible consequences are of forcing Nekomata to use their powers? You call that getting the best out of your servants?"
"I… I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" "No, of course you didn't. I have watched over those children since their birth. Do you realize what you have done?" The man tried to crawl away from Issei, who gave him a firm kick to assure he stayed put. "You turned them into killers! You took two innocent souls and twisted them till they broke! You chased them off! It will be a miracle of its own if I ever manage to get back on their tracks. Never in my three hundred year long life have I met someone as despicable as you!"
"I assure you it won't happen again-" " Oh it won't!" Issei said in a voice cold as ice. In his hands he manifested pure power and struck, smiting the man from existence. Nothing but a pile of ash remained before Issei's feet.
Issei hopped out the window, resting on the ledge outside. He felt sick to the core. Things should not have gotten out of hand like that. Issei doubled over and threw up. The vomit plummeted down to the abyss beneath him. He had just killed a man and achieved nothing through it. Nothing was learned, no progress was gained. He had killed because it made him feel better.
Through the open window he heard the door open. Quickly he moved along the ledge so to remain undetected. "Oh my god, she killed him. Kuroka killed her master!" This was bad, very bad. Kuroka and her sister would be declared rogue now. Shirone was such a cute little girl. He had barely known her. The last time he had seen her was right after her birth, when her mother had insisted he held her daughter. Such innocence, lost forever.
Anger served no purpose but to destroy. It was irrational, uncontrollable. It was best if he never felt anger again, it only brought hurt and anguish upon those he held to heart.
"And so Anger was sealed away." Faith announced.
After the scenery changed again, they saw Issei sharing a brief kiss with Gabriel. "I must go now, I must see how they are doing." A worried look crossed Gabriel's face. "Issei, my love, do you have to go now?" Issei raised an eyebrow. "Yes. I always look after those who I saved." "No!" Gabriel half shouted. "Issei, you musn't go!" Okay, something was seriously off about her. "I must be going now."
Gabriel was at a loss of words. She looked around the room, desperately searching for an answer that wasn't there. "Sleep with me." She said. "I beg your pardon?" Gabriel threw her arms around him, pushing his face into her bosom. "You heard me, I want you to make me yours." Issei pushed her off him. "Gabriel, yesterday you still declined me. Something is off about you. Rest, perhaps sleep a little. I must go now, my children need me." "Issei, no!" But Issei was already gone.
Moments later Issei stood in front of the large mansion. It was midwinter and snow gently floated down, coating the house and the surrounding forests in a layer of snow. Those he found on his quests, the children whose parents he had been forced to kill, those whose parents had been killed. He brought them here so they could have a childhood. They were under his personal protection. He couldn't visit as often as he'd like, forced to keep watch from a distance. Gabriel or Michael had conjured up some reason to keep him away from this place each time he'd scheduled a visit. The last time he'd been around was four years ago now. It was shameful.
He walked up to the great doors and knocked. No one replied. That was odd. Issei knocked again. He could hear hurried footsteps. The door opened, a slither of light falling form the hallway into the night. "You are calling at a bad time." A female voice said. "You will let me in." Issei said, voice impatient. "I'm sorry, I have received no such orders." The voice replied. "You are receiving them now!" Issei shouted, straining to control what remained of his temper.
What was going on that no one wanted him to see? If someone had hurt those who were his… God help his soul. He grabbed the door and pulled. Hard. The woman who had been holding it closed stumbled onto the snow outside. "Sir, I don't know who you are, but you can't just-" The door to the hallway beyond burst open, a child ran out. His eyes were not full of youth and joy as they should have been. They were filled with terror. "Nooooo!" The boy shouted. Blood splattered across the white marble tiles. A spear of light protruded from the Boy's chest. Behind him in the hallway stood an angel. His eyes went wide as he noticed Issei, who immediately bounded into action.
The angel had no chance to respond as light ripped through his body, tearing him to shreds. He ran further into the complex, death was everywhere, dead bodies of children piled up. Michael would pay for this. Pay more dearly than anyone in this universe had ever before. No one scorned those who were his!
Issei was livid. Every angel that crossed his way met a swift but painful death as he made his way to the central chambers. This blood crime would be repaid in full. This place had been meant as a safe haven for the victims Issei's world made. Issei noticed something and stopped. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he took in what he saw. A toddler, perhaps three years old, crucified on a wall with heavy duty industrial bolts. His ribcage was split open, guts spilled out over the floor.
Another angel ran into the hallway behind him. Issei reached out with his mind and ripped his memories apart.
"We must terminate the Holy Sword Project. The subjects will no longer be needed for we have learned all we can. They only pose a liability now. Luckily they are the perfect test subjects. No ties, no family. Easily disposed. This pains me but it's a necessary evil."
Issei's teeth crunched together. The voice was all too familiar. "Gabriel!" He shouted in fury. Chaos surrounded him, children dying in bunches, chased by those who should be beings of good. He was too late. He could not save them. Issei sank to his knees as a stark realization hit him. He could not win. No matter how selfless he was, how much he believed, how much he loved, feared, believed, angered himself. It all brought pain and destruction upon others.
A boy with blond hair ran by, his breathing frantic. His mind brushed past Issei's. Kiba Yuuto was his name. He watched him make way outside, running into the woods beyond. He was already dying from several severe wounds. He would not make it, like the others. He watched without feeling as the boy collapsed. He thought he saw a girl in the moonlight, standing there next to him. Her crimson hairs reflected the moonlight.
Issei, however, had a Seraph or two to deal with…
"And so Love, Selflessness and Faith were sealed away."
The memory shattered, leaving nothing but the original darkness in its wake. Everyone had tears in their eyes, even Koneko. "Wow…" Rias said, sitting down on the ground, unable to take it all in. "No one should be made to suffer this much." Akeno said, joining Rias. Asia was crying on Kiba's shoulder, who was fighting to maintain a calm demeanor himself.
Issei, the conscious one, sat some twenty paces away, facing the void, unmoving. Koneko walked over to him and knelt in front of him. "Issei." She said. He turned his gaze to her. "Do you know my name?" She asked. Issei blinked twice. "… Koneko." The white haired girl shook her head. "Look in my eyes, what is my name?"
Tentatively Issei reached out, holding her face with one hand. "Sh- Shirone?" He asked in a wavering voice. "How much did you see?" He asked, afraid of the answer. "Everything." Koneko replied, putting her arms around him and pulling him into her embrace. Issei sat there for a good minute. "I'm sorry Koneko. I failed you, you had to grow up without your parents, without your sister, under a cruel master." Issei's breathing quickened. "All I wanted to do was help. Maybe others would have me then, if I proved useful. Instead I failed everyone." He whispered, before breaking down completely.
Koneko just held him, refusing to let go despite his struggles. Eventually he just gave up and cried in her arms. Soon they were joined by Rias, Akeno, Asia and Kiba who all put their arms around him. "Issei." Koneko whispered into his ear, so soft the others who were huddled around wouldn't hear. "You already saved me once Issei, let me return the favor. Please return to me. Come back from the void. Feel for me, Issei." She begged. "I… I will try." And it was like she was holding the seven year old kid who had just been called a freak, so fragile, so innocent.
Issei's breathing calmed down over time, growing even and deep. He was sleeping. "It's done." The four girls and Kiba turned to see Faith, now in a bright blue garb, sided by Anger in red, Joy in yellow, Selflessness in green, Ego in purple, Fear in dark blue and Love in white. "Issei is now in anshara."
The members of the ORC opened their eyes. They were in the hospital room. "Issei…" Rias said, looking up. He was there, still alive. Now, however, he was floating perhaps half a meter above the bed, wrapped in a cocoon of white light. It weaved around him, restoring bone and tissue. Everyone sighed in relief. Issei would live.