"RAAAAAAAH!" Both Seiji and Jason roar as they attack each other Seiji managed to slash Jason's arm, and Jason landed a hard punch to Seiji's midsection sending him back a few feet.
Seiji coughs while Jason looks at his arm and sees a small cut. He was surprised the knife managed to pierce his hide, considering most blades broke against it or were ineffective.
Seiji stood up and let out a slight cough as he finally managed to get air back to his lungs after having the wind knocked out of him.
Seiji looks at Jason and runs at him, and Jason stands at the ready. Seiji attempts to slash Jason when within range, but even though it hit its mark, it was merely a flesh wound to Jason.
Seiji backflips away as Jason attempt a backhand against him. Jason slams his fist into the ground, causing a cloud of dust and debris to obscure Seiji's vision.
Seiji looks around, but the dust brought up by the debris and dust that was still around him, Seiji felt the hairs on the back of his neck shot up.
Jason emerges behind him and aims a right hook that would have held enough power to take his head off Seiji at the last second; he manages to duck, but the force from the punch was powerful enough to create a gust of wind.
Seiji quickly went back on the offensive and stabbed Jason in the side with his dagger. Seiji pulled the dagger out, and as Jason slashes at him with his razor-sharp claws, Seiji leaps into the air high enough to avoid the blow he releases his dagger as he's descending back to the ground, and when the dagger was near Jason's face Seiji kicked the dagger sending it through the right side of Jason's face, and it came out of the left.
Jason grinned as his sharp teeth formed into a sadistic smile, and he sent Seiji flying with a powerful kick before Seiji hit the ground.
Seiji was sent flying into a wall, and the impact was severe enough it left a human-sized crater. Before Seiji could get back on the ground, Jason bum-rushed him and tackled him through the wall.
Seiji gasped from the decisive blow as Jason continues ramming him through several sewer walls with no sign of slowing down.
Jason ends up ramming Seiji into a pipe. As Seiji was stunned, Jason brought his giant fist down towards Seiji's head, but he dodged the blow from Jason's fist damaging the pipe, causing steam to be released from it.
Seiji turned the pipe onto Jason's face causing him to be disoriented for a moment. Seiji took the opportunity and delivered a solid uppercut to Jason, and when the Goliath hit the ground, he immediately rushed him and attempted to punch him again while he was down, but Jason headbutted Seiji dazing him.
Seiji tries to get up, but suddenly he felt Jason's scaly foot impact with his foot, and he fell onto his back yet again. Seiji attempts to get up, but Jason straddles him and starts to punch him repeatedly.
After a series of punches, Jason lifted Seiji off the ground and slammed him into the wall, tightening his grip, starting to strangle him.
Seiji reaches forward, clearly struggling to break free from Jason's iron grip. Seiji aims at Jason's eyes as his vision started getting blurry, indicating he was close to losing consciousness.
Seiji manages to get his thumb near Jason's eye, and he starts to dig his thumb into his eye.
"GAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" Jason yells out as his eye is getting gouged.
Seiji punches Jason stunning him as he releases his grip on Seiji, and he drops to the ground coughing and gasping.
Seiji gets up, breathing heavily, and runs at Jason and grabs him and swings him around and throws him against a wall and Jason impacts with enough force to crack the wall. Seiji jumps on Jason, and they both go through the wall.
Seiji starts to beat Jason by punching him with right and left hooks repeatedly until Jason kicks him away and sends him across the walkway.
The two realized they were in the sewer waterway, and it was a long way down off the bridge across.
Jason stands up with one eye open as his other eye was forced shut after Seiji gouged it. He had bruising on his face and a bloody mouth.
Seiji had many more bruises, a black eye, and then around his neck when Jason tried to strangle him.
Jason pulls Seiji's knife out of his jaw and tossed it over the edge of the aqueduct, and looks at Seiji.
Seiji looks at Jason and takes a breath "before we finish this... What's your name? If you don't mind me asking."
Jason looks at Seiji and crosses his arms "jones... Jason jones."
Seiji nods, and the two look at each other for what seems like an eternity before they ran full speed at each other; and Jason starts using his claws in an attempt to slash Seiji, and Seiji was dodging as best he could, but Jason managed to move just a bit quicker on one slash and managed to slash Seiji across his chest.
Seiji hisses in pain and sees blood dripping down his chest. Seiji runs at Jason, Seiji when within range, jumped forward, breaking into a roll as Jason swiped at him, and he managed to push and drive Jason back until he pushed him over the railing.
However, Seiji grabs Jason's hand, preventing him from falling into the aqueduct.
"Go ahead! Do it! I know you want to!" Jason yells.
Seiji looks at Jason for a moment before he shakes his head and starts to pull him up; however, Jason does the unthinkable and headbutts Seiji causing him to lose his grip and drop Jason. "AAAARRRGGH!" Jason screams as he falls.
Seiji looks over the railing. "Oh, damn, man... what a waste..." Seiji says remorsefully he wanted to save him.
It's not like he wanted him dead hell; he didn't even want to fight him. He only did it because he had no choice in the matter, but Seiji, out of respect, took a moment of silence for Jason.
However, the adrenaline from the fight was starting to wear off, and he knew he had to get out of here and meet up with the others, so Seiji willed himself forward despite his body aching.
(with the others)
Charles is helping Issei, who's still sore from being slammed into the wall "thanks for the help, Koyanagi. I appreciate it." issei grunts a bit due to the soreness.
"I hope Akiyama-Kun is okay. That guy was seriously powerful, frighteningly powerful." Kiba rubs his jaw as if to emphasize his point.
Susanna shakes her head. "I'm sure he wouldn't have volunteered to stay behind and buy time if he weren't sure he'd be able to handle himself. Have some faith."
"Yeah, but we better be prepared to dig a hole just in case," Haruka says.
Charles shakes his head "we won't have to. Now everyone ready? We're close. You okay to stand now, hyoudou?"
Issei nods and stands on his own "I'm ready. Let's save Asia."
Charles nods, and soon enough, they reached a hole, and when they look through, they see the ruins of the old church.
"Okay, everyone, let's jump down," Charles says and jumps down to the ground below, followed by everyone else.
(in the church)
Raynare had Asia in a gown and was preparing a ritual to extract her sacred gear from her. Asia was tied to a cross with a look of fear on her face. She knew what extracting a sacred gear meant it was the death of the user.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Asia asks
"Because it's the only way. Do you know do you have any idea what it feels like to be treated less than what you are? To be looked down upon? To be treated like a second-class citizen? No, you don't. You could never understand how I feel. Sometimes when you want something, you have to take it, and if I won't get what I deserve, then I'll take it by force." raynare says.
"What do you want?" Asia wonders.
"What does it matter to you? I'm about to kill you. Why are you wondering about my motives?" raynare raises a brow.
"Because I just want to understand why? Why me? Why issei? We never did anything to you." Asia says with tears in her eyes.
Raynare looked and saw the tears, and it's not like she cared, but something moved her to speak regardless "because... I want acknowledgment. I've always been nothing more than Azazel-sama's errand girl. Few people show me any respect because of that. I contribute just as much as anybody else, but I get treated like I'm less than nothing. So... I figured maybe if I took the initiative and made a move on my own instead of being the girl who was always treated like a lowly mook, nothing more than a lackey and always having other people tell her what to do, I would finally get the respect I believe I deserve." raynare explains.
"So you've been getting bullied and pushed around?" Asia asks.
"Yes. And I'm tired of it. No one is allowed to make fun of or push me around anymore." raynare asserts.
"Do you know the story of the Scorpion and the frog?" Asia inquires.
"No." raynare answers.
"Do you mind if I tell it to you?"
Raynare sighs. She was wasting too much time, but she figures she'll humor her since she's about to die.
"Go ahead. Tell me." raynare tells her.
Asia proceeds to tell her the tale. "A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion argues that if it did that, they would both drown. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. The frog lets the scorpion climb on its back and begins to swim. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: "I couldn't help it. It's in my nature."
"It teaches that some people cannot resist hurting others even when it is not in their interests to do so." Asia finishes.
Raynare couldn't deny the correlation between her situation and the story she really didn't want to her hurt people but felt like she had no other option. But she couldn't let her resolve waver now she's come too far to stop.
Raynare shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I've come too far now to stop it's all or nothing at this point. You and hyoudou were just unfortunates. I know that's no consolation, but that's all I can offer."
Asia shook her head with tears in her eyes. "I understand, and even though I don't want to die, I forgive you, so you do whatever you have to."
Raynare looked surprised but shook out of it and was about to proceed with the ritual when she heard a voice yell.
"Stop!!! Let her go." issei yells.
"It's too late. She's already accepted her fate." raynare says.
Issei clenches his fist. "NO! I will not let you do this to her!" issei ran forward to attempt to rescue Asia.
However, raynare blasted issei away and sent him flying down the flight of stairs, and landed on his back.
He groans as he hears Asia cry out in pain as her sacred gear was being pulled from her body until eventually when it was fully extracted, her cries went silent.
Asia's body went limp, and issei's eyes widened; however, before anything could be done, Haruka backhanded raynare sending her across the room "out of the way, mongrel, you'll live longer!" she yells.
Charles cuts the binds off of Asia. "I got her. Let's get out of here!" Charles starts to flee the church while carrying Asia.
Asia weakly opened her eyes "w-who are you?"
"Don't worry; we're with issei. We're here to rescue you." Charles explains.
Asia nods in understanding she was happy that issei came for her even these people who didn't know her from a hole in the ground were risking themselves to save her a warm feeling started to bloom her in the chest that was slowly growing cold.
Charles and Haruka eventually make it to a safe location where susanna is waiting. "I think she'll be okay. Me and you are going to tend to her."
Susanna nods "got it."
Charles looks at Haruka. "I'm going to stay here and see what I can do to help her. Haruka go help issei."
Haruka nods and makes her way back to the church
Issei eventually stands up and looks very, very pissed "you're going to pay for this... You'll pay!!!" issei yells as he summons the boosted gear "boost!" The gauntlet yelled in a booming voice.
Issei ran forward and delivered a punch which raynare dodged and she countered by delivering a hard punch to his stomach, which caused issei to cough violently as he fell to the ground holding his stomach.
"Whether you believe this or not, I don't want to kill you hyoudou, I did enjoy my time with you that day, and because of that, I'm offering you a chance to walk away; I don't want to kill you so don't make me do it." raynare warns.
Issei grits his teeth but wills himself to his feet "you think I'll give up that easy?! After what you did to Asia!"
Raynare grabs issei by his collar. "You think I wanted any of this?! It just happened! I came too far and did too much for it to all go to waste! Now stop being unreasonable and get the hell out of here!" raynare throws issei.
Issei groans but gets up, being undeterred from kicking raynare's ass.
Issei runs at her again, and this time, she's about to punch him, but he dodges and lands a solid proper right hook to her face sending her flying into a wall.
Raynare grits her teeth "fine! If you want a fight, I'll give it to you!" She flys forward and attacks issei by grab him and flying into the air, and then dropping him.
Raynare flys down at top speed towards issei to land a hard punch to his midsection; however, issei, despite feeling pain, quickly rolled to the side to avoid the attack.
When raynare's fist impacted the ground, it caused a small fist-sized crater indicating she wasn't holding back, and that punch might have destroyed issei's insides.
Raynare summons light lances and throws them at issei, and he quickly continues to roll on the ground, avoiding them just narrowly, and soon enough, he gets up and dives behind some pews in the church for cover.
Raynare begins to walk around and look for issei, and eventually, she sees his reflection in some broken glass and throws some light lances forcing issei to move quickly while remaining behind the pews.
Issei, after hearing his gauntlet yell boost, uses his Dragon arm and throws a pew at raynare, causing her to dodge it, buying issei enough time to emerge and land a kick to raynare's abdomen, sending her skidding back.
Issei attempts to punch raynare, but she ducks and uses her head and hits issei with the crown of her head, causing issei to stumble back and hold his nose.
Raynare attempts to tackle issei, but he recovers enough to react semi-competently and tries something he saw in a movie. Though it was sloppy, he managed to toss raynare over him with his feet, and she landed on her back.
Issei rushes her, not giving her a reprieve, and starts grabbing her head and slamming her face into the ground repeatedly.
Raynare breaks out of the hold issei had on her and grabbed him by the head, and tosses him in front of her raynare straddles issei and starts to strangle him.
However, Haruka appeared with a sheath from a sword and put it around raynare's neck "get off of him, mongrel!" She yells as she starts pulling on the sheath, cutting off the circulation to raynare's lungs.
Raynare headbutts Haruka using the back of her head, dazing her slightly, allowing raynare to grab her by the neck; however, issei, using his non-dragon arm, grips raynare's neck.
"It didn't have to be this way, you know? Now you and all of your friends are going to die here today because you and your stupid pride couldn't just leave well enough alone!" raynare screams.
Issei, hearing that, widened his eyes, and he let out a mighty roar issei used the hand that was gripping raynare's neck and slammed it down onto her arm causing raynare to loosen her grip. Then he punched her, giving Haruka an opening to kick her in the head while raynare was stunned. It allowed issei to grab her head and deliver a brutal headbutt.
Issei got up and grabbed raynare by her legs, and swung her around, and then tossed her out of the church through the doors.
"Why won't you just give it up already?!" raynare shrieks and attacks issei, delivering a high kick that sends him into the air.
Haruka appears and leg sweeps raynare as she caught her off guard, and as issei is on his way back down from being sent into the air by the kick, he delivers a sharp elbow drop to raynare as he lands.
Raynare coughs but stands up; however, issei punches raynare, staggering her, and Haruka comes in from the right and hits her across the face with the sheath she used earlier. Issei delivers a swift kick to raynare's gut causing her to double over, and Haruka struck her head while she was doubled over. Issei delivers a strong left hook, and Haruka finishes the combo with a high knee straight to the center of raynare's face issei then grabs raynare by the throat and chokeslams her to the ground hard, causing the ground to crack slightly.
Issei begins to rain down a series of hard right and left hooks on raynare, and finally, when he was going down for the final strike, issei heard susanna scream out.
"She's fading fast! If we don't do something, she's going to die!" she yells.
"We should wait for buchou! She'll help!" issei heard Kiba retort.
"We can't sit on our asses and wait for your president to show up! If we wait that long she'll be lost to us! It's now or never!" Charles fires back.
Haruka grabs issei's shoulder "come on; we're needed elsewhere. We can deal with her later."
Issei looks at raynare, and the haze of rage he felt seemingly subsided, remembering that Asia wasn't out of the woods yet, and he nods, and they leave raynare battered and beaten near the ruins of the old church.
Haruka and issei regroup with the others and quickly goes to Asia and kneels beside her "hey Asia... How you feeling?" he asks with some tears in his eyes.
"I'm okay... I'm sorry I put all of you through so much trouble...i..."
Issei stopped her "don't say it. Don't apologize. We're friends. I would do this all over again with no hesitation. So don't even say it. When we get out of here, we'll all go hang out and have fun together okay? But I need you to hang in there, Asia. I need you to hang on. I need you to fight!" issei begs pleadingly
Issei feels Asia growing colder, and he sees her eyes close and starts to sob and beg god or whoever would listen to save Asia.
Haruka looks at Charles. "is there nothing we can do for her? Is there no way to save her?"
Charles begins to think and racks his brain, trying to think of a solution until he seemingly had a Eureka moment "of course! That's right; there is one thing I could do!"
Charles closes his eyes and starts to trace Avalon. He mutters trace on, and soon enough, a perfect copy of the hallowed scabbard of Excalibur appeared in Charles's hands.
Kiba's eyes widened at the beauty of the scabbard as it didn't appear to be anything from this world, and he had to ask, "what is that?"
Charles smiles, "an ever distant utopia." he replies
He places Avalon over Asia and the scabbard starts to phase inside her and when the scabbard was entirely inside her, everyone waited with bated breathe to see what would happen.
Soon enough, Asia's eyes start opening, and she looks at issei "issei-san? What happened?"
Issei's eyes widened, and his tears, instead of tears of despair, became tears of happiness as he hugs Asia.
"What's going on here? What's happened?" rias asks as her and akeno appear from the shadows
"Something crazy, I'm sure..." Seiji answers coming up behind them shortly after the fact.
"What in the world happened to you!? You look like you had a fight with a freight train." akeno asks, concerned.
"Well, I feel like I got into a fight with a freight train, and as for how I ended up like this, you don't want to know, trust me," Seiji says.
Rias looks and sees raynare near the Church ruins, seemingly unconscious after the beating she took.
"What do you want to do with her ise?" rias asks issei.
Issei looks over at raynare and looks conflicted. While he can't stand her for what she tried to do to him and what she did do to Asia, he still remembered the time he spent with her as yuuma and couldn't bring himself to want her dead even after everything she's put him through.
"Leave her... She's not worth killing. She'll remember what's happened here today and think twice before coming after me or anyone I care about again. Asia is alive and well; that's all that matters to me." issei says and helps Asia up as they start to leave.
Rias sighs and shrugs "well, I guess that's that. let's head back, everyone."
Seiji starts limping forward, and Charles tosses Seiji's arm over his shoulder. "I've got you, man. You are either really crazy or courageous. I don't know which, though."
"Try capable..." Seiji chuckles and coughs a bit.
(later)
The ORC and the others reached the surface and were back, and rias smiled "you four helped, issei, you have my gratitude. I'm rias Gremory if you didn't already know that and this is akeno himejima, and you already know koneko and Kiba. It's a pleasure to meet you." rias greeted.
Akeno bowed "nice to meet you."
The four bowed as well "likewise. I'm Kazuhiko Koyanagi; this is aimi soga, akane Okino, and Seiji Akiyama." Charles introduced everyone, respectively.
"Well, Koyanagi-san, I hate to ask this, but I trust you know our secret. You wouldn't have been with issei if you didn't know I can trust our secret is safe with you, right?" rias asks.
The four nod. "you don't have to worry. We won't speak a word of it to anyone." Charles assures.
Rias smiles "good, thank you. Well, I hope to see you all again soon, but we will be going now." rias say as everyone turned to follow her, but issei looks at them and turns around, and walks to them. "I want to say thank you. This wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for you guys."
"Don't sweat it, man. We're friends, and friends don't abandon each other when they're in need, right?" Seiji says.
Issei smiles and holds out his fist for Seiji, and the two bumps fist as issei holds out for Charles to do the same, and he bumps fists with issei and gives Haruka and susanna nods of appreciation before turning to follow rias and the others.
Seiji grunts a bit "well, now I think it's about time we head back to our houses as well." Seiji says.
"Yeah, let's you can stay at our place tonight if you want. The place we came out of isn't far from our house anyway." Charles offers.
Seiji nods "then I'll take you up on that offer because I'm about ready to crash out."
"Well, let's go, everyone..." and with that, the four figures disappeared into the night, but their journey, little did they know, was only beginning.
Next arc: Phoenix of the battle school
(A/N: wow, this chapter was fun to make because, well, it was just one big fight scene! I hope you all enjoy it mainly because this is the first fight scene I've ever written so I hope its par of the course. And this chapter was written on the 8th of August, and I want to wish my friend arthias pendragon a happy birthday. This chapter is dedicated to him for his birthday. Happy birthday, man! And let me know what y'all think of the fight scenes here. I practiced a new method called visual storytelling no dialogue during fight scenes, just the raw action. See you all in the next arc!)