DISCLAIMER: All copyrighted materials belong to their respected owners.
Author's Note: A tongue-in-cheek nod of appreciation towards one of the best crossover stories I've ever read.
From a Dusty Attic
By Corvus no Genmu
High School DxS
Issei never admitted to being the sharpest crayon in the box. In point of fact, he'd go so far as to say that there were a few tools missing in the shed that was his noggin, particularly in the affairs of devils and their like. To be fair, he had been an average, if not extremely perverted, young man before being thrust bloodied heart first into the world of the supernatural, so it wasn't entirely his fault that he was learning something new on an almost daily basis. Yet even one of Issei's limited social skills beyond the hentai hordes and works of erotic fiction, Issei knew that there was something odd with how Rias and the others of her peerage were acting. Well, the others save for Asia whom was also showing signs of the same confusion as he.
Their trek up the mountain path had started well enough, if one excludes the monstrous weight of the pack he was forced to carry whence compared to the tiny and almost nonexistent one of the fair blonde Asia, but it slowly started to change the further they went up. In his exhaustion, Issei had almost missed it but it was thanks to his tiredness that he had literally walked right into it. A wooden sign, simple in make but the words scribed upon it were written in strange, almost luminous, blue ink.
"Turn back to be damned, continue on towards freedom?" He read. Rias kept walking but even Issei's eyes, specifically trained to scope out a woman's three sizes in a short glance, could see the slight stiffening of her shoulders.
It did wonders for her breasts after all.
One mild delusion of perversion and several more steps later, it was Asia who read the second sign.
"If you seek liberation, continue. If you seek enslavement, go find a stick and… oh my!" Asia's face flushed red as she squirmed with Issei's hands covering her eyes, "Issei-kun, what—?"
"Uh… let's keep moving…"
He hadn't even known that was physically possible to do with a stick… Never mind the other stuff…
Apparently it was if the looks on the others were anything to go by. Rias was merely increased her pace her face strangely emotionless now as she continued on ahead. Just a ways behind her, Akeno's usual smile was absent and her eyes were fully opened in a frosty glare that was only a few degrees colder than Kiba's own. Koneko still had her usual emotionless façade but there was a faint gleam to her eyes that Issei guessed to be anger if the faint murderous aura surrounding her was anything to go by.
And the signs kept coming.
"I'd turn back if I were you. Especially if I had a mirror you ugly mother fu—Ah, Issei-san!"
"Redheaded Devils Beware, Bleach Ahead…?"
"Abandon all hope you who hope to trespass on stolen grounds…?"
"All of your base belongs to me…?"
"Must you, Issei-kun?" Akeno snapped despite Asia being the one to have read the last sign.
Issei grumbled at the unfairness of it all and Asia, properly chastised though no harsh words or glares were sent her way, murmured her apologies. They continued on in silence for a while but another sign soon cropped upon them and Issei just could not refrain from reading it aloud.
"Beware of Mouse…?"
Rias unleashed a wordless shriek and all but flew up the stairs in an enraged dash. Startled cries of "Buchou!" followed her as her Peerage gave chase, some more easily than others. By the time Issei had caught up to the others, he was sweating bullets and two heaving gasps away from fainting but the sheer oddity of it all kept him conscious. For there, in front of an enraged Rias Gremory was a large, luxurious summer home, or at least what had once been one.
A nearby gazebo had been all but buried beneath sheets of steel hammer haphazardly across it, turning it into some bizarre fusion of workman's steel and artisan's marble. Most of the house itself had been gratified with strange symbols that Issei couldn't recognize but gave him a headache looking at. Kneeling down in the front yard with his back to them was a young man dressed in overalls and a stained t-shirt, his hand working tirelessly upon the engine of a motorcycle that just had to be customized due mostly to its sheer girth.
Almost entirely black but for its shining silver engines, the front of the motorcycle bore two wheels sitting side-by-side and bore a lot of weight with what looked like several long compartments along its front. The motorcycle could almost be fit for war with sheer size alone though by its name, it might have been intended for more recreational purposes.
Issei wondered at the idea of naming a motorcycle "Fantasy's Finale" and instead of the traditional pin-up girl.
The biker turned to face the group, revealing strange eyes, the right of which was green while the other was blue with greenish flecks splattering across it. His blackened hair bore streaks of blonde and was brushed back along his head by either gel or oil, and as he rose to his feet, it was impossible to miss the bandages wrapped tightly about his arms and the strange bulkiness of both forearms beneath the stained wrappings.
He walked forward until he was just outside of Rias' reach and thanks to his drawing near, Issei was at last able to notice the faint sheen in the air, a thin veil like the skin of a bubble separating the summertime mansion from them. The two teenagers stood staring at one another in long silence, one with emerald orbs angry but containing something almost like sadness while the other were glaring and spiteful.
"So are we going to play the same song and dance or can we just cut to the chase this time?" He asked and left her no time to answer by continuing, "Because if you have a different reason for trespassing, speak up or go back to the pit you crawled out of."
He delighted at the hurt that flashed across her face and the angry glares that arose from her Peerage.
"Hey who do you—!" Koneko's firm hand gripping his own stopped Issei mostly because he was too busy trying not to squeal in sheer agony as the small girl's fingers sought the total obliteration of his own.
"Lorne…" Rias' eyes turned downcast but she firmed her resolve as she did something Issei never expected her to do. She got down on both knees and kowtowed to the young man before her. "… I'm here to beg for your help."
Lorne stared at her in openmouthed astonishment but quickly snapped his hanging jaw close. Much as every fiber of his being wanted to violently throttle his own throat for even harboring the thought, he was curious as to what could possibly make Rias Gremory forget her dignity as a devil. He had told her once that he wouldn't care for anything she had to say even if she came to him on hands and knees begging for his help. Honestly, he had thought the Apocalypse was going to occur before she would sink so low as to bow to one who was, by all accounts, a spiteful and disobedient—
"If you compete in the Rating Game scheduled ten days from now with the rest of my Peerage… I will release you."
Several pairs of eyes snapped to Rias at the whispered proclamation that resounded like thunder across the open grounds of the former Gremory summer home. Akeno was gaping in disbelief and Koneko was so surprised that her hand relaxed enough for Issei to hastily get his own away from her and try and restore some sense of feeling to it. Asia simply looked confused and concerned while Kiba's eyes were narrowed with obvious displeasure and he continued to glare back and forth between Rias and Lorne.
As to the young man himself, Lorne felt as if the entire world had been pulled out from underneath him. His eyes had grown so wide that they looked ready to pop right out from his head and his mouth felt incredibly dry and was made worse when he tried to swallow the lump in his throat.
"What… What did you say?" He rubbed at his chest, wincing at the distortion of energies residing within. I can really be…
"I, Rias Gremory, swear to release you from my Peerage as a free devil."
He blinked and his longing snapped to such inhuman fury that it was a miracle that the earth between the two hadn't been ignited by the burning intensity of his glare.
"Excuse me? I think you forgot to mention the part where I'm turned human again."
Rias looked up, a frown on her beautiful face, "You know that I can't do that. It's impossible to undo a devil resurrection."
"Then you make it possible!" He yelled. "What good is my freedom if I'm still a damned devil?!"
"Do you have any idea what I had to do, what I went through, to even okay the possibility of releasing you?!" She shouted right back, rising to her feet with an angry glare of her own. "Never mind making sure that you weren't marked as a stray devil and executed because of your childish behavior!"
"You—YOU!" Lorne's eyes narrowed further, grinding his teeth as he fought the urge to use every foul word his godfather had ever taught him, willingly or unknowingly. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly several times before he spoke again. "… So. I help you win your freedom, and I get mine. Is that right?"
"Yes." Rias nodded.
"And… what? You want me to train your merry band of slaves between now and the Game?" He asked, looking over the rest of Rias' Peerage with a critical glare and muttered breaths.
Rias shook her head. "That's not necessary but—"
"Oh, I disagree." Lorne interrupted, "Your "Heavenly Dragon" there just proved his has all the strength of a wet paper bag if he's that out of breath from climbing up a hill."
"Hey!" Issei protested, trying and failing to look intimidating beneath the hundred plus pounds of weight on his back. Hill? It was a freaking mountain!
"Your Pussycat there is still missing her claws and keeps refusing to find them, the Tin-man carries a double-edged sword in his heartless grasp, and your Black Queen still wears her crown of thorns. As for you…" He looked over Asia, who meeped in surprise and straightened under his sudden scrutiny. He mumbled something under his breath before he shook his head. "A White Mage with next to no stamina. Might as well get that wedding dress fitted, Devil Princess. You'll be walking down the aisle sooner than you think."
"You sound confident but things are different now then they were then, Lorne-san." Akeno said, her eyes opened and glaring. "We have grown stronger since last we met."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night without breaking any more dildos." Lorne snorted. "Closest you'll ever get to the real thing anyway."
Akeno's face flushed red with rage, lightning crackling in her fists but she made no move to attack Lorne, but if looks could kill, Lorne would have been nothing more than a pile of ash.
"Lorne…"
"Yeah, yeah, play nice with the other slaves…" Lorne sighed and went back to his back. Kicking up the stand, he started to bring it over to the altered gazebo. "Might as well come in then."
And just like that, the glimmering runes scribed across the mansion lost their glow with a loud crack and the protective veil vanished like a popped bubble.
"Who is this guy…?" muttered Issei to himself and was surprised to hear an answer from Kiba, whose glare had yet to leave the departing boy's back.
"His name is Lorne. He's Rias' unwilling Knight."
If Issei had thought that he would be the first to be under Lorne's tutelage, he was sorely mistaken insomuch that it was not he alone. Kiba had been standing before him, both of them armed with a shinai and the Knight delivering a lecture of proper swordsmanship when Lorne had arrived on the scene also dressed in the Kuoh Academy track gym uniform minus the jacket. He had fresh bandages wrapped around his forearms but adorned to his wrists were a pair of metallic bracers that shone almost like gold.
"Wow. Not even two minutes and already proving your ineptitude, Tin-man?"
Kiba's eyes narrowed further but he didn't rise to Lorne's bait as he calmly replied, "Issei needs to learn how to combat against other Knights—"
"By wielding a weapon he doesn't use, has no experience in using, and will likely get himself butchered on the battlefield if he even makes the attempt at defending himself? I'd say you were trying to ruin my chances at freedom but you care about Devil Princess more than you hate me." Lorne looked over at Issei and said, "Get out that gauntlet of yours, Frog. Let's see if we can't upgrade your title to "Salamander" sometime this next week."
Though it was quickly becoming second nature to him, Issei couldn't help but glance at the Boosted Gear upon his left arm for how quickly it had appeared or the faint, almost irritating, glow of the emerald jewel upon the back of his hand.
Lorne nodded, satisfied.
"You might as well summon something sturdier than that stick there, Tin-man. You're going to need it once I'm done with the Frog here."
"Um…" Issei hesitantly raised a hand, glancing back to make sure Asia was at least close enough to provide the medical aid he was certain he'd need quite soon. "If you're a Knight, don't you use a sword?"
"I'm not a Knight in that sense, Frog." Lorne said, "I'm more of a… innovator, when it comes to the martial arts."
He looked once more to Kiba.
"Summon a real blade or step aside, Tin-man. Either way, I'll be breaking your toys soon enough."
The wooden blade thumped against the earth before demonic steel bared its ebony fang in a tight, two-handed grip. "You're welcome to try. I think you'll need more than your fists to beat me this time."
"Ah, I was hoping you'd say that." Lorne's smile turned vicious as he cocked back both of his hands. With a faint click of shifting gears, the bracers upon his wrists suddenly lengthened and folded outwards to fall down to his elbows. The newly changed gauntlets clicked once more with another gesture, releasing something small and metallic to the ground as Lorne's grin changed into something truly monstrous.
"Let's go."
Issei blinked and realized his folly as Lorne's fist impacted hard against his sternum. If it had just been the fist itself, that would have simply been pretty painful but what followed mere milliseconds after the strike made it absolutely agonizing. A blast of pure concussive force ringing like a shotgun blast sent Issei flying across the open yard where he impacting against the trunk of a tree and hung there, gasping for breath with swirls in his eyes.
"Issei-san!" Asia started to run towards the boy when Lorne's sharp retort cut her short.
"Save your healing for later, White Mage. He's just winded." He spared Issei a glance and snorted in clear disdain. "I think I spoke too highly of him. "Tadpole" is more befitting a title for him."
"Ugh…" Issei moaned, which properly translated would be along the lines of "Screw you."
Lorne sighed, rubbing his eyes in exasperation, "If he's not out of the tree in the next three minutes, then you can heal him. I'm not wasting my whole morning waiting—"
A flash of blackened steel grinded against golden iron and sparks flew in a brief growl of combative metals. Lorne glared at Kiba in anger for a moment before he started to grin. "Attacking an opponent with their back turned and attention elsewhere… You might be made of something stronger than tin after all."
"We've three minutes." Kiba responded. "More than enough time for me to wipe that damned smirk off your face."
"Oh ho, scathing." Lorne's other fist impacted against the blade of Kiba's sword and it shattered from the force as kinetic energy exploded outwards in a burst of red. The blonde Knight slid back but remained on his feet, two new swords already in hand. "Let's see how many of your toys I can break before you put a scratch on mine, Tin-man."
By the time afternoon rolled about, there was over a dozen Issei-shaped dents littered all over the grounds and more than twice that in vanishing sword fragments. Issei's bruises were already being healed away by Asia but it did nothing for his exhaustion. Issei lay half dead on the ground while Kiba was merely winded and sweating slightly with the same heated glare on his face. For his part, Lorne was sweating slightly but his devil-may-care smirk had yet to leave his face as he watched Asia heal Issei.
"This is what they call killing two birds with one stone. We toughen up the Tadpole's stamina and we increase the White Mage's healing speed at the same time."
"Lorne… just what are those things?" Rias asked, carefully eyeing the gauntlets glimmering on his forearms.
"Just another of my projects," he said, pumping his arms and releasing two dozen used shells before inserting a new belt into each gauntlet with practiced ease. Another twist of the wrists turned them both back into bracers and he glanced at Rias. "What, did you think I spent every day cursing your name and praying for my Lady to strike you dead where you stood? Well, I do but that's only once in the morning after breakfast and again in the evening before bed. I've got more important things to do than to have thoughts of you ruining my day for the rest of my damned life."
"H-Hey…!" gasped Issei, trying and failing to look intimidating as he panted for breath, sitting up despite Asia's protests that she hadn't finished healing him.
"Is for horses, Tadpole. Rest up. You both have lessons with the Pussycat over there next followed by the Black Queen. If you're weren't devils already, I'd say you two were all set for a one way trip straight to Hell."
"We have names you know," said Akeno, her eyes open and her usual smile frostier than normal. "You could try calling us by them."
"Alright then. You two, go with Shirone there and—" Lorne started to say when a fist gripped the lapels of his shirt tightly, bringing him forcibly down to his tiny attacker's level.
"Where. Did. You. Hear. That. Name?" Her voice hadn't raised but there was no missing the anger in the usual emotionless Koneko's voice.
"Quite amazing isn't it?" asked Lorne in turn, "The things you see when you actually open your eyes and look eh, Pussycat?"
Koneko's ire, if anything, rose to even higher heights, but was quelled only slightly by Rias.
"Lorne," said Rias, putting a hand upon the petite girl's shoulder to try and get her to relax as she glared at Lorne. "That's enough. You can say all that you want about me but I will not stand idly by and let you bully the others in my presence."
"Really." Lorne snorted in disbelief as he stood up from Koneko's iron grip. "And when they voice their opinions of me, am I to be given the same treatment? Will I be protected from their hatred and their scorn?"
"Yes."
He blinked. He hadn't expected her to answer so quickly, without any hesitation, let alone in the affirmative.
"… Fine. Whatever. I reserve the right to be a complete and utter bastard during training. It's the only way to get the Pet Cat and the Tin Soldier to put any kind of effort into it," he said before turning and walking back to the mansion.
"… Can't I just—"
"No, Akeno…"
It was late into the night. Most of the others had long since retired for a good night's rest but Lorne never said that he was the same as them. For one thing, he still didn't trust them not to seek some form of vengeance in the middle of the night despite the numerous traps and fail safes he had secured about his room. Secondly, it was kind of hard to sleep when he was busy with more important things like reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of Riser Feenix's Peerage. This in itself was made more difficult by the fact that he was doing this with Rias Gremory, whose bespectacled gaze kept drifting away from her own paper copies to him with growing frequency.
He was deciding whether or not he leave the room when she spoke up in a quiet whisper. "Why do you hate me so much?"
Lorne blinked and looked up at her. "All this time and you're asking now?"
"I thought that I knew why but… every time I think that I have you figured out, you surprise me. You are rude to the others at best and cruelly antagonistic at worst but you don't hurt them beyond their pride and you give them a stronger drive to succeed even if it's aimed towards beating you. Even Issei, for all the damage you've dealt him, has come out stronger for it."
Lorne scoffed at that idea but said, "So damned insightful and you still don't know why I hate you? Are you thick in the head or are you blind to your own nature as a devil?"
Rias didn't answer, she had learned long ago that it was Lorne's way of instigating hatred and anger. Baiting his victims until all that they cared about was smashing his face to the ground and forgetting whatever mysteries he let slip through his barbwire guard.
Lorne snorted at her silence and leaned back into his chair.
"You are a selfish person, Rias Gremory. You could have approached Issei and offered him a place on your Peerage, and I'm more than sure he would have leapt at the chance to join especially if you mentioned the possibility of him attaining a harem. Yet you allowed him to die right at your feet so that he could not refuse you, so that he would have no choice but to accept his role as your Pawn. You did the same for Asia. Worse, you set it up so that Issei would feel indebted to you as a result and wouldn't question your hesitation in rescuing an innocent girl or even his own damned self."
"That is not true." Even whispered quietly, Rias felt the weakness in her own words.
"Isn't it? Can you tell me honestly that you would have approached Issei and offered him the chance at a choice? Would you have willingly gone to save Asia before she had been killed and offered the same knowing full well that she would have refused you? When you came upon me, and the destruction and death that surrounded me, did you not think even for a moment of the power that I must possess and how it could also be yours?"
The memory arose to the forefront of her mind. The abandoned church grounds at the edge of her territory, turned into a warzone. The graveyard miraculously untouched but everything else lay as pieces broken and scattered. The church itself nothing more than crumbling stones, and the bodies that lay where they had fallen in battle. Blood colored the earth red and stank the air with its coppery scent but could not quell the wretchedness of death. Most of the bodies were impossible to identify, either broken beyond recognition or in such small pieces it was impossible to guess what the whole had been, but one thing was certain.
Only one body amongst them, whole and virtually untouched but for the gaping hole where a heart once lay, had been human.
"You are a devil." Lorne said, shaking Rias free from her memories of the past. "You are by your own nature, a devious and selfish creature. The very core of your entire being is run solely on Desire. If there is something that you covet, you see to it that it becomes yours no matter the harm you inflict, physical or otherwise."
"… Is that why you hate me then? Because I didn't offer you a choice?"
Lorne shook his head, laughing quietly to himself. "You just don't get it. You're young, especially by the standards of your own kind. You haven't begun to question the meaning of your own existence."
Rias blinked. "The meaning of my existence?"
"More specifically… what becomes of you, the you that is Rias Gremory, upon death? Do you know?"
She didn't answer, which was answer enough for Lorne.
"You don't go to Hell and you certainly don't go to Heaven. Your soul simply rests, awash in the Great Sea of Souls from whence it came, until it is lost amongst the waves and nothing that is you remains. Some errant piece of you may survive into the next life whenever a new cup is drawn but a small piece is all that it will be. The coloration of your hair and eyes or perhaps even the way you laugh but the whole of you that is Rias Gremory is gone. Forever."
She shifted uncomfortably and looked at Lorne, honestly expecting to see him grinning viciously at her discomfort. Instead, she was surprised to find him looking away from her, his face set in an uncomfortable grimace as though the very thought of such a fate was enough to make him ill.
"It is not the same for Humans. When we die, we become truly immortal. We survive until the End of Days in whatever realm of the Hereafter is opened to us. Many are damned. Plenty are blessed. As for me, I would have been content. I would have gone to a place where the grassy fields stretch as far as the eye can see, and where a modest home sits atop a small hill."
"Is that what you think awaited you?" Rias asked.
"I don't think it. I know it. Because for one blessed moment, I was there to witness it, to feel it, to be a part of it. My Lady was there to thank me for the Services I had rendered, ready to take back what was borrowed but my eyes were not upon Her Glory and my ears were deaf to Her Praise. They were there to welcome me home. They were all there, waiting for me, waiting me to join them with open arms and smiling faces. My family, whole and complete as it never was in life, and I was there, with them."
Rias watched in silence as Lorne arose swiftly from his seat, a glimmer of wetness shining in his eyes as he hastily walked to the window of the foyer with his back to her. His hand touched lightly upon the glass as though what lay outside was that same glorious sight from so long ago.
"Never in my entire life have I ever felt such happiness as I did in that moment where I hung on the brink of death after all that I've endured." Lorne whispered more to himself than to Rias.
His eyes were wet with tears that he refused to let fall. He was smiling too, honestly and truly with a rapturous happiness the likes of which could break a miserly man's heart at the sight of it. Lorne took a deep breath of air and let it out in a slow, melancholic sigh before his shoulders tensed, muscles tightening beneath his flesh as his once warm and gentle eyes hardened into chips of cold steel.
"And then it was gone. Torn away from me. By you and you're damned desire. You took my family away from me. You took away everything that I have ever lived for, everything I was willing to die for. It is for that reason alone that I will always hate you, Rias Gremory."
Lorne stood with arms crossed and his usual scowl on his face as he waiting impatiently with the rest of Rias' Peerage. Contrary to the others who had dressed in their school uniforms, Lorne had decked himself out in a pair of army pants with metal tipped combat boots and a plain white muscle shirt. He bore no obvious weapons but his arms were wrapped tightly in bandages from his fingers all the way up to his shoulders.
His impatience finally paid off as a magic circle appeared in the room of the Occult Research Club and Rias' sister-in-law, Grayfia emerged. "Is everybody ready then?"
"No, we've just been standing here for shits and giggles." Lorne snorted and gave a halfhearted glare towards Rias. "I think you should be trying for better service in your maids, Devil Princess. Might I suggest someone who's not already gray from old age?"
It amazed Rias, it really did, how easily Lorne could make an enemy out of everyone he met.
Well, everyone but Asia but that was because Rias firmly believed it was a physical impossibility to actively hate the girl for an extended period of time. It had to be why Raynare had delayed in the ritual that cost the young maiden her life after all.
The look that Grayfia gave Lorne would have killed lesser men in an instant. Even sitting far away as he was, Issei couldn't help shivering in fear, a hand unknowingly reaching out and clutching tightly to a certain blonde's own.
Grayfia turned her gaze back to Rias when she realized her glare was doing little to affect Rias' unwilling Knight. "Incidentally, this battle will be watched by Maou Lucifer himself."
"Well that's just fan-freaking-tastic but can we get this show on the road now? I plan on being free of you all before the day is through." Lorne interrupted.
"… I see that you've yet to realize your place in the grand scheme of things, Lorne-san." Grayfia spoke sternly to the young Knight who sneered right back.
"Oh believe me, I know exactly where I stand, Old Maid. Clearly so do you. Ah, the life of a devil queen quite the life it must be."
"Lorne…" Rias groaned. If they somehow managed to win this Rating Game, Rias wouldn't doubt for a moment that there'd be many a price on the Knight's head by tomorrow morning if not sooner.
"Yeah, yeah… Just let me know when this damned thing finally gets started will you?"
Lorne walked behind Koneko and Issei without care for the girl's disapproving gaze or the boy's halfhearted glare. Let them sneak about as they wanted, let them play to the ploy of a devil princess all that they liked. He had his own agenda in this game and come Heaven or Hell, he would see it done. Still, he had to give the devils their due credit, the recreation of the school was perfect that even he couldn't tell the difference between this battlefield and the real world equivalent.
He followed after the pair and walked behind them as they entered the gymnasium from its back doors and up onto its solitary stage. The lights switched on at their approach as a voice called out to them.
"We know that you're over there, servants of Gremory!"
"I guess sneaking around doesn't do any good," muttered Issei.
"Especially when none of us have the stealth to speak of. Or rather, two of us don't and one of us refuses to grow up and try."
Koneko spared another heated glare at Lorne, her fist tightening enough to make her leather gloves creak.
They stepped out onto center stage and beheld the four devils that awaited them. Lorne's eyes narrowed and he muttered once more under his breath as he beheld them each in turn before focusing on the leader of the group, a young girl garbed in a Chinese dress.
"The Rook, the surprisingly spry Pawn, and a new addition?"
"Unfortunately, I've been on this damned leash longer than the Tadpole here but not as long as the Pussycat." Lorne answered. "Truthfully, it feels like a damned eternity to me."
The girl's eyes narrowed a bit before widening with sudden realization. "You must be Gremory's Knight."
"Really?" One of the twins turned to her sister. "That's him?"
"Really." She turned to her twin, "I thought he'd be taller."
Lorne raised an eyebrow in interest. "You've heard of me I take it?"
"Heard of your attitude more like," tittered the one with the wooden cudgel. "There's quite a lot of talk about the servant who stole from right under their King's nose."
Lorne turned to Issei, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Make a note here Tadpole. This is what having a good reputation feels like."
How is any of that good?! The perverted young devil thought to himself.
The apparent leader of the group brushed a lock of ebon hair aside from her face. "I am Xuelan and I'm a—"
"Yeah, look," interrupted Lorne. "I'm sure there's all this fancy protocol to these confrontations but I'm going to be perfectly straight with you. I know all that I need to know about you."
"Oh?" Xuelan's eyes narrowed, "Do tell."
"You're standing between me and my chance at freedom." Lorne's eyes gleamed under the lights. "Tnyf."
Xuelan's eyes widened as her body flashed once before a multitude of crimson colored orbs flew forth from her breast and into Lorne's.
"What the?! What did you—?!"
Quick as lightning, Lorne's hand lifted up, a hellish red light shining beneath the bandages as he intoned, "Venyky Pnayg."
A blast of fire launched from Lorne's open hand, smaller than a baseball and flying faster than the blinking of an eye. It landed amidst the devils and exploded with such force that every window in the gymnasium shattered. Lorne waited in silence for a moment, ignoring the wide-eyed and gaping stares of Koneko and Issei respectively.
"Three of Lord Riser's Pawns have retired."
He frowned at that and stared into the smoky crater. "Yanu."
A gust of wind blew the smoke away and to his surprise, he found that Xuelan was not only still standing but was in relatively one piece. Blood was trailing down from her ears and smoke was rising from her back, which was covered in blistering burns. What little of her clothing was left was held together by threads and fraying patches but their was still defiance in her eyes and in her slowly upraising fists. She had ever intention of fighting still despite the agony she was enduring.
"You… You're a—!"
"Venyky."
Another blast of fire, less concussive than the first but packing no less heat, impacted against Xuelan's face.
"Lord Riser's Rook has retired."
"And here I was expecting a challenge." Lorne muttered.
In hindsight, Lorne should have expected the worse the moment he had spoken the words. Whilst he firmly believed in his Lady, she was not without an ever-listening Adversary. One who delighted in the tormenting of her Champions and those that it loathed. Just his luck that he fit under both and more besides for he was one of the few to have met that Adversary and survive.
He had been Marked ever since.
They came at him in waves. The whole remaining lot of Riser's peerage with the devil himself holed up on the top of the school roof. Lorne had every intention of facing them all on without help but help came nonetheless no matter that it was unwanted.
The others of Rias' peerage had done well against Riser's own but they all fell eventually. Some, like Koneko and Asia, had fallen before they had the chance to taste the delight of victory whilst others, like Kiba, took their opponents down with them as they went and had the distinction of taking down three previously. Even Issei, for all his bravado and adoration for Rias, had succumbed to his opponent's overwhelming might but like Kiba before him, Issei made sure to drag his adversary, the very one whom had put Asia down, along with most of Riser's remaining pieces. Akeno had taken to the skies to challenge Riser's Queen, Yubelluna, and she fell easily to the Bomb Queen's might.
Lorne?
He Drew the Bomb Queen's signature magical attack and threw it back in her face.
Now he was busying himself with Riser.
And he was losing.
He had thought Riser a fool. One unused to the arts of combat, but the devil was anything but a rookie when it came to fighting. True, he wasn't a hand-to-hand type or even a weapons user nor was he a mage of any sort, but there was one thing that Riser Feenix was.
Fire.
It flowed to the man's hands, burst like a corona at the slightest of gestures, flew like arches and wove like serpents, and worst of all….
It was all done entirely by instinct and without an ounce of magic behind it.
Riser had no need for incantations. Had no need to Draw his power from an outside source. He was the source and his well was practically limitless. Controlled by his own limited sources, Lorne could only Protect himself against the onslaught of flames and such Protection was not without its costs. He was coming close to being spent entirely and he had only managed to kill Riser thrice before the devil had taken to changing his targets.
On his own, Lorne might have managed to hold his own against Riser.
With Rias Gremory at his side, it was all but impossible.
Her "Power of Destruction" was useless in this fight. It required concentration to build up a significant amount of energy to even faze Riser let alone hurt him enough to force his regenerative flames into effect. More to the point, she was not in a true combatant. Her enemies were almost always on their last leg or, if not dying, all but immobile. She had grown complacent in her Power to try and learn otherwise despite Lorne's scathing remarks then and now.
The two of them had been arguing this very fact, coming close to outright physical blows, when Riser's plan came to fruition. The walls of the school succumbed to the wanton destruction dealt between two devil heirs and the building started to collapse down upon her and Lorne both.
Then, and only then, did Rias Gremory do something that Lorne had thought was impossible of her to do.
She surprised him.
How you ask?
By saving his life.
A simple shove powered by a small magical circle had been enough to send him flying out of the way but his unyielding grip on her other arm was strong enough to ensure that she had been dragged along for the ride. The two slid along against the earth for several yards before coming to a rolling stop.
"The fuck… was that…?" groaned Lorne, trying and failing to find the strength to glare at Rias, "you idiot."
"You're the idiot." Rias snapped right back. "Only a brute like you holds a lady's arm like that!"
"Brute I may be but I'm not the one…" Lorne struggled to his feet and managed to at least sit up, "looking for a way to lose this fight!"
"I wasn't trying to lose!" Rias startled him by sitting upright herself, and revealing that her shirt had been torn open enough to reveal two sights that would have made Issei's day if not his entire week. "I was going to fly out of the way!"
"Then why didn't you?!" he exclaimed.
"Because you would have gotten hurt!"
Lorne's eyes lost their heated glare almost begrudgingly as he murmured, "And that matters to you?"
"Of course it does! You are still a member of my family!"
Lorne's eyes widened. "Your… what?"
"My family! That's what being a part of a peerage means!"
For once, Lorne had no sharp tongued retort to make, words utterly failing to arise in his mind as he stared at the devil whom had dragged his soul back and placed within it, a piece of damnation. She who had brought him back to life when all others would have, should have, left him for dead. He had thought her opinion of him was as a slave, as a weapon to be utilized when she needed him most, and here she was protecting him because she thought of him as family?
He looked up and saw that Riser was approaching them, his smirking face alight by the flames that gathered and swirled around him like protective wraiths.
Lorne had nothing left to cast that could truly harm the scion of the Feenix, nor could he hope to draw from Rias and utilize her Power as his own without dire consequences from—
Speak to us.
He started, the slightest twitching of his shoulders and tightening of his hands into trembling fists. It couldn't be.
But it was.
Call for us.
After all this time, when he had thought them gone and his salvation lost forever and his damnation assured. He looked down at his arms and watched with teary eyes as the bandages unwound and the runes inscribed upon his very flesh pulsed again to the beating of hearts.
And We Will Answer.
"What's…?" Rias started to ask when Lorne abruptly dragged her up onto her feet. He brought a startled flush to her face as he wrapped one arm tightly around her shoulders and his lips hanging precariously close to her ear as he whispered.
"Promise me, swear to me by all that you hold dear, that no matter what happens next, you will not leave my side. I cannot ensure that you will survive otherwise."
"Lorne?"
"Swear it and know that your freedom is assured as is mine." He looked at her out the corner of one eye, bright and desperate but there was no fear, no hesitation.
"… I swear." Rias said.
Lorne nodded and looked turned his attention fully upon Riser.
"I will share my pain with you…" His call was a faint whisper but it was heard regardless and answered swiftly.
Blackened miasma pooled at the earth behind him and Rias, swelling larger and larger until it was the size of a small lake.
Agonizing Pain.
From the depths of the sky, a great hook fell from the underbelly of Heaven and fell into the putrid pool. Gnarled and rusted the heavy iron chain gave more and more slack until abruptly stopping with a sudden wrench. The chain retracted slowly and as it arose with company from the heart of the blackened pool and within the clutches of these chains was a horrific visage.
Wretched Misery.
A demonic head, scaled and almost fishlike were it not for its strangely human configuration, was pulled first by the crook of its neck by the barbed hook. Fangs gleamed in its gaping mouth as the rest of its monstrous form arose bounded by iron chain and linen cloth. Its great arms were crossed tightly across its chest, bandages conforming tightly upon its skin and allowing only the slightest movement.
From The Seventh Circle Of The Inferno, I Have Arisen
From The Agonies Of Thy Heart, I Have Come.
Twin shells arose from the miasmic abyss at its hips, a protective shield on either side that bore the pains of the chains wrenching them open and keeping it from shying its atrocities away from the world. The hook loosened and disappeared into the ethereal as though it never was and with its absence, a damning sight was made clear at the base of the demon's throat. A woman rested there but only the barest sign of her could be seen, her arms a cruel mimicry of the creature's monstrous limbs for there was neither she and the demon but the both of them together as one.
I Am Anima.
I Am PAIN…
Her mouth opened wide and unleashed a terrible shriek, a horrific amalgamation of the cry of an agonized human and the wailing of a wretched beast, and the very air screamed in conjunction with her misery.
And I Will Share It With You.
Her eyes, pale and milky white, flashed once in a brilliant burst of blackened light and in that instant that followed Riser learned anew what pain truly is.
For you to have even an inkling of the level of agonies that he endured… Imagine if you will, your very flesh being torn asunder by barbed hooks and whole crates worth of salt being poured upon the exposed muscles beneath. Imagine if you will, red-hot pokers stabbing at your every open orifice, twisting and grinding their way steadily upward… Imagine if you will, lightning coursing its way through your veins, igniting the blood within into steam that was slowly broiling its way out through the pores of your skin.
But that's only the physical. The manner of pain that shall eventually come to an end and will heal, leaving but scars as silent testament to what was endured.
Imagine the pain… Of watching helpless as your family is torn asunder before your very eyes. Watching them as they are brought down like animals to the slaughter and knowing full well that you could have done something. That you should have. Imagine if you will, watching as those closest and dearest to your heart, whom you trust more than your own very self, take the blade that you armed them with and stab it straight into your back. Listen to them as they boast of your follies as they twist the knife deeper until its jagged tip punctures your heart and brings the long awaited silence.
Do you have it?
Then you have a mere measure of what Riser Feenix endured in the blink of an eye.
He collapsed to his hands and knees, sweat falling like rain from his brow as his lungs struggled for breath whilst his stomach heaved like a turbulent sea. The famed regeneration of his clan, that which made them all but immortal except for the effects of time to which all things must fall…
Was absolutely worthless.
For despite the agonies he endured, Riser bore no wound but by his own making as he screamed to a silent God, bit his lips bloody, and clawed numerous scars upon his own flesh. The regeneration would heal any injury but those that are self-inflicted. It was the only way for one of his clan to die when they chose if they grew impatient for death.
Anima's eyes flashed again and Riser's scream became a gurgling mess as his vocal chords tore themselves bloodied and hoarse deep in his throat. His wings spread beyond their limit and the avian bones snapped like kindling from the strain, muscles tearing and flesh rupturing, and yet these were but faint pinpricks to the agonies that he endured under the Primal's milky gaze. It had been a long time since last she had been given a new enemy, a new toy, to break.
And Anima had only just begun to play.
