The following is a non-profit, fan-based AU story. [High School DxD] is owned by Ishibumi Ichiei, Miyama-Zero, Fujimi Shobo, TNK and Funimation. Please support the official release. And, um . . . has someone found my Christmas spirit yet? I appear to have misplaced mine unfortunately. I miss it ever so dearly *sniff*sniff*.
"_" = Speaking.
( _ ) = Translation/Other Meaning
[ _ ] = Personal Title.
{ _ } = Item/Ability/Sacred Gear.
["_"] = Speaking via Alternate Means.
["_"] = Speaking through Sacred Gears.
[{"_"}] = Sacred Gear Command.
[-KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL! LEAVE NOTHING OF THEM TO BE FOUND! TURN THEM TO DUST AND LET THEM FLOAT AWAY INTO THE WIND!-]
The black shroud that was once Gasper Vladi continued to spew bouts of madness as the [Evil God of Desecration] Balor's consciousness continued to bleed into his mind.
[-TAKE THEIR BLOOD! TAKE THEIR POWER! NOTHING SHALL REMAIN! ALL SHALL BE NIHILISM! NIL BUT ASHES AT MY FEET!-]
The spirit of the deceased [King of the Fomorians] had preyed upon the dhamphir's weak will, just as this Rating Game was looking to be over. One moment of weak mentality for my kouhai was enough to allow the wicked deity to ensnare his thoughts and actions. And now, he had become this.
Halfway strung between a reanimated corpse stricken with lingering rigor mortis, and a twitching resistant marionette. It wasn't a pretty sight.
Inside the shadows that wrapped and snapped at the environment like a ravenous beast, the platinum haired Bishop struggled and ranted as his hands wrapped around and flailed against his head. Two distinct voices spoke the same words, but their tones conflicted their true feelings making it difficult to know who was vying for control; the scared and cowardly Gasper, or the merciless and insane Balor.
The insanity also infested his many bats that had gone from circling the arena into disorientated flight patterns that would do no good for surveillance purposes, as many crashed or dropped form the skies. And I swear, that I even saw a few larger ones cannibalise the smaller ones. This was the true madness in this chaos.
Eyes glazed over like clouded crystal, you could have sworn he was blind, but that wasn't the case most of the time; the flare of red would occasional leap forth and stop the world in its tracks. You'd never catch it, and you'd never known you were caught in it. The only sign that it had come to pass was the one person who could move within a frozen world. If he jumps immediately in any shape or form, you'd know you were caught out.
His umbrakinesis draped the replica of the school building into a sheet of night, as the dark swept across even the sky, but allowed no stars to light the world we were still trapped inside.
Lord Riser and Rias Gremory has long since flown from danger and were the sole combatants in the forest line, ground and sky in all. Who ran in fear and who ran in pursuit? That is a question I cannot answer. I was far across the building's roof at the time, battling the host to the [Black Dragon King], Saji Genshirou, but I am being too kind with my choice of words. To call the confrontation between us a battle was an understatement. At best, I fought him, not the other way around on equal ground. He was outmatched to begin with, and had taken too much damage fighting Isabella one-on-one, and surviving two direct incursions of Yubelluna's {Radius Explosion} attacks, which was no small feat in itself.
Without even being able to activate Balance Breaker, nor use his Sacred Gear {Absorption Line's} main ability, I responded in kind to at least grant him the perception that he could still win so that he could give what remained of his all in his struggle. Albeit, I couldn't stop my {Boosted Gear's} automatic ten-second amplifying ability, but neither could I not use it if Saji were to feel I couldn't withhold anything further from our duel. But that's the price to sustain a dragon's pride.
Though he has yet to awaken Vritra from slumber, he wields a Dragon-type Sacred Gear, and so as a fellow "dragon" in spiritual terms, as neither of us are physically, allowing him to retain an amble amount of pride in his abilities is justified and expected.
Old man Tannin would never forgive me for breaking a rule he spent so long engraving into me when it comes to a dragon's pride.
The whole catastrophe had actually begun when the [Bomb Queen's] attack decimated the Gremory occupied half of the roof; it was the second Bishop, Asia Argento, who suffered the brunt of the attack when her King failed to deploy a magic circle as a barrier in order to protect the former nun tending to her own wounds. A terrible display for a King to not be able to save a person standing next to them, especially one who forced reincarnation on her as she had done many times before.
The very least she should have done was to retire her defenseless piece before she had sustained so much damage. I doubt a direct attack like that will let her out of hospital for a fortnight without direct medicinal magic aid.
Perhaps it was the guilt that he couldn't prevent the attack, nor could he allow Asia anytime to dodge the attack, whilst he himself was able to avoid the blast by subconsciously reacting to the situation before it could occur. I do not know the half-vampire well, but I know he is very much a timid soul and takes words and actions like a sponge without being able to ring them out of his mind quickly enough for it to have no effect on him.
It may be just guess work, but pondering now will do me no good.
Asia was retired from the system, loud and clear, which was when the two Kings left the main battlefield and thus Gasper had been allowed to wallow in his moment of misery before the dark god sealed within his eyes started to picture a new vision for him; death, desolation, and destruction of everything around him.
Yubelluna fell next; caught off guard as she attempted to knock out the second Bishop from the game in similar fashion as she had done with the first. Her {Radius Explosion} ready to go also immediately as she reproduced it once more before letting it loose a second time. It landed with all certainty, but made no such damage to the remaining Bishop. Out of the flames came the necronic blades, as smoke and shadows broke the attack in literal half, piercing straight through the super-heated ball of thermal combustion and then struck so suddenly and so far reaching that it penetrated clean through the right shoulder of Lord Riser's Queen.
Any lower, and she would have lost that arm this fight.
The shock from the attack was enough to force her retirement from the game, as the shadow dissipated and her wound bled enough to soak her clothing in less than ten seconds after the strike. The scariest part was that had it been her left side, it would have cut right through her heart and she would have been dead the instant the black blade left her body.
Perhaps the real Gasper is who to thank for the lucky escape from another real Rating Game "accident".
The only real problem now, was my real King, Ravel.
Having just witnessed the sudden attack launched against Riser's strongest piece, she had becomes frozen in a moment in time. By the time I had managed to knock Saji out enough to get the system to remove him from the game, I only came to realise just how dire the situation had evolved.
Coupling the natural shadow manipulating powers of the House of Vladi, with the temporal control utilised by Balor's [Evil Eyes that stop the World], it made his attack that already had no rationality in their strikes or swings impossible to predict let alone counter.
Watching the horror show before my eyes, I could do nothing but run.
"Ravel!"
Run, to defend my King.
["{Welsh Dragon: Balance Breaker!}"]
"{Promotion: Knight!}"
As fast as the enhanced speed of the Knight Piece could carry me, spreading across all eight of my Pawn pieces at the same time, I raced to intercept the distance between the opposing Bishops, as Yomi itself creeped across the remnants of the replica Main School Building.
All it would take is one fatal strike, and not even {Regeneration} could save her life. Nothing can heal what has already been killed.
[-DESTROY THEM! SLAY THEM! TAKE THEIR STRENGTH! FORCE THEM INTO SUBMISSION AND CLIP THEIR WINGS! SMASH THEIR ARMOUR INTO A MILLION PIECES! SLICE THEM INTO A MILLION MORE! LET THEM FIND NOTHING AN INFINITE JIGSAW! NEVER TO BE PUT TOGETHER AGAIN!-]
I must have avoided seven or eight of his wild frenzy attacks, as they sharply glided against my metal armour. I never saw them coming, nor did I know when he had attacked me due to the unstable nature of my perception to time flowing differently than what the half-god creature was seeing.
Having not moved an inch, save for a couple of steps backwards, before her knees collapsed beneath her, she fell slightly to her right till she was almost hanging from the room. A literal sitting duck. From my point of view, it looked like she couldn't move from her spot. Even if she tried there was no way she could avoid the mass of black razors, ready to strike at any time from any place.
A cut across the arm ripped her dress, only for fire to consume the wound to make it look like it never happened. But her tears weren't erased. That shock of pain on her face had been real and couldn't be fixed by burning over it.
She hoisted herself to stable ground, and covered her face, as I just continued to hurry as fast as my {Knight Promotion} would allow me to.
When I finally reached the roof separating the two of them, she had already been hit three more times, while I had been attacked an addition fifteen trying to arrive to this place. None of it had pierced me, and none of them had seriously injured her, but the attacks were not letting down. I stood guard as attacks continued to volley in our direction.
["{Reset!}"]
I couldn't predict them, but with their flailing doing little but slapping and rebounding off the red metal that surrounded me, I was taking no damage. I lost my {boosts} due to the constant attacks, and the counter continued to reset.
"{Promotion: Rook!}"
I traded the enhanced speed and reflexes into the greater attack and defence provided by the Rook piece. Not even scratches became a visible threat when he attacked anymore. There was barely a single pinging sound from his strikes ricocheting off my armour.
I have Sparky to thank for this blessing bestowed to me. Though it could nothing to my fatigue and loss of stamina, I had high hopes that I could easily hold out longer than the mad Bishop forcibly wasting his mana reserves on uncoordinated attacks that he wasn't even controlling.
But my armour was null to the sudden strike that came for me.
*SLASH*
I swallowed my exhale, and my eyes shot wide till the whites were larger than my pupils. My jaw went slack and my defence fell with it. In the gap between the various plates of red coloured steel, the shadow struck at the flesh beneath and shanked cleanly into my body beneath.
I felt it . . . deep within my lower torso. I looked down to confirm it, and I was certain that from this height, it would have killed my King behind me. Had I not been there, that attack would have split her head in half like a watermelon on the beach. It stung worse than anything that had ever cut me before, and I could feel the chills infesting the open wound as empty void replaced the blood.
But, he wasn't done just yet.
*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*
[-DIE! DIE! DIE! CUT HIM! FILL HIM WITH HOLES! DROWN THE TOWN IN RED! PAINT IT IN HIS BLOOD!-]
*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*SLASH*
My armour took the brunt of the attacks, but the unpredictability of the shadow strikes meant that I had no way of moving from this spot. From here, Ravel was safe, behind me. Behind my armour, and my body. Every strike that cut through me, was one that doesn't hit her. She would live, and I would not give in, but continue to stand here until she is no longer in danger.
Like Musashibo Benkei. Like Dian Wei. Like King Solomon. I would remain standing here, even till my own death. I would not move. I would not fall. I would stan-
*BHELCK*
Blood started showering the roof ever so slowly. Having now finally trailed from streams to rivers down my legs as the leaks across my body formed a great delta across both my legs. Blood running down my arms fell like small waterfalls from the tips of my index and middle finger, with small droplets meeting them from my thumbs.
It was so cold now. I felt so numb, but in so much pain at the same time. I heard little, except the madmen screaming his heart out, thrashing his dark arms about to attack invisible enemies only he could see, and the sound of water dripping into puddles.
It was beginning to get too hard breath. My lungs stung, and small bubbles formed and splattered with every inhale. I felt sick, as the taste blood stained my tongue. I couldn't breathe in this helmet over my face.
The most disturbing sight wasn't the miserable form I was in; it was the demented puppeteer wearing Gasper's skin, who had the nerve to wave the blood-stained black blade across his lips. Even in his berserker state, the twisted demon still found limited control to perform such despicable acts in front of me.
I could swear there was a brief twitch in his left cheek that almost formed a smile at the sight of my blood on the edge of his freely formed fingers.
He had the nerve to then flick his tongue across it to sample the prize he got for penetrating my scale mail. But, to my complete surprise, the moment the evil god swallowed down my blood, was the moment of his downfall via his own folly; whether it was because Gasper was of vampiric heritage, or because my blood was coated in Ddraig's aura that made it stronger than usual, but taking in my blood caused the losing battle to turns its tide.
[-KILL! KILL! kI-l . . . GArrah- . . . . . .!-]
"N-N-N-No. N-No more! No MORE! NO MORE!"
Gasper, who had been losing control of his mind and his body, now suddenly shut the evil god out, and his eyes glowed the reddish hue of his Sacred Gear and all that was frozen flew alongside the rest of the world. All darkness that he had commanded halted their advance, some even cracking from overextension. But all in all, the sudden relapse in power backfired on the dhampir, and his form was sudden caught in pinkish purple until he appeared to be encased like a bug in amber.
He stopped moving. Like a doll without a handler, he became a statue frozen by his own time manipulation. The shadows no longer snapped, but became stuck in place in all manner of unusual shapes with a collection of sharp, rounded, and unfamiliar edges that could only be concocted by a world of literary nonsense.
Though the lights of red fury and orange flame continued to travail in the corner of my vision, there was nothing left. Gasper would not move from that spot. There was no longer any killing intent exercised by his half-dead expression, and his magic stamina consumption had hit its wall, when the dark crumbled and vanished from sight at a slow pace.
He wasn't retired, so he could still reawaken. But Ravel was safe for now. She could escape his madness, and she could still live.
*DRIP*DRIP*
I however, could no longer move.
"Issei!"
I felt Ravel move to touch me, but upon doing so stained her own hand in the blood that was now soaking over my armour that it had become indistinguishable from its natural colour. It was running down my back too. Some of the strikes fell right through me.
I couldn't turn my head to look at her, even as my visor fell from my face rather than disappeared as it naturally did. It clanged upon the roof before sliding down to the left and flung from the guttering into the entrance grounds. Other parts started following soothe as my {Boosted Gear's} energy no longer {Boosted}. Chips and arches of red armour fell one by one in random order till I was a dishevelled knight wearing what little armour I could afford that would still constitute as a viable amount of protection.
The loss of weight was of slight relief, though my muscles ached harder when I no longer had the metal to keep me upright on its own. My body quivered as the chills continued crawling around me. My teeth chattered as I kept my jaw locked. I was both in pain, and I was cold all over. My right eye became cloudy as an open wound trailed down over my face. It wasn't deep nor would it probably scar, since it was made my visor collapsing on its own.
"Oh, by the Maou. Issei. Why? Why did you?"
Her voice was muffled by her hands, and then made even worse when she started sniffling as I could only presume were her tears running down her face. I was making her cry, making her worry, all for my sake. She could be dead if I hadn't moved like I did, stood as I did, take every hit that came my way as I was doing. But none of that mattered.
"You're safe, . . . that's all that matters. I . . . didn't think I . . . would make it in time. I . . . was sure I would never reach . . . you. But I did. I . . . made it here. I-"
Blood spewed forth from my mouth. I started losing focus on my surroundings. I couldn't even keep my head straight, as it started getting too heavy for my neck.
I started questioning this coldness, this achiness, this tiredness and this painful experience. I wondered if this is what dying felt like. I questioned if death was coming for me as my mind began to flood with the strangest hallucinations.
'Oh well' I thought. 'At least Ruval, Rayzem nor Riser will be able to punish me for making their sister cry.'
I tried to smile, hanging to that thought as I started feeling the blood washing into my eyes, perhaps even from my eyes. As all energy started leaving my body, the cuts and gouged wounds all over my body made my skin cold, and it was becoming ever more apparent that it was all very painful.
I had thought of pain such as this as something I had lost after training for so many years under Tannin's tutelage. But, I was wrong. This wasn't just a physical pain. As the dizziness attributed to severe blood loss kicked in as well, I remembered how many promises I would be breaking if I died here.
But, why should it matter right now?
Gasper wasn't moving, I reminded myself. If he was inactive for a good amount of time, he would be automatically resigned by the system, and I doubted his conscious would wake up that quickly. With Riser, it was just a matter of when Rias Gremory's {Power of Destruction} lost its juice if she continued to persist as stubbornly as she was.
And most importantly, Ravel was no longer in foreseeable danger. As it stood, this match- *cough*blech*cough*cough* was as good as over.
I think I've been staring at the sky a little too long. Everything's . . . looking a little fuzzy.
"Look at me, Issei."
Her stained hands reached up to my face and cuffed my cheeks. Palm to cheek became sticky after the blood made contact with both surfaces, like seriously strong glue was now magnetising them both together.
If I stared long enough, I could see my face reflected in her irises of zaffre. My eyes probably looked so dead. My face so shrunken and barebones pale. Her own face was smudged in red, with only her tears cleaning it from her eyes and her cheeks.
By the Maou, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I made you cry so much.
She pulled a vial from her sleeve. Gold it's lid with red solution inside. The glass was clearer than water, and shaped like . . . a tear drop.
A {Phoenix Tear}!
"Drink Issei! Drink it! Please, I order you! Don't die on me! I order you; I'm your King, so don't die! Drink and live with me! For me! Issei!"
Please, don't bury you head there. Not against my open wounds. It no longer hurts. I don't feel anything anymore. But, I feel a skeletal claw wrapping my heart seeing you in such a state.
Even if I could bend down and accept it from her-
No. No, I couldn't accept something made that way. Such a horrid thing to force anyone to produce. Emotionless tears. Shedding something so cruel in order to procure such a rare elixir. No one should have to perform a ritual with a heavy toll paid by the creator it is extracted from.
It's deceptively sweet taste trying to mask the hollow emotions placed inside of it.
But what would be worse: accepting such a cruelly made resource, or reject her honest attempt to save me?
Am I betraying her? Is this betrayal? Mutiny? Revolt? To want resist taking this- . . .
I'm sorry. But, I still cannot move.
"For eternity."
Her voice squeaked once more, with her forehead still resting and wrestling into my wounded abdomen.
"Till we could reach the heavens. And touch the sun. *sniff* You promised *sniff*. You promised me when I made you my servant. You *sniff* said you promised . . ."
[-. . . K . . . K . . . K-K . . . K . . .-]
Her voice stopped at the spine chilling break caught us both by surprised.
We both heard it. The deranged voice cracking through a closed over throat. The sound of his tongue clicking inside a dry mouth was a warning. A desperate attempt to spew more manners of insanity through his marionette. We should have seen it coming, but neither of us had put the necessary pieces together to remember who the true wielder was; the one with the evil eyes that halt the perception of time, wasn't my kouhai.
Gasper wasn't the conscious that was waking up. Balor was. No one would forget that madman's voice spilling from Gasper's throat. His eyes began to twitch also, and the pink miasma that had engulfed the conjoined beings into place was starting to flicker like a poor source of light.
It was weakening.
Balor was reclaiming control, only this time, it appeared that the Gasper was holding him. But barely. He would tire, or the Evil God would override his Sacred Gear and cancel the spell himself.
"Issei."
I could barely hear a thing anymore. Everything was now just a deafened echo in the distance. I could see her grab my left arm and pulling against it. I knew her words, but I lost the means to understand the message they conveyed.
". . . We need to get out of here. . . . Come with me. . . . . Please."
It was not good.
I couldn't be Solomon. I wasn't Dian Wei. And, there was no way I could ever be Benkei. I had no more strength left to stand let alone run away, as tears mixed in with my blood running from my chin.
With what little of last strength in my body, I tried pulling a smile, but could barely lift my own face and I blubbered and shook with my last breath to tell her one last time.
"Forgive me, my princess."
I . . . couldn't stay awake any longer.
'You have to run.'
I was falling.
'I'm sorry, Rei-chan.'
I . . . I-
'I . . . am . . . done.'
I felt the natural darkness overtake me, as the last of my strength gave out and I felt like sinking backwards through the still air. As my mind went to rest for what felt like an eternity, my ears could only hear one last sound calling into my ears. First as an echo, then a whisper, and then . . . there was nothing.
"No. No no no no no no, NO!~ . . . . . . ISSEI!"
Had I been different,
we may have borne better fruit
for all out labours,
Instead, all's bitter:
We have reaped what we have sown
from this poor harvest,
What is dead never dies.
Broken promises. Lost words.
Dead men tell no lies.
Omake VI: Solitary Celebrations
Alek: (sitting on a red leather seat by an open fire with a large book in front of him) Oh, Hi. I didn't know you were coming today. (chuckles as he puts the book away) You are probably wondering what this is all about? Well, I did intend to release this omake with my short story compilation on Christmas Day or at least before New Years, but like everything you try to do, deadlines just seem to catch up with you quicker than you can write, so here we are.
But, as promised, I gave you the second part of the fight. Not a direct continuation, and not the conclusion, but I hope that it was to your satisfaction.
(puts the book to one side and pull up a large bag of letters)
Oh, this? Nah, this isn't Father Christmas' post, this is your reviews. (stares at the bag) All of them this year. (looks back) Over 100 reviews to be exact! (streamers start flying through the air) . . . and over 200 favourites and over 250 follows too! (more streamers fly followed by awkward silence) . . . I seriously need the company. (reaches for more eggnog and takes another few sips)
(wipes his face and proceeds to talk on)
So, as you may have noticed, Ravel and Issei aren't here, because I am an omnibenevolent god, occasionally, so I let them go home for the holidays. (shows annoyance) And now because i'm behind, they are even off for New Years it seems (takes a sip of eggnog) And, don't worry about that letter, we'll continue that next time.
(folds his leg and intertwines his fingers over his raised knee)
First of all, I would like to thank each and everyone of you for sticking around so long, even those of you who always strive to inform me how to improve rather than simply dropping the series after I repeatedly ignored your helpful advice. Thank you, each and everyone of you. (picks up his glass) If any of you have eggnog or a drink at hand, please take a sip to thank yourselves. (drinks some) That's some good 'nog.
(unfolds his leg and leans forward)
And now, we shall move ahead with your reviews from the following month. Let's see what we have today;
(picks out a review from User:Which_Brew)
Thank you very much, I'm glad I put the effort in.
(picks out a review from User:ExplodingKnuckler)
Well, I hope you do continue to read and review in the new year.
(picks out a review from User:Th3-Dragon-Lord)
Thank you for putting in so much effort to review every chapter after catching up so suddenly. (reads a little more) And don't worry about your gift, I'll give it to him when we return for New Years.
(picks out two reviews from User:lazyguy90 and User:FateBurn)
Thank you both of you, sorry I have no more words to give to each of you.
(picks out a review from User:AcclaimingTR)
As with your gift also, I will pass this along to Issei eventually. (suspiciously puts in him his inner jacket pocket)
(picks out a review from User:Muzaka)
Hmm (reads over the whole review) Well, thank you for your reminder, I will keep that in mind when we get further into the story. As for the names, I did have certain inspirations;
Like the names for the other members of the Furcas Clan, I borrowed from a series I recently got into: Invaders of the Rokujouma?!, more specifically from the legendary Blue Knight, Reios Fatra Bertorion for Lord Raytorian and Lady Fatora. There is an anime that covers the first six and a half light novels out of twenty four so far (all translations available by the way), but it's actually at Volume 7.5 when the story really starts. You'll understand if you ever choose to get around to it.
Uraxis Glasya-Labolas' name is named after Kou Uraki and Pala Sys from the Gundam series, and the pilots of the two Gundams Falbium is named after (G-Falcon and Dendrobium GPO3). Kharlyn and Rosazu also take their names from other pilots of both Gundams; Defrah Kar and Linn, and Rosa II ("Tsu"). I have done this for other characters also, but I won't go into too much detail.
Jarlus Amon's name is a modified anagram of Alibaba Saluja, one of the lead characters of Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, who commands a Djinn called Amon, hence I thought it was an appropriate link.
I could go on for a while, but even in peerages, I mixed in characters who were based on real people and also some with names inspired by characters I am aware of.
On to your second question: I was trying to come up with an explanation as to why certain stray devils seemed to mutate into monstrous forms right before they get exterminated. My idea was that since demonic energy is fueled by fear, that by intentionally fueling your energy in a particular place that your body mutates in accordance to what the fear specifies. Like with Sayanna; her mutation was due to Issei's vivid image of fears having nested in his house, and so her body mutated in according to what he remembered of fear in that place. Devils like Kuroka who don't stick around in one place in the human world to feed on its fear wouldn't mutate, which was the whole reason I constructed this explanation.
(picks out a review from User:RedSS)
I'll be sure to pass these to Issei, and I also thank you for the drinks. (coughs slightly) But, I will have to pass, since I think I may have already started having one too many eggnogs.
(picks out a review from User:RavelBestGirl)
(reads over the entirety) Ok, I'm sorry but I won't be able to answer to all this. I will say that I cannot change my writing style that easily because of one fact; I hate writing conversations in speech marks. Whether it's the interactions, or because I hate having to repeatedly adding those two dots the beginning and ending of every sentence and then have to describe very shortly how they said it. I don't like it, which is why I write long descriptions in order to compensate my dislike for discussion. I like writing script-wise, like I do with my Omakes, but I can't do that for serious writing, so i practiced with a compromise and I managed to get along with writing, so here we are.
(picks out a review from User:TheNamesBarkeep)
I'm sorry you were disappointed by my chapter. (takes a sip of eggnog) I don't write for no reason, and I don't unintentionally throw unimportant characters out there that have no purpose later in the story.
(picks out a review from User:Warrof)
Most of the characters introduced do reappear, and I don't just add them for the sake of adding them. Spolier alert, since Issei vs Riser isn't going to be the Arc 1 finale, one of the characters introduced is taking up a similar role instead. I shan't say anymore.
(picks out a review from User:AnimeMyWorld)
First off, this is an AU, so it's not part of canon, but that's not what you meant. Honestly, at my projection, you're going to be waiting two-four more chapters before we return to the traditional start of DxD in Issei's first week of his second year at Kuoh. The next chapter after New Year will be focused on establishing his place in his first year and how he does before Ravel joins him during his second year.
(picks out a review from User:DrunkenFistNinja
(reads through the whole thing) I'm sorry i can't comment on all this, but I will work harder if I can. I do not know what more I can say though.
(picks out a review from User:Dragon_Rider_66)
Triaina was never affected by Issei being a servant to the Gremory clan, so I didn't see a point to alter it for the sake of changing clans. And since his [CxC] was crimson because Rias' hair is crimson, it seemed appropriate to change it, but not for Triaina since they were affected by his Evil Pieces more than by other factors.
I'll pass your gift over to Ravel and Issei in the next chapter, not to worry. Thank you for always providing gifts to us.
(picks out a review from User:War_historian)
Hmm (ponders) I think to answer your question, I would have to say that it would have to depend on the circumstances; Rias didn't like Riser, and was also appalled by the idea of being forced into marriage. If we were to consider Ravel in canon how she was in Arc 1, I think that she would have believed it was an obligation and wouldn't likely have complained much about it so long as she had a good match.
Honestly, for my fanfic's sake, I hope I can get it write because I have never written about love before. Plus, I am going to be skewered if I mess this up, so there's plenty of pressure.
(picks out a review from User:tsun)
Thank you, and again there is relevance to this, but you'll have to see a little later.
(picks out a review from User:On_Soaring_Wings)
You'll get your wish soon enough. Just a little more to get to. If you can't wait, then I'm sorry but I won't rush it just to get there any quicker.
(picks out a review from User:1337Pwny)
Yes, you will get your wish. I will not drop this fanfiction until at least that part you have my guarantee on that.
(and finally picks out a review from User:Ninjafang1331)
And, thank you for your words and have a great 2017.
(closes the sack and tosses it away, the wipes his brow whilst exhaling)
Well, now that this is over, and this was all we had time for, I will see you next time. So until then, enjoy your winter's break while you still have it, and I will try to keep on writing even when the new term begins. Bye-bye!
Thank you for reading, and review at your nearest convenience.
Special thanks to 'NinjaFang1331', 'On Soaring Wings', 'tsun', 'War historian', 'Dragon Rider 66', 'DrunkenFistNinja', 'AnimeMyWorld', 'Warrof', 'TheNamesBarkeep', 'RavelBestGirl', 'RedSS', 'Muzaka', 'AcclaimingTR', 'FateBurn', 'lazyguy90', 'Th3-Dragon-Lord', 'Exploding Knuckler', 'Which Brew', and '1337Pwny' for their reviews, I really do appreciate it.
If you're confused why a devil admires King Solomon, you should really look at your Bible again to realise that his and God's relationship didn't end on the best terms. #THEHaremKing #UltimateContractor #WiseGuysFinishFirst.
. . . You'll understand.
If I can't get my short stories compiled completely by next week, then I'll just skip over it. Can't leave you guys hanging on me like this. So enjoy Issei's first day in High School if that happens.
I'm also not promising my compilation will be any good, but I won't be doing it again I assure you now. It's a pain in the arse.
Well, until next time everyone. Bye!
Happy New Year to you all! May 2017 bare better fruit than 2016!