Written by Honore/Merlin
"Thank you very much for your help, Hyoudou Ise."
Similar words of gratitude fell from the mouths of Devils fully unaware of my role in the affair. I managed to make the acquaintance of Rias' and the Sitri Devil's Peerage, as well as "prove" to them conclusively that I was who I claimed to be.
There was a spell what allowed a Devil to form a life-like puppet, a sort of artificial life. It was not that esoteric; humans had bargained for it a long time ago.
I couldn't use it that easily, not since I'd lost my status, so I dearly wished for one while I aided them in the school purge. Being with them felt like torture most vile.
For Devils, their decisions were sometimes below intelligent, almost juvenile. Even Rias wasn't immune, making some downright problematic calls. It hurt me to consider that my dear little sister acting like a human teenager granted superpowers, not the accomplished Devil she was supposed to be.
Well, on the bright side, there was a possibility I'd scored points with Akeno Himejima, the tantalizing half-breed whose bosom I could die for.
It happened during the purging, in an event that also illustrated their very amateurly Devilness:
Several Abominations floated aimlessly at the end of the corridor.
"We have to break towards their middle," Rias remarked, her eyes narrowed. I resisted the urge to sigh.
First mistake.
Yuuto charged towards them, sword swinging.
Second mistake.
Koneko followed at his heels, holding an improvised club.
Third mistake.
"Dangit! Is no one going to listen to me?" I'd cried. "We can't get close to those things! If you get caught, you'll die!"
"Oh, they know the risks, Ise-san," Akeno said, winking at me. She then gathered energy towards her hand, which crackled and hissed with visible lightning.
Fourth mistake. Those things fed on power, and a surge like that was like a beacon in the night.
Case in point: an Abomination just phased through the wall behind Rias and Akeno. They didn't realize it was there.
The mud creature suddenly lunged towards Akeno.
"Watch out, Akeno-san!" I cried, pushing the girl down by the shoulder. I threw my hand out. The scream that erupted from my throat as the creature grazed my hand was not wholly faked.
One might think: well, isn't that mistake number five? Letting your lust for a creature get in the way of your goals?
And I would answer: nope, as I'd show later.
Rias hastily dispatched the creature. Meanwhile, I was screeching my head off.
"Cut it off!" I cried, holding my hand out. "Please!" I'd well documented the effects of these creatures on humans: skin sloughing off like wax, muscles rapidly being eaten from the inside out, and advancing rapidly up from the point of contact.
As the only ones close enough to watch my hand turn into goo, Rias and Akeno's faces were pale and stricken. My agonized screams added to the effect.
"Yuuto!" Rias ordered, her voice frightened. "Retreat!"
I'm not ashamed to say my surroundings began to darken, like I was about to faint. But that's only because I was still watching, the whole while.
Yuuto and Koneko managed to get back, fortunately unscathed. Yuuto took one look at my hand, and at a look from me and a nod from Rias took aim and made a clean swipe.
I hissed, feeling relief after my hand flopped onto the floor like a chunk of burning meat. "Blast it," I said hoarsely, backing away to show to them there was still danger.
Hellfire consumed my hand, and then it was over.
"You see now?" I said, applying the bandage to my stump of a hand. With a little sleight of hand, I managed a slight sorcery on the wound, to completely halt the bleeding. "Bastards are dangerous even to the slightest touch."
"Ise-san, your hand..." said Rias.
"They can fix it," I said, half-grumbling.
I wasn't worried, because the hand was an expendable fake arm in the first place. Both my arms were; grafted from the flesh puppet I'd prepared long in advance.
In the majority of cases, I'd never thought it would be useful; just the usual precaution when dealing with Abominations pulled from another realm.
Today, the almost paranoid foresight dealt back in spades. I glanced at Akeno, who seemed most affected by the sight of my stump of a hand. "Are you alright, Akeno-san?" I asked.
"Me?" Akeno said, putting a hand to the center of her generously endowed chest. "Why, shouldn't you be worrying more about yourself, Ise-san?"
"Nope. That's just the way I am." I glanced at each of them half-jokingly. I caught barely concealed respect oozing from them. "Always quick to act without a thought. My teachers would have beat me, calling me stupid."
"That they should," Rias said, her voice strained, "That they should. Still, as leader, I feel I should thank you, Ise-san." I waved it off with my good hand.
"I'm just glad nothing bad happened to Akeno-san." I smiled at the half-breed, then, with deliberate care, looked down at my hand. "Such beauty should not be marred like so," I said, softly.
I still felt her blush without even seeing it.
And thus phase 1 was completed.
Second phase followed immediately after. I begged leave from their wanting to reward me with some party or feast, telling them that I was still obliged to "report to my superiors, especially as it concerns a replacement for my hand".
I reassured a troubled Akeno that such things did not require Devil's intervention—the Coalition had (and it was true, not a fabrication of mine) ways to work around disabilities. I then jokingly said that if she wanted to repay me, then maybe a date? At a later time of our mutual choosing? Where I could show her my new hand's various functions...?
"Hmph. Well alright."
Rias chortled, while Koneko scoffed. I bowed for the last time, then turned away. The small grin on my face was quite genuine.
Near the school's outskirts, I encountered the people I'd had Rossweisse escort to town.
These were Magicians from "Hexennacht", mortals with infamous deeds and ambitious goals. Capable of misdeeds to anyone, they were spared from a Devil's wrath when Rossweisse gave me the all-clear via text. So I went up to the group neatly disguised in Kuoh's school uniforms and smiled toothily, greeting:
"My greetings, Walburga. How fared your collections today?"
Interlude Asia
She is many things, but she is not blind.
She knows her husband. She is not blind to the extent of the "truths" he spins for her. She knows why she died, and why she is now an angel, a position she's only ever dreamed of.
She is not blind to the role he's given her in his life.
Once, she may have been blind. But that was before she'd left the mother church, before the hatred, the fear, the resentment had arisen from those whom she'd placed the utmost trust.
"Where is Ise-san?" she asks of the one named Rossweisse. A woman with a quiet fierceness to complement her beauty, she has returned home without her husband, and has taken to securing the house, as if from attack.
"We are to stay here," Rossweisse says.
"Is there something going on?"
"He didn't say." The curtness in the other's tone suggests she truly doesn't know, and is frustrated at not knowing.
She lets it go at that, and bustles around helping her mother-in-law prepare tea and snacks for everyone.
"I can sense you're worried," she tells Rossweisse. One good thing about being an angel is her enhanced supernatural empathy. She distinctly sense negative emotions, and Rossweisse was bathed in it. "Is there something to the worry?"
Rossweisse blows out a sigh. "No, he never really said. But I just feel it in my gut that something's happening. Before I came back here, I met those people he'd had me guide. They were really bad people, Asia. I could sense their ill intent from a mile away. I was glad to leave their presence. Now, you know him, he's going to brush it off as immaterial worry (he'd even warned me they're dangerous), but a part of me keeps telling me something bad's going to happen."
They might think she is blind. Foolish. Naive. But that is very far from the truth. She sees more than his husband, or any one of them, realizes.
She is not blind to her husband's appetite, his love for the carnal. She is not blind to his ambitions, to his cruel, invisible designs.
She cannot deny that he is, all appearances aside, a Devil, and she is but an angel. He has a right to openly meet with all sorts of characters, from evil men to amoral gods. She knows he muddles his parents' minds with forbidden sorcery; but she turns a blind eye, even if she should denounce it as an angel.
And yet, it is precisely because she is an angel that she fully supports him. To her, he is only a misguided soul, requiring a gentle, firm hand; he is one fully capable of love, and redemption.
It is the hope that he may one day come to his senses that she endures endless scenes of depravity, insults to her creed, and the contempt of his other "wives".
One day, she'll be the only one. And on that day she shall fully rejoice.
"Well..." she says, carefully shuttering her eyes to appear like she was thinking.
...But it is not as if she can't act now.
"... If you're really that worried, then why don't you go ahead and follow him? Watch him from afar, so you can swoop in to help if something does happen."
Rossweisse looks at her, as if she were seeing her for the first time. "He told me to watch you."
"Pshaw," she says, waving it off. "I'm an angel. I am fully capable of protecting myself, or mother and father here. Besides, I'm worried too. If you've got a bad feeling, and I've got a bad feeling, then the Lord is surely telling us something."
The silver-haired woman was a heathen, but didn't remark on her words. She instead nods to herself. "You're right. I should watch over him. That is, and has always been my primary task. Though he is my husband, I have sworn to him first as his sword, his shield." Rossweisse stands, and hurries out into the corridor.
"I envy you," Asia says, careful to hide her smile. "To be unable to fly and watch over my husband like so."
Interlude END
Phase two, a relatively small phase if I'm being honest, was completed. I'd just supplied the Hexennacht magicians with more research samples in a day than they could ever summon in a night. It's good being the only known source of a hotly-desired product.
In exchange...? Well, they retained my services on credit—as I had no use for them at the moment. But I'd cast my feelers about, and this group was apparently on the verge of some major coup, and thus well-placed for any future plan.
They'll have their uses, and they will pay, when this Devil finally knocks on their doors to collect.
The day's almost over. And yet, my job is not done. The Hexennacht have also, in coming here, indirectly supplied me with a product more valuable to me than their favor at the moment, though they'd never know.
When Raynare's Fallen called, I knew I had my quarry.
Interlude Raynare
"Who were you talking to?" she asks.
He doesn't seem to take note of her suspicion. "Just some friendly clients, with whom I've recently concluded some favorable business."
"Do you know who they are?"
"Yes, I do."
She takes a long, deep breath. "Then why..." she says, enunciating the words carefully, "Did you prostrate yourself before them?"
"It is the Japanese way," he replies carelessly. "I do have to maintain my cover."
Raynare bites her lip, but says nothing more. Watching his meeting from a distance, she'd felt something break. Her mind is far away, surrounded by fierce tempest.
They go down to the city, to the outskirts of the industrial area, where the old abandoned construction lots were. They went into the shadows of half-formed buildings.
"He's here," he pronounces. He turns to her, smirking. "A brilliant coup."
"And who is this unworthy?" she asks half-heartedly.
"That is no business of yours," he replies, managing and failing to hide a sneer from her. She clenches her teeth so hard it hurts. "Suffice to say that it is important that I meet him, that we may come to a mutually beneficial accord."
The man they meet is suspicious, and downright hostile when he approaches. She watches him bargain and reason, telling the man they are no threat, that the Hexennacht has been dealt with, that they could ally. The man is obstinate, and shoves him away on his back. The sudden act makes Raynare tense and finger her bolts of light.
"Out of my way, vermin," the man growls. "So you say they have left? Then good. I have no need to stay here."
"But... the meeting! An alliance..!" he all but pleads. Raynare finds her black wings almost shrivelling on hearing that kind of voice from him, no matter how fake it's supposed to be. "Do you not understand the good we can achieve together?"
"Understand this worm. I have no need of alliance with a weakling like you. If you do not care to invite destruction, then stay out of my way." The man leaves.
"What was that?" she murmurs to him. "A bit too much, even for an act, isn't it?"
She has never seen his face so changed, like he were truly unsettled by what had happened. His cheeks are livid, his mouth drawn into a frown. "Five years of planning ruined! How dare he!" He begins to pace; her thoughts do the same. "I'm ruined, Raynare. Ruined! All those plans, lost! Because the fool would not agree. I have not had a setback in centuries! I'm ruined!"
"Who is he?" she asks, clearly exasperated.
"It doesn't matter," he snaps. "There's no need for you to know. Let me think."
"Don't you have... contingencies?" she asks dully, her eyes no longer following him.
"Contingencies?" He snaps his fingers in her face. "Be smart for once, bitch. He was my whole goddamned contingency! If you've got nothing constructive to say, then I suggest you stay silent while I think!"
Something snaps. Her heart falls past the tipping point. All her thoughts whirl, all surging into one point, freezing there into a decision so grand, so final she can barely remember unsheathing her weapon before she plunging it without hesitation into his unworthy heart.
He barely glances at the bolt sticking through his chest before he falls into a sorry heap.
She can barely believe what she's done. He stares up at her: surprise, anger, fear, betrayal, resignation all warring for control.
She takes a huge breath. "I should've done this a long time ago," she mutters, her eyes closed.
"Raynare..." he says, blood pooling in his mouth. "Why...?"
She has no time to answer, as the Valkyrie comes in wild and screaming, spear raised in fury. She's barely raised her weapon before they clash and she is sent reeling into the air.
"Traitor!" Rossweisse shouts.
Battle is joined.
Interlude END
T.B.C.
Thanks for reading!