Author's Note: This is an extra chapter that didn't have a real place in the standard continuum of the story itself. It's basically what Gabriel and Serafall were up to while they were gone. It occurs in tandem to Chapter 14 but I couldn't put it in until after 15 though because I wanted the appearance of the AgK characters to be a surprise.
I've had this chapter for awhile now and glad I could finally post it. Sorry if people were expecting the next big chapter. This one was always meant to come out a couple days after the previous. Like every writer, I enjoy getting feedback on what I write and I know from past experiences that if you post 2 chapters at the same time, people usually skip the first and only submit feedback for the second.
Chapter 15.5: The Adventure of Gaby-Tan and Levia-Tan
A week before the Peace Conference…
The home was a typical Japanese residence nestled in the suburbs of Tokyo. It was small, compact, with three-bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen and a decent size living room. The yard wasn't much to talk about but unless you were in the top one percent of earners in Japan you couldn't afford a home with a decent yard in Tokyo.
The magical girl, Levia-tan, placed a wide scale sleeping spell over the home, sending all its occupants drifting off into slumber even as the white clad ninja beside her, Gaby-tan, was picking the lock on the front door. Levia-tan felt a flare of annoyance as Gaby-tan managed to open the lock in three seconds while it had taken her a solid four for her spell to fully take hold over everyone in the home.
No, Levia-tan knew the reason. She'd been forced to hold back lest she send the entire neighbourhood into a deep sleep some might never wake from.
"My win," Gaby-tan said as she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Gaby-tan was the foremost expert at picking locks in all existence. There wasn't a lock, digital or old-fashion, that she couldn't break through in five seconds and she knew how to override every home alarm system. Whenever anyone question her on it, she just tossed out the same bullshit excuse that it was 'necessary to watch over and protect the devote that were overly paranoid'.
No one truly believed it. She was the one that made Metatron so interested in shinobi in the first place.
"That just makes us even," the magical girl said as she followed her rival inside. She wasn't going to fight that battle. Let the fat-chested angel have her insignificant victory.
The home felt odd to Serafall as she stepped inside. It had this warmth to it, like a home filled with love. One could see it everywhere in the well-worn furniture, the scuff marks on the floor, and the fingerprints on the walls. The sleeping couple leaning against one another in the living room were so adorable that Levia-tan immediately envisioned her Sona-chan and Tatsumi-chan doing the same.
Yet beneath all that warmth there was this a cold chill. It seeped from the floorboards and out of the walls at the strangest of times, like a dark miasma that threatened to consume that earlier warmth. This home had seen a deep suffering at some point in the past.
"This way, Levia-tan," Gaby-tan said, gesturing Levia-tan to follow her upstairs.
"Are you going to tell me where we're going or are you going to keep being mysterious?" Levia-tan asked as she followed the white-clad shinobi upstairs.
"We're here to help Tatsumi-chan," Gaby-tan said cheerfully.
Levia-tan delicately sniffed the air again, this time focusing more on the suffering that lurked beneath the warmth. It had a familiar undertone to it. Her eyes snapped wide in realization. "This is Tatsumi-chan's old home!"
Gaby-tan just gave her a gentle smile as she stopped before a door on the second floor. She rapped he knuckles off the worn wood. "Yes, and this is his old room."
Levia-tan opened the door and frowned. The room beyond was completely empty, save for a thick cloud of suffering that covered the floor and walls. It was like the current home owners had taken one look at the room and decided to never look at it again. "This isn't recent," Levia-tan said as she stepped into the room. The suffering all but swirled around her legs, trying to find purchase on her person. She flared her power in annoyance sending it scattering away.
"It's an old suffering," Gaby-tan said as she entered after her. "Mira's death added to it, but it's always been here. Tatsumi-chan has been carrying a deep burden for nearly seventeen years."
"Levia-tan thinks Gaby-tan is going crazy," Levia-tan said, throwing an amused look at her companion. "Tatsumi-chan is only seventeen, how can he possibly…" she trailed off frowning, "Tatsumi-chan is only seventeen, isn't he?"
"I don't actually know how old he is," Gaby-tan admitted. She made her way over to the far wall and stopped next to the window. It gave a nice view of the street beyond. The white-clad ninja touched something unseen in the air a few feet off the ground. Levia-tan saw space bend and warp, as if the fabric of existence had ripped asunder years ago and had yet to properly repair itself. Gaby-tan flared her divine power and that rift opened a few inches. Through it Levia-tan could see the multi-colored fabric of the dimensional gap. "What I do know is that Tatsumi-chan isn't from our world. He remembers a previous life from a different world. Memories from that time chain him to this day." Gaby-tan smiled at her. "We will never be enough. Only those that know all that he once was can help us truly heal the wounds he suffers from."
"How does Gaby-tan know this?" Levia-tan asked as she made her way over to the rift. It did make sense, although she wished it didn't. Tatsumi was an enigma that neither she nor her little sister had been able to figure out. Everything about him was just so wrong. It didn't fit any known configuration of beings on this world. He didn't fit in with any mythology, with humanity, or any of the other races. He was truly unique, and if he came from another world it would explain why.
"Seventeen years again, my brother felt a shockwave ripple across the dimensional gap. Using the Eye of God he was able to track it to this place. He was quite surprised to find that the source was nothing more than a tiny little baby. There were strange things about the baby, but nothing to be particularly alarmed about at the time. Never-the-less, we set a Watcher to look over the baby. While odd happenings kept cropping up about the baby, there wasn't anything so out of place as to put it above a host of other strange occurrences that crop up across the world on an almost daily basis. It wasn't until that ill-fated tournament that things changed. Shouting Esdeath's name, displaying a feat of strength and speed that surpassed a human's ability to achieve without a Sacred Gear, and then his subsequent battle with Gregorious Abaddon."
"You knew about that and didn't interfere?" Levia-tan wasn't really one to talk as she probably wouldn't have interfered either. Back then Tatsumi had just been another human to her.
Gaby-tan shook her head, "Michael and I didn't find out until later. The Watcher had been given strict orders not to interfere, Tatsumi wasn't a believer after all. He reported to us almost immediately, but by the time we got the report and Michael used the Eye… everything was already over. From that point Michael decided that Tatsumi-chan required a more thorough analysis and a stricter watch."
"You?" Levia-tan asked.
"I volunteered, watching him whenever duties didn't keep me busy elsewhere. When he built Night Raid and actively began hunting down Devils and Fallen Angels, I felt a more hands-on approach was necessary. That was when I approached him and Bennia. We didn't want him to get himself killed." Gaby-tan smiled widely. "I'm especially glad we approached him after we discovered his ability to adapt to whatever female he is inside."
So she hadn't known about that beforehand like Serafall had initially thought. "Hoping for some baby angels?"
"It would be nice."
She didn't even try to deny it.
That was fine. Just because Gaby-tan wanted to see little baby cherubs floating around Heaven didn't mean it was going to happen. They'd have to completely alter the system before that could ever occur, or find some way around it. Having a baby didn't cause an Angel to fall, it was the act of conceiving one that did. Love was fine, Lust was not.
"It still doesn't explain why you of all people would get directly involved in Tatsumi-chan's life," Serafall pressed the mighty Seraph.
"Michael and I both had our reasons. He was interested in someone capable of crossing the dimensional boundary, no matter how they accomplished it. That's not something just anyone is capable of and he didn't want anyone who was capable of such a feat becoming an enemy in the future." Self-preservation then, had been the driving reason behind it. The Angels couldn't risk any more threats to their existence with things already hanging in the balance as they were. "As for why I volunteered. That's for reasons I have no intention of sharing with anyone."
"Fine, if you want to be that stingy, go ahead." Levia-tan wasn't going to lose to Gaby-tan anyways. Levia-tan grabbed the edge of the rift and pulled it open wide enough for her to walk through. "Let's go see Tatsumi-chan's home!"
"That's why I brought you here, Levia-tan," Gaby-tan said. She gestured towards the hole. "Children first."
Levia-tan almost blasted Gaby-tan clear across the city right then and there. She gave Gaby-tan a vicious smile, "no, please, the elderly and the senile should be given priority."
"My, my, Levia-tan must be going blind to mistake someone in the prime of their life such as I as elderly, such a terrible thing for a child to be afflicted with," Gaby-tan said, faking concern. Levia-tan was about to retort when suddenly she pitched forward and through the rift into the Dimensional Gap. "Such poor balance too. Oh, Levia-tan, I'm so sorry, are you already developing arthritis?"
"If it weren't for Great Red lurking somewhere in here I'd grind your teeth into powder," Levia-tan growled through her smile. Even together the two of them might were not a match for that dragon. It wasn't fair that a dragon was more powerful than a magical girl!
Gaby-tan adopted a shocked look as she joined Levia-tan in the Dimensional Gap. "I am truly disappointed in you, Levia-tan, such vulgar language is just not fitting of a magical girl."
Oh no, she did not just insult her magical girl qualifications! Great Red be damned, there were just some things Levia-tan could not let slide! Her demonic power surged through her veins as she called it forth from that nigh limitless pool resting within her. "Levia-tan is the greatest magical girl of all time and she won't let some wannabe shinobi that wouldn't know style if it slapped her in those overgrown melons of hers say otherwise!"
Gaby-tan's hair began to levitate as divine power poured off her in waves. "I have no problem showing you just how superior," she crossed her arms beneath her large breasts and pushed them up for emphasis, "a shinobi is to a, little, magical girl like Levia-tan!" Her eyes dipped to Levia-tan's chest as she said that.
Levia-tan saw red. "That's it! It's time for this little magical girl to freeze those cancerous tumors off your chest!"
Gaby-tan suddenly paled and all the divine power she'd been building up disappeared in an instant. Before Levia-tan could even begin to consider what that meant, there was a deep guttural rumble behind her, like some sort of enormous creature was roughly clearing its throat. Levia-tan froze and a sliver of fear ran up her spine. The Dimensional Gap was enormous. There's no way he found them already…
Right?
"He's behind me, isn't he?" Levia-tan asked quietly.
Gaby-tan nodded very slowly, like someone trying very hard not to appear threatening. Serafall hastily threw away all of her power and quickly sidled up next to Gaby-tan. The two of them threw their arms around one another's shoulders and smiled as sweetly as they could up at the monstrous red dragon hovering before them.
"We're just passing through, Great Red," Gaby-tan said quickly. "We would never think about disturbing you in your home, right Levia-tan?"
Levia-tan rapidly nodded in agreement. "Of course not! Gaby-tan and Levia-tan were just playing! We always play like this. We wouldn't really have come to blows."
Great Red, the most powerful being in existence, an entity capable of matching Ophis, the Infinite Dragon God simply pointed a talon longer than they were tall to the side. "I believe you two are here for that?" It rumbled in a voice like thunder.
Levia-tan and Gaby-tan nervously glanced towards where he was pointing at. It was indeed an identical rift to the one that they'd opened up in Tatsumi's old room. They both nodded together.
"Go, and if I catch you fighting in here again I will eat the both of you." His gaze shifted to Gaby-tan. "Even if one of you is a little fatty."
It took every ounce of willpower Levia-tan possessed, and then some she wasn't aware she even had, not to burst out laughing. The look of sheer mortification on Gaby-tan's face was beyond priceless. It was the single greatest thing Levia-tan could have asked for. This entire trip was worth it for that alone.
"Come on Gaby-tan," Levia-tan said as she pulled a listless and unresponsive Gaby-tan towards the second rift. "We shouldn't make the True Dragon God upset now by loitering."
"I can't be fatty!" Gaby-tan wept as she let herself get dragged away.
Levia-tan let out a short chortle, she couldn't help it. "It's okay, Gaby-tan, I know, sometimes the truth hurts. We can't all be perfect like Levia-tan." Oh this felt so satisfying. It completely wiped away all the earlier insults. "Gaby-tan should come to the dark side and admit magical girls are the best!"
"I refuse to fall!"
Levia-tan took hold of the second rift and pulled it open wide. "Then Gaby-tan is always going to be second to Levia-tan, how sad." She smiled viciously at the weeping angel. "Seniors first!" She threw Gaby-tan through the rift before jumping through herself.
Gaby-tan managed to right herself in midair and land acrobatically on her feet on the other side. The other side was a large, cobblestone square that looked as if it was plucked straight out of the medieval ages, complete with an elaborate fountain in the very center that wouldn't have looked out of place in modern day Japan.
The square was mildly packed with people and they all stopped to stare at the two strangely dressed women that seemingly popped out of thin air.
Levia-tan ignored them as she surveyed the square. The place had a strange dichotomy that seemed reflected throughout all the architecture of wherever they were. An enormous palace rose far in the distance behind walls so high it could conceal Tokyo Tower with height to spare.
"There are a lot of people here," Gaby-tan said as she did a full circle to take in the whole place. A dim white light was radiating from her eyes suggesting she was seeing more than what was just about them. "This city… is not normal."
Levia-tan surged her own demonic power through her body and into her surroundings. She blinked when she found only city. She stretched them further and further, and the city just kept spreading out in all directions. She could feel thousands of canals running throughout the city, wide enough for galleons and caravels to easily sail down them and beneath tall bridges that arced over them. Eventually she had to give up. After reaching out in every direction for two hundred kilometers, she could still only feel the city. There was no edge!
"Did you find the edge?"
"I did," Gaby-tan said. Levia-tan fumed. Damn her for beating her again. "This city is circular, and over two-hundred thousand square kilometers in size!" That number was staggering. It put this singular city on par with many nations of their world! If Levia-tan hadn't failed to find the edge herself she would have called Gaby-tan a liar. "There are over four hundred million people in this city."
"That's a lot."
"That's more than any city in our world."
"So how do we go about finding someone who can help Tatsumi-chan in a city larger than most nations with more citizens than most people can count?"
Gaby-tan turned to her and smiled. "We make a competition out of it."
"Oh?" Levia-tan was interested. "And what sort of competition does Gaby-tan have in mind?"
As Gaby-tan explained her idea, a beautiful smile came to Levia-tan's lips. It was the perfect competition and if anything she was a little upset she hadn't thought of it herself.
"I won't lose," Levia-tan vowed.
"Neither will I," Gaby-tan returned.
The Capital would never be the same after that day.
~o~
One week later…
Levia-tan found herself sitting beside Gaby-tan on a pair of poorly made wooden chairs behind a table in some dimly lit room inside a guard station. There was a single man sitting across from them on his own poorly made chair scratching his head, his features marred by a look of utter disbelief and exhaustion. He was reading a report, a thick one about a hundred pages in length, as he glanced periodically over at them across a pair of half burnt candles.
They were scented candles at least, which was nice. They helped stave off the pungent stench of sweat.
The whole experience was sort of a novelty to Levia-tan. She'd never been arrested before. Most people were usually too scared to try it. Although technically they weren't being arrested, just questioned. It wasn't exactly unexpected all things considered.
Levia-tan was willing to admit that perhaps she and Gaby-tan went just a tad bit too far in their competition.
The ground rumbled and shook as an explosion erupted dimly in the distance.
"So… let me get this straight," the man started as politely as one could when faced with a situation as utterly ridiculous as the one he was currently facing. "The both of you aren't here to disturb the peace and quiet of the Capital."
"Of course not, captain," Gaby-tan said in that soft, musical voice that could soften even the hardest of hearts. Levia-tan could see the captain questioning them shiver slightly and smelt his arousal rise. "I, at least, have nothing but the best of intentions for you and your own. I am as grieved by the colossal destruction of property that has occurred over this past week as you are. That was never my intent."
It hadn't been Levia-tan's either but one thing had just naturally led to another and all of a sudden the Capital was gripped in a war the likes people were saying they hadn't seen since the revolutionary army had attacked it seventeen years ago.
The man cleared his throat roughly as he adjusted his pants. "Ah, y-yes… about that… the damages are in the hundreds of billions," another explosion rocked the room, "and rising every second." The captain shifted his gaze to her. "And what about you miss… Levia-tan was it?"
"That's right!" Levia-tan said cheerfully. She winked at the man sending a sparkling his way. He just stared at the sparkle as it plinked off his forehead and landed on the report. "Levia-tan just wanted to spread the wonderful magical girl feelings to everyone!"
"And I have said this before a thousand times, Levia-tan," Gaby-tan said softly. "Shinobi's are better."
Levia-tan threw a smile at Gaby-tan so fake it could have been used to stuff breasts. "Those are fighting words, Gaby-tan."
"Please, ladies, don't destroy our city," the captain begged. His tough façade shattered and Levia-tan realized he was on the verge of a complete mental breakdown. "We have roughly forty-seven million magical girls warring against an approximately equal number of white clad shinobis in our city! It's tearing it apart! It's a miracle no one has died yet!"
"Good heavens, that is just terrible! We will be civil, yes," Gaby-tan assured the captain. "Shall I presume that we are under arrest?"
"Oh hell no!" The captain said as he shook his head back and forth. "If we arrested you we'd have every single child in the city descending upon whatever prison you two were locked in to break you out! Please, just please help us get them to stop tearing everything apart!"
Levia-tan had admitted perhaps they had been a little too selective in choosing children over adults. There wasn't a single child in the city that wasn't converted to one side or the other. She felt a little guilty, but magical girls were meant to overcome trials! This was just one more trial. If the magical girl army she had meticulously raised from the best children this city had to offer could defeat that rag-tag band of shinobi Gaby-tan had scrounged up from somewhere, it would prove her superiority!
"I'm so sorry for the trouble we've caused you and this city," Gaby-tan said gently. The captain's face eased as Gaby-tan's voice soothed his worries. "The trouble will end once I lead my children to victory over the magical girls that are overrunning your fair city." The man's face was crumpling into despair once more. "But to do that I suppose I will need to spread the word to those outside of the city as well. Spread it across all lands, the entire world."
There, right there, as the keening wail of despair erupted from the man's throat, was the exact moment his sanity was shattered into a million pieces. The man smashed his face off the table and continued to smash it until the table broke apart and he collapsed to the floor in a pool of his own blood.
"That's the seventh," Levia-tan noted as a pair of guards walked in and dragged the body out.
"I believe Levia-tan was responsible for five of them," Gaby-tan said as she made the sign of the cross. "May He have mercy on your soul, wherever it may rest."
"That puts me ahead of you," she pointed out.
"This isn't a competition," Gaby-tan pointed out.
"If you say so."
The next time the door opened a very different individual than the officers that had been questioning them before entered the room. She was a tall woman with short silver hair and a single violet eye. She'd lost her right one at some point in the past and it had been replaced with a mechanical one that shifted colors and changed focus as it shifted between Levia-tan and Gaby-tan. She'd lost her right arm as well at some time, and it too had been replaced with a mechanical one. She was clothed head to toe in a black suit that was left open to expose a great deal of her ample bosom.
A second woman entered in just behind her. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with long black hair and sharp red eyes. She wore black dress pants but a tight-fitting shirt clung to her chest like a second skin and left her arms exposed. Levia-tan could see some sort of engraving scrawled across her exposed skin, including her face. Belted to her side was a long, curved sword that looked very familiar.
"—hoping you two have better luck." A uniformed man outside the room said to the tall silver-haired woman. "You led a rather unique squad of individuals back in the day or so I heard. They've already driven seven of our best officers mad."
"We'll handle this, Zakara, go get some rest," the silver haired woman said. The uniform officer bowed low and left.
"It's all her fault," Levia-tan said, pointing to Gaby-tan. She didn't know what was going on, but she knew these two were different than the seven men they'd broken previously.
"Of course it is," Gaby-tan said as she rose to her feet. Levia-tan did a double take when she realized that Gaby-tan was no longer playing around. "It is good to meet you two."
"Good is still to be determined," the silver haired woman said as she took a seat where the previous captain had been. She didn't seem perturbed by the blood staining her shoes. "I am Najenda, Leader of the Special Forces here in the Kingdom. The both of you have caused a great deal of trouble for the Capital and unlike the captains before, I have no qualms about seeing you two locked in the deepest, darkest pits we can find."
"Oh my, that sounds just dreadful!" Gabriel said playfully, "will it come with the usual assortment of reptiles, insects, and tentacle monsters I've read about in so many manga?" The two of them just stared at Gabriel unblinkingly. "No? That's disappointing… oh well, I guess Levia-tan and I will simply have to make do with speaking with you two, and a few others. We've come quite far to speak with you after all."
"Oh?" Najenda asked, arching an eyebrow. "That doesn't bode well for you. Those usually seeking us out are those that really shouldn't be."
"Perhaps," Gabriel said lightly. She suddenly glowed and the white ninja outfit disappeared and in its place was her divine garment, the golden armor she wore to battle against the Satans in the Great War. A golden halo came into being above her head as a dozen white wings as pure as fallen snow erupted from her back. Raw divine power rolled off her in waves as the room became bathed in her pure light. "I am Gabriel, the Messenger of God, and one of the four Great Seraphs that protect His heavenly throne, and I am here to help a mutual friend of ours."
That was when Levia-tan realized she didn't actually know what it was they were here to find to help Tatsumi-chan. "Are these two why we're here, Gabriel?" Serafall asked.
"They are two of them," Gabriel replied, her divine voice grating across Levia-tan's skin like claws digging into her flesh.
"I see," Levia-tan said as she stood as well. She let her power surge through her, consume her. Demonic energy rolled off her in waves as her clothes and skin froze under her power. She grew, her form changing into an elemental of ice of unimaginable power. Twelve blue-white wings of ice erupted from her back. "I am the Leviathan, one of the four Great Satans that rule over Hell."
"Neat trick, do you two have anything else hidden up your sleeve?" Najenda asked, unperturbed the power they were putting on display. The woman at her side seemed even less fazed by their presence. Serafall couldn't see any sort of emotion from her.
These two were no strangers to dealing with powerful beings.
Instead of being offended, Gabriel just smiled as she reached inside her armor and pulled out a small clay sculpture that had a number of individuals artfully arrayed across it. Serafall recognized several of the people carved upon it, such as the Fallen Angel Mine, Tatsumi-chan, the Nekomata Leone, the Japanese god Susanoo-no-Mikoto, and the youngest son of the Agares clan, Lubbock. Najenda and the woman at her side were two more. "How about a reappearing act?" She placed the sculpture on the table and turned it so it was facing the two women. "Will anyone else from Night Raid be joining us?"
Najenda frowned as she stared at the clay sculpture. "An interesting sculpture, but hardly much more than that. As for Night Raid, I've never heard of anything by that name."
"Oh my, how unfortunate," Gabriel said, sounding sad and depressed as she picked up the sculpture. "That poor boy, I'll just have to return this to Tatsumi-chan and tell him everyone he knew from his old world is dead." The emotionless woman standing behind Najenda jerked in surprise and took an involuntary step forward. "Oh, I see that name has some meaning. Are we willing to talk or do we still wish to play this game? I like games."
Gabriel wasn't so bad when Serafall got to witness someone else on the opposite end of her tongue.
Najenda gave the emotionless woman a quick glance before letting out a long sigh. "I may be willing to have a bit more of an open mind to what you have to say."
"That's just wonderful! Because your Tatsumi-chan was reincarnated in our world and our world is tearing him apart. We need help putting him back together." Gabriel gave the two women a soft smile. "Are you willing to help?"
"That depends entirely on what you have in mind and how willing you are to stop the war you started in the Capital."
That was the turning point. Gabriel had their undivided attention. This was what they had come here for. They could only repair the damage done to Tatsumi-chan by their world, they couldn't heal the scars inflicted upon him in this one. Only those that had walked beside him, shed tears alongside him, and truly knew the suffering he had gone through, could help him there.
And as the conversation drew long, Serafall felt for certain that these two were just the women Tatsumi-chan needed to heal his old wounds.
Author's Note: The two main things this chapter addresses were how Akame and Najenda got to the DxD World, and why the Angels approached Tatsumi in the first place. Love it or hate it, this is the reason. I'm never going to reveal why Gabriel approached Tatsumi. 'I' know that reason, but that's something I'm going to leave strictly up to your imagination. Be imaginative with your reason and, of course, faithful to the DxD Universe.
Anyways, leave a review and let me know what you think of their adventure together!