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HOLLOW x2
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Hyoudou Issei honestly have no idea how his life has turned 180 degree just like this.
He didn't remember having a brilliant mind as a genius, nor an outstanding courage as a superhero. And yet Fate had chosen him as the successor of Boosted Gear, a weapon that was said to be able to kill God if fully mastered.
It all started with a false date.
Being an unpopular and non-remarkable person for most of his life, Ise was somehow confessed by a young beauty. Needless to say, he was thrilled beyond comprehension and made the best plan he could come up with for their first date.
Everything was going smoothly according to his fantasy, until at the end of their date, that girlfriend of Ise asked him to die for her.
After that, it all happened so fast in a blur, and before he could regain himself, a red gauntlet had already replaced his current left arm, along with the bloody body of a Fallen Angel that was his so called girlfriend moments ago.
Yeah, he had just murdered someone. Although that person was trying to kill him first, it didn't change the fact that he had taken life of another living being away.
It scared him, it terrified him.
Even in his wildest dream, Ise couldn't fathom the very thought of killing someone, much less than actually doing it. Add to the fact that he had discovered an unnatural power and a world he had no knowledge of until now.
Worst of all, his ordeal didn't stop there.
For whatever reason it was, the force that his supposed 'girlfriend' belonged to had begun chasing him down. Ise had to abandon everything he had once held and everyone he had known of to escape, including his own parents.
It took years and years for him to train himself as well as eluding his pursuers in every single step, going wherever his legs brought him to.
Physically strained, emotionally drained, he couldn't place his trust in anyone else but himself and continued to run senselessly, not knowing whether a tomorrow will ever come for him at all.
Along the way, a hole started to appear inside his soul, and it eventually became hollow.
...
On one peaceful day – a day that he deemed safe enough to relax – while Ise was pondering the meaning of the gauntlet in his left arm and the dragon dwelling inside it, one particular man approached him.
He introduced himself as Cao Cao, the descendant of the famous ruler with the same name of Wei dynasty in the ancient history of China.
Ise's first impression of the man was that he is an intellect and cunning person, which was obvious from the way he talked as well as which manner he carried himself.
He told Ise what exactly is the kind of this world they are living in, from which he only had some glimpse of from his occasional communication with Ddraig, and that he also wielded another top-ranked Sacred Gear, the True Longinus.
But most of all, he had come to the boy to offer him an invitation to join his group, the Heroes of Gaia, to fight for humanity against all kinds of non-human beings together with many other people who are either descendants of legendary heroes or wielders of Sacred Gears just like them.
Truth to be told, for the first time since the abandonment of his previous life, Ise was genuinely excited.
Excited that he had found a way to escape this meaningless manhunt from an unknown force which he previously had no power to resist. Excited that he could become an ally of justices for human just like those movies and stories he loved when he was still a child. And excited that he might have finally attained an answer to the meaning of his own existence, a question that he been constantly asking himself.
Needless to say, the boy had agreed to join in a heartbeat.
From that point on, a seemingly path of hope had stretched out before him. He underwent all kinds of brutal trainings, all forms of mental hardships, and all sorts of deadly clashes with forces from various realms. Despite how every single one of the enemies Ise encountered mocked him that he was the weakest host of the Boosted Gear's history, he usually betrayed their expectations of him and proved them just what amazing achievement a human can pull off given enough will.
And with each battle he came through, the brown-haired boy simply fortified his strength further and hardened his will tougher.
It was a path of glory for him.
Still, no matter how glorious he get, there was always an emptiness lying inside his heart. He might keep telling himself that it was nothing, but deep down, he knew better than anyone else about the truth.
After all, how can you hide hollowness when it's literally there to greet you every time you confronted yourself?
...
Inevitably, just like every Boosted Gear host before him, Ise come face to face with his nemesis, the current bearer of Divine Dividing, Vali Lucifer.
To say that he was strong was a big understatement. The man was atrociously powerful, far apart from any opponent that the brown-haired boy had fought with, and it didn't help much that he also carried the blood of the original Lucifer, one of the mightiest Devils ever known to walk both Heaven and Underworld, thus making him the strongest Hakuryukou.
Human against Half-Devil, Red turned Crimson against White turned Silver, and one who fought for protection against one who fought to seek strength.
Their battle was bloody and devastating.
Despite having fought valiantly, in the end, Ise was still overwhelmed by Vali. As such, the battle almost concluded with the latter's triumph.
But during the last moments, Ise was consumed by Ddraig's wrath due to his near-death state and tap into his own life force, summoning the ultimate form of his Sacred Gear, the «Crimson Welsh Juggernaut Drive» mode.
The battle raged on again, and after what seemed like an endless show of carnage and destruction, Ise came out victorious, slaying Vali in the process.
However, every power comes with a price, and the boy had to pay his short-lived victory with his own soul.
Somewhere inside him, though, he thought that this might be the best outcome. The boy who had once lived a carefree and normal life started to gradually lose his purpose with each battle he threw himself into, deluded by his own strength, until he became nothing more than a soulless husk. Death on a battlefield was how he envisaged his end, and since his vision came true, he believed that he had finally earned a peaceful finale to his life full of violence.
If only he had known what a hollow peace it was.
...
Even though every life normally ended with death, to Ise, however, Fate seemed to have disagreed on that, in a way that was both kind and cruel.
Cao Cao was a sly man, by all accounts, and he would not let one of his greatest pawns to die so easily. So he used the Holy Grail, which he had just stolen beforehand, to revive Ise completely with both his Boosted Gear and Vali's Divine Dividing in a body made of dragon flesh, a feat that had never been possible until now, hoping that he would be able to create and command the most powerful being that could rival even Great Red and Ophis.
But he couldn't foresee that he was attacked immediately when Ise emerged from the Well of Souls and caught him off guard.
The brown-haired boy was not his usual self anymore. Having dwelled inside the consciousness of so many fallen beings, he gained a massive amount of knowledge, and the wisdom to understand that his former comrade's intentions were not what he claimed to be, that his actions would eventually lead to mankind's downfall. Thus, Ise had decided that he would have to end Cao Cao's life himself.
At first, Cao Cao was overpowered by the newly resurrected Ise as he had both Dragon Emperors at their fullest strength, given the kind of body he had, which later forced the man to use the forbidden form of True Longinus, «Truth Edea».
Ironically enough, True Longinus had a will of its own, and during the moments of activating «Truth Edea», it had chosen Ise's ideal instead of its original master.
It went without saying that the Chinese man met his demise, but not before he left his last words of advice for the boy.
"The powers you wield shall be the end of yourself."
Acknowledging the man's words respectfully, Ise took over True Longinus and Holy Grail, embarked on another conquest to protect humanity all by himself, believing that no one else beside him could shoulder the burden.
At this point, the hollowness had enveloped his whole soul, and the once naïve boy was only a shell of his former self, fighting a battle he had no hope of ending, all but forgotten the desire to seek an answer to his previously mortal existence.
...
His dream stopped abruptly, and he wake up in the middle of the night.
It got him some time to steady his breath and calm down as he sat on the bed contemplatively.
The dream had obviously shaken him more than he had thought. Ise wondered if that was how his life would have played out had he not become a Devil, a life full of violence and hopeless future, not to mention the constant hollow feelings that kept weighting on his soul in every step he took. The brown-haired boy couldn't help but asked himself.
"What is it that had been missing from my other life?"
He, surprisingly, soon found the answer to that as he felt the slight tremble on his side and glanced at her.
There she was, Rias Gremory, in nothing but her birthday suit, breathing heavily and eyes twitching as she mumbled incoherent things to no one in particular.
It seemed that she was also having a dream, or to be more precise, a nightmare. Sweats began pouring on her porcelain skin, and as if she knew that he was awake, Rias immediately opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling with a horrified expression.
It didn't even take Ise a mere second to swoop down at her, caressing her face and muttering words of comfort that he would give no one else but her. She hugged him upon hearing those words, which startled him a bit as he had never seen her this vulnerable before, but he regained his composure quickly and embraced her gently, hoping that her nightmare would wither away from her mind.
All the while, he understood something as he stroked her back.
Rias Gremory was undeniably the soul mate of his heart, and he would gladly sacrifice everything in order to stay by her side and make her happy, even if it means trading the whole world. With the girl still being terrified inside his arms, the brown-haired boy did exactly what he had thought.
He promised the world with him at her side.
Unbeknownst to both of them, their hollowness had vanished without a trace, leaving behind a couple determined to spend their lives together forever.
And that, was how they achieved their own happily ever after.
A/N: This is a parallel chapter to the first one. I write it down since it seems inappropriate to let only one of our favorite couple suffer alone, and I want to make it feel like they were born for each other. Anyway, I do hope that you enjoy this one as much as the first chapter.