"Every battle is won before it is even fought"
~ Sun Tzu

-XxXxXxX-

With Issei and co. somewhere deep in the forest a few miles from the Gremory vacation resort/ day 10/ Time: 8:45AM

This was the final day

The day where all of the cuts, bruises, tears and sweat finally showed in the lime light, this was last day of training and the Gremory peerage had literally been through hell

And the last day was the hardest of them all

Issei knew his inner partner was the head for his actual training and he had been driven to see what exactly it was, imagining what the training could be brought issei to think he'd be fighting for dear life against a monster of dragon deep in a forest where god (Ow) only knows where

But his speculation was diminished when he had been brought to his inner workings, into the massive flaming field where he had first met the dragon

Issei smirked slightly at the lack of brilliant flames, his training with Rias did target his mindset and it worked fully but it also improved his physic as well, he had been confused on why he saw physical development during training and Kiba said all devils evolve quicker under harsh environments, even Kiba was lacking the small amount of baby fat

All in all, he had grown exponentially, the lack of flames obviously confirmed it and Ddraig's ever present smile of pride gave way to speculate even the dragon was proud... or surprised, of his interior and exterior change

Glancing around his inner workings of his soul, issei noticed the ground wasn't glass-like anymore but it seemed to transform, in seconds the former sheet of black glass flooring was replaced by actual scenery, trees as far as the eye could see sprouted up and the ground was replaced by grass as green as summer time, a wild forest fire was still visible in the distance signifying the flames of the welsh were still fighting

A fight barely visible for a set of normal eyes

[you've grown much more powerful in that training] piped Ddraig who was still holding a powerful smirk, even issei smirked while looking down to his formerly shredded training outfit which was now repaired by unknown means

"Of course I did, they don't call it the 'Crimson week' for nothing now do they?" replied the teen, he still carried a sense of humor but his eyes were narrowed like a battle ready solider

The sudden modification to the regime "hell week" was renamed by the peerage due to the high amounts of modifications to the human training, and they decided to name it after their king Rias who had proven that every rose has a thorn... and she had a lot when she wanted

Ddraig smirked even deeper, the boy before him radiated confidence on a equal level of a mid to high class devil, this was exactly what he wanted, no possessor of him will be weak and Rias had made sure of it before even he could get his hands on him

He'd thank her personally when this was over

But before that, his finally training was at hand, a single hour of endurance was all he needed to help Issei reach an even higher level of power than his previous 'gift'

[This training I have created for you will be by far the toughest, even that "crimson week" of yours will be brought down a peg] as Ddraig said those words Issei simply listened while crossing his now muscular arms over his now tight chest, an almost non-excitant expression of skepticism ever present on his stoic expression

[Over the years I have had hundreds of wielders, and every one of them has proven that they are the most capable humans alive, names I will relinquish later but right now... your first opponent has arrived] Issei's body tensed when he felt a presents behind himand it was powerful

The man that walked out of the tree line wore what issei suspected was ancient Roman Empire armor, bronze chest plate that emphasised his abs was worn obviously over his torso, red cloth rained down his back like a short cape and a red skirt was his lower apparel, bronze grieves that reached his knees covered all sides of his legs and brown old sandals, and lastly a helmet sat on his head with a small red 'Mohawk', his left eye was covered by a bandage finishing his description

[Horatius Cocles, a legendary Roman hero that defended the bridge across Tiber when the city he was in was attacked by Etruscans, Horatius lost his eye during this attack but simply continued to push back the attack like a monster. "Cocles" means "one eyed" do not question this man's heroism Issei, he is the second most tenacious possessor of my gear, fight well Issei, your growth lays beyond him] Ddraig's words carried pride while Issei simply looked to the green eyed Roman hero

The man's expression was blank, but he seemed to look almost completely focused on him, like a ghost that which had retained his combat instincts

Issei got low

There was no telling the man's skill but issei could just tell this 'ghost' was not to be trifled with, his weapons were a simple shield of bronze and a short double edge sword but his stature was trained to superhuman levels

[Begin]

Once his words were uttered did the 'ghost' before him lung at him with a sword thrust, in response to this Issei activated Ddraig's gift which slowed down the actions to readable levels

Dodging left of the sword issei quickly shot a low punch down to the man's chest but forgot the shield which dented and reverberated with a loud cling. Shooting back from the force the ghost of Horatius narrowed his glowing green eyes and looked down to his shield to see a visible dent on his shield

Grunting loudly the ghost rolled his shoulder and activated a similar gift as issei but this time, instead of issei simple green flow of energy it sprung wildly from his being and caused red violent sparks to corollas around him

A powerful pressure surrounded the area within the opening of the forest and Issei clenched his teeth at it while looking to Ddraig for an explanation

[I did say you evolution lays behind him didn't I?] Was the only response he got from the red dragon before he felt a massive rush of wind before a powerful shield slammed into his torso

Just like before, a loud clang sounded off but this time the sound of air vacating from someone's lungs followed

CRASH! GAHHH!

Issei slammed into a tree a few yards from where the ghost of the roman hero stood gasping for air, the solider of Rome stood completely still before the red dragon that loomed above them floated down

[Do you understand my aim now partner?] Questioned Ddraig with a simple gaze

Issei couldn't answer, his lungs screamed in pain at the lack of oxygen [my target for your growth is much more deep then simple progression in strength, with all my possessors each one triumphed over the other in some way, be it raw power, desire, stubbornness or just plain reckless abandon]

[The cycle of evolution is always violent, and right now I'm trying to see if you are a progression or a setback, will you further my reputation or will you tarnish it?] Boomed Ddraig, his voice was calm before but his loud thoom in his voice signified his seriousness

"What are you getting at?" replied Issei with a wheezing breath

[I am a dragon partner, my thoughts and expectations are not petty, what you face is an enemy not just immortal but a powerful one, a member of the house of Phenex is not to be trifled with and the only way to defeat a Phenex is to destroy its heart and spirit]

"With power I presume?"

[I guess we do connect in a small sense] muttered Ddraig with a rising smirk

[The person you see before you is one of my first wielders, he stood tall in my view for his sheer ferocity in the face of apposing odds and did so with only one eye... a perfect relation to your own situation if I do say so myself, now Issei!] When Ddraig finished explaining he yelled out his new possessor's name

[If you want to take down a Phenex then prove to me you can take down an opposing force, if you cannot defeat him then you will not progress but defeat him and you will proceed... NOW FIGHT!]

At his orders the ghost of Horatius sprung back into combat mode, with his sword and shield back into ready position he thrusted himself at Issei with reckless fury and sheer ferocity no human could face without trembling

Issei response was to do the same, with his gift activated at maximum output he charged the empty eyed Horatius with a similar goal his opponent had

The fields of welsh and fire were then filled with the booms of opposing power clashing with the other

-XxXxXxX-

Rias chimed calmly to herself, her attitude was one of pure excitement

It had been a whole week since she and her peerage had arrived and she could thoroughly say the changes in her peerage were very visible

The first was her knight Kiba, he was above all else, considered her most lethal piece, his speed and skill with the sword was bar none the most dangerous apart of her peerage, during the week that they had called 'crimson week' he had undergone the same training as issei and his attitude was much sharper than before, whenever it came to sparing she noticed his level of both confidence and determination to prevail, he had gone from lethal to hyper lethal in exactly 10 days of grueling training

When day ten came along the crimson week came to an end as the thought of over working her peerage was almost unheard of, she needed them well rested for tomorrow's game, but this left them to train their own skills

Then came her rook, Koneko. Not much could be seen under her usual stoic expression but Rias could tell her confidence had skyrocketed, normally hell week targeted the mindset of others but to say she needed a thorough attitude adjustment was out of the question

Rias had already earned the loli's trust.

The true effects on Koneko after the week was actually physical adaption, this would skyrocket the rooks already impressive strength and defense, instead of the small and petty white haired girl was now a petty girl with a deadly set of eyes and unnoticeable biomass that screamed a big bonus of pain if trifled with

Riser's rook would need adult supervision if she wanted to fight andsurvive against her's

Rias chuckled at the thought

The sight of a terrified opponent was funny to see, not to mention liberating in some way

Rias thoughts of improvement then fell onto her queen Akeno, she was a close friend to her in every sense of the word and also the most experienced in her training regime, she was a part of her peerage two years before both Kiba and Koneko joined and a total of 5 years before issei and Asia so she was the most prepared for the training

Didn't mean she wasn't effected however

Her queen had gone from being a normally fit teen with less noticeable biomass to a near picture perfect athlete with every muscle being slightly more noticeable, but physical attributes aside Akeno had developed more internally then externally, its widely known to all that with physical training can increase ones magical stamina due to the harsh nature of the 'crimson week' all of Rias' peerage had grown in biomass this resulted in a sudden spike in energy stamina in every

Perfect for allowing Issei and Asia to train with magic development, although Asia didn't physically train she was at time required to fix a broken bone or bad bruise and the infamous week of training was short on those in the least

Everyone had increased in magic energy, that including her newer pieces, but Akeno had developed an insane amount of magic reserves, before the week's events Akeno could go a whole 2 hours of constant devil energy exertion but now she could probably last a whole 6 hours, and then came her ability to recover said devil energy

Rias had added in small breaks so to test her peerage in gathering as much energy required for the next drill as possible, to say she gave them little time to recover would be an understatement, five minutes was the longest they ever got to sit and breath, so the peerage developed a keen ability to recovering magic at an accelerated rate

Simple breathing and calming exorcises was standard but meditation helped as well

This brought another aspect into her queens growth, whenever break was called she took as much time as possible to teach everyone a calming technique in order to relax in short periods of time, something that they would call battle resting'

Similar to battle sleep the goal was actually to put less focus on the past and more in placing one's mind in a limbo like state, scary in context but rather easy when you're not riled up like a dog on rabies, the idea and goal is to reel in access adrenaline that which can cause ones system to use unnecessary energy

To put it simply, every peerage member has learned to literally control their own body on an internal level, Rias knew to never mess with nature but that didn't mean one couldn't control their own bodily functions and that was a really nice surprise for her, day 5 she suspected signs of fatigue to weigh down on them but they always showed just enough energy to avoid being called out and tempted to quiet

All and all, Akeno had learned to utilize her status as second in command to direct everyone in her peerage to survive, a roll specifically designed for Akeno

Now she could say she had full trust in Akeno's leadership, she might even become a king herself one day but if Rias wanted that to happen she would've already started training her in that field, yet the queen never showed an interest such as leading a peerage

Forgetting those thoughts for the future Rias' mind fell upon her last two pieces and their development, firstly, Asia, the former nun and holy maiden of the church, Rias hadn't connected much with her due to the time she had to basically relax in bond with her new bishop but the happenings with riser had interfered with that notion

But alas, she was proud. To see her bishop was quiet fluent in devil magic and its inner workings was a good aspect in her unorthodox way of being resurrected into devil hood

Rias cringed at the memory

'Aside from that' she muttered internally before diverting her thoughts from Asia to her last piece, Issei

He was... different, from a stand point one would expect a large sum of development from him but it seemed to Rias development wasn't exactly in Issei business card, obviously the effects of the training had done exactly what she wanted but aside from mental maturing as well as physical development nothing worthwhile came of it, whenever he was asked to create a sphere of magic he'd create a golf ball of chaotic energy similar to a flame and if he knew how dangerous that was then he'd consider himself insane

Chaotic devil magic in its purest form is near impossible to control; its basic level of power is considered primordial compared to regular devil magic yet his sphere seemed much closer to demonic

A shiver here and a shudder there and Rias deduced his blind ignorance was sheer bliss, but then an inking feeling crept into her thoughts

When he summoned the 'spark' of demonic energy Rias had expected a form of struggle on her pawns expression yet he seemed calm and even relaxed, at first she thought Ddraig was the cause yet it was confirmed by issei he hadn't summoned that gift of his

Another shudder

Ever since that discovery Rias and Akeno had stopped his magic training completely, and after that was dropped like a bag of lead Ddraig had informed issei his actual training was about to commence as of immediately

That was two days ago

Sure the training of hers was still in effect but she was told Ddraig training would do the same if not more then what she was aiming for, of course the Gremory king was happy to let the dragon borrow her pawn and it turned out the dragons reputation lived up to its word

Issei should large growths in large variety of fields, hand to hand combat seemed much more noticeable, sloppy yes, but he was able to handle Koneko in a lazy match and even won two of the three fights. Koneko had informed them that, that was gonna be the last time she goes that easy on him

The rest was history, two day history, but history none the less, Rias had noticed a growth in Issei 'devil' energy and seemed to surpass expected levels thanks to the dragons 'inner world training' regime

This caused Rias to chuckle softly

She was a king first and a nerdy teenager second... or was that after 'queen of kouh'? Didn't matter the order, all that matter was Rias was, in fact, an Otaku

And not casual either, full on otaku was a better description of her liking towards the Japanese entertainment genre and even that was stretching her loving desire of the fictional worlds

Aside from all of them, the 'inner world training' as Ddraig mentioned had caused quite a nerdy snicker from the red head devil who had quickly replaced Issei's brown hair with an orange spiky hair do

She expected the thought to be hilarious but in the end it caused her to shake her head violently at the image of her pawns hair suddenly become one with the carrots

'Back on track Rias' muttered the red head while quickly dousing her otaku thoughts and went back on to her previous topic, long drawn out comedy skits usually become boring by the third paragraph

For the remainder of the weeks training Issei had diverted his lessons from her and more towards the dragon dwelling within him, his lessons differed from many degree's

One such day, Issei seemed to fall deep into a coma, scaring everyone present while the next day he exerted so much power in a long period that the once dense forest was now a massive wide open park, the tree's all vaporized and all the grass and dirt was sent in all directions leaving dry rock exposed

But right now, issei was just lying on the ground at the center of the park, silent, but steadily breathing, once in a while he'd jerk from the side and then flinch to another direction, his expression would change from determined to pained then back to the previous expression

Whatever was taking place in his little noggin Rias deuced he was battling something, of what she had no clue, yet the idea of him fighting was an easy deduction

She observed this all from the comfort of her resort suite a few miles away, binoculars helped in judging expressions while the distance helped keep her safe from massive degree's of devil energy, her brother exerted high amounts power yes, but it was controlled compared to Issei's violent torrents of red energy

Prolonged exposure to it would probably be as dangerous as radiation poisoning to humans except minus internal damage and more body vaporization

The thought of liquidizing at hyper speeds had helped in deterring Rias' growing curiosity to 'get a better look' and simply took to keep as much distance humanly possible.

Whatever her pawns training consisted of it would in the end progress him further down the road to their victory, it seemed weird for her to put all the pressure on the unaware teen but compared to her Issei had more destructive power then even her self... for now at least

Issei was going to be her trump card against Riser, taking down something that's only permanent weakness was divine energy was going to be hard for those who can't even touch that option without it lashing back at them violently and so the last choice was to break him from the inside

Immortals, as unfair as it sounds, can't die and to top that off, the house of Phenex is notorious for high speed regeneration on a jaw dropping scale, any wound could regenerate just as fast as it was received meaning no matter what they throw at him Rias was sure it would be shrugged off without a second glance

Riser probably faced off against stronger opponents before and she was sure they probably hit harder then what she was capable of, her power of destruction was dangerous but still in training, Issei however was different in odd categories, where he 'failed' in devil magic training he would show adept skill at growing at a rapid pace, like a sponge he'd absorb every detail with extreme focus

This week was just a single week, hell week took course after a few weeks of PT before it would kick in yet she just cut right to chase and started hell week without any prior PT training, but yet its effects were still the same

Like she noted before, his hand to hand skills were far better than his prior self, his focus on more progressive means was far better than his pas self and finally came his wing training, she thought it was unnecessary at first but 'she'd rather him have it and not need it, then need it and not have it' prep was key, if there was time to add in bonus skills and such then she'd take it, who knew when he'd need it

As for everything else, he was growing steadily, physical endurance was just as good as her other peerage members and his knowledge on devil culture was addressed on down time after crimson week, he now had a full understanding of their culture and its political workings, then she explained the rating games and all of its workings, rules and regulations and so on

This was to also bring in ideas not just to herself but her peerage as well, she may be the king but a true king rules with the people not alone, if they had strategies and schemes to success then she'd hear them out

Now all she did was watch, in the distance was issei, whose movements seemed spermatic and random, a twitch her a jitter there, it looked like he was experiencing a nightmare but reminder herself it wasn't

Rias thought this was the norm of the training but it suddenly changed in a blink of an eye, the usual steady breathing teen suddenly released a powerful level of energy in a sudden burst that up rooted a few trees a few hundred yards from him, it was surprising but the sheer distance from him had caused the sudden blast of power to feel like a small earthquake, a visible green light shown in the distance from where issei was

Using her binoculars Rias saw he was still lying down on the floor, completely unmoved by the cataclysm around him, small loose rocks floated in the air as If the sheer gravity in the area was disrupted, red sparks rolled off of Issei's form and violently lashed outward about a few feet like an electric storm

She smirked slightly at the sight

Issei didn't seem to be in pain at all, the sheer level of violent energy around him seemed dangerous but she guessed only to outside forces, instead of the expected expression of pain she was pleasantly surprised to a calm and bliss expression on her first and last pawns face

'I see your growing just fine... Ise'

she was left in the dark on what exactly the training was, but issei relayed Ddraig's message as it being a trade secret so all that remained was to simply place her trust in the dragon, as unrealistic as it sounded, and let the leaves were they fall

She came to the training resort skeptical on her chances on beating Riser but now... now she could wait to see what the odds had in store for her

When all odds are against you, get even

-XxXxXxX-

Game day, kouh academy/ ORC club room 20 minutes before game start

Issei sat on the couch in the club room with Asia sitting next to him, both of them looked different in nature, the usual confused and nervous expression on Issei was gone and all that remained was a small confident smirk and ready eyes

The week prior to training was in fact hell itself, Issei didn't know how she managed it but he felt different, obviously in body as he felt much more... fit, and lastly and most surprising was his mental state, of course he felt normal like before but his more childish sides were rung out or grinded out during the week of training

He felt like he went through a massive growth spurt mentally in only a matter of ten days, the past actions he did somewhat caused him to cringe at his ignorance and 'dreams'

He shuddered again at his past choices, now you may think it unnatural for a person to undergo a serious mental swap at high speeds but that isn't the case, during his week with his master Rias issei had time to think during the repetitive and tedious tasks

And all he thought of was the will to adapt

Every being had it, the ability to adapt to any situation was crucial for survival, its what keeps those willing to change alive while the ones who stay the way they were die out either peacefully or violently, he learnt that from his 'ally' a while back

The odds of you dying are closer now than before

His memory on the message was scrabbled but the topic rang like a mantra in his head, it was true, death was extremely closer then when he was a human, now that he was within the supernatural were gods, devils, angels, psychotic murderer's run rampant, obviously there was political sides to it but it didn't change the fact that his first week into the supernatural had proved that this was no cake walk

There was no room for building harems, that was to childish, sure it could happen he learnt that during his little lessons with Rias on how its normal for male devils to take in multiple wives, to be honest it did excite him a bit but he still needed to grow into a safe slot of power to insure he had the means to stay alive to achieve that 'goal'

But it wasn't at the forefront of his mind; the first thing he needed to make sure of was two things. First and for most was the person sitting next to him which was Asia, he remembered what Ddraig said about his tight emotional connection to the blonde and this was no exception

The rating game was no board game, this was a pitch fight with a little strategy mixed into it but it was a fight none the less and Asia didn't like it one bit, she had requested to stay with him last night because of her nervousness and she explained her side of discontent towards the idea of settling things via fists, her 'kinder then thou' persona was still with her and issei doubted it'd leave anytime soon

So, his first goal was to insure her safety, now came the second goal but it wasn't exactly 'second' more like tied for first but it goal was simple... win

Defeating the roasted chicken at all costs was his second top priority, the man's arrogant and cocky attitude was simply painful to see on ones expression, and issei knew exactly what kind of guy he is to women, just a plain a simple douche nozzle with too much money and zero responsibilities, sure he had his family's name to represent, horrendously done by the way, Issei first impression on the house of Phenex was a group of snobs in serious need of a good knuckle sandwich to wake 'em up back to reality

Of course Issei had a personal dislike of the prick but he also saw the situation his master was in, if they lost she'd be forced to live a horrible life as Risers, forgive the context, 'toy'. Like he said before, Riser was a top example of douche and all those punks do is gloat about their accomplishments and brag on the last women the screwed, no commitments, no loyalty, no nothing, just a snobby personality in need of a good beating

Of course he sounded like a hypocrite right now but that would incline Issei still thought in accordance to his previous self to which you'd be wrong, he no long fully wished for endless pleasures IE: boobs, as far as the eye could see, he now knew that was aligning to Riser in some way and he'd rather distance himself from ever relating to that prick and like before, it was childish to think that way all the time

There's a time and a place for that

So, if they lost not only would the debt he owed Rias would be lost but also she'd live a horrible life with a prick who most likely cares more about her body then her personally and lastly... that damn training would be all for nothing!

Nope

That was not going to happen

With his goals locked in and loaded with determination Issei sat quietly alongside Asia, the others simply minded their own business while preparing for the rating game, Koneko was strapping on a pair of MMA fighter gloves with metallic accents and Kiba was finishing with his custom sword strap before sheathing a single sword away in it, Akeno and Rias were simply sipping tea back as if there was no care in the world

'Chill as can be it seems' muttered Issei as he watched the others around him, he knew they were nervous and what better way to cope with it then to do what relaxes you the most

Another cringe struck him at that thought

"You ok Ise? You jumped just a moment ago" Questioned Asia as she looked to him nervously

"Nothing, just a cold shill is all" his answer causing the blonde to tilt her head adorably to the side in confusion

Before the conversation could proceed any further the oak door suddenly opened and out came Sona Shitori or as she was better known as Sona Sitri, not much in the creative department but it sufficed, he was informed of a second devil in the school sometime ago during the first few weeks as a devil and she was the student council president... who knew

"Sorry if were intruding" started Sona with a polite apology

"No its fine, come on in" replied the dismissive Rias allowing the two to come in, Issei spotted the second figure as Sona's assistant president and Queen, Tsubaki Shinra

"What brings you two here?" asked Issei

"Ah right, I forgot" started Rias while shaking her head at her blunder "this rating game will actually be broadcasted over the underworld"

Issei's eyes rose slightly at realizing he was gonna be on Devil TV then Sona came and dropped another bomb "That's right, and I recall hearing about lord Sirzechs himself was going to be over seeing the game personally"

Again, Issei's eyes rose

He had been told by Rias a while back that she did in fact have a brother, an older siscon in fact, and that siscon was the new ruling Lucifer, to sum it up, he learnt that after a few devil hierarchy lessons from Rias, Sirzechs being the last lesson before his training with Ddraig kicked in

Unbeknownst to the others, a small smirk rose on Issei's lips at the memory of his real training, clenching his fists confidently and quietly he refocused his attention back to the conversation

"And as for why I'm here is simple, I just wanted to cheer on my best friend, this would be your first rating game am I correct?" Sona said with a smirk, a very rare sight Issei thought

"Of course it would be, I'm not into those shadow games as some other devils are, so yes this would be my first rating game" replied the confident red head, a side that which Sona noticed

"You sound confident, are you ready for this game?"

"More like excited..." drawled Rias, and a simple glance to her new pawn and Sona smirked again, Rias was a close friend and somewhat a rival in a petty sense and everything new in their lives was either chatted about in person at her house or explained over a few cups of tea in the ORC club room so she knew why her friends expression held so much confidence

The boosted gear

If anything stood a relatable level of power towards a Phenex then it was the dragon of power himself, and Rias' simple glance to her pawn suggested she just couldn't wait to see the inevitable tussle between the two and now she could firmly say she was on the same boat as her friend

"whatever the case, just make sure you knock his block off for me" she said directing a small glance to Issei's eyes, a small gesture that which told Issei it was directed more to him then his master, a small nod and he relayed his determination to fulfill that request

He'd do more than just knock his block off

"I'll be sure to make this as exciting as I can" a second nod to her friend signaled her acknowledgement before a whitish blue magic circle appeared behind the Sitri duo

"It's time my lady" called out Grayfia from her spot behind the Sitri duo

Sona nodded to Grayfia before looking back to Rias "good luck" was her last comment before she walked past the Gremory maid and out the oak doors

When the doors closed the peerage rose like a row of machines being reactivated and filed towards the maid who summoned a red magic circle, everyone had a calm but ready expression aside from Asia's nervous one

It didn't seem to Issei that there was much preparation before a rating game, obviously training wasn't part of his point but all it took for them to actually start the game took roughly 20 minutes, lace up, put the jersey on and get out there, not much was talked about prior to the game and neither words of encouragement were uttered at all

Issei didn't really think they needed the words of confidence, the crimson week built the confidence of Kiba, Koneko, Akeno, and himself and just like the domino effect, Rias built confidence by the fluid growth rate they all reached and surpassed so Rias was just as confident if not more than them, though it felt off that Asia wasn't in the loop as much but fighting wasn't her forte and even Rias said that she'd be brought into a barren few rating games if it so much as calls for it but issei guessed she'd have a better chance on fitting into the group when the fighting starts to die down and the club was left with the usual mundane ORC activities

Oh how wrong he was...

In a small matter of time and the whole peerage was teleported to an alternate dimension, it confused the newer peerage members for a second when they saw they were still in the club room but a simple glance to the window and its small purplish glow suggested otherwise

"Well that's sketchy" muttered Issei as he looked out the window to see the sky was purple, it looked almost like the sky was filled with northern lights, very nice looking if he doesn't say so himself

"Just a reminder Issei, this is a alternate dimension, property damage is all but forgotten" Rias words simply caused Issei to nod, they, as in Issei and Asia, were both briefed on the rating games functions and the thought of forgotten property damage was just icing on the cake

He could cut loose any time

But the thought of doing that so soon was quickly forgotten, the 'bones' of their plan was already cemented into their attack plan, all that was left was the 'nervous system' and the 'muscle' the 'skin' part was just fluidity on execution

The analogy was disturbing but it made sense

"Your attention please" started a voice eerily familiar to Grayfia's, a second and they knew it was her "My name is Grayfia and I'll be the arbiter of this days rating game, the area chosen for this event is a complete replica of kouh academy, a human school stationed in the human realm and is attended by Rias Gremory" there was a pause then she started up again

"Each team has been given and area to serve as a home base, lady Rias and her peerage will be stationed at the old school building while Lord Riser and his crew will be stationed in the principal's office in the new school building. Pawns may be promoted when either side reaches the opposing team's base, good luck to all" after her mutual wish to both sides the line cut leaving the alternate space quiet for a few seconds before Rias got down to business

Wordlessly the peerage sprung into motion, Asia and Issei remained where they stood while Akeno secured the windows and Kiba fetched a school blueprint map and Koneko handed out bright pink magic orbs to everyone the size of marbles, a simple item that was mentioned in the training weeks briefing by Rias, a simple magic spell with its own 'battery' life cast and optimized to read the others thoughts if the wearer so chooses, this would help communication from falling and the whole plan from crumbling

Once everything was 'locked down' the light briefing started

Addressing the map now spread out on the table Rias began by placing three flags In three different locations, they had a field advantage with the knowledge of the area and school layout which was extremely helpful and the three flag locations was the old school building, the gymnasium, and the new school building each marked with A, B, and C respectively

He chuckle when he saw this layout, it reminded him of Call of Duty's domination mode, the 'B' flag was sitting right over of the gymnasium

"B is the key" he muttered and Rias chuckled softly

"Your right, the gym is a lynch pin in ground control and I can bet your asses that Riser will make a B-line to capture it before we can move safely, Akeno, Koneko, Kiba, while I brief the bare bones of the plan I want you three to create traps and illusions to ward off any runners who may wish to promote and retreat"

"Got it" replied Akeno before the three left to do their first job, when they left Rias started up again

"When those three get back Issei I want you to fill Koneko in and move to the gym and retake it alongside her, leave no one standing"

"Consider it done" he replied confidently

The next action on Rias' part confused the two as instead of continue briefing she simply got up from her chair and walked to the couch and sat down before patting her lap invitingly towards Issei "lay your head here Issei"

"H-huh?" he looked confused yet slightly agreeing the notion but his confusion outweighed his other side "I don't think the situation calls for that Prez"

Rias simply frowned before patting it again "would you just do it" she said forcefully and Issei could have sworn he saw a flexing actor in the distance, withdrawing to Rias' order he sat down then laid his head on his masters lap, a small but visible smirk playing on his face

[perversion intensifies] muttered Ddraig simply, issei frowned but ignored his partners quips about his unusual sexual fantasies, they were suppressed but they still squeezed out here and there and the feeling of Rias' lap wasn't helping in keeping that side suppressed

"The reason I asked for this was for two reasons" started Rias

"And what would those two reasons be?"

Rias rested her hand on Issei's head before answering "well the first one would be simple... relax" the teen raised a brow at that but Rias continued "ever since we arrived here the air has been rather dense with your anxiety... or is that excitement?" Rias smiled teasingly down to Issei when she finished

When she mentioned his level of power exertion Issei took a moment to feel out his own power level and it was indeed chaotic, nothing truly dangerous to anyone but it felt uncontrolled. Issei thought on that matter, was he nervous? The question was hard to distinguish as one side of him was... hesitant to battle but another haft of him was screaming out to destroy his opponent, that being Riser

Further thought on it had come to Ddraig's words about a week ago, he said his mentality was becoming more dragon like and that Asia was a catalyst in that regard, and lately he was feeling the same for the red head for other reasons, see where he wanted to protected Asia's innocence he started to want to protect Rias freedom from Riser and those feelings were much stronger now, the memory of Riser going to hit Rias was a clear sign he had no respect for her what so ever and that angered him deeply

It was sudden but her action in resurrecting him was a large act of devil kindness, damning yes, but a kind action in general, he hadn't had much to bring to the table and he doubted he would be anything he was now without the boosted gear, all in all, Rias was kind in a weird way and he knew it could've been so much worse if it wasn't her that resurrected him, she practically adopted Asia after the fallen accident and showed no dislike to the nun at all a even deeper sign of her kind nature

And Riser did was step on that and prance around with ego waving around, it took some explaining but after his little ass kicking at the hands of the pawn of Phenex he was informed his discontent towards Riser wasn't just normal but expected, his dragon like attitude was growing to territorial levels

So Riser basically walked in a shat on his door step

All this added up to his simple answer, he wanted nothing more than to rush Riser and deck his ass a million times over before sun rise. He wasn't nervous... he was restless, like a quiet caged animal clawing at the ropes that bind him

Glancing up to his master with determined eyes he answers "I'm not nervous... I'm ready" he expected to see shock on his master but her previous smirk grew to a smile

"That's good to hear, this leads me to the next point, my adorable servant" she started again before she placed two finger on her wide eyed servants forehead before a pressure Issei didn't know he had was lifted from him a small but audible drop in sound signaled a disturbance in the sound barrier

"allow me to explain, when I resurrected you I did used 8 pawn pieces but I didn't explain what that exactly means, a mistake on my part but I didn't want to confuse you so quickly into your new life, too much info can damage ones focus" closing her eyes and smiling cutely she pressed on soon after "every pawn piece holds an abundance of power and each piece that stacks obviously causes that power to rise significantly, you're a special case with this, an 8 piece pawn is rare and the power received from all eight pieces is terrifying on many levels... if you promote to queen you might even be considered a king piece"

Issei was shocked at the info, he had just learned that not only was his power level suppressed but it was considered dangerous to the point of king level? It was a good thing he was lying down or else he might've requested the lap pillow right about now

[I was going to tell you this but I relented from doing so, when you woke up you only had two of the eight pieces active and now you have seven] Ddraig filled in

'Only seven? Why not all eight?' he asked in reply

[there is still much you need before you can access that much power partner, in the mean time I suggest you relish in your growth in power as of right now] issei could feel a smirk grow on the dragon and he knowingly knew what that meant, he had trained to the brink of shattering while suppressed and now his cap was raised even higher than before?

He was going to tear some sh_t up!

"I see you figured it out" piped Rias while smiling down to him "it's as Ddraig explained, your stronger now then you were before, so why don't you show me what you can do?"

Issei's response was a smirk; one that relayed all that Rias needed for as an answer and in return, she smirked as well

Issei had been primed to the point and Rias was readying the trigger, now all they needed to do was commence the operation

It took a good ten minutes but the others soon returned bearing news of a job successful with zero encounters with Phenex pawns, Rias was silent for most of the debriefing as she was most likely contorting a battle strategy

The fact the pawns were not taking immediate action was a very small sign that Riser was actually using a strategy, she was expecting a blitzkrieg from him but he seemed to relying on territory tactics then a blind rush of the opponent

Good

Rias had taken the liberty of scheming multiple scenarios during the training week, a blitzkrieg was a large guess as knowing Riser he'd probably just 'zerg' rush his 'weak' opponents just to get this game over with but it seemed that was not his direct choice of action

Then came the next choice and least likely, a defensive perimeter tactic where he'd just defend his base from all forces similar to the human strategy used in the Alamo, the effectiveness of it wasn't really reliable due to the history of said strategy but if it was used in the right hands then it could be a deadly decision

But if Riser was using that then he was either lazy or actually taking this game seriously which was extremely low on the plausible side, Risers arrogance wouldn't allow him to stoop to 'camping' and he was probably using her third guess

It was a basic strategy, capture every zone possible and funnel in his opponents for an easy sweep, a simple plan like that is deadly and hard to notice but she wasn't complemented as a tactician for nothing, rule one of being a king is to think like one and act accordingly to that rank, this also opened a few sub branches to that responsibility

A king isn't just a king; he is a politician and a general. following the roll of leader one must fall into either one of these categories if they wish to make it in a rating game, fortunately she was a little bit of both, her brothers political status was handy in some occasions and the tactician training she had received from a few other respective sources did help in forging her general side as well

Fortunately, she wasn't negotiating her victory but rather fight for it, so the 'politician' wasn't needed in this moment of time but rather her 'General' side was a more... beneficial choice

Rule one in fighting a war: know thy enemy

Simple, Risers forces were large in numbers so obviously he had strength in numbers but the quality of his forces were not as stronger as hers, Riser was a prodigy in rating games but his tunnel like vision with basic known facts was cringe worthy for a supposed 'prodigy'

Rias suspected that title was more self proclaimed then an actual legit title

She realized her forces were small, but it didn't matter in the least, her knight was sharp and to the point (no pun intended) he had been through hell and walked out with nothing but a massive load of confidence while Riser's knights were most likely self taught, Kiba would handle them just fine

The bishop, she was sad to say she didn't know her name but rather her reputation in rating games, the poor thing was mostly a sacrificial piece to Riser than an actual unexpendable force, but obviously she was much more experienced then her current bishop who was 'greener then grass' in the combat field, the bishop needed to be taken care of, the second bishop had a rep of simple observer, Ravel Phenex, the little sister of Riser was better known for runner lip then actually doing anything

Rias didn't care about any of that, the little princess would know why it's dangerous to be on the rating game field after this was done, she made it abundantly clear that no mercy was to be shown, if the little girl wanted to be in the big leagues then she needed to see what exactly that entailed

And a breezy day wasn't what she was referring to

The pawns were the least of her worries, promoted or not, they still didn't match in true combat experience to her or her 8 piece pawn, sure they played in more rating games then her but that meant nothing if they went against a battle hardened pawn like Issei who had been drilled into combat perfection in a span of simple week, he had out match both Koneko and Kiba in a small Varity of combat fields easily, then add the fact he had seven of the eight pieces reactivated meant he was a wrecking ball just waiting for a chance to run rampant

Koneko was at the most disadvantage however, sure she was strong as a rooky but the two rooks she would be facing not only had a good play record in other rating games but they had experience in real MMA and Chinese kung fu combat for a total of two years, Rias made a mental note that if Koneko was to engage the two at the same time then she needed to make sure she had back up

Now the last piece was the queen, Yubelluna the bomb queen, a notorious rating game queen with a impressive record in the games profession and is considered a very close asset to Riser, under no circumstances has she ever been sacrificed in any way, she had a plan to deal with her accordingly, aside from Riser she was the only real game changer on the opposing team and if they took her out then Riser would be alone

The others had remained silent and waiting as Rias collected a battle plan and now she had one, clamping her hands together, Rias opened her closed and concentrated eyes and relayed a plan

Operation: 'Phenex ash kicking' was now in effect

-XxXxXxX-
rating game broadcast room, with Sona and Tsubaki and a silent Grayfia

Sona and her queen, Tsubaki, remained silent as they, alongside the stoic Gremory maid Grayfia, watched as not a single sign of movement came onto the devil magic screen, all the systems were positive and every single viewer was comfortably waiting for the action to start but all that remained was silence

Obviously the attack plans were being forged and not a second after did the bored expressions dropped when the screen flashed to the side of Risers peerage, three pawns and one rook rushed the gymnasium at high speeds while another set of three rushed into the forest

"Risers taking action early it seems" muttered Tsubaki, Sona nodded and accessed a plausible attack plan

"He may be creating a diversion, the gymnasium is a lynch pin in territory control and taking it would be a good strategy, and If I was Rias I would be planning to take it as well, but doing so would create an opening for a three pawn promotion" Summarized Sona, Tsubaki hummed in agreement while unbeknownst to the two Grayfia was over hearing the conversation

The gray haired maid remained silent as she observed the screen as well, about ten minutes and all three noticed the side of Gremory was then commencing there plan was well, Tsubaki watched as Kiba rushed out the door and walked calmly into the forest, the kind smile on the knights face was present as usual as he simply strolled into the forest with little to no rush

Sona on the other hand watched as Rias' rook Koneko and her new pawn Issei hyoudou ran out of the old school buildings rear exit and ran towards the gymnasiums rear entrance

"Seems the action is starting, Tsubaki light up camera's 6 and 4 and bring them to closer view" requested Sona as two camera's glowed and grew larger for easier observing

Screen six was the rear entrance of gym and screen four was that of the middle of the forest

The first encounter was soon to start

-XxXxXxX-

Issei and Koneko jogged at a brisk pace towards the rear gym entrance with one goal in mind: sweep and clear, any and all contacts were to be destroyed with no survivors

Issei felt nervous but he doused the simple butterfly effect before he pressed his back against the wall just to the right of the door to the gym, Koneko followed after him just as quietly

Rias had briefed them on the possible encounters of the gym, knight's or rook's were high chances, pawns were a guarantee, Issei felt the small rush of adrenaline from the jog fade away as he remained pressed against the brick wall, their orders were to hold at the rear of the gym before they were cleared to enter

"You think they know we're here?" questioned Issei as he popped his ear drums to see if he could pick up any echo from the other side of the walls

Koneko simply shrugged, they had anticipated there would be a threat in the gym and so they prepared by suppressing their devil energy, if they knew they were here then they must have better hearing then her

"Not sure" she answered

"Koneko, Issei, engage at will" Rias' mechanized tone rang over their communicators signalling the attack was commencing

"Let's go" muttered Koneko before opening the gyms door, Issei nodded and followed after the Gremory rook. From within the gym all lights were off, aside from the natural purplish light piercing the roof windows it was completely dark but it wasn't a bother to them, devils were natural beings of the night, darkness was their ally so seeing the four other devils in the gym was easy

"I knew I smelt Gremory filth" the sneer was yelled out by a woman who wore a blue Chinese kung fu outfit, Issei didn't know her name but he knew it was a Rook, the power level she was exerting was high on the hit list so she was priority, the other three were simple pawns, two green haired loli's holding chainsaws and the same pawn that did him in during the meeting, her name Mira if he remembered correctly

'She'll go first' he thought, his road to redemption seemed to be close by so he'll take it with glee

"Three pawns and one Rook" muttered Koneko while she held her right ear

'Copy that Koneko, neutralize them quickly and rendezvous to the next objective, Kiba should be engaging his targets right now" Rias' response was clear to the two yet the others looked on with bored expressions, they were obviously waiting to be engaged

Glancing down to Koneko Issei nodded before he himself received a nod in return, the Piece's of Riser's harem/peerage expected there would be introductions but they widened their eyes when the two Gremory servants sprung into immediate action without muttering a word

BOOOM!

The burst of speed Issei used to close the gap between him and Mira shattered the ground he was previously standing as well as currently, the speed was so sudden the only thing Mira saw was the calm green slighted eyes of Issei before she felt a powerful palm strike cream into her solar plexus

CRUNCH!

"GAAHH!" Mira let out a pain gasp as all of the oxygen in her lungs was forcefully removed; a sickening crunch followed a moment after the velocity rings that formed around Mira dissipated causing the sound to finally register from the disrupted sound barrier

"One of Risers pawns, retired" announced Grayfia stoically

While Issei made short work of the first pawn Koneko engaged the green haired pawns who were quick to turn on their chainsaw's, due to the speed impediment Rooks carried Koneko reached the pawns a fraction of a second to late and had to duck under a horizontal swing from Nel and then loop into the air to avoid her legs being removed

Both Nel and her sister had been far to panicked to placate a well balanced attack due to the sudden actions their opponents had carried out and to say they were not reeled in emotionally was a direct understatement of their mental make up

In their eyes, they had just witnessed that 'weak' Gremory pawn decimate Mira in a matter of seconds, and they had not expected that at all, their master, Riser, had informed them that the training they had under taken wasn't anything they couldn't handle but this was not the truth

CRACK!

With the hysteric nature of their thoughts, both Nel and her sister had blindly thrown their chainsaws at their secondary target who had easily avoided their blind swipes and to capitalize, dropped down at full force which had cracked and shattered lle's chainsaw blade rendering it useless

"What the hell!?" yelled lle as she tossed her now useless chainsaw to the side, she looked visibly irritated at the notion of her toy being destroyed but Koneko ignored it, pawns usually cling to a particular weapon as a means of growing powerful, be it a staff, a knife or in this case a chainsaw they always cling to it because it's the only thing that keeps them relevant, and now that her weapon of choice was destroyed meant she was now irrelevant

Good enough for her

The two green haired pawns obviously looked to be of the dynamic duo shtick and she had just disrupted that strategy, refocusing from her thoughts Koneko rolled to the side when she spotted the other sister, Nel, come down with a diagonal slash with her chainsaw

Due to the weapons weight and handle structure the swung came down awkwardly and it yet again caused the green haired pawn to lose a small fraction of balance

Strike fast and without any hesitation

Doing as her training had taught her, she capitalized on the opening

Rushing in close to the pawns mid section Koneko prepped a low hook but shifted to the right when she noticed the pawn force her chainsaw up quickly, now the chainsaw was in the air above the green haired pawns head, if she wanted she would've smirked at her mistake

She had the option of dropping her chainsaw in favor of blocking most of her attack but now she didn't have that option unless she wanted to have that chainsaw fall on to her head and the thought told Koneko the Phenex pawn would only get a really bad headache if the pawn chose to do that

Koneko had a larger opening then prior to the pawns sudden feeble attempt to avoid her strike but now she was at an even worse position, narrowing her eyes Koneko lifted her left leg and delivered a powerful high kick to the pawns chest, feeling the weaker body nearly fold in on her superior strength the Gremory rook let the pawn fly from her leg to the other side of the gym at high speeds

CRASH!

"One of lord Risers pawns retires" Announced Grayfia as light surrounded Nel's almost broken form

All that now remained in the gym now was two Gremory pieces whom had yet to look fatigued while Xuelan, Risers rook, and lle seemed to be far to shocked to move

"Nice work Koneko" complemented Issei as he smirked to her

Koneko seemed to show no implication of accepting the complement as she instead kept her gaze on the rook "Were not done yet Issei" she said stoically, Issei's smirked dropped slightly before he nodded

"What... what the hell's going on right now?" muttered the Phenex rook who seemed far to shocked to be considered realistic, Issei had long since locked gazes with the rook because as of right now she was priority, if the last remaining pawn decided to jump in and help then she'd be tossed to the side simply

"Riser-sama didn't say anything about you two being a threat! So why the hell are you two still standing?!" yelled the rook, Issei's brow rose at how fast her disposition changed, not a second ago she seemed to be confident enough to face a god un-wavered yet now she was both confused and slightly nervous. All this happened in the time span of a few minutes, if that

"They really didn't take our growth into consideration did they?" asked Issei sheepishly as he scratched his neck calmly

"It doesn't matter, the more they underestimate us the easier this'll be so lets mop this up" replied Koneko as she cracked her knuckles, Issei smirked confidently before he flexed his fist causing his form to be covered in the familiar red energy that seemed to flow much smoother then before

"I'll handle ol rooky over there" muttered Issei as Koneko looked to him questioningly

"You understand that wasting your energy here would put our objective in danger right?" she asked quietly, all she saw in return was a dismissive smirk

"I'm not even trying right now" he muttered just as silently

Koneko seemed hesitant in her next words but she relented in pushing further, the look Issei held was not one that could be negotiated around easily so staying back was her final choice, she just hoped issei was aware of his importance

Shaking her head Koneko Locked her gaze on the final pawn and went to clean up her end.

Issei stepped towards the Phenex rook threateningly, his calm green slighted eyes were now narrowed and focused, Mira was said to be the weakest pawn in Riser's peerage, he may have removed her quick enough to be commendable but simply guessing his next opponent was like the previous take down would be a foolish decision, Rias had briefed him as well as the others the facts of all of Riser's peerage members and one of them was Xuelan who was a rook on par to be a high class bishop if she focused more on her magic efficiency then her kung fu kick boxing, the only thing she uses magic for was to imbue her kicks with fire

The vary basic weakness to a unit was the idea of the enemy knowing all of your forces strengths and weaknesses, all it took was a simple reconfiguration here and there and all of the holes would be wide open to capitalize on, Riser was a popular individual in the devils rating games and as such he was always on rating game TV

Issei chuckled at the next memory

Rias and everyone else knew exactly how to counter act their strengths and maximize effectiveness on their weaknesses, with simple verbal guidance Rias had explained the main weakness a kick boxer had

CQC at maximum closeness

Kicks had range and power but they lacked in close quarters, so his goal was to close the gap and keep it shut until the female rook fell from critical wounds

Issei mentally nodded before he flexed his legs, the ground beneath him shattered at the force and the air around him distorted the gravity which lifted all the loose rock into the air momentarily before they suddenly dropped

BOOOOM! CRAAASSHH!

In a matter of seconds issei exploded from his spot and reappeared directly in Xuelan's front guard, completely in her 'red zone'

The sudden movement had kicked up a lot of dust and debris which had unintentionally helped issei deliver his first strike to her kidney

BOOM!

Issei smirked at the rooks defenses, the strike had forced the Rooks eyes open and only that, the power behind his strike was powerful enough to shatter a large thick tree with small amounts of effort but this rooks ribs hadn't even shattered, maybe a light fracture, but nothing close to what he wanted

Due to the dragon gifts power, issei had been aware of his movement well before the rook had realized and so he unloaded two more powerful strikes to her kidney before he ducked and weaved under a high left knee, dragging his left leg in his repositioning Issei slip his left leg on Xuelan's right leg which caused her positioning to stubble dangerously

"You little" Growled Xuelan as she rolled into her trip and quickly raised back up and repositioned a few feet away from Issei who had remained in his previous position

"To fast for ya?" he jested with a smirk, Xuelan narrowed her eyes sharply at the teen's show of confidence

"You better watch what you say, Gremory filth" she threatened in reply to Issei's jesting tone but it seemed to do nothing in the long run

Not long after did the two recommence their brawl

In explosive speed Issei snapped from his spot to Xuelan's position but the rooks training had sharpened her senses so the mid high heel kick that was careening towards her left side was easily shin blocked with minor injury

Xuelan's eyes narrowed when she realized the power the Gremory pawn was using was not his fullest, she had after all witnessed the boys strength when he maimed her master and rendered him useless for a few seconds, his strength was monstrous, to be able to literally crush a devils closed fist was enough to crush a full and highly pressurized pop can, pistons were needed to crush that yet the Gremory pawn had down it with what seemed to be minor effort

That was with his hands, and kicks carried more velocity and mass. She had haft gambled on the shin block, there was a high possibility that her leg might've snapped in haft like a tooth pick but yet it remained solid and not jellified, this screamed out to her

He was going easy on her

Her objective was simple, recon the enemy strengths and weaknesses for her master and If possible, remove any Gremory piece if possible, this whole time she had been evaluating the strengths of the Gremory response team that consisted of the pawn and the rook and her main topic on mind was the Gremory pawn who's skills had grown in a large margin in only a week's time, he lack that radical and violent aura from before with a more controlled and smooth aura, and his CQC skills were coordinated yet still lacking in real skill but it didn't matter, he was aware of it and worked around his own flaws so to close obvious openings

Sure he lacked the true combat skill and experience but yet he moved confidently, not arrogantly, but confidently. He lacked hesitation as whenever he attempted to wound or strike he did so fast and hard with no second guessing, Xuelan guessed his mental state was worked on immensely, a newbie in a fight usually fought sloppy and with a hesitant mind set and the lack of it in the pawn was a clear sign he had training mentally, then came the aura which felt limited as if sheathed and withheld from fully expanding

Xuelan fought a growl, the idea of fighting a pawn that was not using his all was a blow to her warriors pride and it pissed her off

Igniting her left leg with the Phenex house's signature phoenix fire, the Phenex rook let loose a multitude of high speed high kicks and low kicks, she was visually pleased to see they had landed but the smirk vanished when she saw they had only done minor damage to her target, but her eyes narrowed even more when she witnessed what the boy did next

Grunting in response to the rapid kicks the rook had sent to him Issei flexed his muscles in a memorized response to the obvious barrage of kicks and his dragon gift had reacted in his physical response, the red aura around him had stopped flowing and this time it completely collected around him like a glowing translucent sheet of red glass around his body, physically he couldn't feel a thing but the only thing that had helped him register that the ability had taken effect was the replacement of pain to simple pressure on his thighs, ribs and chest

He had learnt this during his training with Ddraig, using his gift he was able to reform and repurpose its effects, this one reminded him of the nano machines 'Maximum armor' function from a game he played called 'Crysis', his base abilities with the dragon aura was simple speed and strength boosts as well as a sense boost for obvious reasons

But in order to use this one he needed to forgot the 'speed' aspect in favor of a large boost in durability, he had wanted to name this technique "maximum armor" but he felt he'd get someone in trouble if he stole that "shtick" so he instead renamed it "Dragon skin", Ddraig kept insisting that was exactly what it was but he didn't want to hear it... he got to name a power!

Seriously, any kid had a dream of getting superpowers and naming them was the best topic among the kids at the playground so this was a 'dream' come true

"What the hell is that?" asked Xuelan, she looked highly confused yet a little understanding

Issei simply stood by with a blank expression; did she expect him to answer that?

Fat chance in hell he would, he had at times reminisced anime fights and how the villain always seems to just sputter off his strengths and sometimes his weaknesses, it was an obvious show of arrogance and the cliché 'you can beat me' shtick and this would in the end be his undoing

He had even said himself that any fool who willing releases his weaknesses or even his strengths out to his opponent was an obvious idiot, and most likely deserves that ass kicking he'd about to receive

Issei on the other hand, wasn't a fool

Without a word issei sprung from his position, the red glass around his body had made his movements slower but only by a few seconds, all he needed to do to complicate the lack of speed was to simply using his leg muscles more often than when it was a simple jerking of his muscles

With each step he took the ground paid the price, dust and loose rock was kicked around or kicked up by Issei's berserker like charge, Xuelan had been well aware of the apparent bull rush due to Issei's lack of speed and made a correct decision in dodging instead of feeling out Issei's strength again, his increase in durability didn't just decrease the incoming damage but it also increased his strength as well

What happens when a destructible force meets an unstoppable force?

It either needs to get the fuck outta the way or face total destruction, that's the answer

Xuelan had made a correct decision in moving as the gym wall behind her was shattered with Issei's shoulder charge

CRASH!

It was obviously apparent that getting hit by him now wouldn't just eliminate her but kill her as well

"One of lord Risers pawns, Retires"

Xuelan glanced over her shoulder and spotted the little rook of Gremory standing over the glowing lle whom looked unconscious and badly bruised

"Piece of cake" muttered Koneko loudly

"You little brat!" the loud taunt from the little rook did as any normal insult would and it threw her off focus, she was arrogant from the beginning Issei thought as he simply walked to the distracted Phenex rook, she had thought from the beginning that they were no threat and now that the tables have turned she showed her shock unprofessionally

A horrendous mistake and a blatant sign that they had yet to learn everything about combat

It wasn't all about wining, it was about learning and adapting to every situation

Every battle is always one before it is even fought

Rias had been inclined to every situation but the main topic was their confidence and its abundance among those in the Phenex peerage, they had won all of their rating games easily due to simple strategies and the Phenex power which Issei branded as a "cheat code", they had little defeats to learn by and it showed like a shining star in a pitch black sky

Sure they had been sacrificed during rating games so to progress their team to the path of victory but that blocked the defeats true effect on them, in their eyes falling was a victory and they had nothing to learn from it,

WRONG

Most people see defeat as a lose but they had been taught otherwise, Rias and spent the whole training week or most of it in building up their strengths by forcing them to acknowledge their weaknesses and doubts and then she ordered them to shatter it with reckless abandon, rinse and repeat five more days and you got a whole squad of self aware devils transfixed on keeping their own weaknesses on the DL as well as capitalize on their enemies weakness

Xuelan had been so caught up in her anger that she only noticed the side of Issei's closed fist smack her cheek at terminal velocity when it made contact, she felt her cheek almost shatter and a few teeth were chipped at the force, the only luck she had was that her tongue had been out of her teeth's way when they clenched violently at the sudden force of a tank smacking her cheek but everything else paid the price of her mistake

CRUNCH! CRASH!

The two Gremory pieces were rewarded by the sound of bones breaking and dry wall crumbling when Xuelan finally made contact with a tree outside of the gym

"One of Lord Riser's Rooks, Retires"

"Issei, Koneko, I take it that last report was of your doing?" called Rias on the two's communicators

"Yes, all targets eliminated, we'll proceed to rendezvous as soon as possible" replied Koneko as stoically as ever

"Excellent work, priority #1 will most likely take action after this small victory... call it in when you are engaged" advised Rias with a serious tone

"We understand Buchou" this time it was Issei who replied

The comm's went silent suggesting the trading of words was done and it was best as now their job was simple

Hold the gym until further notice

"Akeno... you've got a five minute window, take it now"

The last transmission was the last thing heard over comm's for the next five minutes

-XxXxXxX-

Kiba's pace was slow and collected, his eyes were relaxed but anyone even remotely inclined to swordsmanship could tell it was just a façade, the key to using a blade was concealment and rage and anger was a dulling to the blades effectiveness both physically and mentally

A wild mind does compare to a sharp and collected mind

However

A confident swordsmen is a deadly combo, confidence is not arrogance, sure it relaxes on the border of it but it mostly balances control and arrogance and keeps either two from taking over, being too focused can cause over thinking and being arrogant is a no brainer on why it's bad to have

Kiba's confidence had grown during the happenings of the 'crimson week' he himself had come to dread with the passion equal to a burning bond fire but it had more positive effects then negative

Before his time during that week he had thought he knew it all, focus, strength, skill, and the sheer will to carry on, but the crimson week had shot that ideal in the balls with multiple calibers... bad analogy for what its effects had on him

Sure it sounded like a kick to the nuts but strangely... he liked it

He meant the training... not the shot to the nards, no man likes that... ever

Aside from the trainings brutal regime of increasing the physical labor it had more mental implications then physical, sure he felt a little more ripped after but that wasn't the goal of the training, a strong body on a child is still weak as the mind of a child doesn't fully understand the uses of that power

A mentality with a strong body was exactly what a training regime should target, having the best of both worlds does in fact make the better outcome and Kiba could honestly say the mentality part was the best part of the trainings effects

Now he felt relaxed, calmer then his past self. Being focused in battle is a good thing and it does save lives on more times than he can count but focus causes unwanted thoughts, it feeds doubts and possibilities of failure to a combatant during calculations and in the face of an opponent stronger can sometimes be your undoing, it can paralyze you and feed a more primitive instinct to the professional mind

A sudden impulse to claw away and hide

Technically it's called fight or flight and all creatures have that instinct, it's what keeps them alive in the most dangerous of times in their lives, sometimes it gets the brasher ones killed and keeps the smarter ones alive

Kiba knew he was a devil but that was a lie, he was in fact a human before becoming a devil and his human mindset and instincts were still with him

To animals the fight of flight instinct is a category, the feral and wild always pick fight, while the weaker ones always run and hardly choose fight

However to humans or devils, depending on the pride level, the fight or flight instinct choice blurs where almost anyone of any size or skill can choose either one or whichever one is the smartest decision

Kiba chuckled at the irony

You may think the training had taught him the embracing of this instinct but it actually did the exact opposite, what it did was push him more towards 'fight' then 'flight'

See it was the sudden growth in confidence that helped this little 'twist' come to the light, Rias didn't want her pieces to run, she wanted them to fight! Fight with everything they had in the best and smartest way possible while utilizing every tool they had at their disposal

Kiba's tool was his sword and the tree's, his knightly speed was also a big help in keeping off the radar of the three little pawns who so mistakenly chose the visual illusion of his masters 'hide out' and now they were in his kill zone rip for the picking

He had to say the surprise on the 'experienced' pawns of Phenex was a nice treat and now defeating them would be icing on the cake

Like a predator in the dark woods... he struck

..."Three of lord Risers pawns, retires"

-XxXxXxX-

A man sat silently on a golden and red throne with an amused expression on his features, his head was resting on his fist lazily while a few other individuals in the room watched on as well, they hadn't truly been announced as spectators as that would've been considered an event

After all

Four Maou's watching a single rating game that seemed to be considered a cake walk was probably the best description of the game before them but what they had seen spoke against those words entirely

"This is surprising" started a male voice, the tone sounded pleased as well as impressed "from what you've told me Sirzechs, your little sister was a growing tactician but this... this is not what I was expecting"

The man on the throne presumably known as Sirzechs, Rias' older brother, replied

"I toooold you so" he replied with a comedic edge before he glanced to a silently sleeping man on a similar throne as his own, a small frown was then seen on his face when he realized his replied didn't reach the legendary devil tactician Falbium whom was sound asleep from god knows what

"Don't look so gloomy Sirzechs, he was asleep when he sat down an hour ago" replied the previous male, Sirzechs in return simply waved it off

"I should've expected it... What's your opinion Serafall?" asked Sirzechs while he glanced tiredly towards a female and petty looking devil whose hair was tied in pig tails; her attire was something of a flamboyant magic girl

"Hmm?" hummed the female Maou cutely before she snapped her fingers "It's good to see your sister has grown so largely in the tactic's field, I wasn't... No offense obviously, but I wasn't quiet expecting this much change in her style of leading in such a small time frame... any idea what could've pushed her?" she replied while looking to Sirzechs with a questioning set of eyes

"I'm haft guessing it's her opponent that falls into that category" replied the other awake male maou "it is determined that if she were to lose this battle her life would be relinquished to the third son of the House Phenex" unbeknownst to the two Sirzechs fists clenched tightly at the simple thought and his eyes darkened red but as fast as it arrived it vanished

"But by the looks of the games progress I'm guessing the under dogs have way more bite then the Phenex can handle, not more than 20 minutes and almost a quarter of Lord Riser's peerage is already eliminated while Your Sisters still remains intact... I can say for curtain that she has all of my confidence"

"As she has mine" replied Serafall, Sirzechs had no choice but to smirk

His very vague release of stress previously was most likely noticed by the two, and in return they responded both subtly and kindly in order to relinquish his doubts

Good friends indeed

"By the way Sirzechs, who's the new bishop and pawn?" asked the male

"not as linked to the new resurrections are you Ajuka?" replied the now smirking Sirzechs, the man known as Ajuka simple glanced to him with a simple look only close friends could have

"The Bishop is the newest addition to Rias' peerage; I believe she was the poor maiden that was caught in the events of the fallen angels just a few weeks ago and under unknown reasons, became my sisters bishop almost willingly" his answer to Ajuka's question sprung the attention of Serafall whom looked towards him seriously

"You mean the time the Paladin from the Vatican sprung up?" she said with narrowed eyes

"Yes, the exact event, I believe Rias' bishop might have some information about that ghost we are looking for but simply asking her know would be a horrible decision, I'll ask her when I get a subtle chance to" replied the red haired Maou

Serafall simply narrowed her eyes a little "that Paladin has been the cause of countless murders of our devil forces, mostly yours Sirzechs why hesitate in learning more about him?" she said, Sirzechs was inclined to believe that the reason Serafall looked so defensive was the fact not too long ago the deadliest Exorcist to walk the earth was in the exact same city as her dear sister Sona, any loving family member would be defensive with that knowledge

But it was apparent that she didn't know the full story on the man just yet, she did the digging for her sister when she learnt of his description but she didn't stick to the whole story as she is a maou and she knew one maou investigating enough

"The reason I stopped my pushing was due to the fact that The Paladin, had helped in exterminating the fallen angels in my sister's territory and he had actually conversed with my sister on two occasions" started Sirzechs "she had explained to me that he was the one to recommend a peaceful truce while he was in Rias' territory. Oh and get this, he even saved my sister's new pawn on multiple instances for reasons unspecified"

Ajuka looked skeptical but nodded slowly "from the gathered info on all of his victims, from the time of the death as well as the history of his targets I'd say he's only targeting those who do horrendous things, vampires, werewolves, windigos, are all fluently spotted on his list, some fallen and same devil... well, mostly devil actually they are the most common on his list of targets, aside from his apparent kindness to your sister he still needs to answer to his crimes"

"With that I still agree with, he has my thanks in keeping his hands off my sister but the hundred plus devil lives he's taken still weighs down on him and he will answer for it... sooner or later" from the sound of the Devil kings tone it was apparent the promise was a sincere one, Sirzechs felt iffy on taking action against the priest but whatever the hesitance tried saying to him was dropped entirely

Once the topic about the Paladin of the Vatican was finished Sirzechs sprang back to answer Ajuka

"Anyways, you were wanting to find out who the new pawn is didn't you?" started Sirzechs as he eyed Ajuka with a smirk, said maou identified a large pool of pride in the facial expression and expected a nice bomb to be dropped in the next line, a soft nod caused the devil king to continue

"Rias' new pawn is a surprising in large instances, not only did he recently get killed by the same head fallen angel from a few weeks ago but all because he had a sacred gear of legendary proportions... the boosted gear" of course Ajuka prepared for a bomb but it was still a shocker, the boosted gear had been lost to devil radar for centuries, obviously the previous owner had just recently passed or died and had remained off of the radar but to think the next wielder was right before him in the game nun the less had just caused Ajuka to find the game just a little bit more interesting, if his sudden shift in his seat was an indication Sirzechs didn't know but what he did know was that the look on his other friend Serafall was a look of envy

"No fair, your sister gets all the cute and power pieces" whined Serafall as Sirzechs nearly sweat dropped at her unintentional and inadvertent insult to her own sister's peerage

"Remember Serafall, they are still growing, there's no telling who's the strongest among them and only time will tell" replied the red headed devil but Serafall seemed to not have any of it, though she did like the reply it still stood out

"Still doesn't change the fact your sisters peerage looks like a highly training unit" she said with a 'humph'

Sirzechs sighed before he turned his head and studied the magic screen before him, not much was happening other than the stillness of Rias' Rook and Issei hyoudou whom seemed to remain absolutely still in the center of the gym, Sirzechs frowned as he studied the two closely, the two didn't so much as look to be breathing and remained almost robotically still, no shift in leg or anything not even a correcting in balance every once and awhile

A small shimmer and Sirzechs smirked slightly

"Cleaver girl"

The secret lobby where the four Satan's derived from dropped to silence when the other two minus Falbium dropped the topic and returned to spectating the rather interesting game before them

-XxXxXxX-

The fields around the tennis court were silent and still, the only thing moving was the artificial wind the alternate space produced to emulate 'wind' while the non excitant sun light produced more shadows to signify a change in time, very hard to notice but skilled eyes have benefits

The only other real movement was by a serious looking female with long wavy purple hair and matching eyes with one being covered by her hair, her attire looked of three categories; she wore a pale blue skirt with open sides with black shoes and matching colored thigh-highs with garter belts, the kinky side, oh and don't forget the massive exposure to her breasts, the next was of noble prestige as she had a navy tunic with black and gold accents following a variety of jewelry on her forehead and neck, and lastly she wore a white overcoat with small pauldrons of black and gold decent

And the third category is... wait? there isn't any other category, 'combat' maybe but she didn't really fit that well, the skirt was a danger and the constricting nature her tunic was she mostly likely 'pop' out if she so much as breathed to hard

Yubelluna, the Queen piece of Lord Riser was considered the most powerful among her peers and her reasoning on taking the field was simple

Eliminate the opposition with extreme prejudice, she was even given the green light to send kill shots if it was necessary

Riser had haft expected there to be a resistance of some kind but he didn't mention nor predict a damn near slaughter of his forces or most of them, all he had left was two pawns, a bishop, a rook and two knights and one bishop wasn't a fighter at all, just a spectator

With how quickly they had been cut in haft she doubted the one bishop or the two pawns stood even a remote chance to the surprising might the Gremory peerage possessed which was why she was ordered to take the field as a hunter killer unit then a second layer of defence for her king

The Phenex queen sighed deeply, she didn't like being far from her master as she felt inclined to remain by his side as his shield, he liked her loyalty but said she was needed out here then there as his forces were all but diminished of actual 'humph' and who to better fit that bill then the bomb queen herself.

Her first step was locating the Gremory knight, who's last appearance was the woods, she had scanned the woods for anything relatable to the devil energy from him before but she found nothing but the energy remnants of the three pawns that had gone into the forest, panic energy most likely Yubelluna thought as she narrowed her eyes and scanned the tree line for anything that moved

Finding nothing she dropped her shoulders and walked back to the mid way point of the opposing teams side, now all that remained to be inspected was the gymnasium

She couldn't be more aware of the obvious ambush inside

There was literally no other place best suited in hiding out a force of six devils and the gym was both big and strategic to fill both of those points, Yubelluna had haft a mind to just destroy the large construct but thought against the primal impulse to 'destroy the sand castle' and simply landed at the front entrance of the gyms doors

The Phenex Queen had fought in many rating games well before the others had filled the last remaining gaps in her masters 'legion' and as such she carried more of an open battle mind then the others, Xuelan had a mind of battle but lacked the actual brain capacity to use it fully

Hence her easy defeat by the hands of the Gremory team

She on the other hand had delved into the psychological aspect combat had to offer, lots of the battles she faced always carried out illusions and manipulative kings, it wasn't commonly spread among the devils but Riser had actually fought a strong devil prior to the other eight games, he won but at a large cost of almost all of his forces

She had been one of the many to fall at the hands of well placed traps and ambushes strategically placed in places to cripple their enemies, but then came the outcome

No matter how sloppy a victory would be her master always seemed to look far too closely to the victory then the lesson and would pay off the loser into silence just so his 'flawless' spree could continue

But no matter the case, Yubelluna didn't care what he had to do; all she wanted was to see him happy in the end even if it was with her body or her actions she didn't care

Lord Riser always came first, no exceptions

Dousing her motives down to face the obvious ambushes, Yubelluna prepared herself for the attack and carried on into the gyms interior

Upon first sight the Phenex queen was prepared for many situations and scenario's, a magic barrage, a magic seal beneath her feet to freeze her in place or a glimpse of the enemy kings back to spike a sudden instinct to leap forward and answer the open opportunity but ultimately get blindsided by the real king

However this wasn't the case

Instead of the previous past situations she had found herself in, in the past she didn't expect to see both the white haired rook and pawn to be standing before her, absolutely still with confident smirks on their faces

"I was wondering when she'd show up" quipped the Gremory pawn with a shrug of his shoulders, Yubelluna narrowed her eyes when her suspicion was correct on them expecting her to arrive and answered accordingly

With a wave of her antic magic staff she forced a purple magic circle to appear under their feet, a second later and it detonated into a violent torrent similar to a high caliber howitzer round

BOOOOOOM!

It was funny really; one insult and she practically vaporized her opponent for having the balls to stand in the open for easy targeting, and mock her which added motivation

Yubelluna wasn't exactly sure what that pawn was thinking but the easy elimination was a sweat satisfaction indeed

...

For a moment the Phenex queen remained silent while she waited for the announcement of elimination but she started to sweat a little when a five second time frame passed multiple times, the time in between the defeat and the announcement was very small and the time she spent waiting had screamed to her that her targets were still very much alive... maybe wounded but she didn't know for sure as the massive plume of smoke created by the explosion blocked most of her view of the windows and the exit

'Great, now what?' thought the Phenex queen as she calmly scanner her surroundings, careful of any danger she started towards the area she remembered the two Gremory pieces were previously standing

CRASH!

A sound of crumbling wood and dry wall startled Yubelluna for a nano second due to her accelerated senses but ignored it before she stopped at a large crater in the center of the gym floor, the crater was larger than 20 feet in diameter and the hole was deep enough to make a nice scuba diving pool, loose dirt and polished wood fell into the hole that also had water pipes destroyed and leaking out normal water

When they said it was a direct replica they didn't lie about it

"Humph, how on earth did they survive that?" she asked to herself quietly

"I'm sure their fine" started a voice, a male voice

Thinking on her feet the Phenex queen rounded to her rear to see if the voice was behind her yet she saw nothing but the light brown dust from her previous attack clouding her vision

For a second she regretted her brash actions, she had unintentionally created a smoke screen for the obvious assault team before her and she had no way of spotting her enemies, all she could do was stretch out her senses and feel out her enemies devil energy but that wasn't as reliable as it sounded

It worked as a sonar pulse, Yubelluna did in fact sense a signature but the 'echo' of it was all she found and it was feint in a sense meaning it was moving fast, if she so much as wanted to catch a glimpse of the target then she'd need to compensate distance travel and speed but in a spot like this it was a horrible choice to basically 'stop and do the math'

To make matters worse, she wasn't moving so this was a danger as well, it was a miracle that she wasn't a punching bag by now and her hesitance in moving was due to the fact it may exactly be what the person wanted to do

Turning the gears in her head she distinguish the possible enemy she was fighting, the voice was male so that dropped the possible enemies down to two possible suspects, the speed was comparable to a knights so she believed it to be the Gremory knight Kiba Yuuto but he was last known to be in the woods a few yards from here and closing that distance from there to here would threaten exposure and she had been watching that space the whole time, Kiba was fast but not fast enough to out run her sight

It was final that she was facing the new pawn, Issei Hyoudou. A strange decision on Rias' part but recent eliminations listed him the one who retook the gym alongside Gremory's rook Koneko Toujou, they had retook the gym almost flawlessly and with little effort, sure Nel and her twin sister lle were good duo's but she had witnessed the pawns strength and she had no doubt the pawn had grown some since last time

She may not really care on the matter but she knew full well that Mira's small victory in establishing dominance for her master back at the meeting was a handed down win as the pawn that wish to responded to the challenge experienced a set back with his new powers, almost like a over dose of something she didn't know but a lack of training could answer that but now the pawn had said training

Weather she liked it or not Yubelluna was facing a possessor of a Longinus sacred gear with a weeklong training under his belt, as small as a training he got it still spelt trouble and preparations were in serious order

Swiping her staff in close in proximity to her, Yubelluna set a few small concussion bombs set in all around her, if the pawn got so much as three feet in front of her then the bombs would detonate outward towards him, the shrapnel and fire would hurt him immensely

"Show yourself pawn of Gremory! I know your here!" yelled the Phenex Queen seriously

"Cute... but I'll pass" replied Issei from within the dying cloud of smoke, due to the long time that had passed the massive cloud was dying down and Yubelluna could now see the small beams of light showing through the windows and now shadows could be distinguish, knowing this was the case the Phenex queen started to scan the area again with her eyes and spotted a single shadow in a shape similar to a person standing a few feet away from the stage behind her

Acting on her training she lessoned the power behind her bombs so to cause less smoke and sent two towards the shadow and detonated them the instant they were stable

BOOOM! BOOOM!

She had tried her best but no matter the case the gyms interior was extremely dusty and any sudden movement seemed to lift a plume of dust and with her sudden bombs detonating caused the rear of the gym to explode into another large cloud of dust which spread evenly in the gym

Yubelluna growled deeply at the sight

"So you're using dirty tricks to win!?" yelled Yubelluna "is that it!?"

There was a pause before Issei answered "Are-are you serious right now? You're whining? I find it hard to believe king douches lap queen actually whines a lot... did big ol chicken wing not punish you enough before the game?" Issei couldn't help but throw in a mocking tone; her choice of words was just so cringe worthy

There was really no answer to be heard, Issei could sense the massive explosion of anger flow out of the Phenex queen in droves and he knew then he had her where he wanted her now he just needed to stall

"Like seriously? Your contingency to being cornered is to whine about the morality of my strategy? 'Oh it's too dirty' 'oh my I can't figure my way around it can you make it easier for me please'" mocked Issei as he emulated a Childs whining voice "Again, I find it hard that a senior rating game player like you is actually whining right now, like tough shit princess.. not all of your victories will be as easy as you think and not all confrontations will be dramatic showdowns seen in B-rated movies" after he finished his little rant issei stayed still and concealed all of his devil energy before waiting for any kind of reaction

Mostly a violent one actually

"Y-you.. You, YOU DARE MOCK ME!" screamed the now furies Phenex queen who raised her staff up in anger

"There's that 'you dare' line again" muttered Issei

Now the once calm and rational Yubelluna was replaced with an angry and raging women who was scorned so irritably by a person she considered an insect and now the subtle approach was done, destruction was all that remained

Without a care in the world the Phenex queen began to send bomb after bomb in every direction, violent torrents of explosions and concussive waves jutted out violently and all of the gyms walls and roof were paying the price

BOOOM! CRASH!

BOOM! CRASH!

BOOOOOOM! CRASH!

Explosions of different sizes tore the gyms walls and roof to Swiss cheese and only so many remained standing, after the violent outrage ended Yubelluna was seen standing in the precipice of the cataclysm an angered but calming expression on her dangerously narrowed eyes, her hair was fizzled due to the smokes effects and she was outlined barely by sweat at her massive energy depleting at an alarming rate, placing her hand on her face the Phenex queen swore under her breath at being tricked in releasing her anger unprofessionally, it was a easy trick to get a under hand on their opponents but the fact she was still standing says she got extremely lucky and may have forced the after ambush to retreat with her excess bombs

*cough* *cough*

Snapping her head in the direction of the coughing the Queen of the house of Phenex smirked even more when she spotted the pawn that had tricked her laying a few feet from a crater, bloody and broken

"*cough*.. damn it.. *cough*.. All" he wheezed as he lay there

She may have been un-professional before but she forgot that and strutted over towards the downed pawn slowly, she wanted to make him hurt a little bit before she finished the so called Longinus wielder off

"Here you lay, pawn of Gremory" started the mocking Yubelluna as she stopped a few feet from the pawns still form "I don't know why I didn't think of it before but destroying that gym would've worked out better for me from the beginning" she finished with an arrogant smirk

Issei simply smirked defiantly "guess we all learn new things every day" he muttered, in response to the pawns laid back response the purple haired queen slammed her heeled foot into his stomach with the force of a rook which caused the ground underneath him to shatter

"GAAHH!" gargled Issei as he widened his eyes

"Your plan was to use my bomb magic as a fuel to a smoke screen wasn't it?" she asked angrily, the previous emotions slowly rising at the pawns small smirk

"Yup... Pretty easy to notice huh?" he replied

"I'll admit you had me for a moment but it didn't last long" Yubelluna carried on her arrogant tone as Issei simply nodded

"I'm surprised though, for a pawn to move that fast with so little devil energy is surprising... how'd you managed that is the question" Issei felt this was gonna take a while for her to figure it out

"I'm still wondering that myself... see I'm only able to move at blinding speeds when I use my sacred gears gift which also uses my devil energy in addition to its effect" he replied hinting at something Yubelluna didn't catch

"And for some reason you managed it without using any of it, how?" she may be on the path but she was detouring too much and seemed too interested in his abilities then what she should be worrying about

"I don't know, seems a move like that would require more of a... outside source" the seed had been planted weather she noticed it or not

Yubelluna froze for a moment when the pawns sentence finished and it seemed the frozen disposition of her expression had been noticed by the pawn as well

"Guess this is a 'check' then huh?" asked the pawn with a wide smirk "think fast bitch!"

The Phenex queen widened her eyes were she felt a massive rise in devil energy in the sky a few yards from her, looking towards the source Yubelluna spotted the Gremory queen Akeno floating in the air with one hand raised high and yellow thunder arcing around her raised hand

Snapping her head back to the pawn The Phenex queen Yubelluna widened her eyes when the image of the pawn that lay a few inches from her shimmered then shattered and a red crystal fell from where the 'body' once was

'Check' indeed

-Flashback/ Two days before the rating game-

The day had come to an end sometime ago as the weeks training had sunk in at record time and the decision on slowing down the intenseness of the training was the best decision Rias could choose, she didn't want to over work her peerage as going into battle sore and tired was a 'No no' so all that remained was system briefings on their opponents

The House of Phenex and its peerage of 'unbeatable' pieces

She had already organized the traits of all of Risers pieces and their personalities, the biggest topic was their arrogance

The last subject was a key point in achieve this 'impossible' goal

Rias had already acknowledged her peerage and Riser's similarities if they even remotely existed but she had come to the conclusion that her pieces were best suited in large scale incursions, Kiba was a sharp needle when it came to making pin point strikes at high speed and his sword skills were a high danger to a lot of people... he'd be fine against the pawns, knights and maybe a single rook, she didn't want to overestimate him until she knew were his skills sat

Koneko was a brute and a direct representation of the famous quote 'big things come in small packages' but it sounded more like 'hard hitting things usually come in a small but powerful fists' but whatever the case she was tank in every right of the word, she could walk on the pawns of Risers and go head to head with a knight and rook if she was 'in the zone' not to mention she was fast for a Rook... bishops were no trouble at all

One bishop was Riser's sister, Ravel Phenex, and Rias stated at one of the meetings and specifically said she was not a fighter, but a spectator... she was a zero degree threat and more like a civilian in better terms

Her queen could last against any piece hands down, there wasn't even a need in specifying on why or how as it was just a thing everyone agreed on and Asia was a simple healer who was listed as a non fighter and would remain that way

With all of this known to them Rias conducted a variety of plans against Riser's forces, she didn't know anything of the arena they'd be in but she ruled out that as a later topic when they were actually in the shit but what she was focusing more on was the confrontations she'd want to have happen, if she was lucky then issei would face more pawns and Rooks then a knight, he had no sword skills nor any training in disarming a highly mobile sword unit and thus would be a simple pylon to them all with his 'dragon skin' ability, his only chance of standing a chance would be his speed but with that ability he'd have Koneko's jogging speed at best which wasn't a desirable choice

Koneko and Kiba would handle the knights

Rias had smiled at her chances when it came down to her forces versus Risers but there was one person who could disrupt that entirely

"Yubelluna is Risers queen and is recognized as his strongest piece in his peerage" started Rias as she laid down pictures of Risers queen "his Rooks may have real training but she has a powerful devil magic known as 'demon bomb'"

"Her status and reputation acknowledge that she would be a horrible opponent to face alone more so for you three then us two" Akeno finished by pointed her fingers to Kiba, issei, and Koneko

Rias nodded "if we want to face Riser unhindered and without worry of a second party then were golden with her eliminated as soon as we spot her" after finishing she sighed "but I'd rather take her out without a real confrontation, facing her as a team would be a good choice but even that is dangerous"

At this Issei raised his hand

"What is it issei?" asked Rias

"If I may Buchou but I could recommend a strategy in taking her out without facing her with all bravado" spoke the serious issei

"Show me what you have in mind"

Nodding he started his plan "ok so we all have read her biography right?" he started and everyone nodded "ok so it says she has a calm exterior but when it comes down to it she can get angry... like, really angry"

Rias nodded to confirm "yes, she has a temper... are you meaning to exploit it?"

This time Issei nodded

"I find it dangerous to anger her, wouldn't it be smarter to keep her calm?" asked Kiba while he skimmed over the copy of the Phenex queens biography

"Yes it seems that way and I'd rather not scorn a woman, but if you think about it, it could also force her to use more devil energy then necessary and it could weaken her for an attack" Issei's words sprouted idea's but Rias asked first

"What kind of an attack?"

Issei smirked before pointing to Akeno "why don't you ask Miss Railgun here"

Rias smiled when she spotted Issei's intentions but frowned a second after

"The question is however, who would be the one to piss of Queen Harlot?" this time Koneko came in and simply placed a red Crystal on the round table they were at

"Physical embodiment illusion ore" muttered Rias as she picked up the pinky sized crystal

"This place isn't all resort.. It has its bones in the basement and a few devil ritual books and alchemy ingredients as well... I managed to find some of those lying around down there and found some use of it" replied Akeno

"Physical embodiment Illusion ore's absorbs the devil energy or whatever energy it touches and creates a perfect duplicate of the one who infused his energy into it" explained Rias as she clenched her hand around it, now with a clear smile of confidence etched on her face "So... who wants to be the one to piss of Risers bed buddy?"

In that instant everyone turned their heads towards issei and stared

"What? Me?... Why me?" he asked sheepishly

"Annoying" stated Koneko blandly while Kiba smiled and nodded, Akeno giggled while Rias hid a smirk under her hand

Issei dropped his shoulders "you guys suck sometimes"

The briefing room was filled with laughter a moment later

-Flash back end-

The sky within the alternate space was silent for a moment, all was calm while a bolt of violent yellow lightning struck from the sky and down on a wide eyed Queen, a moment later... and the sound finally registered

CRASSSSSSSHHHH BOOOOOOOOOM!

The velocity lightning creates is usually unreadable as the speed it travels is too fast for anything to get a bead on without getting a taste of what it's selling and even that is hard to time, Akeno had spent a better portion of the training on conquering limitations she herself had given her and due to the sheer confidence the crimson week had helped in achieving that goal

And thus

Her lightning became something close to a Railgun, only requiring a 2 second charge time and a large dose of devil energy she'd drop a can of whoop ass on you with enough force to level two square blocks... almost like a V72 tactical warhead downgraded for property damage reduction... but that's an iffy subject

Excluding the radiation a warhead could leave behind Akeno's 'lightning nuke' – as Issei named it oh so painfully – left a field of unstable demonic electricity, primal in nature to the devils ancestors it left a deadly aura of electricity similar to the humans nuclear warheads but it was much easier to notice then radiation

Akeno had dropped her raised arm and began to pant deeply at the sudden loss of devil energy, the attack may pack a wallop but it cost her a whole lot of stamina to use, it was a one hit wonder and it was gonna be that way for a long time

Collecting herself and her breath the Gremory queen glanced back to where Riser's queen was and was glad to see she was just as worse if not even worse than her, sporting a variety of burns of multiple degree's Yubelluna's once flawless skin was now charred at some locations and others looked to have been fused to the melted polyester some of her clothing was made out of, the only way to remove a burn wound like that was to simply cut the chunk of skin off with the melted fabric and with the sheer amount of polyester melted into her skin the process of doing so here would more than likely kill her

"Dan...m... damn... you" jittered/wheezed Yubelluna, the hyper heating the lightning had caused didn't just microwave the women's clothes but it had also caused an electrical surge due to the metal jewelry she had on her head and neck, Yubelluna's wheezing was due to her throat almost locked in a clenched state and her head was probably splitting at have a rough estimate of a few thousand watts of energy surge through her skull at mock speed

She's lucky the rook aspect in the queen piece had help her avoid her brains from leaking out of her head due to liquidation... all in all, overkill was a small fraction of what Akeno had done to the poor women below her

She almost felt sorry for her... almost

Forgetting her fatigue Akeno replied "heheh, my pleasure... ~that pain must be wonderful~" it was as Issei said 'your pain, is her game'

Glaring one last time at the smiling priestess of thunder Yubelluna began to fade into white light as the wounds inflicted began to become too critical to be left unattended, a second later and her full form was engulfed and escorted to emergency surgery for extreme healing

She'd be fine physically... but psychologically was a different story; never had she expected to be forted, again, by an illusion spell and being so quickly defeated was a insult to injury on a scale she couldn't fathom

All she could do now was hope for her master's victory

"Lord Risers Queen... Retires"

-XxXxXxX-

From within the confines of the real student council room the three females stood in silence, Grayfia had just finished the announcement but the other two being Tsubaki and Sona could finally see the sheer level of surprise on the gray haired women's face... visually it was hard to distinguish but Sona had a good history in reading emotions and Grayfia's wasn't off her list

"That was... surprising" muttered Tsubaki in shock

Sona snapped her expression from total shock to stoic in a matter of seconds before she addressed her queen "Surprising is a lack of emphasis on what Rias' peerage had just achieved... and they made it look easy" she replied

Tsubaki had nodded in agreement to her kings words, it couldn't be worded even more then what was already known to all, Riser was a popular rating game contender in the current generation major leagues and his status was a impressive one to say the least, out of the nine games he's played only one of them was a defeat, although 'defeat' was a light term as to what it really was

But aside from the apparent 'defeat' Riser was shown to be a formidable force and his flawless sweeps weren't just for show but a sign of his real strength and to see his second strongest eliminated by only two pieces was a grave shock to all... it was hard to count the amount of jaws on the floor in the viewing rooms...

Not to mention the Satan's rooms as well

"Just what other surprises do you tend to show...? Rias" mutter Sona as she leaned forward in complete interest into the games events

-XxXxXxX-

The Phenex may not have acknowledged it yet but Sona knew that Rias and her peerage had just risen from 'Underdog' to 'contender' in a single bolt of lightning, if there were bets on the Gremory's defeat, which she knew there were, then after that light show Sona was curtain the easy pay check was suddenly less guaranteed to those opposing the red haired families victory

All across the spectators observation rooms devil families varying in status were left in total silence and awe at the complete trickery the Gremory's had used to literally blow away their second most dangerous opponent... AND THEY MADE IT LOOK EASY

No one spoke, at the beginning of the game they had believed this was a simple cake walk for the Phenex houses third son but now... now it was different

-XxXxXxX-

"Lord Riser's queen... retires"

Rias could not have felt more joy at hearing those words, not a second ago did her second in command and best friend completely eliminate their first priority, Yubelluna, the after math of the explosive detonation from the practical Railgun left a permanent mark in the gyms place and even still, small arcs of yellow electricity remained seen

She was sure the standby medical teams recommended pulling her out before she turned into a vegetable from all of that energy exposure

But aside from her opponent's health and status Rias was smiling both like an idiot and one filled with pride, this was a plan not just made by her own schemes but by her peerages combined efforts in forging this breakthrough, it started by Issei who collected the bones of the plan, then Kiba who planted the nerves and motives, then Akeno and Koneko laid down the muscle both figuratively and literally and finally Issei was the final layer to the plans complete body

She may have been the spine controlling and directing but her pieces did most of the work

"Rias, target A is neutralized and we are moving to point beta now" Akeno's calm yet militaristic tone reverberated within the ears of Asia and Rias

Acknowledging the information Rias instinctually nodded before replying "good work Akeno, we are moving to the rendezvous point now as well, and... don't be late" the last jesting tone was left hanging as any further conversing was redundant at the moment but Rias knew Akeno heard it

Dropping her hand from her ear Rias glanced back to her second bishop and nodded to her, who in return flinched sheepishly before nodding as well

Before they started their long distance travel Rias spotted a look of nervousness on her bishop's features, a second later and her kind hearted Gremory side kicked in to comfort overdrive

"Your nervous Asia, I can understand that but let me be clear, under no circumstances will be injured on my watch..." started Rias as Asia shockingly blinked at the females words "they say a kings roll is to be caring but also ruthless in goals to conquest, be it merciless abandon or the sacrifice of others, however... I refuse to be like that" Asia watched on as Rias' convicted tone filled the confines of the ORC room, Rias hadn't looked at her but instead glared down at the floor instead

Now Asia knew she wasn't that sharpest tool in the shed when it came to modern day common sense but when it came to being understanding of the actions and words of others she was by far the most informed person within the ORC, Rias may be a women whom cared royalty but she had a lack in the understanding department, sure she had a basic understanding of situational problems others may be in but reading or believing someone wasn't her strongest suit... her conversation with her old friend was enough of an example

Right now Asia knew the words Rias had spoken were true gut feelings not normally expressed through words but actions, and reorganizing her previous words told her that she was not a 'sideline player' and would rather take an arrow to the knee then stand idle in a fight, as much as she despised fighting Asia smiled brightly at Rias' ideals

"Thank you for your words, but I'm more nervous for the others than myself at the moment" replied Asia as she followed Rias out the rear door, as they moved Rias downloaded the words of the former holy maiden

During the entirety of the crimson week Rias had conversed with everyone apart of her peerage/team Asia being a more common one due to her being excluded from the grueling training and Rias could rightly fully say without a doubt in her mind that Asia was extremely kind

It seemed almost painful to take advantage of her kindness and the mere thought forced a sudden instinct to cringe to her very core, every wound she healed without order, every request was done to the letter. To say she was kind was by every definition... an understatement

Rias had thought back to why she seemed so against Isaac's choice in letting Asia stay or rather her choice to stay and classified her past self as an ignorant fool needing of a wakeup call

'Not to self, always listen to wise, sketchy, mysterious strangers when possible' it was more a comedic thought then a promise but most of it was true, weather she liked it or not, she was glad the paladin of the Vatican was the strange unorthodox man he was or else she may not have had Asia as her awesome bishop

Shaking her head Rias dropped the fleeting memory before she found herself liking that priest. Continuing to the rendezvous point alongside Asia, Rias forgot all other thought before she started to refocus on forging any necessary back up plans

They were at the finally push now and her game face was needed

-With issei and co. at point beta-

"Alright Kiba, this is your OP, I'm off to the vantage point you requested" Akeno's voice over the magic comm's channel was static filled and the sound of rushing air could be heard meaning she was on the move

Kiba nodded before placing his hand on his right ear "Alright, provide air support on any signal you see" reminded Kiba whom got a small hum in reply

Once he was sure the message was clear he glanced back to the other two with him "I'm sure you know what your roll is in this issei?" asked the blonde male

From along the shed wall that which they were hiding in Issei clicked his tongue before replying "avoid the knights cause they'll kick my ass, avoid the rook or rather leave her alone more or less and take out the remaining pawns and single out the one bishop, Ravel Phenex is to remain standing... shaking but standing" reviewed Issei whom seemed slightly irritated

"I know you want to test you power against strong opponents Issei, believe me I do as well but Rias gave us our list of targets not to insult your growth but more towards success ability, and don't forget... we all have him to take down when were down with the small fry, no cake wake there" Issei listened carefully as Kiba went on with the rest of the plan with Koneko whom seemed eager more than her emotions would let her hide

All the while Issei thought on Kiba's words, It was true he had no other wise to then to test his might, it's what every growing warrior wished upon anything else and a battle craving was long since growing in Issei's gut, he didn't know if that was the dragon aspect in him or just a natural ambition but fighting and growing was the only thing that interested him

Then came the situation at hand, it only took that little explanation to gather Issei from his battle lusting thoughts back towards the objective, his target was the pawns due to the sheer difference in power, sure in the eyes of other devils, matchmaking a fight between a power opponent against a weaker one was cowardly but then you'd have to question the rating game it's self as its maybe the biggest example of what Issei was getting at

What Rias was doing was matchmaking every possible encounter to her favor, Yubelluna was chink in the plan armor cause her dangerous presents could disrupt everything planned with a single bomb but since she was taken out left all of the game in Rias' hands

If Riser took to the field (which was highly unlikely) then it'd be a different story but so far there hasn't been a sign of him at all, so that meant Rias could or more specifically, her peerage could choose who to take on, Kiba was most likely going to take on both of the knights, may seem scary in theory but if one had complete knowledge of his opponents tactics then it'd be a walk in the park

Like he said before 'every battle is won before it's even fought'

Its simple combat common sense, the more you know the more of a chance you have and it showed blatantly here as Riser's peerage had done little but arrogantly convince themselves they had this in the bag... look where that thought has taken them

With the majority of his forces down as well as his queen, Riser was pretty much wide open

"This is Kiba, we are commencing the attack as of now, Akeno prepare air support, buchou stay back until we have cleared out the offensive line" Kiba for a moment sounded like a man then a pretty boy Issei thought with a smile before he Spartan kicked the shed door open

When the small squad was on their way towards the shed they had little doubt that the remaining devils of the Phenex peerage were in close proximity and it was a sheer miracle they weren't in a brawl as of now, the Gremory peerage haft expected it to be the case of a retreat of possibly they were to shocked at having their queen removed so easily left them immobile for a select amount of time

Whatever the case it helped them regroup, the magic expended on keeping the illusion ore live was a small taxing price to Issei but since his time in the last weeks training he had, as well as everyone else, develop a keen ability to collecting lost energy in a small time frame, the time to breathe in the shed was good enough to bring Issei's devil energy back to after his encounter with the rook Xuelan and that meant he was primed and ready to take out two pawns and a bishop

Now that they had practically announced their presents it was all up to the remaining few on Risers side to answer the un-worded call

Didn't take long

From behind a pillar close to the west-wing entrance came a light brown haired female, from the time in training Issei as well as the others knew full well that assessing your opponents choice of outfit usually opens a few possible skill sets the person may or may not be choosing to follow, and upon remembering that the decided choice in attire leaned more towards durability and flexibility. And lastly, her physical description matched to that of a knight in Risers peerage known as Karlamine

Further thought on it revealed that she was the fastest knight in Risers peerage, her choice of weaponry was a sword, infused with flames obviously, and a danger... which was also infused with flames, though it wasn't visible he did however know she had it on her as in her rating game history she was seen using it as back up from time to time

"My name is Karlamine, a knight in service to the house of Phenex, to whom am I challenging?" Issei didn't know why the knights in devil peerages always seemed to use 18th century dialect but he digressed to just simply letting them have some kind of shtick to walk with

From beside Him Kiba walked out to greet the knight in a similar chivalrous manner but before that Issei caught a whisper of an order

"Eyes on the prize Issei" said the knight quietly while looking off towards the tree line to the immediate Right

Following his sight Issei spotted five new arrivals, one women seemed to 'biker' to be considered public worthy while another looked to be dragging something close to a winter blanket on her with various oriental designs on its exterior, two looked to be identical cat girls wearing the classic sailor girl outfit some schools use and another women was wearing a Chinese cheongsam along with a massive sword sheathed on her back, it was the last knight most likely, Siris was her name and she was slow when it came to being a knight and Issei knew why exactly

And lastly was Ravel Phenex, whom was wearing the dressiest attire for a fight

Didn't really take a genius to tell who carried herself higher than the others; would it be the ones exhibiting killing intent? Or would it be the one exhibiting a snobbish attitude?

You get three guesses...

"Geez, right when I find a cute boy, he turns out to be a sword freak just like Karlamine, its always swords, swords, swords, I can't find an end to it!" ranted on the little sideliner. Only haft of her words was picked up by the duo as they were too busy distinguishing who took out who in the next couple seconds, Karlamine and Kiba had long since distanced themselves from the group so to engage in their battle which was bad as Kiba was listed to take out the other Knight as well

Then again they never really expected to get a perfect match selection and by Kiba's trouble expression suggested he was fully aware of the hiccup, things were stretching out but not thinning in their chances, they still had an ace up their sleeve if things grew too out of hand

Lifting his hand to his magic comm's link Issei reported the change "Issei in reporting a change to the plan, we are close to engaging the next targets but Kiba has been separated from his second target, Akeno, can you focus your attention on the knight to my 11 o'clock?"

A second passed by due to Akeno's repositioning to the makeshift adaption to Kiba's plan "I'm in position Issei, I'll fire on your mark"

"Only if necessary Akeno" pausing for a second Issei glanced down to the patient Koneko a few feet to his left and nodded before glancing his gaze to Siris' direction so to hint Koneko's newer target, it took the little rook a second before she nodded in return "Koneko will see if she can deal with her without expending to much of your devil energy"

"Alright, but I'll remain on standby, Koneko if you need me simple signal for support" when Akeno finished the two refocused to the still ranting ravel Phenex, she started one about cute boys and some of their disappointing features but now it landed on why Issei looked they way he looked

"... I mean seriously, lady Rias has no taste in boys" after she finished her little jab a silence fell on the group as Issei remained surprisingly impassive to the blatant insult to his physical appearance

He remained silent for a moment before replying "Rias has no taste in boys you say?" he questioned which confused Ravel for a moment before she, with more clarification, confirmed her previous statements meaning

"That's what I said ya big dummy, if she had any taste at all she wouldn't have chosen you to take all of her pawn pieces" she said with condescendence raining from her mouth

Raising his eye brow in confusion Issei quickly smirked and chuckled before he replied

"I can see clearly why you have yet to even be given a peerage at all Ravel Phenex" replied the impassive Issei, at hearing her name called out so calmly caused the little bishop to reel back in shock not just because of its blatant nature but because he knew who she was

Narrowing her eyes at the implication of his words she retorted in an angered manner "and what's that suppose to mean"

"Well it wouldn't be much of a fighting force with that mindset you have there, using physical appearance as a base to gain pieces seems rather wasteful if you ask me... unless you're going to start a model institute then I can't argue with that choice" as he continued Ravels cheeks blushed even more at being called out and embarrassed, his choice of wording a retort completely picked apart her choice of words and even put her on the spot on a iffy topic not suited for her age

"Y-you y-you pervert! ...what makes you think I'd start that kind of thing?"

"I don't know, why don't you ask yourself, you were just basing physical appearance in relation to poor judgment a second ago weren't you?" replied Issei calmly as he scratched his cheek simply

The others looked on in silent confusion as Risers other peerage members stood idle in their positions a few feet from Ravel as the poor little girl got redder and redder at Issei's counter argument and double insinuations

Chuckling at the girls expense issei finalized his scolding "aside from your unorthodox ideals and rather perverted goals ravel" Issei paused when ravel growled at him before he continued "my masters choice in resurrecting me was not because I was in her preference 'hot' but rather because I have something far too important to leave it where it lay, so my masters taste in men still remains unknown to me, and my being here has nothing to do with that" finally Issei finished and by this point it seemed his plan

Had worked

"One of lord Risers knights... Retired"

?!

Almost every one present minus the Gremory duo snapped their heads towards Karlamine's direction only to see her form fading into white particles, various splatters of blood and ice could be seen in their vicinity and two weapon handles were also seen lying on ground just before they to vanished in white energy

"I'm surprised that worked so well" started Issei as he turned and looked at where Kiba stood, placing his hands on his hips Issei smirked at Kiba before raising a thumbs up towards him

"T-that was your goal wasn't it?" growled Ravel as the implications of their previous conversation faded in favor of her growing anger at being fooled so easily or rather all of them being fooled so easily

"Find a topic and roll with it? Yes, that shot at my master as well as to myself wasn't at all hurtful and seemed rather pointless to focus on... a good distraction and stall if I do say so myself" with a wink Issei snapped the trigger in two halves and now Risers little field commander was pissed

"Taken them out... TAKE THEM OUT NOW!" Issei fought the urge to grab his ears at the loud commanding shriek Ravel had used

All in one go did the remaining few pieces in Risers peerage snap to attack, the biker chick which was most likely the last remaining rook sprung from her spot towards Issei whom jolted his body to the side so to avoid the berserker charge which caused the rook to run smack dab into Koneko's oncoming right leg

Thinking on her feet Isabela dropped from her run and into a dolphin dive so to avoid the dangerous kick from her new opponent

"Your opponent is me, not him" said Koneko stoically before back flipping towards the downed rook whom quickly rolled from her downed position and re-primed her stance a second after her recovery, watching the rook mid flight Isabela plotted her counter attack

Seeing as though the white haired rook was suspended mid flight and open for an easy strike Isabela planed her attack but froze when the pawn before jumped up and grabbed her before she could actually commence her attack

Landing a few feet from the rook Issei dropped Koneko off fluidly before he rounded around and gunned it towards the bishop to the right of ravel Phenex, before the Gremory pawn could reach the open bishop Issei had to roll to the side to avoid a massive Zweihänder sword that would have sliced him in haft had he not dodged

'damn, looks like I will need to take her out' thought Issei as he primed himself ready to battle a superior foe in the speed category but his thoughts dropped when Kiba came careening in towards the sword wielding women

"Sorry I'm late, last one was a handful" called out Kiba as he slammed his sword into the knight's larger one

'Never mind then' started Issei via his thoughts"yeah thanks Kiba!" yelled Issei sounding slightly sarcastic, Kiba smirked at the tone before he refocused on the women before him

Turning his sights from Kiba Issei locked his sights on the immediate threat that being the twin cat girl pawns heading straight at him with speed that matched a cat

'where the hell does that douche find these girls' flexing his muscles for the imminent workout issei smirked before dropping into a normal fighting stance, one fist close to chest while the other outstretched with a minor bend

As the two closed in Issei shifted his stance to the opposite side before he engaged the pawns in a handicap scenario

-With Koneko-

Koneko dodged a right hook before she hopped back to avoid a left side follow up, the rook she was facing focused more on boxer type fighting then regular styled MMA fighting like what Koneko specialized in but that didn't mean it was a trouble

Currently all she had done was land a small bruise to the Phenex rooks kidney but after that the girls guard was high after the first initial hit and now Koneko found it hard to get into the guard without becoming a punching bag, that was all

Dodging the strikes was no problem as an MMA fighter focuses not just on their opponents fists but legs as well, sure a boxer type does as well but only to determine which side their opponent is strongest on, if they focused their weight on their right side then the right side was the strongest and vice versa

However a MMA styled fighter doesn't just watch their opponents legs for that sole purpose, they watched out for leg grabs or the possible high kick or one to the shin, a boxer doesn't need to worry much about the legs as much because they don't inflict the damage in a boxing match but Koneko's senses were far more heightened then Isabella's due to the exact reason on them being a threat

If the boxer type before her so much as chose to risk a kick then she'd do her in before she'd regret her gamble

"You're a nimble one aren't you?" started Isabella as she continued her assault

Koneko narrowed her eyes at an opening the rook had accidentally opened with the mistake of talking and pounced by allowing a straight left pass her side before she grabbed it with her right arm and locked it under her right armpit, with the lock in place Isabella widened her eyes when she felt two powerful jabs impact her stomach and ribs before Koneko reach with her left hand and grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her towards the left of her

Flexing her legs Koneko add a leg trip with the grapple toss which caused the rook to painfully face dive to the ground behind her

"Gah" coughed Isabella, the hits to her stomach and opposite kidney began to take their toll as Isabella's breathing sounded haggard and pained. A rooks punching force always measure in size but that could differ, with the force behind Koneko's punches Isabella suspected she may have small internal damage

Koneko remained silent as she stayed in position a few feet from the downed rook, Isabella made two mistakes in the last minute, the first was talking and the second one was letting your guard down mid fight

In Rias' words as well as a few other masters she had TALKING IN A FIGHT WAS AND STILL IS THE WORST POSSIBLE CHOICE A FIGHTER COULD MAKE

Out of all the scenario's or openings Koneko thought the next opening would be the fatigue on her opponent but talking was the last guess in her mind, but now that she thought of it she was glad her opponent made that mistake, it would save a large sum of time in waiting for the women to tire but now that she had two bruised kidneys and a hemorrhaging diaphragm her stamina was cut in haft and hopefully her anger was reached as well

"Damn... it, you really are dirty" called Isabella

Remaining as stoic as before she replied "it's a fight, now get up" commanded the petty rook threateningly while replacing her previous stance with a new one

Without replying the two recommenced their bout but with much more intensity then before and after learning her lesson Isabella remained silent and refrained from commenting on Koneko's brutal fighting style

-With Kiba-

Kiba had to admit, from the start of the game he least expected a challenge from the second knight apart of Risers peerage but now he actually regretted thinking so arrogantly, statistic wise he outclassed her in speed and strategy but in sword skill it was a match of the week

From the start he made the most nimble and flexible blades possible but even those blades were left useless in the face of Siris' defense, she may wield a massive sword but she still had a guard of steel (literally) every twist every reposition would cling off either the women's sword or the thick metal gauntlets she had on her wrists and forearms

Annoying yes but nothing he couldn't counter with a little time

All he needed to do was continue to put the knight in horrendous situations like the one she was currently in

Obviously the worst possible situation would be facing an opponent ten times your speed with each choice in weapon being the fastest known to man

Dual wielding short swords

Forget reach and guard, due to Siris' sword size striking at him was a death sentence as not only would it be ineffective but it would also spell a large opening for a game ending strike, All Kiba needed to do was play cat and mouse for a short while so to wear his opponent down for an easy opening or possibly hold her here until one of his allies cleaned up his assigned target and engaged his target for an easy two man victory

Spinning his right sword in his hands Kiba slammed it into Siris' guard before jumping up and sending his other blade down on the opening above her but to no avail, it seemed no matter the situation Siris was mostly just defending herself and seemed to have no thoughts of going to the offensive

To Kiba, he was basically fighting a brick wall with a pair of unlimited swords and daggers, he even shattered a few daggers on her sword before but they were easily replaced

?!

'Wait a second' thought Kiba as an idea sprouted up

Twisting his left sword into a reverse grip Kiba quickly gunned it towards Siris and leaped over her, all throughout his actions Siris had yet to stop looking at him, the only thing she truly had that was fast was keeping track of speeding targets but physically keeping up with them was another story however Kiba used the former to his advantage, twisting mid flight the Gremory knight sent one sword towards Siris upper guard directly were her eyes were

'First step, render sight from target' a loud ding could be heard registering the attack was a failure but in actuality it wasn't and it had actually done its job perfectly

Kiba landed on the ground a fraction of a second before Siris blocked the flying sword but that was all Kiba needed in order to use a last ditch attack on a wall-like defense

Hit her from bellow

"SWORD BIRTH!" chanted the knight as he pierced his sword into the ground bellow him, this caused a chain reaction to commence as swords of various design and origin stabbed from beneath the ground that which Siris stood

"What the-" the words of confusion and surprise were quickly silenced as various blades of size and type punctured the ground and her like a gazer of deadly metal that pierced her stomach, right thigh and upper left bicep

It didn't even take a second for the light to envelop the critically wounded knight

"One of lord Risers knights, retires"

-With Sona and co. inside the main observation and announcement room-

"Didn't take much to remove her did it?" commented Tsubaki energetically

Sona on the other hand remained as annalistic as before, but she did however, acknowledged the rather uncharacteristic comment from her (usually) equally stoic queen, Sona never thought on it but it seemed Tsubaki got rather into it whenever Kiba was the subject of conversation

'Gee, I wonder what that means' thought the bespectacled devil sarcastically. Forgetting that side of herself she replied instead with...

"It wasn't a matter of beating her it was actually 'when' he would, Siris was outclassed in every sense of the word. Speed, positioning, keen adaptability, and open thought, all Siris could do was guard for dear life... she never really had the luxury to think of anything else much less an attack plan so her fall by Kiba's hands was inevitable" spoke Sona as she listed off Siris' defeat lazily

Question it and you may feel slightly retarded with the look she'd give you

"What else have you noticed lady Sona?" asked Grayfia suddenly

It was equally apparent that neither Sona nor Tsubaki believed Grayfia to be open to converse but now it seemed they were wrong

Concealing her slight surprise Sona replied "it's been hidden but I think I've noticed a small pattern in the battles we've seen so far"

"And what would that be?" asked the stoic gray haired devil

Sona's words were hard to find at conversing with a woman awkwardly, she even hinted pride in the women's knowing tone "it seems each fight has been in Rias' favor, Toujou and hyoudou both faced off against pieces equal or below their skill set and now its blatantly apparent with Kiba's easy victory against Siris that they are in fact targeting those smaller than them" the more she thought on it the slightly exasperated she became

Has Rias been orchestrating the encounters herself?

For a fraction of a second Sona believed she would die. You may ask why? Well, after seeing a devious smile on the strongest queen in hell, self preservation was the last thing to careen through her head, thankfully the women behind her wasn't hostile but extremely impressed and prideful to the near point of shattering her picture perfect character completely

Sighing calmly to herself, Grayfia began "your are correct in you analysis lady Sona, from the beginning it was apparent to me that necessary preparation was a must within lady Rias' planning... That and training obviously" once Grayfia finished speaking she leaned back into her chair

Sona and Tsubaki remained silent for a moment before they to fell silent, no words needed to be said, it was blatantly obvious that Rias had taken every step to prepare for this fight, it was a fight for her future after all

Your damn right she prepared

Now that the last knight of the Phenex house was taken care of, the Gremory team now ruled the terrain, and with the Phenex queen taken out early the Gremory's Queen now ruled the air with an iron fist

If Riser had an Alamo plan for his last remaining troops then now would be the perfect time to put it to action or all that will remain standing would be him and him alone

-With Koneko-

For the last minute the two brawling women kept locked in an endless trade of blows that which landed zero benefits for neither party, Isabella had learned her lesson and remained silent and Koneko's character was still very much intact, stoic combat was her forte after all

In a flurry Isabella sent a right hook and then a left jab towards Koneko which was blocked then redirected by Koneko a second after they were sent at her with professional precision and training

In response to the attack Koneko used the small opening to lift her left knee up to ram it into Isabella's left kidney but that was blocked by both hands from the larger women, adapting quickly to the change in movement Koneko retracted her leg and slammed it into the ground and flipped backwards and sent her left leg towards the other rooks lowered head

BANG! CRACK!

It was a stroke of luck on Koneko's part that the sudden use of acrobatic movement caught Isabella off guard so much that she was able to land a clear hit with her steel toe boots, one strong enough to crack her nose and leave a painful gash above the women's left eye

CRACK!

Isabella was recognized as the toughest in the peerage due to her mind of matter, any small pain was forgotten in order to gain a sensible ground in combat and so without thought the last remaining rook snapped her shattered nose back into place with only minor flinching

Koneko was just wondering how that mask remained on her face after that

"You hit hard for a little runt" insulted Isabella angrily "Mihea! I could use some support!" after the small but loud request a second party member joined the fray, the bishop seemed mostly silent to being brought into combat but Koneko suspected she wasn't a 'hands on' fighter but more likely a support class

'She's going to be a problem' thought Koneko but she stopped mind combat prep duo to a single thought passing by her mind

It was so simple she nearly broke character thinking about it

Raising her hand high into the air Koneko looked as stoic as before but one thing seemed different

A small smile played on her lips

Snap

With a snap of her fingers Koneko sent out a signal that which was answered a nanosecond after her

DOOOOOOOMMMM!

Why they hadn't used Akeno's support by this point was beyond her but she simply ruled it out as small individual pride was the reason... that or Issei and Kiba didn't really need help at all

"AHHHHHHHH!" screamed the electrified bishop

BOOOOM!

Koneko looked on in silence as the prolonged electrocution finally subsided allowing the large build up of magic to detonate

"One of lord Risers Bishops, retires"

"GAHH!" yelled out Isabella as she was carried towards Koneko from the blasts concussive wave, from the first glimpse Isabella looked to have sustained a multitude of shrapnel damage to her back and right side but that didn't cause Koneko to hesitate

"Two birds..." timing her next move perfectly Koneko caught the flying Phenex piece with a powerful punch that created a velocity ring before she slammed the rook into the ground with enough force to crater the floor below her

"...One stone" finished the white haired rook while she watched the white light envelop the unconscious rook below her

"Lord Risers rook, Retires"

-With Issei-

"Why can't we hit him!" yelled out one twin, the fight was as fast as a pawn fight could get but the sheer level of identically features the two had made distinguishing who was who left Issei simply naming them by the color of the uniform and hair

So far the two had been using a leap frog styled pattern to land successive blows in a continuous fashion but sadly for them he read right through that at the beginning, it was simple really just don't get hit, each of their strikes targeted critical nerve endings and joints in the legs that would cause him to stubble of lock up, and that spelt a small amount of danger

His standard level of durability with Ddraig's gift was enough to give him a good enough defense to avoid critical love taps from cat girls and so far he simply enjoyed dancing around with them, he had to tango with Kiba and Koneko before and they were a good enough lesson to stay away from reach

He lost count with the amount of times he was locked into a 58000 hit combo with Kiba

"It doesn't matter, lady Phenex wants him hurt, so keep going Le" worded the red headed kitten while she circled around him like a predator

[So how will you handle these two partner?] Asked the dragon within him questioningly

'hm, I'd rather avoid using any devil energy at the moment, with both of Kiba's and Koneko's opponents defeated I'm hoping they'll intervene and deal them in for me' replied Issei before he side stepped a shot to his lower ribs and then ducked another shot to the rear of his neck

[Seriously? You're turning down the chance to win an easy victory?] Ddraig was confused by his partners lack of desire to crush the girls before him but the next reply snuffed out his confusion quick 'victory in my eyes is defeating someone greater then you, I'm loyal to Rias' orders but she never did say I could simply wait for someone else to clean them up, after all my true target is Riser not the akuma natata sisters'

[What about that rook you fought at haft power, why'd you fight her?] Pressed Ddraig

Issei sighed internally 'I needed to see where I stood in strength, she was rather easy to deal with, and by looking at the pawns now shows me she's stronger than them... I'd learn nor achieve nothing here'

Ddraig quieted down after that before Issei refocused his attention to the little dance before him, from the start of meeting the child before him Ddraig had come to the conclusion that this boy was a lot more than just an every ordinary student, he had grown at extreme speeds since day one and now he was a completely different a person then he was a few weeks ago, the dragon haft suspected his personality now was a mix between a warriors instinct and a dragons arrogance

Both equally influential in their own right and both of them neutralized each other's negative aspects, for example, if Issei took more after the dragon inside him then he'd give no qualms with crushing any and all that stood in his way, dangerous yes but it would put his allies in danger of a broken formation and that was bad with how critically the red haired girl had planned it so a calm and decisive mind was need... which was what the warriors instinct side was doing

Ddraig had witnessed the change, every time Issei fought the shadow of his 'weakest' host Issei would show great care and determination in overcoming the shadow and now it seemed to Issei that any strong target was on his list, if you were equal or below then he wouldn't show you much attention other than simply kicking your ass

But issei showed that he was conservative in his devil energy, Ddraig had been mostly confused by that, his fight with the rook prior to his expenditure to that illusion ore was barely anything for him to worry about

'Perhaps he's preparing everything he has for his fight with Riser, it would seem that is the biggest guess I can find' thought Ddraig to himself

From outside his mind Issei continued to play things elusive, every swipe, jab or lunge would be avoided like the plague, his evasive procedures were mostly Issei's main goal and any attempt on landing a hit was dually avoided

"Issei are you having trouble with the pawns?" asked Akeno within his ear piece

"Nope, just trying to handle them without using too much energy" he replied out calmly

"Well make it quick, Rias wants this mopped up in 1 minute; I can take down one if you wan-"

"NO NEED!" yelled Issei suddenly, he may have been un-wanting to take out the cat ladies but after hearing Akeno's proposition he felt his male pride was on the line so he acted accordingly

BANG! BANG!

A few seconds during his small trade of words with Akeno did the twin cat girls lunge at him in two different directions, one was from his right side and the other was to his front, normally he would simply leap of them but now he felt he had to respond

In a simultaneous fashion and with much focus, Issei shot out his right fist which collided with the blue haired girls face and just as he made contact with her did his left hand land the downward chop to the red heads head which sent the former flying back and the latter to slam face first into the dirt with the sudden redirection in momentum

"Two of Lord Risers pawns, retires" Announced Grayfia

Taking in a small intact of air Issei calmed himself of the sudden discharge of his boosted gears energy and then calmed the his riled reserves a second after that, then after he raised his hand to his ear and replied to Akeno calmly

"58 seconds to spare" he replied calmly "sorry for the yelling by the way"

There was a pause before she replied "~ufufu, my, that was rather surprising Issei-kun, did my words spark a loud of motivation?~" gone was the serious tone and in its place was one filled with sensual teasing, if easy hadn't readied himself for a reply in that fashion he may have just melted then there and there but however that wasn't the case

"... Possibly" his reply only received another load of giggles before his king finally replaced the comm's channel

"Nicely done on the double takedown Issei; Kiba, Koneko, good work to you two as well. Now with all of Risers pieces down we can proceed as planned, rendezvous at the designated zone to commence the last attack"

"Hai" Kiba sounded off

"Hai" next was Koneko

Akeno piped in as well "on my way"

"Hai" Asia even added her two cents

Issei calmly raised his hand before he replied as well "Hai"

Before the teen could run off he caught sight of Ravel, who in every right of the word looked shocked and frozen at how badly the two last remaining pieces were defeated within seconds of each other

"H-how strong a-a-are y-you?" she was frozen if not paralyzed by his level of dominance he had shown previously and now she refrained from making eye contact

Walking up to her calmly Issei simply paused and placed his hands in his pockets before he looked off and answered her stuttered question "the biggest mistake you all had was your own accomplishments, had you not underestimated us or Rias' abilities as a king then we may still be very much locked in a conflict right now but we aren't are we?" he finished but Ravel never answered

Chuckling softly Issei patted the girls head calmly before he continued "be thankful, we have given you one of the greatest lessons a fighter can truly be given"

For a moment Ravel looked up to issei innocently to which he smiled pleasantly

"What would that be?" she asked quietly, retrieving his hands from her head he answered with a lazy stroke of his fist

"A nice slice of humble pie" he said cheerfully which caused Ravels cheeks to flush at his rather uncharacteristic manner "it's allot like Buckleys, sure it tastes awful... but it works"

Ravel didn't know what had come up but for some reason she felt her face swell up with heat before she finally snapped and hide her face by looking down from the powerful man before her "shut up and go, I can't stop you"

Smiling down at her he tapped her head lightly before adding in one last thing "I'd recommend on forfeiting right now, things are about to get really messy" he advised before he ran off towards the building main entrance

Had he been a little later he would have noticed Ravel look back at him before she herself resided in white light

"One of lord Risers Bishops, Retires"

-XxXxXxX-

The jog to the entrance felt long and painfully quite, the harsh atmosphere of combat had subconsciously filled his mind with a stream of constant memories of angry screams of defiance or the sound of metal meeting metal, and occasionally the sound of a fist impacting a skull at inhuman speeds but that didn't really make the point

It seemed the with long period of silence had caused most of Issei's adrenaline to fade which brought the sheer level of silence the alternate space truly held

And to Issei, it was a painful sound if you could call it that

Lucky for him, the run wasn't one of Rias' 4 mile runs but rather a 4 yard leap and so the lack of sound or anything was quickly replaced by the small chatter of voices near the front entrance to Risers base, give him some understanding but right at this point it felt as though he was within a party of six in some kind of raid and right now they were all waiting for him to join them before the final boss could spawn

Rather than playing it, he was living it!

Ah the childish side of him still remained intact

"Sorry to keep you guys waiting, had a civilian to talk to" he started which caused Rias to look to him calmly "No need to worry, your right on time... Asia"

At the red heads orders did Asia walk up to Issei and heal his small cuts and minor bruises, ones he hadn't realized he sustained

Adrenaline had most likely concealed the pain

"You ok Asia?" he asked suddenly which caused the aforementioned bishop to snap suddenly at the quick question, nodding calmly she replied "I'm fine, if anyone is injured it'd be the ones fighting, not the one supporting them" her reply was humble but that didn't faultier Issei's locked and serious gaze

The look alone told Asia that his question was more along the lines of psychological then physical and then she felt much different, now that she was acknowledging her inner worries she was well aware that Issei knew that she was extremely nervous, so much so that her hands were shaking

While the others remained amongst them Issei acted in accordance to what he felt was best suited, without hesitation the Gremory pawn encompassed Asia's hands with his own and held them tightly

He hadn't noticed before but issei couldn't get over the fact at how small Asia's hands were to his own and he practically hide her hands in his grasp, it was comedic due to Issei's nonchalant contact and Asia's beat red face but the former didn't seem to care one bit

"You'll be safe... You have my word on that" his words of promise were firm and absolute, and she knew any rebuked words or humble reminders wouldn't change his choice of words so instead she remained silent even after he let go of her hands

"Are we ready to go?" asked the stern and ready Pawn, the small moment of reprieve was needed not only to allow Akeno to recollect as much spent energy as possible but to also heal any sustained wounds the others may have faced

Due to the training they had went through the little 'break time' was only recorded to be around a minute to 30 seconds at best, taking a breather in a battle wasn't smart so limiting the time of reprieve was paramount to Rias and so her small break times in the crimson week had driven the peerage to work together to require their lost energy in a small amount of time

A unit recovery time so to speak, going from fight to fight usually ends with the unit either being wiped out or captured so she simply brought that into her training schedule to lesson that possibility

Within a matter of seconds the others quickly regrouped and broke off into their formations, Akeno took to the skies and retreated back into the dense forest a few yards from the school building, Akeno and Kiba simply entered the bases front door and strode of to various locations inside the building, sighing calmly before he nodded to Asia and then Rias, Issei soon after strode off towards the stairs to the upper floor

Nodding to the boy's back Rias looked to Asia before she outstretched her devil wings and took flight towards the building's roof, this left Asia alone in the main plaza, for a moment the calm silence was unnerving but the calming words from Akeno... "I'm still here Asia, remain in sight and I'm sure you'll be just fine, Kiba and Koneko should return soon" ...calmed the nervous bishop a good bit

-With Koneko and Kiba near the boiler room and lower level bathrooms-

With a calming breath Kiba placed his hand against the wall directly beside the boiler room heating furnace, there were a total of five alongside the wall to the left of the entrance way, the five massive furnaces were specifically meant for heating the main buildings occupants during the cold winters and weeks for the progression of the year but for a battlefield they served more like fuel tanks then comfort equipment

Seeing the small crest of the Gremory house etched on the walls of the boiler room Kiba sighed calmly again before pressing his hand to his left ear "I'm all done here Koneko, regroup in the main plaza when you're done"

"Roger that" came the stoic reply

Nodding to his handy work Kiba jogged back to the main entrance were he regrouped with Asia, a minute later and Koneko returned as well, not much was happening at the moment and Kiba couldn't really express his relief, all that remained was Riser while everyone on their side was still standing and in perfect condition Kiba haft, no, he fully expected Riser to be extremely pissed off with the turn of events, not to mention his queen was eliminated far before the last few fell so Kiba believed the arrogant devil to have learned a few things and took it upon himself to step in a fight the losing battle

Yet he hadn't done so at all

Either something was up or he simply felt there wasn't a problem at all, the latter was expected from the Phenex heir but the former was a possibility, a possibility he wished to not be the case

"We are all done down below, charges are set and primed... whenever you're ready Rias" the calm yet serious voice of Akeno reported over the magic comm's link, then the following voice reported

"Promote; queen"

Kiba knew full well that the final stages in their attack had finally been released, the sheer pressure and power he felt was intense but they had long since trained under even the most powerful of pressures so instead of kneeling down to relieve himself of the pressure the others simply focused on their objective that which had quickly took action

Like a trigger being pulled the Phenex had risen to the challenge

-With Rias on the roof-

Feeling a familiar pressure rise in power Rias subconsciously flexed her healthily trained muscles when she saw a the chain reaction she predicted a week ago

Call it a devil instinct but when one devil feels a large spike in devil energy it's not curiosity that causes them to respond but rather a drive to face the challenge head on, its effects only effect the most potent of devils for example, highly prideful devils and or arrogant devils seeking to raise their standings when facing a powerful being

In this instance it was Rias' ploy to pull Riser from his hole using his own arrogance against him, it took a minute but it work effectively, the pressure release from issei was an initial pull but after he subsided his Rias replaced his with her own

deep crimson energy flowed off her person like a calm yet deadly flame raising her long crimson hair to standing and flow upward, her eyes had changed from her normal teal but to a red shade that promised a quick escape to nothingness, her hands flexed from the calm relaxed state into tense fists

Calming herself Rias recollected her excess energy and brought it down to a bare release like state, her hair fell down to the normal state but her eyes remained red, any sign suggesting to her release was expressed through the small amount of red smoke surrounding her

From the other side of the roof appeared a man Rias deeply despised, from the looks of things he looked to be impressed yet still defiantly arrogant to the bitter end, from just his expression Rias suspected the man still believed to be the victor

She clenched her teeth slightly at the thought

"So... you're calling out Lord Riser to fight huh? Such is the predictable pride of the Gremory family" started Riser with his usual snarky attitude

"What did you expect Riser, did you really expect me to stand on the side lines and let my servants fight my battle?" she replied angrily as no small amount of venom was etched into her words when she spoke his name

In response to her reply the third son of the Phenex house simply smirked and shook his head "You are just as defiant as you were three years ago, change is the last thing you can be described as"

"I can say the same to you, even after all this time you still see me as nothing but a weak and defenceless girl" replied Rias hotly, killing intent rising

"But you still are... even now you still lack what you really-"

BOOM!

At speeds untraceable by the naked eye, a narrow yet thick spear of red and black energy sped pasted Risers cheek, leaving a small gash that radiated a red smoke, for a moment the wound remained but soon after it healed

"Killing intent... been there, learned that" replied the now dangerously pissed off Rias, her eyes couldn't be more red and they seemed to glow fiercely

Riser remained silent as he studied the previous wound calmly, something about it confused him deeply, the small gash should've healed nano seconds after its affliction but it remained a good 5 seconds before he could heal it... something was different about her

For a moment the mature devil stood still before he chuckled softly "hmhmhmhm, I guess I was actually a small step behind you, my dear Rias, you really have changed... it's been a long time since someone was able to leave a lasting wound on me" he paused to smirk dangerously "I guess facing you one on one for a bit wouldn't be a waste of my time after all"

Taking a stance that mirrored royalty and power Riser eyed Rias while she herself stood by and waited for a single movement

"All charges are set Rias, estimated time will be three minutes" Akeno's voices echoed through her head before she cut the comm's link

Three minutes was the perfect amount of time

"Care to dance Rias?" asked Riser suddenly

Smirking slightly she replied "feel honored Riser, cause this will be the only dance you'll get from me" seeing the frown that etched itself on his face Rias smirked darkly before she acted on the opening

Spiking her energy levels Rias summoned four black and red energy spears in an arch above her head, with a simple point of her finger Rias sent two at his feet so to cause a small cloud of smoke just before she sent the last two at his stomach and leg

SQUELCH! SQUELCH!

She predicted he wouldn't move, his high speed regeneration was his one and only defense, and she'd use that against him, summoning two more destruction spears Rias reacquired her target before she aimed one at his head and the other at his right arm

Just like the first verse, the sound that followed was just the like the second, calming herself at the small time of reprieve Rias allowed the cloud of smoke to dissipate which showed the four shots intending to kill had actually hit their mark

Did they kill him?

No, killing him wasn't possible this early into the dance; her duty was more along the lines of withering him down in a safe manner then just killing him outright... didn't mean she didn't want to though

Form a moment Riser was silent, but not by choice, his head seemed to lag behind his intended regeneration time, almost haft of his head had regenerated which had presented a haft frown, for some damn reason Rias' attacks seemed to leave his regeneration in a lagging state, sure they did regen but at a painfully slow pace

He was even feeling the pain of the wounds!

'Damn women, how the hell is she doing this?' questioned Riser internally, soon after his head repaired itself and then he took a glance down towards his stump of a right arm

Analyzing it of anything different Riser quickly spotted that near the edge of his wounds small amounts of red smoke was seen eating away at his rapid regenerating arm

So that's how his wounds took so long to heal, the residue from Rias' destruction power was trained to eat away ones physical being over time, from a long time ago Riser had know that all Rias was capable of was simple explosions of large proportions and due to the level of disappointment he had towards that Riser simply forgot about her power development and leaned more towards her other developments

What she had now was both a fortress type power as well as a one on one type combat power, his regeneration was fast but the obvious difference in his normal regeneration speed to the one now suggested that her deterioration effect was fast enough to fight his regeneration to a small stalemate

If he didn't have his Phenex abilities he might as well be a decaying corpse by now

But he wasn't and by how small the effects are Risers healing was out powering it to simple two second to three second lags, nothing he couldn't compensate and nothing to troubling

"So, instead of focusing on-"

SQUELCH!

"You asked for this dance so I make the rules..." started Rias as she watched Risers lower jaw land on the roofs tiles "...Rule number one: no talking"

From across the way Riser remained silent while he looked at his lower jaw deteriorate on the roofs tiles, did she just... ORDER HIM?!

If Riser looked pissed then he look furious now, three seconds and his lower jaw was replaced by another, before he could yell out to her in vehement anger but he stopped when he saw four more red and black spears come flying at him at high speeds

Waving his hand to the side Riser summoned a massive wall of fire that which redirected the spears away from his face and his body, when they exploded against the trees and pavement down below Riser responded in kind

Coiling his hand back all the while collecting as much Phenex fire as possible before he suddenly lurched his had forward sending a massive ball of hell fire towards the unmoving Gremory heir

'Alright, just like before... except don't release it' Rias' inner reminder helped in both keeping her cool as well as motivate her, flexing her right hand Rias summoned a large cloud of black and red energy to coil around her like a viper before it to lurched forward towards the ball of impeding heat

As the two powerful family devil powers closed into each other the tiles in-between the two devils lifted and trenched at the powerful force the attacks created before suddenly the two energies collided into a massive explosion that rocked and destroyed the roofing in between the two combatants

BOOOOOM!

The ending aftermath showed that not only the roof but the second floor down below had suffered a good bit from the following concussion

The battle between Rias and riser halted when the large pillar of smoke blocked each of their views so no pot shots were taken lest they telegraph their positions

However Riser didn't see any harm in that and proceeded to fire a second shot but much smaller and accurate through the smoke cloud, the sudden force of the shot had made a large enough hole in the smoke cloud that Riser easily noticed he had long since missed his intended target

"Don't tell me were going to play this game again Rias, playing cat and mouse doesn't intrigue me as much as kicking your little pawns ass" the words of Riser echoed out but no response came so quickly, his intention was to obviously through Rias off by reminding her the pain he was going to inflict on Issei but it didn't seem to have worked out so well

"Tch... I don't have time for this Rias! Stop hiding and fight me like a true fighter! ...or was that talk a minute ago a small burst in confidence, you may have swept my other pieces out easy enough but that doesn't mean I'll be so easy!" again no answer

With a grumbling heave Riser strode forward to be where his previous opponent was before he stopped and scanned the area around him, seeing nothing he started to growl deeply "This is so annoying, Riser doesn't have time with dealing with cowards! All of you face me or I'll—"

BZZZZZZZ! DOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOOOM!

In a matter similar to domino's Riser was struck by not just a massive pale yellow thunder bolt but the after effect caused the following chain reaction, after the thunder bolt hit its mark, that being Risers mug, the force behind the attack was enough to send the mature devil through the floor of the roof and then detonate with the massive collection of energy built up from said thunder bolt, similar to how Yubelluna went but the first initial shock was much longer then hers

Riser has a thick skull; overkill was the best choice in the matter

After the collected devil energy dispersed violently inside the building the added narrow corridors as well as the close proximity to the boiler room caused the third and final detonation, imaging a massive tank of nitro fuel being dumped onto a barrel of napalm before its hit by a fire and forget javelin anti tank rocket and you may get a close estimate of the sheer destructive power behind the blast, even some trees a few yards away looked to have sustained some minor blow back

The school however looked like... well, it was rendered down to the last brick, class rooms, bathrooms, faculty rooms and the staff lunch room was all gone, mixed in with the debris down on the alternate earth below, a few support beams stood tall but even then they looked like they just wanted to quiet, Rias suspected that if she were to see Sona's expression it would either be narrowed dangerously at seeing an image of her school being leveled or scared at the sudden blast she had created within a matter of seconds

The plan before the execution was simple

Kiba and Koneko were to plant a selection of explosives in multiple locations within the school that which layered over each other like a bull's eye, the bulls eye being the last place that which Riser stood, after that Akeno would use her 'Railgun' to level Riser down to the second floor, Rias estimated the lag between the hit and the detonation would allow Riser to fall down to the third floor well before the second detonation caused the third to follow after

But this is when the real kicker shows itself

The seals that which Kiba and Koneko planted were to be detonated from the outside ring towards the middle ring, this caused a mushroom cloud effect and then add to that, it would also force...

CRASH!

...Riser up

From a good distance away, that being a few meters, stood Kiba, Koneko, and Rias, each perfectly well and restored, Rias may be slightly fatigued due to her small clash with Riser but using the same method as Akeno had taught her helped her restore a small amount of it back within a few breaths

From their perspective Riser looked literally like a crispy chicken wing, the electrical shock had kept him twitching slightly and the amount of heat that he had absorbed made him look like a napalm strike victim, not even his eyes looked to have been spared as deep black eye sockets remained

Rias had expected this to be one of the more effective attacks used in damaging Riser, The Phenex house is known for its immortal flames and sheer representation of the undying nature pure hell fire was but it had its limits, namely its possessors will and his damage intake, if he were to take a load of damage so great then his fire would diminish from his attacks and refocus more to his regenerative abilities

She had trained hard to replicate the decay effect the power of destruction had and so far she had made a massive leap in achieving it, even now his wounds looked to struggle to regenerate due to the poisonous effect her destruction had then add a constant intake of damage would keep the decaying effect going

Like a rechargeable battery every time Riser would be hit by a magic or energy based attack only haft of its effects would cause him pain or damage while the other would redirect towards the small decaying cells pulsing in his system, the only thing that can stop that effect would be a Phenex tear as its purity (as pure a devil power can get) would cleanse him of her poisonous after effect

She did say she'd use his regeneration against him didn't she?

From the start of the game Riser had only been given two Phenex tears, one for his queen and another for his sister Ravel, but one was retired while the other forfeited long before the battle taking with them both Phenex tears

If Riser wish to free himself from his small douse of poison then he'd need to cry first but she knew that he'd rather die than show weakness at the moment

"Damn this... when the hell did you learn this?" snared Riser as he struggled to stand, the crispy part of his body had long since fallen off leaving his severed arm and leg still to repair, from the normal time of three seconds delay Riser's healing factor was now slowed down by six seconds, long enough for the adrenaline to wear off which caused Riser's pain threshold to be tested greatly

The lag between regenerating will grow larger the more the fight progressed, the sheer level of energy and power placed with the explosion was good enough to last the poison cells 5 minutes before they'd need a recharging lucky for her the final stage of Riser's 'ash' kicking was wide and presented o her and her allies

"Kiba, Koneko, I leave prolonged damaging to you" at her orders Kiba vanished while Koneko ran back to the forests out rim and grabbed a massive boulder before throwing it at the now standing Riser Phenex who quickly shot the large rock mid flight causing it's to rain shrapnel down on him, the small impacts on him caused him to growl due to their small annoying receive impacts to his burning wounds but very quickly the rocks stopped raining before Riser quickly spotted a blonde flash careen past his left side and then his right

SLICE! SLICE!

In a matter of seconds Riser's left arm and right leg flew off in a fountain of molten flames which caused him to fall back down to his knees in pain, he had sustained zero magic damage and energy damage so the lag between regenerating was still six seconds

"Grrrr" growling lowly at have been dropped back down to the floor; Riser used his right hand to send a large ball of flames directly towards Koneko who quickly dived into the bushes

BOOM!

"This is ridiculous! Being dropped to my knees by all of you weak low class devils!" in a burst of anger Risers right leg sprouted back, the sheer will he had to remain standing was enough to override the poison effect down in his leg but his left arm remained

"Akeno fire a salvo" muttered Rias into her magic comm's link, soon after her order a volley of yellow lightning bolts smack down onto Risers position before on last larger bolt trigger the following explosion

BZZZ BZZ BOOOOM!

The explosion wasn't as large as before but it carried enough force to cause Riser to redirect a second ball of fire towards the sky as well as rekindle the lag time in Rias' curse effect

Now the flames at the edge of his stump of an arm looked like small embers battling small red embers, a true stalemate it seemed as neither the red embers caused decay nor did the flames repair, his left arm was now useless

"Continue the assault, fall back in three minutes!" yelled Rias as she summoned four red spears and shot all of them at Riser, dodging some of the red cursed spears Riser only received two of the four for his efforts, he now had a hole in his gut the size of a soft ball and another in his thigh

Gritting his teeth from the resurfacing of pain Riser focused on the blonde blur but was sent off his feet by receiving a large tree trunk to the face

CRACK! CRASH!

The sound of Risers neck snapping and the tree crashing against the ground followed the effort of Koneko's javelin toss but it didn't last long as every effort available aloud Riser to repair his broken neck within two seconds rather than six

"Damn runt... you'll pay for that one" snarled Riser towards the unmoved Rook

"Suck it" was her reply before she chucked a second tree towards him, a tree that vaporized in flames a second later, with the smoke and splints blocking his view Kiba made his attacks known a second time leaving three large gashes on Risers front torso and one other large one on his back before he finished by slicing the tendon in his calf

"Why don't you take a knee" commented Kiba before he zoomed off into the smoke away from the fuming Riser Phenex but it stopped when a third tree sped past Risers face leaving him slightly shell shocked at the near miss

"I missed" Koneko's stoic and disappointed tone was heard by Riser within the smoke but he simply ignored it "this is pointless Rias! I'm still regenerating my wounds and that means you can't stop what's coming"

Similar to the time on the roof he heard no reply nor did he hear a tree being up rooted for another toss, narrowing his eyes he waved his hand causing the cloud of smoke to reveal that his three opponents were long gone

"Keep running little worms! You only prolong the inevitable!" snapped Riser before he unleashed a large wave of flames towards the tree line where he expected the 'little worms' to have fled, but he heard no cries of pain, much to his disappointment

Due to the smoke his vision of the school was hindered a good bit but the simple sounds of crumbling debris was just enough for him to remember that his base was destroyed and going towards it was a wasted thought, instead he treed forward towards the now burning forest

With loud and profound footsteps of malice Riser angrily entered the burning forest with heavy emotions raining in his combat eye sight and as such he made no inclination of acknowledging his new opponent that being the young brown haired teen that was stationed comfortably on the untouched tree log 20 feet from which Riser stood

Still fuming under the stress and anger at being ignored twice Riser carried on another 30 seconds before he spotted the well camouflaged teen, the sky had been blanketed with a thick ash and any sight of the once purple sky was then replaced with a red light that burned like the fires of hell

"You" growled Riser when he finally spotted issei leaning calming against the tree

Shrugging his shoulders he replied smartly "me?" he started while gesturing to himself "You flatter me Riser, you'd came all this way into a burning forest just to find me? One stop you'll make me blush!" Issei's jesting and mocking tone was effective, Riser's prideful disposition was so wounded at this point that you'd haft to be brain dead to not expect a retort

"Don't mock me! You low class dog!" yelled Riser before he surrounded himself in flames threateningly "you may have surprised me during that little tussle of ours but it won't happen again!"

Smirking slightly issei returned the comment "then you should really pay attention on were your standing" after his comment he pointed towards the ground beneath Riser

Snapping his head down to the ground Riser clicked his tongue in annoyance at being forced into another trap

VOOOP BOOOOM!

The reaction that followed wasn't the regular type of explosion normally seen, instead it looked like a miniature version of a thermoberic explosion, the initial detonation was trigger my another devil's energy rising rapidly, just like how Riser covered himself in flames it was just enough to trigger the first explosion... or impulse more like as instead of expanding outward it collected all the magic in the area that being Riser into a small area before it exploded out word sending all debris in every direction

Due to Riser being in the center of the explosion he had not been sent anywhere, his ribs and lower torso however... was

SPLAT

With his spine and ribs almost completely visible Riser immediately fell over lest his upper body latterly fall of his lower one, the unceremonious fall caused the pain that was beginning to rise suddenly spike into Risers pain threshold and by this point his teeth looked ready to shatter at the pressure he was using to cringe away the pain

"I can't imagine what being taken apart piece by piece feels like... looks painful, and that left arm of yours doesn't look to be getting any better" issei added in while still sitting on the tree stump

Glaring past the pain Riser filled his eyes with as much hatred as possible and directed it towards the young arrogant teen before him

Seeing his gaze Issei smirked down at him nonchalantly "Strange huh? Usually it's the good guy fighting tooth and nail for victory but it seems today the roles have violently turned" smirking deeper he continued "I wonder why that is?"

In a fit of anger Riser tried to stand but forgot his body was relatable to a used up apple, he had been so used to his healing abilities that he forgot he was still wounded; the only thing keeping him alive was the Phenex flames deep in his devilish spirit otherwise Rias would've won by now

"I'd refrain from getting up there Riser... after all, Rias was the one that made that trap" pausing he rubbed his fingers against his chin "and I'm sure you are well aware of what her little secret ability is by now, so be patient Riser, we'll duke it out in a minute here"

For a minute issei remained silent and watched as organ by organ Risers lower torso was repaired at a painfully slow pace, the magic and energy inside the explosion was small but its focused effect was good enough to force the lag gap from six seconds to thirty seconds, not to mention the poisonous effect was good enough to disrupt Risers regeneration from healing multiple organs and limbs to a barren 2-3 at a time

It took thirty seconds but after awhile Riser's lungs were restored and well after that his torso muscles and skin finished melding itself back to cover the exposed organs, his shirt had been stained by small amounts of blood but the rest seemed to look like ash had caked the man's seemingly expensive shirt

Then after two grueling minutes the man stood back up, the pain prior to standing was still fresh in the Phenex heirs mind but his anger towards the smart-aleck before him was enough to help him forget the pain

"You damn, low class scum" started Riser lowly but issei finished for him

"Your gonna beat me to a pulp before you feed my corpse to some kind of repulsive devil creature all the while laughing evilly, I've predicted worse if that helps"

Snarling at being interrupted Riser added in "That's not even close to what I plan for you"

For a moment Issei remained silent while looking to the standing Riser confusedly "you have some serious anger management issues you know that Right?"

He didn't get an answer in words, instead he received one, well almost as a ball of fire was sent to his torso but thanks his honed instincts he was as able to jump over the ball with seemingly enough ease to impress a moderate combat specialist

Landing softly enough Issei swapped his jesting expression with a serious one "I'll take that last answer as a yes then" dipping into a stance Issei outstretched his hand before gesturing Riser to 'come at him'

In a quick manner Riser snapped from his position across from Issei to suddenly appear to his left side, coiling flames around his left leg Riser sent a quick high kick to Issei's head but it was quickly avoided by issei ducking and weaving around Riser so to answer Risers first move with a powerful low jab to his kidney

THUMP!

"Gah" coughing slightly at the relatively small hit Riser turned around but suddenly lurched forward when a second strike slammed into his gut which created a similar vacuum sound as before

Stunned and disorientated Issei finished his counter by slamming a third punch into the man's 'pretty' face causing him to fly towards a tree a few feet away

CRASH!

"Not much of a fighter are you Riser, surely that isn't all you got" commented issei while Riser stood to his feet, a furious expression on his features but it looked faltered and somewhat unfocused

Seeing the man's gritted teeth he deduced an answer himself "I see" started the teen "it seems buchou's special poison is starting to take effect"

From across the way Riser shook his head before replying "what in the hell is it?" he questioned angrily

"A poison bent on destruction" quoted issei "catching name really, buchou made it. Its main effect is as its shown, it decays the physical body of the person afflicted and is fueled by energy... namely energy or magic attacks received recharge its life line as well as increase the lag in between any form of regenerative abilities, its literally a devil version of a holy spear except sadly it isn't as potent as the latter" explained issei calmly, Riser's eyes widened before they narrowed

"Such abilities is unheard of, she couldn't have possibly learnt that skill within a week" Risers voice was confused and shocked but ultimately stubborn to true facts

"You'd be amazed at the accomplishments one can achieve when they put their mind to it Riser but I'm not expecting a person who only trained a day in his life to understand that"

Growling at the sharp but true words Risers defiance grew "Don't under estimate me Pawn I'm more than enough to—"

CRUNCH

Riser was silence when a fist slammed painfully into his face, a punch so hard it shattered bone

"I'm not even listening Riser, words from an arrogant man who refuses to acknowledge an obvious challenge deserves no honor from me" lifting the Phenex heir by the scruff of his shirt issei continued "just as much as you don't deserve Rias' affection... now shut up and lose already!" finishing his comment issei drove a powerful punch that was molded with a green aura

The force was good enough to send the Phenex heir careening out of the burnt forest and back out into the tennis court with enough left over force to cause the blonde haired man to trench the floor below him

Focusing his dragon aura in his legs issei flexed his leg muscles before he power jumped to were Riser landed, a disgusted and annoyed expression on his features

"I have to give some dislike to this effect of buchou's, I was hoping to really cut loose but it seems it was a wasted hope on my end" stopping just fresh of the trench left by Risers landing issei looked on towards the haft awake Phenex house heir "You look weak right now Riser... if you still wish to up hold that pride of yours stand up now, or was this weak dog too much for you to handle?"

Silence reined after that and issei looked bored, clicking his tongue he began to walk away but froze when a massive pillar of flames erupted from where Riser was sitting but he wasn't sitting anymore

"You really are stronger than before... now I feel really stupid" placing his hands on his head Riser smirked before he snapped his gaze back at the surprised yet calm issei Hyoudou "why didn't I just kill you when we first met? Rias would've been so much easier to defeat if you weren't in the picture"

Calmly turning to the now fully awake devil, issei stood by "you only have yourself to blame for that, you are arrogant Riser Phenex, to blindly ignore a possible Achilles tendon shows just how arrogant you really are, how you so proudly boast your powers around without considering the power of others"

Chuckling to himself Issei finished "I hope this defeat chips away that stupidity of yours"

Growling Riser dropped into a stance "just shut up and come at me, low class freak"

With the equal taunts floating in the air issei activated his dragon gift which caused the green aura before to cover his being

Once he stopped activating his power things got violent... fast

In a world wind of movement issei cracked the ground beneath himself with enough force to send him directly towards the ready and poised Phenex who quickly blocked a low punch to his ribs and then responded by sending his own bunch but to his surprise his punch actually connected but had it done any form of damage then he would've been happy but the pawn didn't even register it

After the first trade of blows the two grew into speed blurs, the Phenex fire helped in amplifying Risers movements while Issei kept up with his dragon gift, after a good minute of blow for blow issei answered a punch by countering with a powerful palm thrust which sent the Phenex heir skidding along the tennis flowing for 12 feet

"Not bad pawn, but let's see how well you can adapt" infusing his hand with Phenex fire Riser punched his fist into the ground which caused the flooring to fissure with cracks, it took issei a second to realize the punch wasn't intimidation but rather a means to an attack

Diving to the right away from the cracks all the while activating his dragon skin ability Issei witnessed the cracks sprout massive amounts of fire from seemingly down from hell itself

'Damn him for copying Armstrong' thought issei commercially as the walls of fire subsided; suddenly issei smirked before he stood back up

"So you survived that huh?" commented Riser darkly

"What else you got?" came Issei's low response

All Riser did was smirk before he gunned it towards him all the while priming a punch directly towards the teens heart

DING!

"What the hell?" question Riser when his fist met something that felt like a steel wall

"From the words of a good villain... nano machines son" issei reference before he upper cut the shocked and surprised Riser in the chin so hard it tossed him into the air a good 12 feet

"Don't fuck with this pawn" he finished before kicking the airborne Phenex heir away

Now that the dragon skin was activated Issei's weight doubled to the point where the tennis flooring disagreed with holding him up

With each step the floor cracked with each strike sent and each hit taken the floor beneath issei shook

"What the hell are you made of?!" yelled Riser, the accumulated assaults on his person had left small bruising in various locations, the energy infused punches had worn on the Phenex heir to the point that his regeneration was left hindered to nearly useless, all Riser could do was heal key organs and limbs

His left arm was still a stump and his organs had actually remained burning from the previous explosion to his system, then add to the fact the decaying effect Rias had inflicted on him had put Riser in a deficit situation

He had experienced fatigue before, not on the battle but he had experienced a lack of energy but he hadn't experienced pain to this degree, with each hit he took his organs screamed with the phantom pain prior to this engagement and that left him open for more hits

He became well aware that Issei was directly targeting his vital organs

"You bastard" growled the man lowly

"Hey! I have a father mind you!" Replied the teen before his head snapped to the side from a powerful but ineffective punch to the cheek

"Shut up mongrel" Risers patience was deadly thin, for the last minute he had been wailing on the pawn but to no avail the pawn remained standing with zero damage at all "why the hell are you so powerful!?" cried the Phenex house member

"Training idiot, try it someday" replied the quick witted pawn

Like before Riser growled "I'm supposed to be stronger then you, SO WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL STANDING!" yelled Riser before Slamming a punch into Issei's dragon skin protected gut, in return issei skidded back a few feet before brushing off his stomach calmly "is it really so hard for you to understand Riser"

Locking his angry gaze on issei "don't spew that crap about training! I'm more than enough to defeat you! Low class devils can never reach what I've obtained!"

"9 wins 2 loses, the two loses being related to political bull crap I can careless about while the nine wins however I do know about, I know about all the lies and close calls you had. I even know about the time you paid off the losers who were close to defeating you just so they wouldn't spew all the wins they scored before you sent that queen of yours after their king like some kind of guard dog" revealed Issei calmly

"Yeah, I'm reeeally jealous of that record of yours Riser" clicking his tongue he pressed on "If your able to feel confidence from defeating those lower then you then that only constitutes your own position being lower then the vary dogs you slaughter"

"But don't let my words hinder you, if you wish to boast that power it is of my respect to you – oh great and mighty Riser – to answer your arrogance with an force equal to your so called 'power'" finishing his rant he said but one word

"Dragon Force"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!

With words alone issei caused a cataclysmic explosion that sent Riser flying back and the ground to crater deeply, trees from all directions uprooted as the sky became covered in a red hue all the while golden electricity cackled all around the epicenter of the release

Within seconds the pillar of red light vanished and the lightning subsided slight, all that remained was a single person who stood in the center of the crater...

-a few miles away, with Rias and co.-

From a far away distance stood the remaining peerage of the Gremory house servants Asia gave medical attention to any small wounds sustained with the encounter with Riser but standing before them was Rias, a serious yet prideful expression laced within an expression of shock and awe

'Ise, this is what you wanted to show me?' the thoughts of Rias' inner words echoed internally but the effect brought on a memory

-Flashback-

Rias had long since dismissed her peerage for a good night's rest, the rating game was tomorrow and she wanted them fully rested before the fight... but she felt restless

8 days ago she had experienced the butterfly effect that which she hated more the even Riser himself, and now she wanted nothing more than to plan the hell out of the events tomorrow

'All this talk about me being a leader but yet I still feel fear.. Huh, some leader I turned out to be' her self loathing thoughts subsided when she felt a rise in energy outside the rear of the building within the courtyard

Seeing as how her sleep was far from possible for her Rias allowed her curiosity take over and took to going were the energy signature was, traveling from her bedroom, through the main hall and past the kitchen to the rear garden door Rias breathed in the night air before she looked around to find whoever was releasing the energy

It didn't take much effort because just to her left was a large statue of the legendary devil Lucifer, but under the statue kneeled her new pawn Issei whom seemed unaware she had arrived behind him

'What's Issei doing out this late?' she asked herself internally

Before she could grab his attention a soft green flame surrounded his body causing her stop her actions, she had nearly been killed one time when she suspected him to be done his routine meditations so she didn't want to make that mistake a second time

But for some reason the green flames weren't violent, far from it actually, like a candle light the flames held a constant flow one that seemed more peaceful then deadly, a second after and the flames vanished which quite frankly disappointed the Gremory heir a small bit

"Buchou?" Rias was so lost in the memory of the green flame that she was surprised when Issei called out her school ORC title

"Eh?" Rias almost smacked herself at the intelligent reply to Issei's innocent (if she could call him that) question, reeling in her surprise she corrected her reply "hello Issei.. Training?"

The teen nodded slightly at that "Yeah, the jitters got me held tightly right now"

"You nervous at all?" she asked suddenly

"Not really... I mean I guess" issei tried to hide the nervousness he felt but inside but it was a lie and he knew she knew it "But the question is who isn't"

Issei turned to her and asked the question but it sounded more like a statement then a question "Your nervous right?" rhetorical question, thought Rias who simply sighed before answering

"Its' hard not to be really... this game, this fight of mine, it's not just to win but to keep a future I don't want to come to reality" feeling out the water so to speak Rias paused for an answer, getting non she continued "All of you have shown me great loyalty, loyalty I couldn't be more thankful of, then add all the strength you've all gained for my sake leaves me speechless, but the nervousness I feel won't go away"

Walking over to the bench to her left Rias sat down while pulling her night robe closer to herself "I feel all the gambles, the predictions, the contingencies I've come up with are all futile schemes inadequate to face against Riser... A Phenex" feeling doubtful and vulnerable Rias pulled her legs into her chest "I guess I'm not the true leader you think I am huh?"

Hearing foot steps come closer Rias looked up to see issei standing to her left while looking blankly out to the gardens contents, for a moment he was silent until.. "I think all those qualities make you just fine, nervousness, fear, and doubt... all normal feelings anyone can feel, kinda makes you relatable, ya know, me being a human once kinda helps me sympathize with those feelings in a way"

Sighing deeply issei pressed forward "if you weren't the leader you were right now, I doubt I'd been this strong" for a moment Rias looked confused to which issei noticed

"Think about it, after all that I've been through this week I've come to realize the kind of person I was a week ago, sure I feel still connected in a way but that's beside the point. All throughout this week I've been through a small kind of hell more beneficial then futile, I've had my goals all backwards or off center... in the long run I was a miss guided child in need of a reality check so harsh it'd make your head spin... guess who was there to give me said reality check?" finishing he looked to the surprised Rias patiently

"I was" she answered lowly

"Exactly, had you not been the determined and harsh women there, then I'd probably be off on some weird childish path fit for a B grade anime" pausing for a moment he turned his full attention to the women before him

"Buchou, I haven't really said it but... I'm really grateful for all that you've done for me, and Asia, if you hadn't done what you've done then I'd probably be dead by this point" bowing his head he gave his full thanks in complete oriental honor, Rias in return couldn't say anything but stare on in shock

"In return for your kindness, buchou, let me show you what I'm capable of.. let me take down Riser for you" lifting his head to look at his master Issei snapped his eyes open wide when he saw tears within the eyes of the red headed devil before him

"Uh, did I say something wro – oof!" issei stopped mid question when he was suddenly hugged tightly causing his face to be plastered deep in her large chest... a situation he had zero complaints for

"Ise, your all I'd hoped you to be" muttered Rias, seeing as how she wasn't sad issei chimed a small smile of contempt at a job well adlibbed, he wasn't a councillor nor was he this philosophical... oh how he wish to have been this good a year ago

Snapping his small wishes down issei grew serious again

"Promise me you'll do this for me" Started Rias

"You bet'cha, I'm confident enough to fully believe this promise already fulfilled... rest assured Rias...

...I'll kick that pretty boy's ass"

-Flashback end-

Having the memory run through her head Rias shook all her doubt away and stood by proudly at her pawns display any doubt she had was long since abandoned and it was even more so now than before, Riser was on his last legs all the while Issei had just gotten a fresh pair to try on

With full confidence Rias stood by and watched the slaughter unfold

-Satan's observation room-

"This... this is extremely eye opening" started Ajuka, the Satan's had grown deadly silent prior to the engagement with Rias and Riser, Ajuka and Serafall felt every ounce of nervousness from Sirzechs, even Falbium felt it, then after that the first trap explosion shook them to the core, Sirzechs shook with hope that Riser would fall while Serafall shook at the violent lightning bolt created by Akeno's lightning, Ajuka just shook with excitement at seeing the plans and traps unfold before him

Again, even Falbium seemed to have woken to witness the plans unfold although he was more out of loop then the other three

Then after the tussle between Riser and Rias, adding in Kiba and Koneko for spice, the Satan's then started to watch vehemently when Riser finally engaged issei who with great surprise to the Satan's literally man handled Riser for a moment, words were traded but due to combat privacy they only saw jaw movement then the obvious trade of ideals and testosterone

The event before Risers tussle with issei was shocking on disturbing levels, the amount of killing type traps used on the man were disturbing, the one that complete gutted Riser like a fish was one that had actually caused Serafall to look away, even Ajuka closed his eyes for a moment

But Sirzechs however was more inclined to observe a rather odd instance, normally Risers healing kicking in the second a limb was served and he'd have it back within moments yet for some reason his wounds remained long enough for the pain to rise, Sirzechs didn't like the Phenex third son much but he felt pity for the boy at having to ly down in the dirt with that much pain coursing through him

Closer inspection led Sirzechs down a path he didn't expect to go down for a long time, red energy like embers littered the area's were Riser tried to heal, and it seemed the red embers fought against the healing factor the Phenex third son so proudly used

'She couldn't have' a moment passed before he remembered the small clash with Riser and his sister and how all Rias had done was just inflict small amounts of damage with the red spectral spears of hers – something he was extremely proud to see – Sirzechs had remembered well, and the sudden decrease in healing speed after that clash wasn't some convenience but rather... 'She really did'

Being the most powerful devil alongside his friends Sirzechs had long since forgotten the ability attribute Rias was using, it was a long lost and partially forgotten technique that involved not just his mother and himself... but something much older entirely

'I'm going to have to talk to her about that... really soon'

Aside from his inner musing Sirzechs filed away the shock and refocused his attention back on the fight, one that which shifted to an actual clash between powerful beings, but soon after a while issei grew to out power the Phenex again

Not long after a trade of verbal bouts did things grow completely different, everything halted to a grinding screech at the sudden rise in demonic energy inside the alternate field and only the Satan's noticed it, something that not only caused Serafall to squeak but to also snap Falbium from his lazed and groggy disposition to one of complete shock

"Is that what I think it is?" asked Falbium seriously, an expression that hadn't appeared since the Great War long ago

Nodding meekly Serafall nodded "it is without a doubt, it's not devilish at all but rather demonic in nature.. Sirzechs, were you aware of this?"

"No, I haven't personally met the pawn yet nor have I actually seen his capabilities either, this is just as surprising to me as it is to you all" replied the red haired Satan calmly

"What should we do about it" pressed Ajuka seriously

Sighing Sirzechs answered evenly "from my theories I'm guessing the familiar relation to demonic energy he's releasing could be a mixture of his dragon aura and devil blood, so for now I'd rather remain idle to the power that lies within my reach... if however he becomes too volatile and proves to be like them then I will take personal action to erase him entirely, but for now... relax, I'm sure you can all understand the amount of interest I'm feeling towards this pawn of my sisters" at the calm yet serious words of Sirzechs each Satan fell back into their own worlds, Serafall fell silent and remained dormant but deep down her fear towards the pawn was ever present, Sirzechs could feel it, Ajuka looked to be planning contingencies after contingencies and Falbium simply fell back asleep not at all worried nor bothered by the pawns relatable aura to demonic pressure, all noticed by the red Satan himself

'it seems change is on the horizon, first a ghost appears in the city my sister resides while before that she resurrects a pawn strong enough to battle Her would be fiancé with relative ease, then add her rather... disturbing development in power has me literally on the edge of my seat... I wonder what the future truly holds' eyes narrowed into dark red slits Sirzechs sat back in his throne before he refocused his attention on the now interesting pawn his sister had brought back from the dead

'You are interesting, issei hyoudou'

-With Sona inside key announcement room and secondary observation room-

For what seemed like hours Sona Sitri remained in a state of complete interest in the final events of the fight against Riser, she had watched with bated breath when Rias fought Riser alone then she grew even more interested with the various other engagements that followed after it, the first explosion rocked the room not physically but more mentally and then the second engagement transfixed Tsubaki so much Sona thought the women would feint because of Kiba's involvement then she grew disgusted with the highly lethal trap used on the Phenex third son... such spells warranted caution on high preferences in other rating games but since Riser was an exception to lethal tactics the spell was ignored but that didn't mean it helped her keep the small amount of control she had from dropping in favor of her try to control her lunch

And for some reason Sona noticed Riser to be lacking his speedy healing effects, she had ignored delving into it as the fights that continued or rather fight was far to interesting to ignore

A small fraction of herself deeply regretting turning down the opportunity she had a few weeks ago, she had been well aware of Issei's 'fling' with a fallen angel and took measures to keep eyes on him but she had ultimately turned down the opportunity to grab a potential piece so to allow her friend to gather him as it was night time, if it her day however then she'd have every right to have claimed the pawn.. But now she really regretted the honorable choice in allowing Rias to take the boy into her peerage

If she had him after all the power he displayed against Riser then she'd be almost unstoppable, with almost no effort the teen fought off Riser once without activating his aura then even more so when he activated it... but now, now she was deeply worried more for Riser's own life then Issei's

"It's all on how long Riser can last then if he can win now" her final comment flew over the wide eyed Grayfia and silently shocked Tsubaki like a wet rag

-Ground zero, with Issei and Riser-

What stood in the epicenter of the crater sent shivers down all the observers' spines, bright green slighted eyes narrowed dangerously towards his intended target while red scale like patches sat comfortable on Issei's cheeks, chin, and forearms in a honey-calm pattern and a red aura danced around Issei's form like an unstable flame all the while golden yellow electric energy arced around his body

Dragon force wasn't completely new to Issei, as a matter of fact he had actually used it before, a distant cry from a defiant fallen angel could be heard in Issei's memories as the familiar weightlessness he felt before was now finally in his grasp again, looking down to the now present boosted gear gauntlet Issei smirked which showed his elongated K-9's before he trued back to the shocked and frozen Riser Phenex

Stepping forward threateningly issei spread his arms out before acknowledging the Phenex before him "this is after effect of training Riser, now do you see the benefits that I've told you about? Or do you still hold onto that shred of defiance, like a stubborn child" issei paused to see if Riser would comment but he got nothing, the pressure he was releasing was out powering Risers almost limitless arrogance

"Don't lose focus, don't even drop your guard not even for a second... I want you to experience everything I'm about to show you" lowering himself down into a deadly stance issei locked his slitted eyes onto Riser scared blue ones

BOOM

An explosion erupted from where Issei once stood but before Riser could refocus back onto his target he felt his gut get slammed with the hardest punch he had ever received to this day

Looking down he spotted issei entrenching his fist deep into his stomach, all air vacated from his lungs and all excess blood followed after it, a second later and he flew from Issei fast and hard enough to leave behind two velocity rings

CRASH!

From the punches effects Riser was sent flying past the wreckage of the main building and far enough to go through the secondary school building and land violently into the main plaza

Riser couldn't say a thing, the energy behind the attack was enough to completely override his regeneration and all he could do was breath haggardly, the punch had almost crush his vertebra and he was sure one of his lungs collapsed

VOOP!

In seconds issei appeared in front of Riser like a bullet and simply stood there watching Risers downed form "hurts huh? But that's what happens when you drop your guard" feeling his body being lifted Riser twitched at the ease his opponent had done it but his defiant spas was ignored and his vision was greeted by Issei narrowed red eyes "do you give up Riser? If you quit now then I'll drop you here and now... all the pain that's in coming will be avoided and the last of your pride will be left fixable" pausing he pulled Riser close so he could hear his answer

"Fu..ck.. yo..u"

CRASH!

The response he received wasn't a good one nor did it disappoint Issei, the fight for Rias' future was settled long ago but all that stood between Rias and her future with freedom was the stubborn will if a badly defeated man

"I'm I'm going to ask one more time Riser..." walking to Riser's downed location issei prepared to ask for the last time but he was stopped when he felt a fire ball impact against his head

A small explosion echoed outward but clearly the fire ball had done nothing but pause Issei in his walk towards the stubborn man "I will not... lose to the likes of you!" he yelled, a feat that surprised issei but since Riser's stubbornness to lose in the face of overwhelming odds probably helped him regenerate his ability to actually speak properly

In quick succession Riser opened fire with a multitude of fire balls the size of basketball, his healing had drained him of his devilish reserves and the haggard breathing he had cut down his focus to actually put meat behind his fire so all he could actually do was fire rapid pellets of annoyance towards Issei who simply blinked from side to side at speeds only a knight could have

Pretty soon the proximity of issei and Riser closed and to thank the Phenex for his determination the Gremory Pawn simply high kicked Riser hard enough to shatter his nose and send him flying back out towards the destroyed gym a few hundred yards away

CRASH!

Perhaps it was by blind luck but for some reason a single wall remained of the devastated gym to only serve as added insult to Risers painful flight into the gym area, coughing painfully at the effect the magic kick had behind it Riser could only stare shell shocked at the amount of blood that fell to the floor below him

"For an entire week Rias had endure the fear of losing, losing her own rightful choice to a future to some low life scumbag not fit to even have her attention" walking slowing towards the obviously defeated Phenex heir issei continued "she hid it well but after awhile things became obvious that deep down she was hurting" stopping just above Riser issei grabbed His throat and lifted him off the floor with the aspect of the rook

He had obviously promoted long ago, thought Riser fleetingly, but his unfocused thoughts were slammed down when he had the unfortunate honor to gaze back into the burning red orbs that were Issei Hyoudou's "for a long time I was angry, Buchou was a hard ass but that was only for our benefit, she acted tough to set an example for us to follow... But deep down behind that mask was a terrified women backed into a corner"

Smirking softly at the memory issei soon dropped it and glared hatefully at Riser "the reason I was angry Riser was not because of her and her outside personality, but rather what she was forced to endure... I've asked nicely but you responded vulgarly, then I asked a second time to which you throw my mercy to the floor and spat on it, so now I'm going to respond to your rude attitude in kind" after he finished the eyes on Issei glowed red but Riser interrupted

"Do... you have... any idea as to... how important this... marriage is?" started Riser haggardly

For a moment issei looked on in angered confusion, a second went by and he tilted his head, for a moment Riser thought the boy understood but that was easily forgotten when the eyes of His suddenly sprang back to blood red "sorry... I can't hear you"

Tossing the mature devil into the air issei dropped into a stance and primed his fists tightly when Risers body dropped back into eye height he unleash hell upon Risers torso

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Like a high speed machine gun issei unloaded punch after punch at such a speed that his arms appeared like blur's, each impact on Riser gut caused a ripple all throughout his body then due to the force behind the strike forced all air and blood out of him it looked almost like a morbid fountain

It seemed almost like a minute went as issei kept landing high impact strike against Risers stomach and after another good 30 seconds issei finished by landing a powerful upper cut to Risers chin

"Let this be a lesson for you..." started Issei as he focused all his power into his left hand "... leave Rias ALONE!" after yelling his last words to the completely defeated Riser Phenex he channeled all his power into his left hand before he punched it out causing a massive beam of red energy to explode outwards... right into Risers direction

[EXPLOSION!]

VVVVVVVVVV DOOOOOOOMM!

"Lord Riser has been defeated... lady Rias is the winner" the announcement from the arbiter for the rating game sounded more shocked than anything else before but issei simply stood by and stared at the destruction he had caused, a blank and yet relaxed expression on his features

"Good riddance" muttered issei as a white light took over his body, he looked confused for a second but then he knew full well that after Riser was eliminated the game was over and now he was being returned to the real ORC club room

Dispersing his dragon force issei felt his teeth retract and the scales reside before he found himself in the club room among the others who very calmly eyed him with deep awe

For a second all was silent until issei waved at them "Yo" he said plainly, Koneko, Akeno, and Kiba simply shook their heads to snap out of whatever they had before Kiba cut the ice "who are you and what did you do with the other Issei"

Laughing slightly at the question issei waved him off "I'm issei Hyoudou, and you're still annoying... ya damn bishounen" it was Kiba's turn to laugh while Koneko simply switched from silent surprise back to stoic "he hasn't changed at all" she commented

Akeno giggled "that's for sure" she said before a voice echoed out

"Issei!" it was hard for Issei to distinguish who yelled his name but the sight of red hair... and the familiar feeling of her chest against his head explained to him that it was Rias for sure

The others simply smirked as the Red headed devil pressed issei closer "thank you, thank you so much Ise" muttered Rias in a whisper only issei could hear, smirking from within the women's bosom issei replied... to the best of his abilities

"No... Pro...blem" raising his hand up to Rias issei gave a thumbs up which caused the women to chuckle softly

For the first time in a week Rias felt free; free from a responsibility she didn't want nor desire and free from a future she deeply dreaded more than death its self

Now all that remained was what the future held

A/N: it's done... heheh I'm free! I'm FUCKING FREE! WHOA!

After a painful wait the chapter is finally done, and I cannot possibly word the amount forgiveness I beg for right now, sure it's a new chapter but sadly its Issei's side story

I know I know you all want to see Isaac but let me explain why I'm following issei for a moment

I pride myself as a professional – sure I'm not really – but when it comes to creating tightly knitted stories that involve realism and constancy I wanted to not only to involve an oc into the DxD world but I want to cause a change effect inside the universe itself, and I'm not talking about future modifications I'm talk pre written changes I've made

I'm sure you've all notice but I've taken the liberty in modifying Rias a good bit (even the others I've changed as well) it may not look big right now but let me extend an olive branch to you guys so to warn you all to not underestimate the Gremory peerage

So for the reason I've changed up a few things prewritten is that whenever I look into the DxD universe I see situations that involve things like the Loki incident for instance

There sat four Satan's, two powerful fallen angels and one archangel as well as a Norse god, you may sit there and think that would've been enough to take on Loki and sure you may be 10000000% correct but for some reason the idiots at the table thought that maybe they should send pair of tits #1 and her peerage to take him on as well as queen redundancy (Sona) to fight a fight that would most certainly end them if the creators of the anime even thought for a second how fuck they really were

Oh but don't put much thought into it, I'm sure Loki would be easy with their combined force

WRONG, the Loki in this universe is a god and he will be... a god, not some Scooby doo villain wannabe seen in canon so if the peerage from the anime went against my version of Loki then Sirzechs would have to get up off his fat ass and pick up the bits of his dead sister himself, morbid yes but it's what should have happened, but for some reason the creators nerfed the hell out of Loki just so that weak ass peerage could win

It simple really

Then comes the fight with Riser, to which I will explain why it was easy and then finish my previous point above

So after drooling over the episode a few million times I've deduced that canon Rias... is a complete C –grade character not even fit for the B – grade, it's horrible, the plans she used against Riser was subpar and laughable to the god of manipulation, Azien

All of the choices I made for Rias during this fight was what should have really happened, sure I did make a special ability for Rias that countered healing abilities but there is much more behind that then just blind convenience (notice Sirzechs eyeing it) anyways, so for planning, it was easy. all Rias had to do was study her enemies plans and abilities and forge plans around then accordingly Riser is a popular devil, why not gather data captured on them to plan around their tactics? forget honor and pride cause when it comes to fighting for your freedom shit hits the fan on your accord so live with it, make battle plans that fall into your lap, if you guys haven't noticed but Rias' peerage almost completely wiped Risers team had they actually planned against Yubelluna who single handily neutralized Koneko, Kiba and Akeno

If they targeted her first then things would've have been 1000x easier but like a good dumbass Rias totally ignores it... then add the fact she broke formation and charged in to face Riser alone along with private useless Asia had me completely fuming at her stupidity

But things all add up before the fight, had they planned well then they would've been partially prepared for the slaughter, but it really added up to one painfully obvious flaw

Rias' dreadful training skills

Like when I watched the training I barely even broke face, it looked more like a light and lazy day at gym class with a barely competent substitute teacher with a wall nut for a brain

Jogs, push ups and completely pointless sword training –was that really necessary? - All added up to what the bright and smart Rias Gremory had thought of

DUUUUUUUUUH *falls over from brain aneurysm*

It's almost like she wanted to lose

Well anyways aside from that I also had to poke fun at Riser's abilities

This is a character that puts all his faith into an inherited power and doesn't train a day of his life if you watch the episode where he beats the hell out of a down and physically drained issei then you'd understand that he really doesn't have that much combat training; his fights are won by either over powering his enemies with numbers or by simply winning with his Phenex fire regeneration

I didn't change him because if I did then I'd not only be wasting my time with focusing on a villain neither of us care about but then I'd be humbling a character who's personality is that of a cocky brat.. To which I don't give a fuck about. All of this was to demonstrate the change in Issei's personality and to also show off what I believe a Longinus class sacred gear should really do

A simple sword has the ability to grant a wielder assured victory, if that's the case then what happens when a person wields the full might of the dragon of domination?

Not some pussy ass clothe shatter idiot that's for sure but a badass built to dominate any who stand in his way

I promised issei was gonna become a badass, and now I'm promising to change Rias into a strong and capable leader she was suppose to be

Then this adds up to my previous point, since Rias and every other character seen in the DxD universe seem to fall into C – grade characters not fit for the protagonist rank I believe it was absolutely necessary to upgrade then hell out of all of them

This is a group of characters who were chosen to hold off a god alone while the powerful characters continued to be useless, completely retarded with the canon versions but with the changes I've made will help bring a sense of "yeah that might actually be a smart move" into the previous retarded decision made prior to the engagement with Loki

If they're going to order them to take on gods then they need to be special characters for that to feel right

Luckily I'm doing just that

These characters I'm forging will not be those cream-puffs you see in canon

Anyways, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for reviewing this story, I haven't said it much before but I'm truly glad this story has attracted this much attention

No edits this chapter by the way

R&R ya beautiful bastards

And in the mean time I'm starting the next damn chapter... and its gonna be involving Isaac this time, peace!