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Quit Staring at Me, That's Rude
〖Chapter 7〗
⦕ A Glimpse of Calamity ⦖
"Still gimping yourself with those deadweights?"
"Fuck off with your philosophical bullshit."
"We both know the only thing they're good at is slowing you down."
"Did I ask?"
"You could be so much more, Raynare. They're holding you back; try and deny it. You know it's true. They're either cowards or too stupid to read that there is a thick line between idiocy and bravery."
"They never sign up to be a damn hero. I didn't either."
"Everyone's a hero in their own story. Some are just more driven. Like me. You should be one too. We went through basics in the same camp. I captained a group of witless pricks that dreamt nothing more of getting fucked and getting paid and so are you… But I don't let sentiments or attachments get in my way and here I am. Commanding a Family of my own. I make three times your monthly pay in an hour."
"Urgh… are you done? Brag to someone else that gives a shit."
"I prioritize my ambition, not that of a fucking collective of faceless mooks. You'll never get anywhere with that kind of mindset, Raynare. Why settle for mediocrity when you can be so much more?"
"If you come all the way here just to gloat or lecture me then give me a reason not to gut you right this moment."
"You have potential goddamnit. I want to see you succeed. Working with your friends is a nice thing to have, yes. For the moment. But consider your future. Three years you have been a Captain without any promotion, and it's definitely not due to your work ethics or your performance."
"Tch. Are you finished? Get off my case."
"Satanael's blood runs through you. A lot of us would kill to win a lottery like that. I'm just mad you're wasting it."
"As much as you're wasting your breath?"
"Whatever. Kokabiel's gone. Likely never return. Penemue is strict and her head is harder than diamond, but she knows talent when they show it. If there's ever a time, then this is your moment. Don't waste it. You're more than some faceless grunt."
The sky continued to darken as the fallen angels clashed with the devils, introducing another dimension to the fight as they had taken it to the skies.
'Make them pay,' was the only thing echoing inside her head.
They will pay for the humiliations she suffered. For all the 'failures' and 'shortcomings' that had befallen her group. For fucking up her last week. Rias and her cronies had all been laughing at her, underestimating her as another measly nobody. She had to make do with musty ransacked church as her base while this privileged brat had it all without even having to try.
She had it all so easy… everything served to her on a silver platter, garnished with gold and silver. And still the Gremory bastard just had to make things worse by picking that other bastard like some stray pup.
Nothing on this earth Raynare despised more.
"GREMORY!" Her eyes glowed like two hellish embers and her lips twisted in fury. Raynare's six dark wings beat furiously as she advanced, leaving a powerful whirling wind in her wake.
Rias stretched out her hand to conjure a barrier as Raynare's violet lightspear crashed against it, sending sparks and crackles before shattering the barrier and forcing Rias to back away. The fallen angel's rampage did not stop there; it had only just begun. In quick succession, Raynare wildly swung both her hands, leaving little to no gap that Rias could exploit as she had to defend herself unless she wanted to get hit by a pulsating light spear.
A high-class devil she might be, underestimating the fervor of a recently awakened fallen angel might spell her doom.
Her Servants didn't have an easier time dealing with Raynare's frenzied lackeys either.
Kiba had to endlessly dash away or keep his sword clash against Kalawarner short, otherwise he'd risk getting attacked on multiple sides as Mittelt was on the prowl, hurling lightspears in between Kalawarner's strikes to cover her attack's intervals from being exploited by the nimble Knight.
"Will you stop— MOVING!"
Once again, he parried Kalawarner's brute strike away, and was about to slice her neck off before another lightspear was thrown at his head. He halted his assault to dodge, and felt a jolt of pain at his neck instead as Mittelt's magenta lightspear had nicked his skin.
"Tch…" Things weren't looking great, the Knight thought and knew. They were outnumbered, and though they weren't outmatched — fallen angels tend to have better endurance compared to most devils. Their 'work' tended to be more physically demanding whilst the devils tended to take action only when necessary, e.g stray devils. And in the fallens' current fevered state, a battle of attrition would only end with their loss.
"What's wrong, Mr. Popular? Not used to the attention you're getting?"
If Mittelt was trying to rile him up, then it wasn't working. Either way, he had to figure something out quickly, and soon.
At the skies a fair distance away from him, Akeno watched her thunder hit Dohnaseek square in his chest, only to grit her teeth as he seemingly shrugged it off, flying towards her at an impossible breakneck speed, brandishing his light-imbued weapon with a face seething with rage.
"Baraqiel's brat—"
That name alone piqued her fury at this upjumped mook. "Say that name again and it'll be the last thing you'll ever say."
Another blast. Dohnaseek parried it away like slinging a flashier baseball, using his lightsword as if it was a bat instead as he continued his charge.
"Ungrateful wretches like you don't deserve a father like him! All his time and effort and when have you ever spent a second trying to understand!"
"Shut up!"
The lightning bolt zapped the fallen angel on his face, but its strength was only enough in stripping Dohnaseek of his hat.
"Baraqiel and Shuri… they've given everything for you to throw it all away. Some daughter you are, hahahaha!"
"Shut up… shut up!" Why was this bastard yelling at her about all this? What did her family have anything to do with this?! "You know nothing!"
"Even you're disgusted with yourself! I feel it! Your stubborn pride is the only thing keeping you together!" Dohnaseek cackled, laughing as if he'd lost his mind as Akeno barraged him with thunder and fire. "Gahahaha! Try as you might! This is nothing compared to what you've put YOUR OWN FATHER through!"
"SHUT UP!"
Dohnaseek grinned viciously, victoriously. This gleeful satisfaction was not one easily mimicked. A cathartic sense of satisfaction. No words could describe how it felt to finally be able to go toe to toe with this certain traitorous wench. It felt amazing to finally be able to use these words to hurt her and have the power to defend himself against her onslaught, and pay her back for the humiliation he'd endured with one pulverizing punch to her stomach.
Her eyes widened, her pupils contracted as pain wracked her body. A cough of blood was torn out of her throat as wind surged against her. She saw the moon getting distant for a fraction of a second before the ground welcomed her body with a brutal slap.
"GH-GHAK!"
"Akeno-san!" Kiba yelled out, but was unable to help as he had to defend himself against two well-coordinated fallen angels. Pesky, pesky things… he wouldn't mind getting crowded by his apparent fangirls than these crows… "Tsk— damn you…!"
"Kiba! Can you get to Akeno?!" Rias shouted from the skies, having missed Raynare yet again — despite Power of Destruction's potency, it meant nothing if she couldn't land a hit.
"Not currently, no!" he screamed and grunted as he blocked Kalawarner's heavy wallop. The raging fallen angel hadn't said a word but her vicious glare told enough of her intent to maim and kill the blonde devil.
Just as he was recovering his footing and preparing for Mittelt's follow up attack, Kiba noted an incoming blue lightspear from the corner of his eyes, and quickly stomped his foot as myriads of blades jutted out from the ground, forming a barrier of swords, shaking as Dohnaseek's thrown lightspear crashed against it.
"One down…" Mittelt sneered. "You're next, handsome."
"And I'll make it quick!" Kalawarner roared as she brought down her lightsword — missing the Knight by inches as he bounded out of the way. She knew that if there was a chance to repay this blonde bastard for every defeat and consequential humiliation she'd endured; this was it. "Worm, quit squirming so I can kill you!"
Kiba groaned as he blocked her side-swipe, skidding as he felt his arms shake. He never had to fight an awakened crow let alone two at once. He knew that their strength would multiply but he never expected they'd be this freakishly strong.
"I hate to admit it— but I don't know how long I can keep them at bay, Prez!" the Knight seethed, ripping out a black-bladed sword out of the ground as now he had to dodge or swat away multiple light-infused javelins at once. "Any ideas?!"
"Ugh… Roygun?!" Rias' eyes darted at where she'd last seen Roygun duking it out against Grigori's finest, but failed to find them. She might've led Penemue elsewhere.
"We're ending this tonight, Gremory!" Raynare griped as she sent five lightspears flying at the red-haired devil, only to watch them all dissipate as Rias' Power of Destruction engulfed them all mid-flight. Fine for her; they were distractions anyway as Raynare closed their distance. "Me or you!"
"You really know how to get on my nerves—" with vexation, Rias unleashed a blast of black energy as a pulse of intense destructive power burst out of her hands, black and crimson in color as it tore the night air asunder.
And missed. Raynare simply beat her wings once, lifting her just enough that the deadly beam traveled beneath her.
"That was pathetic, Gremory. Why don't you call your brother to show you how it should be done?"
Typically, in fiction, this was the point where she'd become serious and empowered by fury and blast Raynare away like nothing — but no such thing happened. Rias had been serious since the start and never held back. Her Power of Destruction needed a while to be cast and Raynare was keenly aware of that fact and had been exploiting it to no end. She was not a fighter and it showed. Her uniform had cuts, shredded in many parts. Red lines marred her pristine skin and she felt her cheek bleeding as blood dribbled down to her chin.
Akeno was down… Kiba's struggling against three fallen angels… Koneko had to keep Issei safe… Roygun was nowhere to be found… and her own power, albeit lethal, was too slow to hit a nimble target.
But it would need more than that to make Rias Gremory give up.
Rias narrowed her eyes as Raynare whittled a strip of her uniform. "Tsk… letting you roam free was a mistake. I should have killed you when I had the chance and reason."
"You should. But you didn't, did you? And why?" Raynare glared back as Rias' blood sizzled on her lightspear. "Because you looked down on me. You condescending bitch thought your powers would answer for everything. Connections, heritage, peerage— everything given to you on a silver platter because you're Rias-fucking-Gremory."
Her violet lightspear darkened, its color draining, turning black as ink. Black flames seemingly flared over Raynare's six feathered wings, amalgamating into .
"Well news flash, Gremory, if you weren't born a Gremory, you'd be nothing… Which is what you will be in a few moments."
A loud cackle echoed from her throat as a storm of black flames whipped around her body. They twisted, spinning in a whirlwind that illuminated her face in a swirling mix of violet and black fire, marking the awakening of her dormant inherited strength.
Rias paled and staggered back as before her was a myriad of black lightspears, dozens of them floating behind Raynare, pointing right at her.
As they surged, intent on impaling her, Rias erupted a wall of her Power of Destruction, and braced herself for the worst.
Break
Issei was 100% certain things were heating up on the surface, and he was dying to find out, and perhaps die afterwards since he'd be way in over his head, but for this moment, Koneko was in his hands, and the face she was making reminded him too much of a person with nasty fever. Even her body felt warmer, now that he thought about it.
One thing he knew for sure was that he couldn't leave her alone.
"Are you… do you feel better, Koneko-chan? You don't… uh, you're a bit warmer. And… I don't know if you've noticed, but you're a lot more…" her twin, big white cat ears tickled his chin and neck as he shuddered in response. "...er…cattier."
"...This is how I'm supposed to be," Koneko replied in her usual soft murmur of a voice. "What I really am."
"'Who you really are…?'" Issei muttered obliviously to himself, thinking that repeating that sentence would bring light to this dramatism. It didn't. "Huh?"
She peeled herself away from his hug, glancing down with a downcast expression as she continued,
"...I'm… A Nekoshou. A Hellcat. A subspecies of a Nekomata, only that we are more… attuned to essences of life. A sort of energy that's inside all of us,"
"Oh, sorta like Chakra? From Naruto?"
"...I don't know what Naruto is, but I guess so."
"Okay. That's a shocker."
"I prefer to listen rather than watching," she muttered. "...My species is able to turn it into something we can use. A bit like magic."
Issei wasn't expecting a crash course about whatever this was, but he paid attention as he believed she wouldn't be spouting these kinds of things for nothing.
"...The problem is, by doing that, we're also exposing ourselves to all the malice and… and all the things that corrupt a person. If we're not prepared… if we're not… careful enough… using that power can make us lose our sanity." Koneko glanced up at him. He quickly noted her pupils had thinned. No longer round and more slit-like, much like those of a real cat. "...I…I heard the voices outside, Senpai... Like whispers in the back of my head… It's like… I felt like they were trying to choke me."
Issei sighed bitterly in sympathy. "You're alright now, Koneko-chan."
Koneko pursed her lips. "...It's what drove my sister to… …W-well, I'm… I'm scared that if I go outside, I will be like my sister… I don't want to hurt anyone that I care about."
Issei nodded solemnly. "I see…I uh… Damn that's heavy. You carry some heavy weights for someone your size, Koneko-chan. Don't forget to leave some for the rest of us."
She giggled quietly, slightly embarrassed.
"They want to help you just as much as you want to help them as well, you know. It's okay to let those that are close to you help you."
She blinked. Once, twice… ruminating his words, reconsidering hers.
"You're… you're right." She smiled. "Thank you, Senpai."
'But I literally did nothing.' was a sentence that popped in his mind, but he settled against saying it so as to not ruin this moment.
"...I don't know what's happening out there, but I can tell it's not good for us… My… family is out there. I have to go help them."
"W-well don't let me stop you. It's your choice, Koneko-chan. You've been around these people more than I do."
"...Thanks for not treating me like I'm just a kid," she muttered with a tiny smile, with a child-like genuinity. The chaotic chorus of desperate whispers echoing in her head had not yet dissipated. Despair and insanity clawed at her mind as the voices commanded her to do things she knew were wrong. But now she had the courage to fight the voices inside her head.
"Stay here, Senpai. You have to," she said again, making sure. Once she received a reluctant nod, Koneko quickly darted outside the room, and Issei could've sworn he saw white flames starting to flicker around her, orbiting her.
At that moment, all he could think about was how useless and powerless he felt. Was this the extent of what he could do? Cheered a distressed girl, and now nothing else other than to sit down, twiddling his thumbs while there are people out there fighting to the death because his eyes could disintegrate matters without scientific explanation?
No.
It was during times like these that his father's words echoed in his mind, like a distant toll of a bell signifying a great change in his character—
'Don't hide them under the bed. That's old tactic. You have technology our mother isn't so familiar about, store them in your hard drive—'
No, not that.
'If there comes a time where you don't know what to do, where to go, that you feel so lost — remember this, son; listen to your heart, think it through with a cool head, then you take action.'
He knew he wanted to be present and be remembered as a person who was there, instead of a person that could've been there. Logically, he should stay here to not cause trouble for the devils, but on the other hand, they were risking their lives to keep him safe. Could he face them tomorrow if he did nothing to help when he could've done something?
Issei waited several minutes, making sure Koneko was well out of an earshot before he too, got off his ass and headed towards the door.
Only to realize there was some sort of magic locking it, because the handle wouldn't move.
"Allah dammit," he grumbled for a moment, his shoulders slumping. "..."
Then he recalled his ocular powers and the entire door disintegrated before him.
"Right," he muttered at the now nonexistent door before him. "I can do that."
And then his malformed 'wings' sprouted.
"And this too—"
.
.
.
Issei ran like a pitbull that escaped a dog pound chasing down a kid down the hallway of the old school building, unaware that everything seemed three shades brighter than they should as all the lights were out. It took him one burst of his wings to get from one end of a corridor to the other. As he drew nearer, he caught the sounds of what sounded similar to the clashing of swords, and felt a strange sensation — one that he'd soon learn as his growing innate ability to sense magic — and leapt out the window without any hesitation.
Or thinking.
"Whoa—aiiiieeeeeeee!" He shot himself up, shooting skyward like a dark comet, screaming as he did. If stopping the fight was his goal, then he had succeeded, as his blast off had momentarily put the entire fight on hold as everyone, including the rampaging fallen angels, gazed upwards.
"Huh? Is that…"
"...Hyoudou?"
And indeed it was him; gracelessly catapulting into the school's roof, slamming and tumbling as he yelped and screamed once he fell off the edge, onto the cold hard ground.
"...Hyoudou!" Rias gasped, "Urk—!"
Snapping out from the sudden distraction faster than Rias could, Raynare dug her heels into Rias' stomach, sending the devil straight to the ground with an empowered kick.
"And of course the idiot had to off himself after all this shit," she snarled, displeased as she could feel her fervor and adrenaline slowly ebb away.
She blitzed down, landing before Rias who was still lying on the small crater of packed dirt of the track field.
"Killing you is an actual punishable crime now…" Raynare whispered, "which I do mind carrying."
Rias smiled, even as her blood trickled down the side of her face, flowing down past her crimson brows and thick lashes, past her perfect nose and lips.
"Even in the end, you cannot win— ARGH— AAAAAAAAHH!"
"Shut up, slut," Raynare spat, ripping out the lightspear piercing Rias's shoulder. "Killing you might be out of the question but there's nothing stating I can't break you."
Rias clutched her bleeding shoulder, gritting her teeth as cold sweat began to pour. "Do you have any idea what you're doing?! Are you even aware of the consequences?! You're starting a war over a boy!"
"No. You're the one that caused it. We wouldn't have to go through all this if you had just handed him over. What is he even to you? You've only known him for a week at most."
"You… wouldn't… get it."
"Don't act like you know me." Raynare glowered, and she wordlessly skewered Rias' hand that was covering her shoulder as the devil screamed. She'd dreamt of this day; torturing this devil with impunity, yet oddly enough, this was nowhere as satisfying as she thought.
Not like she'd stop though.
Momentarily, she scanned around the field to check up on her lackeys and how they were doing. Impressively, that blonde Knight was still holding his ground even against three fallens, and Raynare was both impressed and annoyed — she became even more annoyed as she was blasted by a white orb that struck her side like a meteorite, sending her away.
"...Senpai…!" Koneko ran up to her wounded Master and promptly yanked out the lightspear impaling her hand and shoulder. At that point, Rias was simply too exhausted to even scream.
"Koneko," still, Rias managed to smile despite her battered strength, and she managed to take note of the white furred ears and sleek tail of her Rook. "Your ears…? They're…?"
"Are you okay, Senpai…?" Koneko asked worriedly, standing before Rias, her feline eyes watching for Raynare as she seemed to have relit the fallen angel's wrath.
The floating white flame-like orbs dancing around Koneko gently shrouded Rias' open wound with its warm light. While healing torn flesh and muscles were beyond her capability, Koneko could at least lessen the pain.
"I'll manage, thanks…" Rias breathed, slowly getting up. Her body felt sore and covered in dust, her clothes ripped here and there, and Rias had never yearned for a nice long hot bath this badly. "Be careful, Koneko. We're still in combat. …Where's Hyoudou? Was that really him earlier?"
"...It was. He's alive; I can feel it. Just… not moving. I'm sorry… I wanted to be of help, but I didn't think he'd get out so soon. I sealed the door."
"His eyes then…" such an intriguing anomaly. "...That said, we can't win here, Koneko. Raynare's too agile for me to hit, but you should fare better against her. I need you to distract her while I aid Akeno and Yuuto."
Koneko nodded. "Where will we go?"
"Hell," Rias said, groaning as she got herself up. "I just need a minute to conjure a Magic Circle, and we're getting out of here."
"What about Roygun-sensei?"
"She can handle her own. "I'll leave her to you. Be careful, Koneko. None of us are dying tonight." Rias ended, forcing herself to rush over towards Akeno's unmoving body.
"Okay."
"What sort of cretin are you now?" across the field, Raynare gradually made her way towards the cat and the limping devil, not quite pleased that she didn't get to torment the Gremory as much as she wanted. A blazing lightspears held in each her hand. "Doesn't really matter. Frankly I don't have much against you, but get in my way and I'll break you as well."
"..." Koneko said nothing and instead entered her fighting stance, gathering ki in her fists. She understood now that the earlier implosion of 'evil' thoughts were due to these fallen angels' awakening, during which all sorts of negative emotions and immense hatred flowed through them, corrupting them and yet blessing them with unholy powers.
A flash of her sister's face invaded her mind, but Koneko was determined to protect the people she cared about.
"I won't lose myself like you did," she swore as she momentarily shut her eyes, before lunging towards Raynare, leaving trails of mystical white lights in her wake.
Yet the entire dark skies were engulfed by virulent violet glare before they even managed to clash. Somewhere around the new school building, a beam of violet light had surged and stretched skyward like a colossal beacon, piercing columns of clouds as if splitting the heavens with its unholy light, drowning the earth in its vibrant hue.
A sense of foreboding hung heavy in the air. Everyone and even the night itself held their breath, anticipating what was to come in mesmerized horror. Strange symbols and patterns danced surrounding the light, hinting at a power far beyond human understanding.
And somewhere far away… at the old and abandoned church building where Raynare's squad had made it their temporary base of operation… lying atop the rubbles of broken roof and shattered floors… beaten and equally battered… Penemue meekly gazed out the shattered window through her hazy vision, at the distant violet beacon, and could only mutter in despair upon the realization of her failure,
"...No…"
To be continued…
Ayo wtf, raynare's actually kinda dope tho
I at least think this is an original idea. It makes it so that her sudden power up doesn't seem like it appeared purely out of the power of friendship and malding, but partly due to the fact she had the blood of some a famous but dead fallen angel. yes i got this idea when i was playing persona 5
still wish Sae was a romance option
ALSO PERSONA 3 RELOADED IS CONFIRMED YOOOOOOOOOO. Bit fucked up but i wish you get the option to replace ken with shinjiro, but i know there will be a mod that does just that. Mark my words
So anyway. Thanks for reading
But if for whatever reason you want to read some more of my legendary spitballing and like to get a glimpse of wtf is going inside danzy's head when I was writing all of this shit — then here it is;
i want to expand more on the fallen angels
Canonically, the fallen angels drew the shortest stick in the power spectrum imo. Azazel never really shone as he wasn't meant to, while all Kokabiel did was make his spear bigger. Shemhazai is basically a tired secretary and Penemue? We never got to learn about her much
Meanwhile the devils got Satan rangers and all those cool attack names and inherited abilities and shit — which is fine. That's their thing, and DxD focused mainly on the devils since, well, issei is one
But compared to the devils, the other two factions are just so lackluster
fine, the Grigori is the nerds out of the Three Major Factions, but are they the most 'advanced'? Not really. The devils can reincarnate anything bar godlike entities to be their bitch via the Evil Pieces. Even Azazel didn't really get to shit out his bootleg sacred gears before the peace treaty was signed, implying the grigori lack the resources the devils have to mass produce their shit. Which is logical; iirc post great war they went to earth instead of trying to get a share of hell
The only thing they got going was being able to breed like rabbits, but even that don't matter much in the grand scale of things because they are notoriously unimpressive. Their power is creating lighting bolts and huck it at someone and pray for the best. Why azazel hasn't invented some kind of machine gun or even a pistol that shoots light bullets is beyond me. The exorcists have it. Why can't his goons? fallen angels are given the a-okay to kill stray devils since they are pretty much loose criminals. How many fallen angels have died because they couldn't throw their lightspears fast enough?
I'm really tempted to just give a tommy gun to Dohnaseek because of his getup but decided against it because, well, i don't think it'll sit well with YOU. my audience. I think it'll throw you off so bad no matter my justifications for adding frickin guns to dxd
anyway that was just a stupid idea that did cross my mind before i started writing this story, so you don't have to worry about that popping up in this story at least
MOVING ON
Heaven i can get why they're trailing behind in the R&D category because god is dead and the archangels are depressed and all that, but they are 'the good guys'. You don't see gods doubting Michael or Gabriel or any Archangels developing smarmy ideas — because sinning isn't programmed in their system. And if they do, their wings turn black. Heaven wins by far in the PR department as they are reliable; as in, these pacifists won't be the first to start shit up
And much like the grigori, they do keep an eye on sacred gear possessors. But to me, they won't take action until it's too late, while the Grigori prefers to be more… proactive. Prevent rather than cure. Or at least that's what i think they should be doing, because
Lastly, i didn't give much effort in writing this blurb to make it easily comprehensible, so if it does seem hard to understand because my english is now beyond fucked; i apologize, but at the same time i don't really care. As long as you enjoy reading the story bits, then that's all fine and dandy for me
ok now fuck off
But do leave a review before
and Congratulations, Issei. you just brought Ṙ̴̨̨̛͔̗̠̰͓͆͑̈́̄̃̅̈́̎̀͐̏̇͐̽͆͊̕͠É̸̠͚͙͇͝D̶̛̘̰̭̼͇̺̰̹͉̠̪̟̳̅̎̈̾̄̏̈́̈́̆̔͂͒̈̐͂̾͂͘͝ͅĂ̴͇̱̪͖͝C̶̢̧̩̟̗̲͗̄̋͒̾͋͆̔̉Ţ̶̻̪͇̝̑̒͊͛̂̓͝͝͝E̵̡̧̻̱̮̬̰̩̬̤̰͌̍́́̉͐̍̽͌͋̚͘ͅD̸͇̳̳͚̤̖̪̱̅́́̋͑̇̆̈̂̈́̅͒̕̕͝ to this world
