For centuries, two beings clashed in deadly combat. Two souls with immeasurable power that terrorized mortals, immortals, and even the gods that dared to step in the way of their battle. Two creatures unlike any other the world had ever, or would ever, seen. Two dragons that could only be described as the epitome of power. The epitome of the most powerful beings in the whole world. Two dragons that, even after their death at the hands of legions of angels, fallen angels, and devils, found a way to meet each other through the hosts of the Sacred Gears holding their souls. And so, they clashed. Their eternal battle continued, and their hosts continued to die to one another with little variation.
This was such an occasion.
The mass of darkness and flame charged forward. Because the idiot miracle child moved in a semicircle along Genshirou to keep him at the same distance, but in doing so he unwittingly allowed both Heavenly Dragons to be on the same spot. Giving all the incentive the Evil Dragon needed to just rush forward without a second thought.
Normally, Bel would've faced such an enemy head on. No reason to reject such a clear invitation to get tagged so she could divide their power from the get go.
However…
"Sonofa—!" Bel had no choice but to dodge, to give the charging dragon a wide vert so his aura wouldn't come close to touching her. As getting tagged herself would be disastrous now that the limits over the Sacred Gears were lifted.
Fate Weaver tried to blast the incoming darkness with blasts of holy and draconic power but… Like, what would that do? Genshirou now had armor, an aura with both power suppression and absorption, and touki on top of that. The blasts made the dark energy burst like a water balloon, and it curled around the energy. Almost like the jaws of a goblin shark unhinging and opening wide to devour its prey.
Bel blasted Fate Weaver out of the way, shooting more demonic power to slow Vritra down while the miracle child spun in the air uncontrollably.
Her way of using her demonic power was crude, she knew. But using the Divine Dividing instead always resulted in easier fights. Something in charging forward and trading blows felt a lot more rewarding to Bel than fighting at a distance. People would shy away from her, and she'd pick them apart with a maniac laugh. But those that stood their ground and tried to outmaneuver were the real treat. Knowing that a single touch would spell their doom but fighting Bel in close quarters anyway, sharing the thrill of trading blows. Of just coming up with ways to tip the scales decisively.
Genshirou hadn't been one such person. He had his own reasons to fight in close quarters, and just like Fate Weaver he had a way to tip the scales back in his favor. It was the most fun Bel had had in a fight, even with how annoying the nekomata's intervention was. They all knew that he wouldn't defeat her otherwise, and yet he stood his ground even without Kuroka. Bel could respect that. Hell, his honesty and single-minded pursuit of power was conveyed cleanly through their exchange. Had things been different, Bel would've gladly accepted him as her rival. Had life twisted a little different, the Red Dragon Emperor should've been someone more like him.
The world usually didn't like Bel very much, however.
She wasn't just being a stubborn prick when she insisted it'd be unfair to fight him without Balance Breaker. Hell, the fact that Fate Weaver didn't understand this simple fact even with her word baffled her. She'd won against him handedly, although she now realized that Fate Weaver hadn't gone all out with her in their fight over the vampire's territory. Was she being looked down on? Her? It'd been a while since that happened, but the last people that thought of her as worthless shared her own blood. And THEY were the ones that were worthless, that didn't deserve to live. How dare this halfling that should be her perfect mirror match look down on her?
…Well, that's why she wanted to see him smashed by Vritra's host. It'd have been fine if he only used one or two. Hell, if Delete Field didn't come into play Bel would've agreed to fight him without Balance Breaker.
However, and this was a really big however. Bel had dished out enough curbstomps to know, at a glance, just how one-sided fighting someone with so many powers would end up being.
Case in point, Genshirou's rampage required the intervention of the fallen angels shielding the building from the stray shots coming their way. The aura that the Balance Breaker dragged along made the air itself ill, filled with wrongness in some way. Bel hadn't understood what Kuroka meant when she talked about the life in all things, in the world around them and even inanimate objects; but she was pretty sure that Genshirou's aura was giving her a clear picture of what the nekomata meant.
The space they occupied, the air they breathed. It all worked the way it should, but Bel felt ill being somewhere that Genshirou had recently been. She breathed dead air, and although it didn't make her choke her lungs burned and her nostrils felt like agony. The world itself became a little LESS as the dark aura kept taking from it, making everything worse in minute yet increasingly worrying ways. As if the first symptoms of a deadly disease were beginning to show up.
Bel had also dreamed about this moment. But being in front of it made her remember Kokabiel's words. She remembered that battles weren't always about the glory, about the challenge, about the tales.
This is it, this is an Evil Dragon.
"Shit!" With a big part of her arsenal basically useless, Bel didn't really have much of an idea of what to do. She could dodge and blast Genshirou with demonic power. But the process was just too slow, and it only allowed him to absorb more power to himself.
Even Fate Weaver soon realized that all his ranged attacks were doing was to enhance Genshirou's aura as he dodged them with his body but constantly allowed the aura and tendrils to take on the attacks.
No. She couldn't just let this guy walk all over her. It wasn't even five minutes into the fight, she'd not be cornered so soon!
Bel flew toward Fate Weaver, and the miracle child did the same. He kept boosting himself and created barriers that took most of the black flames' power. But quickly eroded against all the combined effects it held, so some clung to the air until the power they absorbed ran out.
Which, given how many boosts Fate Weaver had on him, meant that the flames were slowly cutting off paths to fly into.
"You finally got it!" Fate Weaver reached out and let Bel smack his arm. Quickly flying away to avoid getting trapped with her.
Yeah, she wouldn't admit it. But she sort of panicked there for a moment!
[Divide] [Divide] [Divide] [Divide] [Divide] [Divide]
Fate Weaver's power became her own, and Bel's flight sped up dramatically. She had to stop before she'd weaken the miracle child too much. But they quickly found a form of balance.
"Guess I judged you wrong! You're not completely useless!" Behind her armor, Bel grinned as the battle high came back to her. With all of her powers at play, she once again believed she could do it. Even if she couldn't weaken Genshirou, even if she had to rely on her demonic powers.
She'd persevere, she'd break through, she'd conquer.
Her blasts of demonic power were crude, inelegant streams that released energy along the path. Like small flares that burned the air instead of condensating properly like most devils did to preserve energy. Her blasts cut through the flames lingering in place and smashed the Evil Dragon out of the way, giving the Heavenly Dragons a moment to reorient and scatter themselves.
Fate Weaver changed his armor, and he vanished the lingering flames with a wave of holy power. He sent his orb toward Bel, and its cleansing powers gave the Vanishing Dragon a bit of her toughness back as Genshirou zigzagged around her blasts.
Bel had to stop herself from charging in, so instead she trapped Genshirou in her Half Dimension again. Giving Fate Weaver time to change back into his attack mode to switch.
She took some of his power at an awkward moment, but their combined firepower managed to keep the black dragon at bay for long enough to pull back. In this way, they at least felt like they were making progress. However slow it was.
"Pull back."
Huh?! That was… The blonde Invader's voice? But from where?
"Pull back." The voice behind Bel's ear repeated "He adapted already."
The armor's tendrils coiled around each other, making two thicker ones and releasing one stream each of dark power. The blast met both Bel's and Fate Weaver's head on. Momentarily stopping in its tracks as the opposing forces ate away at each other.
They did not blow up, but Bel realized all too late.
Slowly, almost deliberately, Genshirou's dark streams gained ground against both of the Heavenly Dragon's lasers. The energy dispelled from the clashes was pulled back directly into Genshirou's streams, fueling them and further pushing back both Bel's and Fate Weaver's attacks with more ease each second.
What? How? To begin with, why didn't the blasts explode or create another effect? Why did they interact like…?
Like holy and demonic power canceling each other out.
"Dodge!" Bel barked out before releasing her own blast and flying out of the way. Fate Weaver copied her but flew closer to the floor as the dark blasts broke through the respective opposition and continued their path.
Purple flames drew eyes and maws in them, becoming those strange semi-autonomous blobs of darkness power that Genshirou had used before. They turned around and followed Bel and Fate Weaver. With the purple flame growing biggers as if their 'maw' was opening to devour them whole.
Bel didn't have time to dodge. If they played that game, Genshirou would catch her of Fate Weaver.
"Half Dimension!" Bel caught the spell in her draconic power and flew in circles around it to avoid the incoming black flames. The half-spirit spell refused to be squished into the imploding space, and Bel actually worried that she wouldn't get rid of it in time.
She released her trap, and blasted a thick beam of demonic power. Cleaving cleanly through the spell and making it burst into black flames that still refused to die out and stayed in the air.
She saw Fate Weaver maneuvering around Genshirou's blasts and tendrils. And Bel took the opportunity to steal more of his power while she blasted away at Genshirou's attacks to give the miracle child some respite.
"This is not working!" Fate Weaver screamed in rage, exchanging blasts with Genshirou as Bel narrowly dodged one tendril that had sneaked on her "And mom's not coming either!"
"The hell are you talking about?!" Those words were too incoherent for Bel to stay quiet "This ain't stopping just by callin' mommy, y'know?!"
"No, you stupid bitch! This bastard activated my failsafe in the beginning!" Fate Weaver almost got clipped by black flames while arguing. He did look like a man more worried about winning an argument than actually working together, but Bel still couldn't believe he'd take his eyes off of an Evil Dragon just because he felt offended "The restrictions I have were put on by Gabriel! They are meant to break and heal me in case of an emergency!"
So… He would've died right there? Damn, and Bel was getting hyped up about this fight…
Man, fuck this snake. It took all the joy of trading blows, made her feel helpless and remember a dark place in her life, and on top of all that she had to join efforts with a momma's boy that got pissed off when things didn't go his way.
"If you have a trick up your sleeve I'd like you to use it right now!" Bel growled as she used Half Dimension on Genshirou himself. He stayed in place for just a few seconds, and his aura sprawled all over the bent space when it returned to normal. Making Bel feel a lot sicker now that most of the air had been replaced by dry and arid… Something.
"Fuck! I guess I can—!" Fate Weaver spent all of his boost in a wall of light force that took one of the creature-spells head on. He flew to the side, and tried to blast the spell with a pillar of draconic and holy light that came from above, but his armor was snatched by one of the tendrils obscured by the light.
One second, and the red armor cracked and darkness oozed within. Two seconds and the curse flowed farther into the miracle child. The third saw the armor break down even more as Fate Weaver's boosting ability was sealed, and Bel struggled to get a good shot while evading the tendrils.
"Fuck it!" Fate Weaver dispelled his Balance Breaker altogether. His whole arm had signs of Vritra's curse, and it slowly crawled over to his shoulder and into his chest "Get away!"
The curse stopped and Fate Weaver's massive Boosted Gear Blade compressed into a more normal-looking sword. Albeit still futuristic and with guard and handle being red while the glass-like blade remained green. The miracle child grew a halo, and his wings stopped being made out of solid light and became bird-like.
"Fuck you: Sodoma and Gomorrah!" He didn't shoot the spell from his hands or the sword. Instead, his halo moved to face the aura-clad Evil Dragon and shot a thin ray of light toward the still-struggling living spell.
The light pierced it, and the flame creature erupted into holy light that exploded out into a shockwave.
The black flames that lingered were caught in the explosion as Bel pulled back. And they too were reversed and became explosions of holy light in a chain reaction that quickly found Genshirou.
His aura exploded into more black flames, and for a moment Bel thought that this wouldn't work. However, little by little, the aura opened up and let light rays out. Like an egg being cracked from the inside, the Balance Breaker struggled to stay together as whatever spell Fate Weaver used reversed the cursed nature of it.
The dragon within Genshirou raged, releasing more black flames as the Fate Weaver's power tried to outdo him. The effort was valiant, but over the course of a handful of seconds it was obvious and evident that the darkness was being extinguished, that Fate Weaver's power was winning.
"Was it that hard?!" Bel yelled as relief washed over her, feeling a bit dumb at how anticlimactic the fight would end up being.
"All is Mine."
The shockwave didn't come, no wave or pulse heralded the sudden activation of that awful ability. Not even a masculine voice was heard, no matter how childish. Instead, a ball of demonic energy appeared close to Genshirou and expanded in an instant only to disappear as if its growth had burned out its power. Then, the Balance Breaker and holy energy both were sucked into the empty space. And a girl's voice was all Bel heard while Genshirou's evil aura rapidly was reduced into nothing and the blond vessel fell out of the sky.
"Oh, thank God…" Bel heard Fate Weaver exclaim before she shot herself down, toward the falling blond.
She stretched out her arms, not really knowing if she'd get caught up in the dragon's aura. But he'd been obviously defeated, so she wasn't scared about that.
Tendrils of darkness grew from the floor, snatching the Evil Dragon host out of the air and making Bel miss him entirely. The blonde girl with a gas mask had grown her shadow until it extended farther than the Grigori headquarters and rapidly made it shrink to get Genshirou back. Bel followed the darkness close by, wary of any repetition because she remembered well enough Genshirou's dragon manifestation. And she'd grown to really, really hate having to deal with these bouts of madness.
Bel deactivated her Balance Breaker as she landed, and when Genshirou was on the ground the masked girl regarded her fully.
"Mission accomplished, chief. I'll—."
"Bel!" Kokabiel dispelled his light and flew toward her, taking the Vanishing Dragon by the shoulder and dragging her away from the blonde Invader.
Fate Weaver fell, trapped by the girl's shadow and being smacked against the floor. Only to be dragged through it until the sound that made was more meaty than anything.
"You colossal idiots! You absolute fools!" The girl in the gas mask roared, but quickly lost her balance while her shadow construct broke down. Azazel caught her, but her rage was palpable as she pointed fingers at them "What the absolute fuck was that?! You'd have killed him!"
Bel didn't know what she was referring to, but Fate Weaver got to his feet while bleeding from his face and arms to answer.
"That fucker would've killed us."
"No, of course not." The blonde insisted, but her energy was being rapidly drained. It sounded like she'd lose consciousness any moment "That stunt you pulled! You're so shameless! Idiot! Sadist!"
"What's going on…?" Bel's mouth tasted bitter. Once again, fighting the Prison Dragon took all the enjoyment out of it. She might've felt accomplished, even if just a bit, but now she was just confused and angry. She wanted to punch the Invader, let her lose consciousness faster.
"Those spells were restricted by us." The Seraph that spoke had been there all along, but her presence hadn't been registered by Bel because of the commotion and her insistence on having her attention on Genshirou. She hadn't realized just how alert she was with the Prison Dragon, while disregarding everything else "As he was almost killed, the restrictions became undone. But to think that he'd be in such danger because of someone's incompetence… I suppose it was to be expected."
"Fighting is dangerous, even under controlled conditions." Kokabiel didn't take his hand off Bel's shoulder, and instead pulled her a bit closer to his body "Your son knew what he was getting himself into. How will he grow into a real man without a little danger?"
"He's still a child, snake. He's young even by human standards, growth requires time and care." Gabriel hissed.
Kokabiel chuckled darkly and moved in front of Bel, a crooked smirk on his face.
"Your time and care have created a worthless wyrm that doesn't even know when he's outmatched." Kokabiel spoke softly, being almost on Gabriel's face. The Seraph trembled with rage, her golden wings seemingly becoming darker for a moment.
"He isn't meant to be an unfeeling butcher, but a leader of the faith." Gabriel spoke just as softly, but her voice still promised a lot of pain regardless "Do not mock me with your definition of worth."
"He clearly has taken the steps."
"Old man." Bel called him out as Azazel and the blonde Invader attended to Genshirou's prone form.
"Do you think I wanted to do this? No. It was a desperate measure to—."
"Spare me your excuses, boy. They'll be better used with your ilk." Kokabiel gave the two heavenly beings his back "I suppose that since Bel was not touched, I'll let it slide this time."
"Don't think you'll get my gratitude." The golden haired archangel stated.
"Your son almost evaporated everyone here, so compensation would be more within the realm of what we expect." The blonde Invader snapped her head around in an unnatural way. Like an owl "Don't think I didn't see it. That was a war crime if I've ever seen one."
"It's divine punishment. Unnecessary, but divine all the same." Gabriel replied, but she didn't sound too convinced in her own point this time around.
"Virus bombing that turns energy and even souls into more of itself still sounds like a war crime, divine or not." The girl couldn't stand by herself, but her voice was clear enough for everyone to hear "There're girls inside this very building that'd kill for you, but what do you think would happen if I just told them what those two spells do?"
"It's why they're sealed." The archangel insisted.
"Ma'am, it was clearly not sealed right."
"That's because my son almost died!"
"Stop victim blaming! Gen had to unlock his Balance Breaker because of your son! There were rules in place! He should've known better!"
"That guy started it!" Fate Weaver pointed at Genshirou.
"Wrong!" The blonde jammed her finger at him.
"You weren't even there! Plus, I don't see him dead so I don't know why you're so fed up about it!"
"Because the only reason he's fine is because he's the Prison Dragon!" The blonde stretched her arms to either side as if she wanted to say 'are you serious?' "I mean, fuck me I guess. But if that blast was a little closer to us, I'd be a goner too! Hell, the only person that could've prevented that is not here!"
Did she mean the other Invader? Well, that strange skill of his did seem capable of shielding everyone. Given how this girl's version dispelled the effect on Genshirou. But that still felt weird to Bel. Why did they have such power? Where did it come from? It wasn't a Sacred Gear, obviously. And neither had any heavenly interventions tha Bel could sense. So how?
The answer was probably the Holy Grail, but Bel couldn't tell for sure. She'd seen the two of them do pretty weird things, like surviving getting his soul ripped apart, or stopping death in time. So maybe these two were just anomalies in every sense of the word.
"Eli, calm down." Azazel shook the girl carefully. Almost like she'd break under the pressure of his fingers.
"Don't tell a girl freaking out to calm down!" The blonde started shaking like she was having an aneurysm, with her fingers folded like she wanted to claw herself raw. But not actually scratching or hurting anything "Gah!"
"I told Michael this thing was pointless." Gabriel shook her head, deep in thought "A child of Heaven should be trained by Heaven itself, after all."
"Strange way to say that your little maniac is not ready to go out alone." Kokabiel chuckled.
Gabriel summoned a light spear the size of her whole body, radiating enough power that even Bel flinched as it materialized.
"Guess it runs in the family." Bel opened her mouth, diverting the archangel's wrath toward herself.
"Get this guy out of here or I'll just kill myself." The blonde Invader stated coldly "At least that way I know my soul won't just disappear."
"Don't be melodramatic with me, child. I can tell you're bluff—."
The blonde Invader was encased in a barrier of light, courtesy of Azazel, before she could move. Making her look like a person shaped set of blocks.
"Let's not dare our very unstable girl here to do anything." Azazel put himself between the Invader and Gabriel "I did work as Ise's teacher for a while. So listen to me when I tell you this, Gabriel: Your son needs a rougher hand."
"Oh, like you know how to raise a kid!" Fate Weaver got between Azazel and his mother.
"Is that what mommy's baby should be saying?!" The blonde Invader smashed against the barrier.
"What's wrong with being loved by my own mother so much that she'd come here to protect me?!" Fate Weaver's scream was raw. It made Bel feel a knot form in her throat: An uncomfortable feeling that didn't let her mock the boy.
The blonde didn't react any better. As, although she kept her mask on, Bel could almost see all her words leave her mind as she laid against the barrier more. Like Fate Weaver had physically hit her on the face and it'd stunned her.
"There's nothing wrong with that, Ise." Azazel spoke softly, giving Gabriel a knowing look "Nothing at all. Sometimes parents love their children too much so they spoil them rotten."
"You'd know." Gabriel retorted.
"I would, yes." Azazel shrugged "And I also know that, sometimes, you have to be a little rough with them. Just a little. Enough to have them think twice before doing something awful."
Bel frowned, thinking back on the pretty little boy that used to be a high ranking devil.
"That's for me to know and act upon." Gabriel placed a hand on her kid, still refusing to let go of her light spear.
"I believe we're well beyond that already." Baraqiel arrived with his own daughter in tow. The girl looked uncomfortable, but stood her ground as the bearded fallen angel joined Kokabiel in facing their heavenly counterpart "You're not the only one here looking out for her youth, 'sister'."
"Is he alright?" The half-fallen angel girl tilted toward Bel a little and spoke in a low volume.
"The girl stopped freaking out, so I guess." Bel crossed her arms.
"Okay." The raven haired girl stood beside Bel, which irritated the half-devil a bit. She didn't need or want the extra company.
"That is still a matter I shall attend to, without any of your intervention." Gabriel insisted.
"Have your ears ceased to understand after He ceased?" Baraqiel closed his eyes and shook his head "This is no longer a matter of just your child being a little spoiled. This is the second time he's caused trouble in this fashion. Twice to the Prison Dragon and my daughter, no less."
"You can't just pretend to intervene in favor of your child like that." Gabriel's frown turned from angry to uncomfortable, almost like she wanted to disengage.
"Isn't that why you are here?" Kokabiel hit the nail that Baraqiel had laid "We agreed to take responsibility, or at least Azazel did. But your coming here tells me that something else is going on. Do you mean to take your kid after he's made a mess to exempt him from facing the consequences of his actions?"
"What about that child you are protecting? She, too, fought the Prison Dragon with the same intent as Fate Weaver. Shall she go unpunished for attempting to kill Azazel's precious labrat?"
"Bel? No, Heavens no!" Kokabiel sounded amused while speaking, and the half-devil that he'd pull her forward before he did "Go ahead. Punish her fairly, but let us do the same to your boy."
Bel let him manhandle her a little. It was rare when the three agreed on something, and she suspected their hounding of the single archangel present was part of a bigger plan. Plus, she wanted to think that Fate Weaver wouldn't use that… Those, spells again. Not in this situation at least. Not when Baraqiel and his child, who had connections directly to the Underworld's higher circles, was present.
"Hold on, that's not—."
"Fate Weaver." Gabriel closed her eyes and Bel felt smugness rise to her chest as the archangel's defeated expression showed up "Leave it."
"But…"
"Don't make me repeat myself." The archangel looked away "Let's go."
"Running away won't exempt you from anything coming your way." Kokabiel grinned openly as he savored the victory.
"Quit it, will you?" Azazel sighed "Let's go back and check on the damage."
"You mean checking on your tools to see how much research you'll be able to do." Baraqiel shook his head as the archangel took Fate Weaver in a hug and her wings extended.
A pillar of light fell on top of them, and the next thing Bel knew was that they were gone. Seeing the spot empty but damage made her feel… Weird. Like she missed out on something, but she couldn't quite tell what.
"Was all of this necessary?" The half-fallen angel asked the blonde Invader, who stretched her back and stopped showing signs of weakness altogether "This whole thing was indeed a mistake made by these two."
She pointed at Bel and Kokabiel, but both were very adept at not assuming faults whatsoever. So all she did was make them pretend to be dumb and that they hadn't heard her.
"Not anymore, it isn't. Now Fatey-fate has two strikes under his belt and we're still in business!" The blonde took off her mask forcefully, groggily closing her eyes as the daylight hit her face directly. She looked pleased with herself, but also visibly tired. Drained "Plus, he owes me his head and I'm an experienced tax collector."
Azazel took the mask from the girl's hands and tapped her head lightly with it.
"Don't overdo it, Abby. Go back with the church girls and run your damage control. Nicely." The fallen angel gave the girl the mask back when she put her hands on her head.
"Fine…" The girl pouted while grabbing the mask, putting it in front of her face as if checking how well it worked "Can I get a googles version? I don't like it that people can't see my beautiful face."
Azazel scoffed.
"I dunno, little girl. I'm a busy man, so maybe you'll want to get some cookie points."
"You're so mean!" The blonde stormed off theatrically, but stopped in her tracks before disappearing within the facilities "Oh, get that bad boy strapped to life support, just in case."
"What?" Azazel snapped his head toward Genshirou "Really?"
"Seriously. I'm sure he'll be fine, but let's not take chances. The skill I used to break Nasu's spells is more of an exception rather than a tested and true method, so…"
Nasu?
"Alright then." Azazel patted the blonde on the shoulder "Let's get to work then. Thank you guys for the intervention."
"I did it for my daughter's sake." Baraqiel stated sternly. His child looked away while crossing her arms beneath her chest.
"I wanted to see Gabriel's face go red with rage." Kokabiel scoffed and gave Bel a look "I don't think we need to talk about this?"
"I didn't know he'd just straight up try to execute him." Bel rolled her eyes "He did warn me to pull back."
"Bel." Azazel warned her.
"I honestly wanted to help this time around. I've fought this guy, I saw him go berserk at the town. We had a chance."
Azazel glanced at Kokabiel.
"You did, yes." Azazel nodded "Well, I suppose that's that then. You did get me a lot of research material, so I'll let it slide."
Bel scoffed.
"So that's it? We call on the guy's mom and we all go back for dinner?"
"There are more ways to win than by punching someone in the face, Bel." The blonde smiled at her.
"Oh, please. Spare me the pseudo-intellectual babble." Bel waved the blonde off "You'll just cut yourself with the edge."
"Haha, of course not! I just mean that I've been watching him and realized that I can't win." The blonde stretched, and Bel recognized some discomfort in her voice "The gap between where he is and where other people are is too big. I can't just suicide him with three bullets to the back of the head and expect someone to take the slack: Every warm body counts now."
Bel sort of understood what the girl was talking about, but wasn't all that big on the whole 'saving the world' idea. She just recognized that there'd be more interesting battles on this side of the road, and that she wouldn't get atomized in more friendly matches against beings like the Demon Lords when she got to fighting them. Yet, at least to this group, everything they could possibly do lingered on this one thing.
They were hostages of their obligations, one thing that Bel didn't want to become. She didn't want to stay her hand just because of her ties forcing her to, she wanted to make her own path however she pleased.
"But, well, sometimes you gotta piss on someone's birthday to blow off some steam." The blonde took a moment to spin her own words around in her head "That sounded better in my mind. What I meant to say is that sometimes, the only way to stop being pissed off is ruining someone else's day."
"You're a massive bitch." Bel pointed out.
"That I am." The blonde chuckled "Plus… It's two strikes. That has meaning, it has power."
That sounded way more ominous than her previous talk about winning without fighting.
It'd seem that this Evil Dragon mixed up with some rather shady people. Bel couldn't help wondering who would put up the most resistance if she tried to fight them one by one.