Chapter XXXIX

Something was off.

Issei could tell.

It felt like… an itch he couldn't scratch, a deep seated churn in his stomach. There was a feeling of wrongness in the air, like a string pulled taut, tighter and tighter as it frayed at the ends. Like something was about to happen and yet he had no idea what exactly it was.

'Calm down. You're just worried.'

And he had reason to be.

Even now, as he cradled the poor, dirty, whimpering Yoru against his chest, Issei felt like there was something he was missing. And yet, no matter how often he looked over his shoulder, he couldn't find anything or anyone suspicious. It was like he was being followed by a ghost, but even then, Issei was sure that he could have seen one!

"You're starting to fall behind. Everything okay?"

Issei shook his head, focusing again on Aika, who'd stopped a few steps ahead of him.

"Oh nothing. I guess I just got spooked?"

Nodding in understanding, his classmate cupped her chin with a hand before adjusting her glasses. They'd somehow almost slipped down her nose as she leaned a bit too far down.

Though it did give him a nice view down the top of her blouse.

"Well, there's a park nearby. Why don't we go there? See if the fresh air helps the kitty feel better. You can take the time to catch me up on what's going on while I was out of it and we can knock our heads together!"

Issei frowned at the thought.

With how things were going, he'd rather take Yoru and go home, maybe ask Yinghua to take a look at her, or try to contact the Committee again. He'd have tried to do it through Ena, but he didn't exactly know where she lived or what her number was so that choice was unfortunately out of his hands.

But he'd be lying if he didn't say he wasn't tired.

From having class, to helping out with Sona, and then meeting with the girls, Issei had been running himself ragged trying to put together some kind of plan to handle the curse plague situation. Adding to that the scare of Yoru appearing all beaten up out of nowhere and, well, it wasn't surprising his nerves felt frazzled.

"Yeah, I guess I could do with some fresh air, too."

His classmate smiled, looping her arm around his and pulling him around a corner, and Issei had to admit that it wasn't a horrible idea. He'd done what he could, Yoru was as healthy as she could be, and nothing was on fire. So calming down was probably smart.

'She's being a bit touchy today, huh?'

Issei still remembered the… ahem… reward she gave him for saving the city from the Monkey King. Even if he really felt he didn't deserve it. Beating up bad gods was supposed to be his job, after all. But he would be lying if he said he didn't appreciate it.

And appreciate her.

Come to think of it, Aika really had been the first friend he made at Kuoh. The first new friend at least, and the one he didn't have any sort of supernatural business going on in the background whenever he had to meet with them.

And not having her around really made school a bit more boring.

"Are you okay though? You seemed pretty sick before."

"Like I said, it was just a random bug. No need to worry about it now. Not when things seem to be getting serious again."

And she was right. He had bigger things to worry about. But knowing that she was okay really took a load off his shoulders.

"Yeah, you're right."

Following along with his friend, the two of them walked through the increasingly busier street and towards a spot in the distance. A small park with a fountain, a few benches and tall hedges that went up to his shoulder, giving it the look of one of those tree labyrinths.

There wasn't anyone around, so finding a place to sit down was easy. Issei made sure to lay down the poor cat on his lap as he checked her out for any signs of trouble. Not that she should have any after he healed her, but there was no such thing as being too cautious.

"So, mind telling me what's up now?"

Issei sighed, trying to think of a better way to explain it. Some way that didn't sound like a national crisis… only to realize it kinda sorta was.

"Well, we got some sorta curse plague thing going on."

He felt her stiffen beside him.

"You're kidding me."

"Yeah, no. It's kinda bad and a lot of people got hurt already.

"That's… horrible. Have you managed to figure out something yet?" Her voice sounded quieter, but closer. A hushed whisper close to his ear as his classmate leaned closer to his face, stopping only when her glasses nearly slipped off her face again with an annoyed click of her tongue.

She was doing that a lot today.

"Not really. Made some calls, talked to Sona and the others. But there's no cure yet. At least not without catching whoever did this." And they might as well be looking for a needle on a haystack.

"And nobody is doing anything?"

Issei frowned.

That wasn't true.

"They're helping as much as they can, you know?"

She scoffed.

"Or maybe they're just pawning this off onto you again. Worked so well for them the last two times, right? Must feel good to have someone solve their problems for them, while all they have to do is act like they care."

He opened his mouth, ready to say something, then closed it. Because she did kind of have a point. Yeah, people were helping him, but other than Irina, was it because they were his friends? Yinghua, sure, he was a good kid. And Xenovia followed Irina's lead. But he hadn't seen Kiba or Koneko for a while now and the HCC were… hmm, suspicious.

"Well, Mr. Amakasu told me about a bunch of Korean guys showing up. Trying to offer me soju gifts and I told him they could keep it and say thank you for me. So I guess that one is on me. But, well, it's frustrating!"

"Because there's a lot of people who claim to help you, but are they really?"

"Helping me? I dunno." He shrugged, one hand slowly rubbing Yoru's belly as she purred into his stomach. "It feels like… like I'm missing something. Like there's all this stuff going on around me that I can't see or understand. So am I even doing things correctly?"

"You forget how young you are, how much there is still to learn." Strange word choice aside, Aika wasn't much older than he was, it felt nice to hear someone agree with him so quickly. "If you ask me, I think they're holding back."

"What? Why?"

Scooting closer, he could feel her breath to his ear, smell the sweet fruit on her breath.

"Because you're a Demon King, aren't you? The Campione. The Tyrant. Why do anything when they can just pretend and let you do all the work. It's so much easier that way instead of being upfront and saying they are afraid."

Her lips weren't on his ear anymore, her breath wasn't tickling his cheek anymore, her face… her face was right there.

"I don't think that's right. Like, if they were really afraid, would they even want to work with me at all? The other Campione."

He felt her finger touch his lips. Silencing him.

"The others are dangerous, no? But not you. You are a kind young man who only wants to live a happy life, no? They don't need to worry about you being like that brute Luo Hao, or the reviled Di Xi."

Huh, what was the second name?

"That's why they feel comfortable treating you like an underling. But that's not right, is it? You do the things you love, you crave the things you want, and you demand the world stay the course because it pleases you, right? That's the nature of a God Slayer."

She leaned closer, so close he could smell her perfume.

"That desire is what makes you so beguiling. And you should take what. You. Want." Issei looked down, his mouth dry, and he swallowed as Aika came closer and closer, her soft, pink-

"Rrrrrroooooowwwww!"

Yoru screeched, her tail pulled back as she hissed and lashed out. Claws whistling through the wind as Aika stumbled back with a yelp of surprise. Three, thin lines appearing on her puffy cheek as small beads of red liquid seeped through the cuts on the skin.

"Crap, are you ok?"

The moment was ruined, but Yoru stuck thankfully close, her tail wrapped around the base of her paws as she licked her claws. Though she remained just under the hedgerow, ready to dart under and into the darkness and protection of the bushline if need be.

Had it stopped at that, Issei might have ignored the feeling in his gut.

But what came next was impossible to ignore.

"You mangy little rat!"

Aika, her face twisted up in anger, looked almost feral for a moment. Eyes going from light brown to glaring red as pupils shrunk and narrowed into literal slits. For a moment her hair seemed to extend, darken and break free from the girl's braids and her glasses slid awkwardly down her nose.

This wasn't a normal school girl before him.

Issei swallowed.

"A-Aika."

His pupils dilated.

"Is that… you?"

His friend pulled back, gaze narrowing, eyes flashing back to their original honey color. For a moment, she felt like a normal girl, but then he could sense it. Something shadowy, wispy wafting from her body. The moment she'd grown angry, the malice and otherworldly power had flashed.

And as a Campione, Issei couldn't ignore it.

"You… who are you?"

Aika, no, the woman who looked and felt like his friend let up a sigh as she reached for her glasses, before throwing them aside.

"Tripped right at the finish line, huh? You god slayers really have uncanny luck."

It wasn't her voice anymore. It was her body, Issei could tell, but the voice coming out of her mouth was a stranger's. Sultry, more mature. It was uncanny.

"What did you do to her?"

"She's fine, she's fine. Promise. This girl is just asleep right now. Well, she was asleep last I checked." Shrugging, the expression on her face was less worried and more bored, or perhaps slightly miffed as she looked down at the black cat with nothing but the purest contempt.

Issei didn't hesitate, forming a long haft of pure white stone. The sharp end of the spear pointing at the thing in front of him.

The one who wasn't Aika.

"Are you sure you want to point that at me, your Majesty? This is someone you care a great deal for after all."

He refused to budge.

"Let her go."

Pleasantly surprised, the thing wearing Aika's skin twirled a lock of hair. Pushing it behind her ear as she gave him another closer look, a pleased smile on her face as she cupped her cheek between her index and thumb.

"Ah, unwilling to bend with a bluff? I guess you aren't that much of a whipping boy after all, huh?"

"Let her go." Issei repeated himself.

All around the girl, a circle of spears sprouted from the ground, completely locking her into a makeshift cage. The feeling of power coursing through Issei's veins and out of every pore of his body only intensified as he glared at the woman possessing his friend. Anger mingled with annoyance as she reached out to sensuously caress one of the spears as she leaned against another.

"Now that's much better. But you're still a bit rough around the edges. We both know you aren't going to hurt this body."

He had nothing to say to that.

They both knew she was right.

"Still, to have my cover blown by that hairball of all things… I must be losing my touch. Or maybe I got too excited at having you right where I wanted." Hugging herself, the girl pressed her body against the marble cage with a giddy, almost feverish smile.

Now that she wasn't retraining herself anymore, Issei could feel her power as clearly as day. A mixture of tangy fruit and roast meet clinging to the back of his throat like a miasma.

It was… decadent.

He inhaled, feeling it climb through his body, press into his thoughts, promising him everything which was sweet in life. But then he looked, really looked, and saw how Aika's skin seemed to pull and how there was pain deep, deep underneath the lust and need. Then the sweetness turned vile and cloying.

Like wine made into vinegar, it was sharp and foul and all he could taste were… leavings.

Of sex.

Of life.

Of… things better left unsaid.

This woman or spirit or demon or whatever she was, was all the pleasure in life turned to rot and excess. Like a moving corpse covered in ulcerations, gorging itself as its flesh sloughed away.

And she was hurting his friend.

"Let's make a deal."

"Hmm?"

"Let her go, and we can talk about what you want. And if it doesn't work out, you can leave peacefully. So long as you end your spell."

"Ah." The spirit pouted, using Aika's face. "But then I'd have no leverage. And why would you want to play any of my games if I did that? Where would the fun be if I just packed up and went home?"

"Because if you don't, I will kill you. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just stuff you inside a jar or away under a rock and drop it in the Mariana trench. You can spend the next billion years in the frigid darkness, with the most entertaining and delicious thing nearby is krill."

The girl who wasn't Aika let out a manic giggle.

"Mah, mah. Now someone's getting worked up."

"And if I am?."

"Good." She smiled, wickedly. "Didn't I tell you that is exactly how things should be? Rage, trample whatever lies between you and your desire. That is what makes you shine all the brighter, your Majesty. That's what makes us so alike."

With a twitch of her fingers, the girl pulled an ornamental mask from the aether. Affixing it to her face as Aika's light hair darkened to a deep shade of rich chocolate brown, the girl's braids instead fell over the sides of her face as bangs to frame the opulent fox facade.

"If you want it badly enough. Take it."

Issei clicked his teeth, annoyed at the dancing around.

"I don't know what you want, but I have you literally against the wall here. How do you think you're getting away?"

The frustrating spirit grinned impishly.

"That's when the unexpected tends to happen, your Majesty."

BOOM!

As if right on cue, a massive beam of light crashed down onto them from the sky above. The flash of blue light tearing through the stone spears and lightly singing Issei's skin.

All as a plume of smoke erupted from around them and a thundering crack forced him to step back, the explosion rocking the ground beneath his feat.

"I've finally found you, Campione!" Spinning around, Issei saw a strange foreigner fly into the park, not metaphorically but literally glide towards where he stood with a hand glowing as he yelled. "Unhand my colleague and face me, cravenly soon of the Fool!"

"What the Hell are you talking about?"

Confused, unsure what was going on at all, he spun between both people, noticing that Yoru was… was… covered in moving shadows! Long tendrils of black smoke lashing out from Aika's back coiling around the cat as she tried to run away.

Something snapped. A part of him deep down broke like a watermelon being absolutely smashed by a hammer. Messy, all over the place, full of shock and anger and frustration, he screamed at both of these idiots, even as he tried to scramble after his cat.

"What the fuck is going on!"

"Your reckless befits you, and yet now you must pay for it, tyrant!"

The chuuni foreigner said nothing else, instead flaring out a pair of chrome white glowing wings, unlike the black and leathery ones that Buchou had or the feathery ones of the fallen angels, the blue-white armored pair flared to life in a shower of glittering sparks.

Just looking at them seemed to piss Issei off. Even then, he could feel energy starting to gather in the guy's hands!

So Issei stomped his foot down.

"Rock and stone!"

Thousands of small spears ripped out of the ground, skewering up and at the interloper - intercepting dozens, hundreds, thousands of tiny energy blasts. None of them would have been individually dangerous, but the sheer mass of them almost formed a wall of attacks. But that wasn't a problem when Issei could just overwhelm with more and more attacks of his own.

Unfortunately, this wasn't a private match.

"I'll let you boys have fun then~"

And when he turned to try and turn around… he was faced with the monster wearing Aika snatching up his cat!

"Ta-ta, cutie pie~"

Leaping away, the woman turned into mist, perhaps how she'd escaped from the cage, and simply flitted from rooftop to rooftop. Leaving behind a mass of glowing red balloon-like spheres in her wake, which immediately detonated into a shower of crackling flames, engulfing the park in thick smoke and ash.

"Tch. I won't let you get away!"

Flying up into the sky, charging a single, massive attack, the foreigner started to glow brighter and brighter and brighter. There was enough power in there to disintegrate a building, never mind a person!

"No you don't!"

Issei sent the Power Pole spinning and flying upwards, even as he created a platform to push him up. The irony of jumping in the way of the attack for the masked woman wasn't lost on him even as the white haired man flew further away to avoid the extended staff.

"Idiot. You think your partner can escape, just because you throw a stick at me-"

Unfortunately for him, Issei just extended it further.

There was a painfully meaty thunk as the end of the staff slammed into his enemy's gut, Issei's hand grabbing hold as it lengthened itself towards him, even as he was pushed upwards, and then he clung to his weapon as it once more shortened.

Rocketing him, fist first, straight at the other guy's chin.

His opponent wasn't cooperative, however, and, though he'd spat up from the strike to his stomach, turned his face towards Issei as the sick fell. Forcing the Campione to adjust his course out of disgust and right into an altered line of fire. After all, he'd already been charging up an energy blast. So it was a very simple thing to wait for him to move and then shoot.

Issei did not appreciate being slammed into the ground by the energy blast.

Or having his clothes mostly ruined.

Or having his cat kidnapped.

Or his friend getting possessed.

Or some crazy foreigner shooting up his home.

So when he let out a blast of Screech Wail, yeah, he may have shattered a lot of windows. And scared off all the birds in town, and maybe probably gave a few people a little bit of a scare as the echoing roar cleared out the smoke from the masked lady's bombs and sent the armored guy flying backwards in surprise.

It might have been a bit overkill… but in his defense, Issei was really pissed off.

"This is blasphemy!"

"This is a horrid situation."

"It's a crime against the faith!"

"It's for Issei's sake."

Irina wanted to slash the Devil in front of her.

She wanted to call her a heathen and a liar and a manipulator who stole the souls of humans and sentenced them to the Void for all time! A monster that literally stole eternity from humans.

Xenovia had only restrained herself when Yinghua had asked for her help. The Chinese boy had been carrying Koneko, or so Irina thought was her name, as the girl had been unable to walk. Surprisingly enough, her partner had complied without issue, holding back anything else she might have said and aiding him with a surprising amount of patience.

"You… you… you… argh!" Stamping her foot, she spun around and tossed her cloak to the side. "How can you be sure the Holy energies won't kill you all!"

"I'm not."

Sona Stiri, unlike herself, was the perfect picture of calmness.

"That's why I ordered the rest of my peerage to maintain the barrier around the church. If it were not for the fact that this place is abandoned, and the light of your lord does not yet dwell in it, I would not be here."

Watching as the other girl bent down, in absolutely no way defending herself, Irina felt the heat inside of her go out when the Devil simply changed the damp cloth on her friends forehead.

"She's about forty five degrees, now, and still climbing. Whoever created the curse is drawing on them and Tsubaki is strong."

"She's dying."

Pity wormed its way into her voice and it took everything she had not to slash all of them on the spot.

This was Holy ground.

They were Devils.

But they also were… Issei's friends.

"Alright. Let's make them more comfortable."

"That's your decision, Irina?"

Xenovia, her blade still wrapped but leaning against her shoulder, looked over from the altar.

"Yeah. We aren't… at war. For today. Kuoh is neutral ground, we're supposed to be diplomats. Plus… plus.. plus it's Christ-like to help those who need it and come in good faith. It's saintly to turn even Devils to the light of the Lord!"

Maybe she didn't quite entirely believe what she was saying, but Irina forced the words out anyways. She even clicked the seals on her blade closed, the small pieces of silver and pewter locking the bandages into place, and reminded herself of the parable of the good Samaritan.

'In the least likely of places, goodness may sprout and take root. Surely this is a test. One I shall not fail.'

Frankly, everything had spiralled out of control.

The church itself hadn't been fully restored, the two of them only managing to get most of the dust out and Xenovia had hauled away the broken pews. But that left the sanctuary half empty, with greening candle holders on the walls, an altar with a massive crack in it, and vaulted stained glass windows that seemed to cast the whole of the room in dim light.

Where they hadn't been shattered or graffitied, of course.

There was a priest's office, empty of anything but old, mouldy records, a small kitchen and pantry and a wine cellar to store the wine for the Eucharist. Strangely, they'd found a vast, almost cavernous room half hidden under the altar, with a… grotesquely defiled baptismal font down there, too.

They'd burned what was left of it.

Having suspected Fallen activities at that point, scouring the outerworks, digging through the private cells, and finally finding the missing keys - in a back shed locked from the outside with a draw bolt - they'd had no time to actually go about much restoration.

Now, however, they had the two from the Gremory peerage, a blonde boy unconscious and drenched with stinking sweat, and a younger girl awake and whimpering in pain, as well as the Sitri peerage victims, Tsubaki and Momo.

Neither girl was doing better than their juniors, and all four were covered in crawling, profane curse sigils. All she'd been able to do for them was find some half clean cushions to place under their heads as they'd been laid out on the pews.

"If anyone… if anyone finds out we did this, we'll be outcast as witches. You know that, right?"

Xenovia simply shrugged, having gotten up and walked over to her.

"I trust you. And you trust your friend. If this is the right thing to do, heathens or not, we'll do it. Besides, our orders were to act as representatives of his Holiness and our Lord. Even… even Christ had mercy on the condemned."

Perhaps it wasn't much, but her words were something. Irina simply squeezed her friend's hand.

"What happened to Yuuto?"

Sona, who had been rummaging through a bag, pulled out a vial and looked up.

"He tried to take the curse from Koneko. When she collapsed from exhaustion, he transferred some of his magic into her and tried to draw the magic into himself. That's how he was infected. Unfortunately, it only made the situation worse."

"So the curse feeds on magic?"

"Yes. And when it gets bad enough, it plunders a Devil's body even more violently than a human's."

Possibly as a result of being based on Devil magic?

If the person behind this created this curse for the express purpose of affecting as many victims as possible, then the best way to go about it would be by using the techniques employed by Devils. Holy Curses were punishments which could be overcome through pious repentance, and divine curses, while very powerful, were rare and required too much power for anyone who wasn't on the level of a deity to cast.

As a result, the Holy element should have been particularly effective against it.

"We can't purge it from their bodies since they are Devils, though. The Holy element would just hurt them."

And they weren't actually trying to kill them.

"Which is why we'll be using this."

The Devil, Sona, Irina reminded herself, reached for her pocket and pulled out a familiar glass flask. One filled with glowing red liquid, the kind Irina had seen just a few days prior during the attack by those Fallen Angels. The blood itself seemed almost ethereal as the Devil held it for them to see.

"Issei's authority, I was told, works based on the myth of the Gorgons. And while they were considered monsters in many legends, in others they were women cursed to become monsters. If my hunch is correct, even though this blood should have healing properties, it is actually functioning under the principles of a curse."

In this case, a divine curse.

Something far more potent than what this affliction was.

"Wouldn't that be dangerous against you? If that came from Issei then it might be full of divinity."
Sona shook her head.

"Its capabilities for harming others are limited to the other half of the 'Gorgon Curse'. Even if it might make us sick after the fact, a quick sickness is better than a slow death under this curse."

"We still only have the one vial, though."

"Which is why the Holy Swords will act as an amplifier."

Irina screwed her eyes closed.

She knew exactly what the Devil wanted.

"So it's a city wide exorcism."

The other girl pushed her glasses up her nose.

"That is the only way to free everyone."

And the worst thing… she agreed.

"Ok. Let's get started, I think this is going to take a while."