Impossibility – Chapter 1

Burned Feathers

"So, Issei Hyoudou, what do you have to say for yourself."

"Thirty-three."

Tsubaki let out a soft sigh and allowed herself to rub her temples. This wasn't going anywhere, she knew it, even though the conversation had just started. In front of her, slouching in his seat, was the all too well-known, Issei Hyoudou. A walking disaster, especially for the teachers of Kuoh Academy.

"What do you mean, thirty-three?"

Issei let out a huff as if it was the most obvious of things, his eyebrows lowering into a frown, his own hazel eyes staring into hers, she noted the slight bags under them.

"So, the geezer didn't actually tell you shit."

Another sigh came from the older student.

"Could you refrain from calling-"

"Yea yea, point is, thirty-three is the answer to the math problem and I answered it. Shithe- He just didn't like that he couldn't stump me, superior complex all of that stuff."

Tsubaki looked thoroughly unimpressed. At the very least Issei had actually listened to her and stopped himself from insulting the teacher again.

"That isn't the point Hyoudou, and you know that."

The teen grunted and looked away, by the look in his eyes he immediately zoned out, his mind wandering away from the conversation, smelling a lecture coming.

The girl in front of him, had, however, dealt with him more than once before, and recognized the empty look in the boy's eyes rather quickly, stopping herself from even beginning her next sentence as she knew it would fall on deaf ears.

It was honestly scary to a degree, how easily the boy could shut himself out of the entire world within a single moment.

But she also knew exactly how to snap him out of it, however much it dismayed her.

She shifted in her chair slightly, using the slight shuffle to justify her next movement as she exaggerated her upper body movements to make her breast jiggle just a li-

Issei's head snapped to her, his eyes fixated on her chest with such focus, that if she weren't used to this stare of his, she'd think his eyes would burn a hole into her uniform through sheer will.

A moment later Issei blinked, another moment and his eyes met hers once more, his expression blank and emotionless, hiding, whatever he felt towards her or himself for these actions, deep within himself.

Another annoying trait of his. He either was so expressive in his every facial movement that she felt like he could hold up an entire conversation like that, or he was a stone-faced statue, devoid of any readable emotions.

"The point is, that you were sleeping in class before he woke you up to ask you the math question."

But his blank expression was irrelevant, what was relevant was that she had gained his attention, and used that fact to bring across what she had him here for in the first place.

And immediately his stone wall of an expression fell into a disgruntled scowl, which instantly told her everything there was to know about what he thought of those words.

"Look, I do my homework, get the best grades, and am the fucking top student, could all of you get off my ass?"

As much as she disliked the fact, there was no argument she could actually bring against those words.

He was right. He was the top student, he had inexplicably good grades, and he had never been reported for missing homework.

Even if she wasn't comfortable admitting it, his grades were the main if not the only reason he was still in this school. The bias of the education system wouldn't allow such as student to simply be kicked out of an establishment, giving Issei a certain level of immunity from direct repercussions for his rash behavior.

Not actual immunity, but it meant the student council was not given the green light to do much more than give him these talks, as useless as they were.

"Issei, your knowledge is vast and the academy is happy to have a student of such skill, however, this doesn't excuse your behavior."

He let out a huff. Looking back to the side. He had heard countless variations of these words hundreds of times. At least he wasn't denying them.

"Now, you are excused, from school. Get some sleep."

Tsubaki stood up, barely letting Issei digest the words as she started walking away. Giving him only a moment to look at her face with a baffled expression.

"Wait what? You're just sending me home? We're not even past lunch."

His usual gruff tone was overshadowed by the sheer confusion seeping from his voice.

Tsubaki didn't even turn to answer.

"You're clearly lacking sleep, and you've also extensively proven that you lack interest and need in participating in the current lessons, so go get some sleep, for all our sake."

He just stared after her, his eyes fixed on the back of her head, her words echoing in his mind.

Or well as well as they could echo in there.

"No, we're not fucking declining that!"

He said aloud. Tsubaki let out another sigh as she heard his voice past the threshold of the door. Issei's self-conversations had thankfully been avoided while she had talked to him. A slight frown settled on her face as it occurred to her that she also now had to fill in a form that confirmed her approval of his absence.

"Raynare."

The woman turned her head to the gruff voice that called for her attention, her eyes glaring down at the man who had called for her attention. The glare held no real malice and had a good bit of confusion mixed into it.

On one hand, his voice was serious, which meant he had something important to tell her. But on the other, it was much too early for there to have been anything important happening. After all, all the devils and their target were students of a school, and as such only active after school hours.

And ten in the morning was anything but after school hours.

"What is it, Dohnaseek?" She said, her tone bordering on dismissive, but Dohnaseek had worked long enough with the woman to hear out the interest in those words.

Adjusting his hat, he allowed himself a smirk, unable to contain the malicious glee. He held the silence a second longer than necessary, noting how it made the other Fallen's hand twitch impatiently, to his utmost satisfaction. "Our target is outside of the school grounds."

Her eyes widened significantly at his words, the glee in them manifesting in form of a smirk as wicked as his own. With a small push against the wall behind her, she fell from the wall-decor, using her black feathered wings to control her fall.

Using the momentum of the fall, she directed herself to fly directly towards Dohnaseek, stopping right in front of him. Her eyes met his pupils wide in excitement as she stared him down even with his larger size. Dohnaseek's expression soured only the slightest bit, as he was forced to hold onto his hat to stop it from being blown away by her close-up landing.

"Where is he?" Her voice dripped with excitement, after a

"Let me bring you right to him. Shall we bring Kalawarna or Mittelt?"

She huffed, shaking her head as she walked past him to the entrance of the abandoned church they had set up camp in.

"No need, this should be done rather quickly, they're better suited to wait for our other package."

Following along he gave a small nod of approval, quickly overtaking her to open the church door.

"Very well, follow me."

Spreading his wings, a veil shimmered briefly around him, one that'd hide him from human eyes as he flapped with his powerful wings, launching himself into the air.

Raynare followed right after, applying her own veil as the two of them flew over the city.

This was going to be fun.

Issei let out a groan.

His gaze was turned upwards as he walked through the park on his way home from school.

He found no joy in the idea of explaining his situation to his parents. After all, they would be concerned about why he would be there at such an early hour.

Taking a deep breath in, he let that burden to his future self. Who'd actually be confronted by his parents.

Well, he could in theory also just not go home until it would be a more acceptable time for him to be there, but he quickly dismissed that idea. One way or another they would be made aware of the fact that he had been excused from school early, and demand an explanation from him.

Suddenly a weird tingle traveled through his body and his eyes snapped to attention back skyward.

Letting out another groan, he dropped his gaze towards the ground, looking at his own shadow in annoyance.

"I'm too tired for this shit."

Spotting their target walking through one of Kuoh's larger parks, Raynare gave Dohnaseek a silent order to set up a barrier. One that would naturally keep out the humans, but also, more importantly, keep the devils from noticing anything weird happening in their territory.

Stalking after her target, she let some of her magic wash over herself to make her appearance more that of the average citizen, her wings disappearing into her back to hide any visual indicator of her supernatural nature.

Her fingers tingled with excitement as she lay eyes on her target. Issei Hyoudou, second-year Kuoh Academy student, bearer of a sacred gear, and marked to kill by the highest ranking members of the Fallen angels themselves.

Raynare didn't know why they had marked him as someone to be killed rather than recruited, but she was in no position to question her superiors like that, especially an order straight from the top.

They had their motives, she was sure of that. She was simply to do as ordered. And while she would have preferred toying with her victim before it was his time to go, the malicious joy at satisfying her superiors was too great to pass on such a prime situation as was presented to her now.

Finally feeling Dohnaseek's barrier fall into place, she hesitated for not even a second, a glowing spear of magenta light manifested in her twitching fingers, and at a speed too fast for the human eye, she threw it towards Issei.

She was a good thirty meters away from her target, yet the spear crossed the distance in less than half a second, mere moments where it was from hitting its mark, Raynare noticed something weird. A detail that had slipped her mind in her excitement.

Issei's shadow was too long.

As if responding to her acknowledging the shadow, it erupted upward, escaping its bind to the ground as a black form of darkness manifested from it, grabbing the spear of light in a barely formed hand.

Raynare's eyes widened for just a moment, as she realized what this meant.

Issei had awakened his Sacred Gear already.

And judging by how quickly he had reacted to her spear of light, he also had some notable control over it.

Having no more need for it, she dismissed the light spear still held in the weird creature's clutches, examining its form was unhelpful, its skin so dark, it seemed to swallow the very light around it, the only detail a singular red eye, that was more-so a singular orb, lacking pupils or sclera, as it's large form towered over the likes of herself, fully hiding Issei behind one of its legs, even as it stood hunched.

Calling upon her powers, she summoned a small armada of light spears, the magenta manifestations hovering in the air around her, trained solely on the monstrosity before her.

Lingering for just a moment, Raynare launched her light spears at the creature that had leaped from Issei's shadow. Normally she wouldn't go about a battle this seriously, especially against a sacred gear wielder. She'd killed a few of them before, and thus really couldn't muster respect towards them.

However, this thing, that had stopped an attack that was supposed to kill a human, with or without sacred gear, had inspired a tinge of fear in her.

It wasn't the fact that the creature was large, or menacing, hell she'd seen members of her own species that had seemed more menacing than this abomination, even with its single unmoving eye. However, the fact that it had allowed her spear to almost touch Issei, only jumping into action when the spear was so close it seemed impossible to stop it.

That was terrifying.

Because that meant it was faster than she was.

As if to confirm her conclusion, the creature lunged forward, dodging her spears in the least conventional form as its body tore open and created holes and tears through the flesh, to allow the spears to fly through, only for those holes to immediately close up, not halting it's momentum in the slightest as it closed the distance between them at a terrifying pace.

Hoping to force the creature to redirect its attention Raynare mentally corrected the position of the spears it had dodged, to now go for Issei, who had fully ignored anything that was going on and was still walking down the path with not a single care for what was happening behind him.

She seemed to have miscalculated as she watched the creature swing at her, not even sparing a glance at the person it had protected not a second earlier.

Using a bolt of air that occurred from her wings emerging from her back, she pushed herself backward, avoiding the clawed hand that had come much too close for comfort.

However, she had no response, when the arm suddenly broke at the elbow, reforming immediately to turn the arm from a right arm to a left one, completely turning around the momentum to swing at her again.

Feeling claws across her lower face and chest was painful, but at least they hadn't hit her neck.

Her wings had thankfully reacted the very second they had been let out, her muscle memory kicking in, having them already wound up for a large flap. Using the powerful movement, she made distance between herself and the creature, using a second flap to gain height.

Using her distance and higher position, she gave a glance to see what happened to her redirected spears of light, and to her annoyance and confusion, they were gone, Issei still walking forward with no care in the world.

Quickly refocusing on the creature after her, a tingle rushed through her and before she could move, someone crashed into her back.

Thrown off balance, she barely caught herself, with another flap of her wings quickly making distance between the ground and herself, letting out a gasp of pain as she felt the creature's claws swipe her left leg.

Turning to see what had thrown her off balance, she saw Dohnaseek, back towards her and-

Her eyes widened in horror as she realized how brutalized her fellow Fallen was, his entire left arm was missing, much more wounds littered him than she felt on her own body.

Discarding any sympathy for the sake of survival, she looked past her heavily breathing comrade and saw a most horrifying sight.

Another of those things. This one with 3 of those wretched eyes and, to her discontentment, wings.

"The hell are those things!?"

Dohnaseek's groaned out question remained unanswered, as the flying creature closed the distance at a speed similar to its grounded counterpart.

Raynare, having not allowed herself a moment of rest, had already summoned another barrage of light spears, shooting them past Dohnaseek and at the approaching creature.

The creature did the same maneuver as its grounded counterpart, tearing its own body open to dodge the spears, but this time Raynare had been prepared, pulling her spears back the moment they were about to hit their mark, and as the openings closed again, they closed around the spears, causing the creature to twitch in clear agony, halting its approach.

Dohnaseek used that moment to launch forward, burying his own light spear directly through one of the red spheres in its head.

Raynare had only a moment to revel in the satisfaction of seeing the creature convulse in pain before she felt those horrible claws wrap around her legs again, and before she could struggle, she was pulled down towards the ground. She clenched her teeth to suppress a scream of agony, as the creature had hooked its claws into her flesh, deep enough to hold on this time.

She managed to lunge a spear of light into the creature's neck, but it didn't falter, slamming her into the ground hard enough to crater it.

The most infuriating part of it all was that in the very last moment before her body made an impact with the ground, she saw him, Issei Hyoudou, their target, walking along, not even acknowledging them.

Blood spilled from her mouth as the force of the impact rattled her entire body.

Before she could recover from the shock to her system, something ripped through her stomach and the winged creature suddenly stood above her, arm impaling her.

As the life flickered from her eyes, a thud was the final thing her ears picked up, using the last of her power to turn her head she noted Dohnaseek's lifeless body not far from hers.

At least he had died the way he always wanted to go.

Issei stopped, faced the sky, and let out an exasperated groan.

With that, he turned towards the two shades that had come forth to aid him. Eyeing them with annoyance as he looked at the crater.

"Get rid of the bodies, I'll deal with your fucking collateral."

The creatures winced at his words, the one-eyed one curling up on itself in shame at knowing it was the reason for the crater. Yet they didn't linger long, their bodies melting into what looked like liquid shadow, as it coated their prey, quickly becoming part of Issei's shadow again with no sign of the Fallen.

Not focusing on them, Issei held out his arm, energies swirling around the limp, in a rainbow of colors.

As he slowly turned his arm, the dented ground, started rising again, flattening out the crater. When Issei started slowly clenching his fist, the cracked and broken stone of the pavement melted together, regaining its original form when his hand had fully closed into a fist.

Letting out a sigh, the swirling energy around his arm dispersed, and he shook the limp for a second.

"Yeah Yeah, shut up, not my fault they can't fucking control themselves."

Turning his back to the scene he continued his walk home, thankful that the confrontation had at least only taken less than a minute, he hadn't been in the mood for it, but at least it was done without him having to step in himself.

But at the same time, he knew this event would not go unnoticed. Even with him whipping away any evidence of what happened here, someone would notice, and if he was unlucky enough, someone would somehow find him through all of it.

God, he was not looking forward to that.

If only he had noticed the single black feather, as it slowly flew to the ground, landing where the crater had been seconds before.

Rias Gremory was having a horrible day.

She flipped the page of the old book in front of her, with incredible speed her eyes scanned every single word, desperately trying to find something, but when there was nothing of use to her, her eyes immediately darted to the next page, going through each line and paragraph, desperately trying to pull something from the unnecessarily complicated wording.

She flipped the page and froze.

That had been the final page. Checking its backside, it only held three lines of a single paragraph which also lacked any of the knowledge she needed.

Letting out a sigh, she let her head slump forward and land on the thick stack of paper.

Even with her having cleaned the book with a small simple spell before taking it from her family library, a small dust cloud appeared from the notion, but she didn't bother to acknowledge it.

Lifting her head again with a slow breath in, her eyes drifted to the unopened letter right next to the finished book.

A letter with the crest of the Phenex family.

She let out a slow breath.

Closing the book, a small magical circle appeared, dropping the book back off at the entrance of her library, on a table, designated explicitly for this purpose, as a servant would at some time come by and put the book back in place.

Rias considered if she should do it manually herself, as it might steer up confusion as to why someone from the Gremory house was reading through the laws of devil society, but she dismissed the thought, too troubled by her current dilemma to worry about gossip.

She narrowed her eyes. There was the slimmest of chances that the letter wasn't what she thought it to be. The one tiny possibility where it was the exact opposite in fact.

It was a glimmer of hope, yet so infinitely slim that she didn't dare hold onto it. Yet even so, the small burst of hope brewed up enough curiosity to open the letter.

Her fingers felt uncomfortable with the crest under them, but she ignored the feeling, in favor of finishing this as swiftly as need be.

Feeling the slightest tinge of satisfaction at breaking the wax seal, snapping the crest in half, she pulled out the paper hidden within, and any faint remains of the hope she had held on to plummeted into an unforgiving abyss as she read the date taking up the middle of the paper.

A month.

She had a single month left.

The paper was suddenly stretched taught, and only then she realized that her knuckles had gone white from how hard she was gripping the simple sheet.

Breath in.

Slowly her hand unenlightened, letting the paper float onto the letter in which it had come.

Breath out.

Sighing, she looked back at the date on the paper and frowned.

If it weren't for the Phenex clan pushing the date for the marriage closer and closer she'd actually have so much more options. As an heiress, her options were vast and diverse, especially with her house being affiliated with the Four Satans. But she wasn't old enough to yet be considered an official heiress, the title only existing for her currently in formality.

It was the very reason she had only started worrying about Riser so recently.

Their marriage contract had existed for quite some time now, eight years if memory wasn't failing her. When she was a child she didn't even understand it, and as a young teen, she had been informed of her future heiress's authority, making her ignore the issue fully. However, then her parents had been convinced to push the marriage to a point in time before she became a heiress. Four months ago.

And suddenly her entire world had fallen apart in front of her.

Finding herself in such a narrow position, she had had no options but to scramble for anything and everything she could get her hands on.

But being of her age, meant her connections were none-existing, meaning all the work fell on her to do and figure out how to get out of this marriage.

She had found two solutions.

One was for someone to challenge Riser. It was an old law, barbaric and ancient, but by technicality, it was still official, but due to it being ancient, the wording was… bad, leaving many questions open about what was to happen after the duel concluded or under what limitations the duel had to be set.

Two was for her to challenge Riser. This was a newer law, meaning it was set in stone and very clear with what the rules were. And frankly, while she would definitely take part in it, she still had little to no hope of winning at a rating game against Riser.

…

Of course, there was always the option of Riser becoming incapable of taking the position of husband, for any given reason… like death.

But Rias didn't have the resources, and more importantly, the lack of morals to do anything like that.

With another sigh, Rias let her head fall back onto the desk.

Rias Gremory was having a truly horrible day.

A deep frown had settled on Mittelt's face as she watched the sun sink into the horizon. Normally she wouldn't be out at this hour, normally she'd simply keep watch over the exorcists and wait for something interesting to happen. To her utmost displeasure, something interesting had indeed happen, but for however interesting it was, it also was alarming.

For Raynare nor Dohnaseek had yet to show themselves. As it was normally Raynare that had kept watch here for the last few days, waiting for the package to arrive.

And by the looks of it, said package had just come along when she wasn't here.

With the warm rays of the setting sun to her back, the small nun was hard not to notice coming up the old road to the abandoned church. However it made Mittelt's frown only deepen. Not at the nun, rather at the lack of anyone else escorting the nun.

From what Mittelt had understood and from how Raynare talked of the package, the nun was of incredible value, yet, here she was, being delivered by no other but herself. Mittelt had never asked why someone of such apparent value would be handed to a group of two-winged fallen. And she had chalked it up to Raynare just exaggerating tremendously as it was her who would benefit most from the nun.

Yet even if she was of much lower value than Mittelt was lead to believe, it was far from a reason to send her here alone, in the middle of devil territory. It was a miracle in itself that the nun had found to them in the first place, she could have easily run off or hide away in Kuoh, which would undoubtedly lead to her landing in devils arms rather than back with them.

With a bothered sigh Mittelt dropped herself from the tree she had been sitting on, landing on her feet she dusted herself and put on a smile for when the nun would reach the church.

It was far from her best, too many things were on her mind, but she had no doubt that it'd be enough to make the nun feel welcome.

When the nun turned the last corner and noticed Mittelt she gave a wave and quickened her pace. Mittelt, to her annoyance, noted that even with how small the nun was, she still stood taller than the fallen. Not letting it show on her face, she kept on the kind expression, glancing more towards the sky itself than at the nun, in a faint hope to spot one of her returning comrades, to no avail.

"Hello, I am Asia Argento, I was told that this was this town's church." The nun looked over the church, clearly noticing the worn down exterior. Her surprise in turn surprised Mittelt, apparently she didn't even know that the church had been abandoned.

"Yes, this is indeed the church." Mittelt gave a nod. "Follow me, let me show you where you'll be staying." With that the small fallen turned and walked towards the church, not bothering to keep an eye on the nun as she could sense the other blond run after her.

If it weren't for her company, Mittelt would have let out a long sigh. This felt like the beginning to something she wasn't looking forward to.

The ground shook as shockwaves rippled through it, the golden armored figure moving at speeds that ripped the air apart as it launched another attack on the blue dragon. Though the dragon, did not allow such simple attacks to connect, moving at equally impressive speeds, launching beams of deep dark energy that tore through mountains as if they were made of paper-mache.

The battle lasted only a few seconds, but the combatants were of such speeds that within each of their minds it had been like hours. Each movement, attack, dodge, counter, though of, prepared, and planned.

And like that it was over, they now stood a good distance between each other, yet one unimportant, both having proven that they could cross such in fractions of seconds.

"You have improved." The dragon started shrinking down as it's booming voice turned more contained. "You two are managing more to work in sync rather than as two individuals with diverging goals. Yet you still lack a full silent cooperation, it is clear that you both oppose each other at some of the most vital moments in the heat of battle." Within a moment where the dragon stood, was now a woman, her words still sharp as her dark azure eyes bore into the armored individual. Even at his impressive height, she was on eye-level with him, and as the armor fell away it was clear that she even had a few inches on him.

The man who revealed himself under the armor, as it disappeared in a glow, was smirking, unbothered by the harshness of the dragon's words. "Thank you Tiamat, it is rare to get granted a compliment from the likes of you." He said playfully, as unbothered as before even as he heard Fafnir grunt emanating from the small golden dagger he was now holding, the purple jewel at it's handle glowing with the sound.

Tiamat herself mirrored the reaction, her eyes narrowing at the man. "That was an observation, Azazel." She let the words sit in silence for half a second, long enough for her to be sure they were felt, but not long enough to allow Azazel a witty remark before she could continue. "Your Down Fall Dragon Spear is only truly impressive to me in the fact that you've convinced Fafnir to give up his body to aid you in it's creation."

The gem on the dagger's jewel lit up again pulsing with the tone of the dragon's voice within it, as he spoke. "You simply are jealous that he asked me first." Tiamat's disapproving gaze moved from Azazel to the dagger, narrowing dangerously at those words. "Besides, my body was heavily damaged and I had already made the deal with Azazel at that point."

Tiamat simply huffed. "Jealously is the least of my feelings towards your situation Fafnir, your worship of Ddraig and Albion has made you join them in their prison-like state, even if yours isn't as eternal as theirs." Her voice was poisonous at the names of the other two dragons, especially at Ddraig, making Azazel and Fafnir shutter, even when one lacked a body to do so.

"Well… regardless of that" Azazel broke away from the topic of the two heavenly dragons. "I wanted to thank you again for taking the time to train with me and Fafnir, mastering Down Fall Dragon Spear is most important as of right now."

Tiamat stood there for a few seconds, much calmer as she pushed back the memories connected to Ddraig. "Well then, no time to waste." With that she rushed him, not even bothering to transform, or giving him a chance to as she delivered a devastating kick the man barely managed to block.

[DOWN FALL DRAGON SPEAR]

The spear roared as it exploded in a golden light, the next moment Azazel's golden armor was back and their spar resumed.

Azazel smirked under the golden helmet, to tell the truth, he'd rather be in his workshop working on some personal project, but with what was coming, there was no time to waste.

And even with this fear set in his heart, not even he knew that Yahweh had rolled his hundreds of dice.

And all of them had landed on six.

A/N:

(5402 Words)

Heyyyy, it's meeee!

Been quite some time since I've showed myself here, and no, this time not with the uh fifth "When Flames Rise" Reboot/Remake/Rewritten. No no, after a long pause from writing I've decided to try it with an idea I've had for years but never knew how to start proper.

I'm putting this out there to see how the general reaction to it is, if you guys like it I'll cook some more, if you don't, I'll still cook some more, but won't have it as a priority.

Review, tell me what you think.

Till next time!