Chapter 16 (Patreon)

“Are you sure, Sona?” Like most of the other guests and members of her peerage, Rias kept casting worried glances at her friend. Sona sat in her chair before a huge magical screen that covered an entire wall of the student council office. It showed the arena where this strange parody of a friendly match between underage devils was taking place. Both Sona and her opponent were still too young to take part in official Rating Games.

“Absolutely.” Her childhood friend nodded calmly. “I trust everyone in my peerage. Momo, please pour Himejima-san another cup of tea.”

“Me too, please,” Koneko-chan asked shyly, lowering her eyes. Reya sat beside her on the sofa, looking unusually pleased.

“I think we should brew a bigger pot,” Momo said with a smile as she poured the fragrant tea into their cups.

“By the way, Sitri-san, where did you find this wonderful tea? Rias told me the student council had found a treasure, but I’ll admit I didn’t believe her at first…” The vice president of the Occult Research Club barely looked at the screen. She was entirely absorbed in the tea, which was, admittedly, delicious.

“That… is a secret.” Sona smiled faintly, narrowing her eyes with satisfaction at Rias’s playful outrage.

“Cosplaying Xellos from Slayers is just cruel!” The red-haired president of the Occult Research Club shook her head with a grin.

“Even so, we’re not telling you the supplier’s name,” the student council president said, still smiling. “The supply is very limited, and knowing Himejima-san, we can’t risk revealing who it comes from.”

“That sounds like a challenge!” Rias laughed.

“Not at all,” Sona said with a chuckle. “You’ll find out sooner or later. I’d just rather it wasn’t today.”

“Fine. But back to this… Game, Sona. One of your Rooks against the entire peerage of the Curley heiress? Even if her peerage isn’t complete… Why are you doing this at all?”

“It’s high time House Curley was taken down a peg,” Rias’s childhood friend said with a slight shrug. “If I hadn’t offered to demonstrate House Sitri’s strength myself, Father would have handled it his way. Their provocations are becoming more than merely unpleasant. It’s time to show them their place in the Underworld. Having a single servant of mine publicly defeat some—or even all—of the Curley heiress’s peerage should make our displeasure clear. It will also hint that the consequences could be… more serious than the Curleys expect.”

“Politics.” The red-haired devil pressed her lips together. She was, to put it mildly, no fan of the games played behind closed doors by the Underworld’s high society.

“Unfortunately.” Sona sighed and adjusted her glasses. “But I’m glad I can help Father, even with this parody of a Rating Game. Besides, Taro has wanted a proper fight for a long time. This is an excellent opportunity.”

“And if he loses?”

“As I said, I have faith in him. But even if I’m wrong and he can’t win, his defeat will still do me some good.” Sona took a small sip of tea. “He’s very confident in himself, so a setback would bring him back down to earth. And the Curleys could hardly boast about a nearly full peerage defeating a single Rook, especially if their victory comes at a cost. I might lose some standing in the eyes of others, but it wouldn’t be a humiliating defeat. I have no doubt that my Taro-kun can take some of Curley’s pieces out of the game.”

“Your Taro-kun?” The phrasing made Rias smile.

“Mine.” The student council president nodded, casting a puzzled glance at her amused childhood friend. “He’s Chiba Taro, and he’s mine.”

“Uh… I see…” In truth, the Gremory heiress wasn’t quite sure why Sona had put such emphasis on Taro belonging to her. She let the smile fade and pushed the thought aside. Perhaps Sona still remembered how Rias, caught up in the moment, had tried to wheedle Chiba-kun away from House Sitri?

“It’s starting.” Yura Tsubasa settled more comfortably on the sofa, shifting Reya over a little. Reya seemed only too happy to move closer to Koneko. “Sensei’s about to kick their asses.”

“Hmm.” Akeno shook her head doubtfully as she studied the unusual positions on the “battlefield,” but didn’t argue.

Just as well, thought the president of the Occult Research Club. She had noticed that Sona’s Rook, for some reason, called the newcomer Sensei.

As for Akeno’s doubts, House Sitri had invited them all to watch, and Rias had already questioned Taro’s chances of winning twice. That was enough. Sona might tolerate such doubts from Rias, but hearing them from one of Rias’s servants could be another matter, however close the two friends were.

Sona had recently proposed an interesting idea to her childhood friend: train their newcomers together and prepare for the Rating Games they would play as adults. Inviting the Gremory peerage here was her first step. Rias could have watched a recording anyway—or at least learned the result if none was made public—but having a seat in the front row was far more appealing. Especially since Sona had promised that Chiba Taro intended to show them something interesting…

How that was supposed to work when he was facing six opponents alone remained unclear. It ought to be a game of cat and mouse, with the mouse on its own and no hole to escape into. But time would tell.

They had chosen a small arena: an empty cube two hundred meters on each side, with a hard, rubberized floor. The “teams” were already inside. Or rather, one team faced a single devil… who sat on a cushion behind a low table.

All fair and square: one on one, Rias thought with a silent snort.

A signal rang out for spectators and combatants alike, marking the start of the fight.

“What is that? A musical instrument with a blade?” Issei asked, tilting his head toward his right shoulder as he peered at the screen.

“It’s a qixianqin, a seven-stringed qin,” Chiba-kun said in a calm, soothing voice, as though he’d heard Rias’s Pawn. He swept a hand above the strings of a heavy-looking metal… thing, just over a meter long and about twenty-five centimeters wide.

Rias had seen instruments like it before, but this one had a sword hilt, an edge along one side of its peculiar “blade,” and another handle on what would have been the blunt side. That was harder to make sense of.

The boy wore an unfamiliar style of clothing, Chinese or perhaps Korean, and looked entirely at ease. He smiled amiably at his opponents as they approached him at an unhurried pace.

“Finding suitable material for the strings in the Underworld was quite difficult,” Chiba Taro continued. “Unfortunately, none of the silk thread for sale would do, so I had to scour the wild territories. Luckily, just yesterday I came across a rare species of spider whose silk was perfect for the job.”

“A steel qin?” One of Curley’s pieces sounded astonished. She had stopped with the rest of her peerage about twenty meters from Chiba. Her dress was clearly Chinese in style, and her features suggested she was from China.

Her Lady, Ninel Curley, and the rest of the peerage all looked puzzled to one degree or another. None of them seemed tense or wary. Rias could hardly blame them. She herself found the whole thing… strange, more than anything else.

“It’s made of far more than just steel. Crafting this musical weapon is a serious test for any master craftsman. And I’d venture to say I’m the only one who knows how to make the Qin of Seven Battles. Would you like to hear how it sounds?”

“Music before a fight?” Ninel gave a thin smile. “It would be rude not to let you play before your inevitable defeat.”

“Not music before the fight.” Chiba grinned broadly. “The music of war!”

Issei Hyoudou’s classmate finally touched the strings of the monster lying before him. Rias struggled to describe what she heard. The… melody? It was strange: drawn out and flowing, yet insistent and… cruel? Every note he drew from the qin seemed to carry the echo of a sword stroke, the rush of a flying spear, the scrape of metal against bone, the shadow of a cry of rage or a groan of pain.

For all that, Chiba Taro’s music had captivated her from the very first note.

“Thousands of years ago, a brutal war raged across the Blossoming Plum Continent. The land was strewn with corpses, and the rivers ran crimson. The clash of swords rang without pause over forests, mountains, and valleys, accompanied by the endless weeping of widows and orphans.” The musician did not sing, but his words followed the rhythm of the melody. “Everyone was at war with everyone else. Righteous masters battled not only evildoers, but other righteous masters as well. Some practitioners whose souls were blacker than soot looked upon the evil around them in horror and rose to defend the innocent. Children raised blades against their fathers, while mothers strangled their daughters, believing they were sparing them the torments of life. There was no peace, no harmony. The path to the Great Dao had been forgotten on that continent, and Heaven itself wept at the horrors people committed. The bloodshed continued for decades, until Yu Xiuying, a qin master and venerable ancestor of the Pavilion of Immortal Heaven’s Strings, emerged from a thousand years of seclusion when the Perfect Veil of Seclusion around her place of meditation fell away.”

It was hard to tell whether Chiba Taro’s voice accompanied the melody or the melody accompanied his voice. He sat with his eyes half-closed, his expression faintly sad yet strangely inspired. In Rias’s mind, it was as though someone were painting a scene of war from an ancient legend.

“Yu Xiuying looked upon the world around her and saw that the Pavilion entrusted to her by its founder, her teacher, lay in ruins. Her disciples and their disciples were dead. She heard millions of cries filled with rage and grief—rage and grief the venerable master shared. Overcome by fury and sorrow, she renounced fighting. She shattered her five-stringed battle guqin, the legacy left by their Pavilion’s Great Founder, into a thousand pieces. Then, weeping, she forged its fragments into a new instrument—a qixianqin, a seven-stringed qin. It had no blades, no spikes. It was useless to a warrior. But the instrument born amid her tears was never meant to bring death. As Yu Xiuying made it, she thought of peace, mourned the dead, and grieved for all that had been lost.”

To Rias’s surprise, another boy in the Sitri peerage—Genshiro, she thought—gave a quiet sniff and tried to wipe his eyes without anyone noticing. Then again… yes, she too felt an inexplicable shadow of melancholy, an echo of grief and bitterness from the story and the melody, which had grown achingly sad.

“Venerable Yu Xiuying, grief and regret etched upon her face, bowed beneath the weight of guilt for her disciples’ deaths and the destruction and plunder of her revered teacher’s legacy, set out for mighty Mount Huashan—a sacred peak hidden from the mortal world among the clouds, the place closest to Heaven. Her journey took four years. In those four years, she witnessed four times forty thousand deaths and just as many atrocities. Even a celestial from the higher realms could not have prevented them all. No being exists, in the realms of mortals or the worlds of immortals, whose will cannot be broken. For all her strength, her dignity, and her millennia of righteous living, Yu Xiuying… could bear no more…”

Chiba Taro fell silent for a moment, his fingers fluttering over the strings with astonishing grace. The melody grew darker than sorrow—bleak, without a glimmer of hope—and Rias swallowed despite herself. A bitter, thorny lump had formed in her throat.

“Unable to bear the nightmare surrounding her any longer, the Master blinded herself and continued through the darkness toward a faint glimmer of memory held in her heart: the Light of the Dao atop Mount Huashan. No one harmed her. The wicked saw the depths of darkness and grief on her sightless face and merely smiled with cruel delight. Leaving a broken soul alive was itself a torture, one that prolonged her suffering. The few righteous practitioners only shook their heads as Yu Xiuying passed, gently thanking them for their offers of help. Thousands of souls around them were crying out to be saved, and Daoists with compassionate hearts could not spend their time on someone who wanted neither rescue nor healing.”

Even the opponents meant to fight Sona’s Rook were clearly affected by the legend. Some who had worn restrained but mocking smiles at the start of this strange Game now listened intently, their faces grim. Perhaps… it was the music? It really was mesmerizing.

“Yu Xiuying arrived. The sect of righteous Daoists at the summit, which had always welcomed those who wished to listen to Heaven, lay in ruins like her Pavilion. The Master had visited before. She remembered bright faces and kind smiles, gentle voices and shining eyes—the masters and disciples who had lived atop Mount Huashan and sought the Heavens. But now she heard only the wind howling among the ruined walls and smelled only smoke. She climbed to the highest platform, sat upon the icy stones, took the qin from her back, and began to play. Into it she poured all the grief that had gathered within her, and all the warmth, all the light she had left.”

Chiba-kun’s music changed again. It was sorrowful and dark, yet solemn and full of… hope? Faith that things could get better? Warm nostalgia and bright memories? Grief for what had been, and a desire—almost a hunger—for change.

“The memory of her disciples, grief for their lives cut short, the bitterness of lost happiness, and longing for vanished harmony. She poured into the qin all the sorrow of the present and all the happiness of the past. So powerful was her yearning for peace, so immense the power of her benevolent intent, that the melody burst forth beneath the skies of the Blossoming Plum Continent like a thousand thousand Great Techniques unleashed at once. Whether a Daoist’s soul was blackened or righteous, whether they had done good or evil, all who heard Master Yu Xiuying’s qixianqin fell to their knees and saw what they had made of the world beneath Heaven. The whole continent shared venerable Yu Xiuying’s grief and pain. The whole continent longed for peace. The whole continent saw the lost path to the harmony of the Great Dao. And when the last echoes of her melody faded, the endless war began to subside until it finally ceased across the Blossoming Plum Continent… while the Master’s life, the life of the woman who would come to be known as Yu Xiuying, She Who Played Heaven’s Music, came to an end. For along with all her strength, hope, grief, dreams, and yearnings, she had given the qin—given the greatest melody she had ever composed—every last drop of her own life.”

Sona Sitri’s servant fell silent, and the music faded with his voice. The student of what had once been an all-girls academy sat motionless, eyes closed, his fingers still resting on the strings. His face seemed somehow otherworldly. Remote and unapproachable.

He said nothing. Neither did anyone else—his opponents or the spectators, who had become listeners instead. Words would have been out of place. They needed time to let the emotions stirred by his playing, his voice, and every inflection settle.

Rias loved music, but this particular… style… Well, she had never been a fan of classical Chinese music. Yet Chiba Taro had plucked at the strings of his listeners’ souls as surely as those of his qin.

Poor thing, Rias Gremory thought sympathetically when she heard Reya’s quiet sobs. Sona’s Bishop, usually so quiet and shy, had been moved to tears and buried her face against Koneko-chan’s shoulder.

What a talented boy, the president of the Occult Research Club thought, using her little finger to wipe away a tear that had slipped down her cheek.

“I suppose…” The Curley heiress spoke as though she had to force the words out. “I owe you an apology. At first, I thought Sitri had arranged this to draw out our fight so our victory wouldn’t be over in an instant. But if this truly was her plan, I don’t regret it one bit. You have real talent. I… can only congratulate your Lady on having a servant like you.”

Beside Rias, the Sitri heiress lifted her chin proudly, her glasses flashing with smug satisfaction. Rias barely held back a smile as she watched her childhood friend from the corner of her eye.

“Thank you, Curley-san.” Without opening his eyes, Chiba inclined his head and smiled appreciatively. “But you’re mistaken. I haven’t a shred of talent for the noble art of playing the qixianqin. The master who taught me said that only an eternity of diligent practice could make up for my lack of an ear for music and my complete failure to grasp the path of cultivation through Heaven’s Music. Unfortunately, I realized far too late that he was trying to tell me how hopeless I was. Alas, I never reached the true heights of the art. You can learn to play music without talent, but to make the music live…”

“That…” Ninel looked at Sona’s silent servant in surprise, then shook her head. “Perhaps that’s for the best. If you consider yourself talentless, I don’t even want to imagine what it would be like to hear your teacher play.”

“His playing is beyond words,” Chiba-kun agreed with a nod.

“Nevertheless…” Curley sighed. “For all your music and that sad legend, the battle has already begun. We gave you time, and I won’t claim afterward that Sitri pulled a trick to delay us. My peerage and I will tell anyone who asks that you lost with dignity. Hmm… If you like, I’ll let you face my Rook one on one first.”

“Forgive me, Curley-san, but there’s no need for that.” Taro gave her a faint smile without opening his eyes.

“Are you surrendering?” Ninel raised her eyebrows in surprise and exchanged a glance with one of the young men in her peerage. “Well, I suppose that’s an option too.”

“No. I’ve already won. As you rightly pointed out, the battle is already underway.” Sona’s servant opened his eyes. His gaze held a quiet certainty. “At first, I intended to defeat you through strength alone. Then I decided to treat my Lady to a performance on the qin. She invited her friend to watch our fight and see the strength of her servant—the strength of Chiba Taro. So I thought it only proper to entertain Sona-sama’s guests with the qixianqin while demonstrating my prowess in combat.”

“What a load of nonsense,” muttered the young man Curley had exchanged glances with.

“I hadn’t intended to explain myself or make you an offer. But Curley-san spoke to me with such warmth, and the piece itself… Memories, nostalgia… The qin brings peace. You have lost. You lost at the very start, when you let a master of the battle qin play you a melody imbued with qi and intent—the will to win. Your bodies are now one note away from either unconsciousness or unbearable pain that will put you out of the fight.” Chiba lowered his gaze to the instrument, as though drawing their attention to his index fingers, each still resting on a different string. “Please surrender.”

“Ahem…” The Curley heiress gave him an ironic smile. “Sorry, Chiba Taro. You played beautifully, and I’ll remember that legend fondly, but I’m not falling for a bluff. You have ten seconds to prepare for battle.”

“A pity.” Chiba sighed with genuine regret. He lifted his right hand from the qin and plucked a string with one finger of his left. The harsh, grating note sent a stab of almost physical pain through the spectators.

Ninel Curley and her peerage, however… Every one of them crumpled. The instant they touched the arena floor, they vanished from the battlefield. The arena had registered that all of Taro’s opponents were unconscious and transported them to safety.

“That’s NOT FAIR!” Genshiro-kun burst out. “How is that even possible?”

“Ah, and once again I didn’t get a proper fight.” Still seated on his cushion, Chiba Taro sighed sadly and looked up at the arena’s illusory sky. “But what wouldn’t I do to see my beautiful Lady smile?”

Rias raised her eyebrows and glanced at her childhood friend. Any higher and she would look ridiculous, so the Gremory heiress had to restrain herself as she watched in astonishment. A blush spread across Sona’s cheeks, and her violet eyes studiously avoided the gazes of the devils gathered in the student council office.

Author’s Note:

Ninel Curley isn’t a character from DxD canon, so there’s no need to look her up.

If you’re curious what a seven-stringed qin sounds like, you can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0AkZP6PKHc (not an ad; I just really liked it :-D).

And before anyone starts calling the MC a Marty Stu or saying he’s overpowered, remember the opponents Issei Hyoudou faced in the original story.