(New Leaf) Canicular - Seirios Pt.4 (Patreon)

AN: Aaand back to our regularly scheduled program. I was gonna post yesterday, but I only got home from work at like 8 PM lol. At that point, might as well just wait till morning/noon.

I originally wanted to get a little bit progress a bit further with events in this chapter, but it just kept feeling incomplete in the parts I already had down, stuff like the girls "disappearing" from the choreography, so I kept going back and filling in missing detail, and it ended up like this. DEFINITELY going to do story/arc outlines before really getting into the writing from now on lol.

~,,––,,^^-

Naruto

I let out a breath, calming the twisting in my stomach from my first assassination.

I’ve seen plenty of death during all my time as a ninja, and it wasn’t the first time I’ve killed an enemy, but it was the first time I’d actually watched the life leave someone’s body by my own hand, especially without being actively involved in a fight with them in the first place. Even the Fallen guy I got Transparency from passed on while I was looking away.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying against guys like Kabuto, who just always seemed to survive crazy amounts of damage, but still. It didn’t feel good. Usually my fights end before the other guy dies, or someone else lands the final blow, or I get them to realize what they’re doing is wrong, and they wind up sacrificing themselves like Zabuza and Nagato.

Even so.

‘Let’s do this!’

“Issei, Koneko-chan, this is gonna be way more dangerous and serious than any fight you’ve ever been in.” I warned them as I slung my guitar case over my shoulder, looking both of them in the eyes. “I don’t know if you have any crazy last-resort up your sleeve Issei, but if you do, don’t hesitate to use it in a tough spot. Better to hurt yourself pushing too far and live than overthink thing and die. This fight’s too important.”

“Uh…?” The pervert blinked, glancing down at his gauntlet in surprise.

I turned to Koneko, staring into her eyes with no nonsense. “That goes for you too.”

She knew what I meant. She frowned, but nodded.

“I’m serious.” I put a hand on her head gently between her ears. “No hesitation. If your back is against the wall, if it looks like things are about to go to hell unless someone does something to stop it, you have to commit. You can’t wait for someone else to take action, you just have to believe in yourself, believe you can do it.”

A scene from one of the anime we’d watched late at night popped into my head, and I grinned.

I ruffled her hair, and her eyes slipped closed for a second to lean into the touch. “If you can’t do that yet, then at least believe in the me who believes in you!”

That got a snort and a tail flick out of my tiny student as I released her head, and I considered my pep talk a success as she rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles.

Issei looked up from his little internal distraction, a determined look on his face.

I glanced at the gauntlet with a nostalgic grin. “That guy in there tell you something interesting?”

“Oh yeah!” Issei pumped his fist, a fire in his eyes. “I’ll clobber that bastard no matter what it takes! I won’t let any man lay even a finger on Buchou’s perfect chest but me!”

I blinked, then squinted at the larger boy. “That’s what’s got you so motivated? Not something more important like, I don’t know, protecting your hometown and friends?”

“There’s nothing more important than her body!” Issei shot back instantly. “That vampire-looking bastard is here for Buchou, so if I’m strong enough to protect that temple of womanhood from even the slightest blemish, then that just means protecting everyone else too is gonna be a walk in the park!”

I sweatdropped at that. “... Let’s just get going. No more time to waste.”

‘I think it’s official… with that sort of backwards, pervy logic in a situation like this, he’s got Pervy Sage beat.’

The two nodded swiftly and we all ran back the way we all came, importantly giving me the opportunity to grab  something I’d discarded during the chase with the giant dog.

A brand new guitar case, now slightly battered from its fall, but otherwise identical to the one in the hands of Shinra Himitsu. Something that, if I understood the explanation she gave me right, could end up ending the fight immediately if used at the right time.

I still didn’t get what ‘decoherence’ meant, or what she meant about getting the idea from some dude’s cat.

Bright golden light suddenly shined through the gaps in the canopy.

“They’re fighting the leader now.” Himitsu’s measured voice spoke calmly in my ear.

I tapped a finger to my earpiece. “Got it. Be ready at a moment’s notice, we’re on our way to join in.”

“Hai.”

“Understood.”

Both government agents on the radio channel replied affirmatively.

Kuoh Academy, Old School Building

(Moments earlier)

“Attack me with all you have, while you still hold my attention. Your very best attack, and I’ll not even defend myself! Then you will see the true gulf in our power, the hopelessness of your position!”

The earth vibrated, a massive boom sounding out somewhere in the direction of the main school building.

Rias grit her teeth in indignation as the man hovered ahead of her with his arms spread wide and open, dismissing her entirely as a threat as his wide, vicious grin stretched across his face.

She narrowed her eyes, her face lit in the red glow of the dot of Destruction at the tip of her outstretched right index finger.

A loud crack rang out somewhere above her, alongside the deep sonorous roar of rushing water. A flash of shimmering Light, and the very tip of a colossal blade of energy carved a diagonal plane across a corner of the old school building, dangerously close to the most secure part of her base.

A spray of mist rained down on her amidst the creaking rumble of the separated corner of the building sliding away from the rest of the structure.

‘That can’t be allowed to happen again,’ Rias thought as it crashed to the ground ‘While Akeno and Sona should be able to handle her eventually, that woman is too strong and slippery for them to have time to worry about collateral damage!’

Another two rooms over, and Gasper and Asia would have been in serious danger, as well as risked revealing the captured Gomeisa to the enemies and adding yet another even more incredibly strong fighter back into their ranks, when there was already another eight-winger still unaccounted for according to Naruto.

“All I have, you say? Fine then!” Rias finally answered, blustering as she came up with a plan of action, wisps of Demonic Power beginning to waft from her body. “I’ll teach you not to underestimate me!”

Red energy exploded from her body with tinges of black Destruction, hiding her body from view as it swirled around her. The ground dissolved beneath her as her bloodline wiped away its existence, and she slowly rose a few meters on her wings until she was higher than Kokabiel.

Destruction condensed even tighter, straining her control as she split her focus. Her aura of power swirled into a ball larger than her body, held in her left palm above her head.

‘I’ll only have a moment’s window, I have to time this perfectly!’ She strained her senses to the limits, her skill with sensing being practically clumsy in comparison to her [Queen] and [Rook], but still enough to track the positions and energy fluctuations of the combatants around her.

Above and behind her, the eight-winged Fallen Angel battled her two best friends, keeping them both fully occupied with fending off the one woman without allowing too many stray attacks to fly into the city. Her strength was significant, and undoubtedly greater than any one of theirs, but not too great to be totally insurmountable. 

Below and to her front, the ten-winged Cadre of the Grigori patiently waited for her to charge her attack. Even as the energy that she could feel emanating from him dwarfed her own by several times, Rias could still evaluate it as such, still recognize how far she had to go to match his output. But if she tried to sense deeper, she couldn’t identify a beginning or end to the Holy Power he contained. For all that he was known to be weaker than the truly monstrous powerhouses like her brother, she couldn’t help but make the comparison when she thought about it that way.

Kokabiel's blood-colored eyes bore into hers, the vampiresque man wearing a sinister bared-teeth grin that showed her exactly how amusing he found the whole song and dance.

Rias glared back down at him, before taking a breath while rearing her hand back with the giant orb.

“Hahhh!!!” She swung her hand down with her whole body, launching the orb of energy down and covering her enemy from sight. As she did so, she couldn’t help her inner weeb, naming the attack in the safety of her mind. ‘Vanishing Ball!’

There was an unnatural pulse of sound– like a stretched out thump– as air currents slammed together to fill the empty space left in its wake. The Power of Destruction slammed into the stationary floating Cadre, and when it met resistance, expanded into a massive ball that consumed him entirely in wicked blackness.

A beam lanced up into the sky above Rias.

The sphere of Destruction began to dissipate, followed by a moment of mass amounts of air rushing in to fill the void.

A single flap of the Cadre’s ten wings blew apart the remainder of the energy of unmaking.

Kokabiel hovered there completely unharmed, his suit and robes not even ruffled. Rias’s attack couldn’t even eat through the energy leaking from his body faster than it could be replaced.

“How disappointing,” his deep voice rang out. Despite his words, his grin remained unchanged.

Up in the sky, a giant gladiator constructed of Holy Light flickered out of existence, while the branching stream of pure white lightning that had been assaulting its shield cascaded horizontally through the sky and converged around a hastily made ball of Light; at the same time, a building-sized pillar of water slammed down on the spherical defense from the other side with enormous force.

Far below, Rias’s right index finger was pointed up at that spot, the little orb of condensed Destruction that had been at her fingertip had released all its charged energy in an incredibly thin and focused beam, now flickering out as it ran out of power.

Both Akeno and Sona’s attacks made it through. Lightning pierced the shell, and water crushed its occupant out of her broken bubble. Dark shapes fell from the sky as the massive pillar of water continued crashing down into the woods with earth shaking power.

Akeno alighted by Rias’s side as the better part of three severed Fallen Angel wings slammed into the ground nearby, with meaty thumps and the cracking of broken bones while newly broken feathers scattering loose on impact.

A second later, and Sona joined them, the Light signature of the Murzim woman having winked out moments ago.

Instead of taking the chance that her more heavily charged and condensed attack would do as little damage to Kokabiel as he seemed confident it would, Rias had turned it back on its original target, with the goal of freeing up her friends to assist her. She knew that she alone wouldn’t be enough to beat a Cadre-tier Fallen, but with her two strongest friends here? They might just stand a chance of stalling long enough for backup to arrive.

There was no way the clan heiress’s siblings weren’t being alerted that very moment.

“Perfect timing, Rias,” Sona commented as Akeno stared down at Kokabiel with ill-intent. “That woman managed to avoid your attack at the cost of her wings, but preoccupied with us as she was, it wasn’t enough to save her in the end.”

The miko turned her head to the side just a tad, eyes not leaving the Cadre. “The others have already finished dealing with their opponent as well and are on their way, though Kiba-kun is out of commission.”

“Sorry to disappoint you Kokabiel, but we’re not here to impress you,” Rias finally addressed the Cadre’s comment now that her closest allies were by her side. “We’re here to stop you.”

“Oh no, you have it backwards.” The deep baritone of Kokabiel’s voice rang out in a chuckle. “I was curious if you had believed your second attack would be enough to harm me, and I didn’t expect you to set your pride in your power aside so quickly, but I’m not talking about you. I never held any expectations for you children in the first place.” Rias twitched at the insult. He rose higher in the air to match their altitude as he spoke. “It’s my subordinates who are the disappointments. It seems only two of them are worth a damn after all.”

He lifted a hand, and with a flash of more energy than Akeno held in her entire body, a wide longsword of the purest golden Light any of them had ever witnessed formed in his grip. He rested the construct casually against his shoulder, radiating menacing intent.

“You’re here to stop me, you said?” His grin widened. “Well then, let’s see it!”

He threw his free hand up, palm facing the sky, and energy exploded from his body.

The three girls’ eyes widened with varying levels of alarm, all of them instinctively shifting back and raising their arms defensively as the veritable tsunami Holy Power stung their senses.

‘And Mittelt said he used to be stronger than this!’ Rias thought with shock, having thought she had his measure earlier. ‘All this power he can still channel, and he used to have twelve wings instead of ten?!”

Even so, the difference between his raw power and his actual output was still stark. The difference between a twelve-winged angel and the ten he’d been reduced to was incredibly vast, she realized.

Her heart pounded in her chest as within seconds, an ominous light hung suspended in the sky above, pure power condensed into the shape of a javelin the size of a commercial airplane and aimed at the downtown area.

“I originally intended on destroying this town in a ritual involving the stolen holy swords,” Kokabiel began. “After all, what better way to announce Excalibur’s partial return to glory but by allowing it the first blow against the Devils’ morale, taking out the Maou’s siblings?” He chuckled. “Since that’s no longer an option, I’ll just do it myself. I will give you five minutes before I destroy the town and everyone in it. Stop me if you can!”

He tilted his head to the side, his grin widening as the bolt of lightning sped past his ear, the force of its passage sending his long locks of hair swinging.

He swayed back a dozen meters to avoid the spike of water shooting up from below, before casually backhanding a blast of Rias’s bloodline that raced towards him, dispersing the destructive Demonic Power with ease.

By the time his vision was clear a moment later, the girls had already moved, and a murderous half-Fallen child was nearly in his face.

While Akeno speed-blitzed straight for Kokabiel with an infinitesimally pointy lightning spear lunging at him, Rias flew wide, charging her Demonic Power into tiny points of Destruction at the tips of her fingers.

Kokabiel brought his sword hand across his chest, pulling his golden longsword down from his shoulder to block the lightning spearpoint with the flat of his blade. Akeno’s flight jerked to a stop almost instantly, barely forcing his sword back even the slightest amount. She pulled back with a grimace for a series of attempted stabs that he blocked and parried effortlessly. “You have to have more skill than that, my niece! You’re a shame on Baraqiel otherwise!”

Akeno snarled and redoubled her efforts to kill the man, electricity sparking from her limbs.

At the same time, Rias took the opportunity to attack. She swiped her hands and sent a series of crescent blades of annihilating darkness carving through space towards Kokabiel’s back, but dissipated harmlessly against him.

‘How is he doing that?! It’s the Power of Destruction, not just some random ki blast!’ Rias ranted in her mind.

Kokabiel twisted his wrist and swept his sword to the side, slicing through Akeno’s lightning spear mid-lunge and scattering it into sparks, while his empty hand shot towards her chest in a knife-hand.

Sona pointed her wand from above the battlefield.

“Miracle Justice Restraining Order!”

A blue glow surrounded Akeno and Kokabiel each, and the distance between them expanded to half a football field in the blink of an eye, leaving Kokabiel's hand extended out through the space Akeno’s heart had been the moment before. It wasn’t teleportation or true space manipulation, but it might as well have been with how smoothly the spell shifted Akeno’s position to fifty meters away. The telltale glow of the spacing magic blinked out as Kokabiel’s sheer power tore apart the spell structure in an instant.

Sona was already pointing her wand again.

“Miracle Justice Cold Shower!”

A large white magic circle appeared at the end of her star-tipped wand, and out of it shot a wide barrage of frosty-white ice needles down on his position.

Kokabiel swooped around the continuous stream of frozen death, all of the missed icicles piercing into the grass and spreading a layer of frost over the ground, and he flew parallel to it as he shot towards her with the same maliciously indulgent grin.

A thin beam of darkness lanced towards the Cadre.

He suddenly juked in midair with a flex of his wings as a sharpened hunk of metal passed with a sonic boom through the space where his head would have been, the glorified gardening tool sailing into the distance.

The beam of Destruction speared into his wing at the same time and…! Nothing happened.

Hot on the first kunai’s trail, dozens more of the little knives shot out from the treetops in spread out waves, positioned to try and box off his escape as Sona adjusted her aim.

“Annoyances at best!” Kokabiel spun, swinging his hand out wide as a pulse of golden Light exploded off of him in an expanding sphere, blowing away the bullet hell of ice and metal before any of it could touch him. The Light pulse forced Sona to abort her spell to fall back, getting out of range of the harmful energy. He continued twisting around and slashed his Light sword out, sending a crescent beam of Holy Light slicing down at Akeno, who barely managed to dodge, the edge of the attack grazing her shoulder and getting her to cry out in pain.

She still managed to finish casting a three-part spell beforehand, shooting a lightning bolt through a pair of spell circles that focused and amplified it, turning a spear-sized attack into a blinding white ray of crackling electricity that slammed into the older Fallen.

He caught it in his palm, not showing the slightest hint of pain in his expression, even while arcs of lightning seared lines up the edges of his sleeve.

‘He dodges or deflects physical attacks, but not energy based ones?’ Rias’s mind raced. ‘No, that’s not it, he didn’t let Akeno’s lightning spear touch him… but then again, it was solid enough to be blocked, so it might as well have been a physical attack. Is his Holy Power so strong that it’s acting like a total buffer against energetic effects, but not all of the physical consequences?’

Another wave of knives shot towards him in a shotgun spray from the other side, but with a flap of his wings, he sent forth a gust of wind that blew them just enough off course that they would wind up shooting around him.

Kokabiel’s head snapped to the side and he launched backwards, just in time for a blade to pierce through the spot his neck had been, the same blade as before with the cerberus, stretching into the distance. With his change in position, one of the deflected kunai wound up nicking one of his ears. The implausibly-long sword disappeared in a blur of motion too fast for Rias to follow, only to instantly reappear with a clang, blocked right in front of Kokabiel’s neck by his own blade.

“Meddling pests!” Kokabiel growled, throwing the extended steel away to slam down into the dirt and carve a long grove through the terrain, cutting down countless trees in the process. “If you won't fight as warriors, die as cowards!” He lifted his arm.

As the blade retracted into the distance at high speed, in the blink of an eye, a Light spear surrounded by rings of energy was formed above his hand and launched with supersonic speeds at the distant building the blade originated from. At the same time, his sword glowed brightly as he began to swing down at the forest the kunai came from, a wide sweep intending to cut the whole thing down in a flash of light

In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, a bluish-white glow sliced a line in the sky that intercepted the spear in transit.

An explosion bloomed in a flash of light.

Kokabiel suddenly redirected his swinging sword up above his head to block.

Koneko had appeared above him, her heel speeding for his skull.

Koneko

Demonic Power filled every cell in my body, maximizing every process, fueling the Evil Piece in me to absurd levels. Flight was utterly effortless, like I could just will myself to move at any speed I wanted and it would happen. If I moved too fast without care, the air itself would practically explode. If I brushed my fingers against a tree carelessly, I’d carve deep groves into it. I don’t think even Gomeisa’s Light weapons would be able to break skin if he were to somehow break free and attack me right now.

Oh, and every single twitch of muscle would have been almost agonizing if I didn’t have my chakra filling in the cracks. Even as a strong [Rook], it would have been a struggle for me to properly handle without it. 

The Boosted Gear was completely and utterly insane. Pure nonsense. The ability to create that much power out of practically nothing and transfer it to a teammate was straight up busted beyond belief.

I took absolute advantage of that as my heel shattered through Kokabiel’s sword in an explosion of light and slammed into his flesh.

BOOOOOM!!

A shockwave rang out.

Kokabiel shot down towards the ground, and I was about to chase, but I felt his energy output spike for a split second. His wings spread out and caught him so that he landed lightly on his feet instead of forming a new crater, revealing one of his forearms held over his head with a hole in his cloak’s sleeve where my heel tore through the fabric, and brand new Light swords resting in his grips.

“Oh? I actually felt that one.” Kokabiel commented as his decorative cloak glowed bright gold and disappeared in a flash, leaving him standing in a clean midnight-blue high-collared suit and slacks, while dual wielding glowing energy swords. “I was just beginning to tire of this act. Do your best to entertain me, little one.”

I effortlessly formed a new claw to replace the one I just used, chakra streaming up towards my elbow and solidifying.

Another boom filled my ears, and two halves of a supersonic kunai flew past either side of Kokabiel as he sliced through it with an irritated sneer.

“Everyone!” I heard Rias shout. “Use focused attacks like slashing and piercing!”

I raced downwards as the others began readying their spells.

He just stood with a grin and let me come to him, holding both his swords down at his sides in lowered positions.

I swung as I closed distance, and he swung back. A pulse of pressurized air flattened the grass around us on impact. Five sharpened blue-white points crashed into the flat of his blocking blade, while his other sword ground against the scale-like extensions trailing behind my claws that were braced against my other forearm, his knees slightly bent as we fought for dominance. I took a path of less resistance, disengaging and flipping over his pressuring sword as I dropped to the ground behind him, springing left to his blind spot as I sensed him turning the other way, before launching at him from behind.

“His Holy Power is acting like an insulator!” Rias continued calling out. “He’s absorbing and negating energy and magical effects before they can hurt his body!”

I spun out of the way, missing my lung in exchange for avoiding getting a hole punched through my head, as Kokabiel had flipped one of his swords to a reverse grip and stabbed behind him.

He sidestepped as a stream of pressurized water pierced through where he would have been and dashed to the side as it sliced towards him, before he slashed one of his swords to unleash a wave of golden Light up at Akeno as she started to form a magic circle in the sky, destroying it as she dodged.

A wave of Rias’s Destruction washed over him and I raced forward on all fours as I let the surrounding natural energy begin to flow through me, my vision sharpening.

I understood exactly what Rias meant as I sensed Holy Power being erased from existence, the Power of Destruction spending itself by burning away a constantly-regenerating film of power coating the front of the Fallen’s body where the blast had struck him.

He suddenly burst from the darkness flying towards me, and I lunged at him.

For a split second, an annoyed sneer crossed his face, and he twisted to block as a red gauntlet slammed into his sword.

[Boost!]

The sword shattered and Issei’s fist crashed into Kokabiel’s chest, sending him flying away.

I stomped into the dirt and stopped dead, a glowing claw an inch away from Issei’s temple as he stood where our enemy was a moment ago.

“Uhhh…” Sweat trailed down his cheek as he realized the close call. “I’m… almost back at my max, soooo… I’m here to help?”

I pulled back as I straightened, nodding at him. “Good hit.”

Waves of lightning and ice were raining down where Kokabiel landed and kicking up dust, and Rias was even using something other than her bloodline for once, casting a simple earth-element spell that made the dirt form into rock-solid spikes that shot up from the ground to pierce the dust cloud.

A deep scoff rang out.

“Is this all the scions of the Gremory and Sitri can offer?”

Kokabiel stood some distance away, 

“The only way you can manage to harm me in the slightest is with the power of one of the crutches Heaven ‘gifted’ to humanity, not through any sort of strength of your own,” He chuckled. “And you claimed you all are going to stop me. Pathetic.”

“Damage is damage,” I taunted, pointing a clawed finger at him. “We’re two-and-oh over you. Put up or shut up, idiot.”

A faint scent of a specific person’s blood chose that moment to greet my nose.

‘Oh wait, didn’t he graze Akeno?’

I ignored that little detail and focused.

He was right, really. We hadn’t done more than barely scratch him.

So it was time to go all out, winner takes all.

His grin widened and his eyes laser focused on me.

“I’ll enjoy gutting you first.”

I let my normal senses fade to the background– or really, let the unnecessary inputs be pushed aside– as I drank deeply of the natural energy around me, feeling and understanding the way his monstrous presence interacted with the world rather than just seeing or hearing alone. If I looked in a mirror right now, I knew that I’d see that my pupils were becoming more slitted, even as my vision became way less important for comprehending my surroundings than the totality of my senses combined.

His form blurred with speed as a series of kunai passed through the place he’d stood and buried themselves up to the rings in nearby tree trunks.

Akeno shouted something, but it didn’t matter. I was already leaning forward, ducking under the blade that would have decapitated me as one of my heels snapped up behind me, cracking into Kokabiel’s wrist and disarmed him of one weapon as it went flying from his grip.

Issei’s gauntlet slammed into the second blade as it swung down an instant later, causing cracks and chips to shoot through the golden Light, which began filling in and smoothing over.

A chakra thread shot up from the sole of my foot and wrapped around the handle of the airborne Light weapon, and I swung my foot down, sending the blade whipping back towards Kokabiel’s neck. It dissipated before reaching him, and he was already forming another as I pivoted on my grounded foot and hopped, sending a spin kick crashing into the newly formed sword. Kokabiel, knowing better than to try blocking the full impact of my kicks with his constructs, flowed with the motion, twisting his wrist to let my foot slide up the flat edge without resistance, while angling his own slash towards my thigh with stolen and redirected momentum.

While Issei and I were trading blows and parries with Kokabiel and keeping constant pressure on him– me dancing around the two and avoiding attacks I saw coming before they were made, while Issei powered through with uncompromising power and defense buffs stacked on top of a basically indestructible dragon gauntlet– our friends  in the sky were waiting for an opening to assist in a way that wouldn’t catch us in the friendly-fire, or put us in a bad spot by messing with our flow.

I felt Kokabiel’s energy actively being focused in two directions; maintaining that giant doomsday spear in the sky, and preventing his two weapons from breaking instantly against our counter assault. His pride prevented him from letting them break so easily after all his comments, and he refused to even disengage for a moment without making good on his promise to gut me.

In other words, I watched as his energy wasn’t focused on defending his body like before.

He was vulnerable. Rias might be able to get through and kill him if she caught him off guard with a strong enough attack. We just need to pull his attention in as many directions as possible.

While I managed to read Kokabiel’s movements well enough to avoid getting anything worse than a torn up uniform, Issei had gotten a couple knicks that bypassed his tough defense when he was too slow to react, and was finally blown away when Kokabiel unleashed a beam slash into him after a parry the sent his arm wide.

[Boost!]

Blood flew, but despite the elemental advantage against us, Issei’s vitals stayed mostly strong, his sheer buff stacking being enough to tank the quick attack relatively intact, despite the fact it probably would have left him with a sliver of HP if it arrived a split second sooner.

“Buchou!” I called out as I swung a fist full of Senjutsu chakra at his center mass. He blocked with both swords crossed over his chest, cracking both as he dug his feet in, refusing to be pushed back more than a couple feet. He jumped as lightning and ice and destruction slammed into his previous position, before a flap of his wings launched him straight for me. His swords glowed as he began to slash both at me while I was jumping back out of his reach.

A sudden twist of one sword deflected the kilometer long blade as it shot passed him, a wave of gold leaving it to shatter the offending steel into an uncountable amount of tiny shards that fell like glitter, while the other golden construct continued slashing down in my direction.

Boom-Thunk!

“Kh!” Kokabiel hissed as a kunai passed between two wings and slammed into the back of his shoulder, hard enough to jerk him around a half turn and send his sword-light flying off-course. “Damn nuisance!”

I mentally thanked Naruto for the assist as I dashed back again to regroup, calling out again to our casters. “It’s just energy shielding!” I called out to our casters. “Manual, not automatic!”

Landing beside a heavily breathing and wincing Issei as he held his bloody chest, I clearly felt our master’s attention on us without having to look.

“You good to go?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he grunted. “I’ll probably have to…” I sensed his intent flicker to his gauntlet for a moment, his eyes not leaving our enemy at all.

Kokabiel effectively has endless ablative shielding, really.

It looked like the Power of Destruction had a hard cap on punching up above its weight class. Because it was so potent, being anti-everything, it spent itself that much faster on magical defenses than spells that spec’d more heavily into physical effects like lightning. It really was just someone with a LOT more energy than Rias actively pumping up their magic resistance to a threshold she couldn’t reach. 

Honestly, she’d even be better off using fire magic than her bloodline, because at least that physically created heat that could burn him, but she wasn’t really that good at elemental magic.

“Enough!” Kokabiel growled, ripping out the knife in his shoulder carelessly. “I gave you extra time to live to entertain me! If the only worthwhile resistance you’ll offer comes from humanity anyway, with these assassins and that Sacred Gear, then I’ll just use this time to stress test something before the war begins in earnest instead.” He dismissed a sword to hold his hand out, palm-up, a flash of golden magic filling it and depositing an object in it. “An artifact I’ve recently acquired overseas.”

The light faded, leaving a perfectly smooth, perfectly round metallic sphere clutched in his grasp, larger than a fist. It felt perfectly normal to my senses, just like any other piece of refined metal you might come across.

Then something strange happened.

Kokabiel’s power stuttered, his aura filling with rage, shame, and…

‘Respect?’

… An odd sense of respect, as a pair of shapes began to weakly bulge from his upper back above his wings.

Ragged.

Scarred.

Festering.

Twitching in agony.

All this described both the current state of his Holy Power, and the physical existence of the destroyed remains of his sixth final pair of wings, the bony gray stumps sticking out barely a foot from his back.

“You believe I’m too weak to fight against monsters like the Maou,” Kokabiel stated with a smirk. “As I am right now, you’re right. Let’s change that.”

“Get ready…” Naruto’s voice whispered in the southern remains of the tree line.

Kokabiel held his hand up high. “Silver Prosthetic of Nuadha…”

“Stop him!” Sona yelled.

My instincts screamed danger, and I realized that Issei must have felt the same thing, because we had already shot across half the distance before we heard the shout, while spells were shooting down at Kokabiel regardless of potential friendly fire.

“Return to me to my true power!”

Kokabiel crushed the metallic sphere in his grip like a water balloon, and faster than we could move, the liquid metal shot down his arm and split to coat his severed wings.

My perception slowed as the metal bulged and expanded in an almost alien way, Kokabiel’s essence spilling over into the material like opening the floodgates. Like watching a tsunami slowly grow as it approached in a disaster movie, the energy welled up to the surface from deep inside him, gaining more and more and more speed until–

I threw myself away, tackling Issei to the side as power exploded off of the twelve-winged Cadre.

I just had the wherewithal to retract my ears and tail as an expanding wave of golden Light washed over our prone forms, and it took all I had not to cry out as it seared my arms, legs, and back to smoking crisps. Issei hissed in pain through grit teeth from his back, his Boosted Gear having been enough to block most of the wave from striking his upper body directly.

“Issei! Koneko!” “Koneko!” Rias and Akeno shouted our names in worry as they both landed beside us, their auras radiating desperate worry. Sona set down between us and Kokabiel with grim resolve.

I painfully twisted my neck to look behind me as we began forcing ourselves back up with the others’ help, Akeno placing her palms on my back with minor healing magic coating them.

“Hmm…” Kokabiel wasn’t even looking at us, staring sideways at one of the silvery raven wings that sat above his regular black sets with a thoughtful look and a tiny frown. “Not bad, but not perfect. I see why Nuadha preferred flesh and blood in the legend. Something is lacking.”

“Rias,” Sona began with finality. “Kuoh is done for. All of you need to teleport away.”

“W-what?” Rias wheeled on her. “Sona, what the hell are you-”

“Gather our peerages and head to the underworld now that the barrier is down.” Her oldest friend cut her off. “If all of us try, he’ll cut us down before we all finish the spell, but if I guard you all with the strongest defensive spell loaded in my wand, you can make it out and save the others too.”

“Fuck that!” Issei punched the ground and fully stood up, eyes blazing. “I refuse to let you stay here by yourself to die!” Sona turned, eyes widening at his declaration. Then he continued, punching his fist into his hand. “You’ve got a smaller chest than Buchou, Prez, but even just a handful is more than enough to fight for and protect!” He lifted a fist. “Also, I still don’t know how to teleport!”

I deadpanned as Sona sighed in reluctant amusement. “You sure know how to pick the… unique ones, Rias.”

“You almost sounded cool for a moment,” I told him.

Still, he succeeded in turning morale around.

“Anyway, leave this to me! Ddraig and I got a super secret move just for this type of situation!”

Issei stepped past Sona as she backed up to let him take the lead.

“Hey, bastard!”

Kokabiel glanced over at the shout. “Oh, you’re done with all your pointless planning already?”

“I got a question for ya, jackass!” Issei ignored him completely. “If my Sacred Gear’s just a crutch, why the hell do you get to have that prosthetic thing, you damn hypocrite?!”

Kokabiel just scoffed. “This power is all my own, returned to my control. Your power is simply false strength borrowed from the Welsh Dragon within your gauntlet. Not earned, not innate, borrowed. You’re just a weakling without it.”

“Even so!” Issei lifted his gauntlet up, and his whole body began glowing emerald, power swelling up beyond his Boosts, flooding his body from his arm. “I’ll show you what my ‘false strength’ can do, and make you regret coming to Kuoh! [Welsh Dragon Over-]”

A metal knife shot out from the tree line.

Kokabiel sighed in annoyance as he swept it aside with a wing, pointing his finger in the direction it came from.

His eyes narrowed as his other hand shot to catch an invisible shape I could just barely sense the approaching outline of. “You dareghh-!”

His hand clasped around nothing.

His eyes widened in shock.

All of our eyes widened as his throat dripped red.

My heart stopped as I saw blood.

The world whispered.

Kill him…

ᓚᘏᗢ