Chapter 51
"He's still breathing," Harry gasped, lighting up the area with a wave of his hand so he could see the extent of the damage more clearly. "I don't think he would be if the wound were an inch or so higher. This must be the work of that stray you..."
"Don't touch him!" Rias exclaimed as he reached towards Issei's stomach, and Harry froze. Destroying Harry's lumos spell, she added "This wasn't a stray devil."
"How can you tell?" Harry asked.
"I can feel the trace of light magic coming from that wound," Rias replied, kneeling down by the dying boy's side and hovering a hand over him to confirm her suspicions. "This was the work of an angel."
"The fallen one that Akeno sensed," Harry breathed as he joined her. "Why the hell would an angel murder a random human like this?"
"I don't know," Rias said, trying to destroy the lingering traces of the light in the stomach wound and scowling when that failed. "Fuck. Our magic won't be able to heal him."
"The light will resist us?" Harry asked, shaking his head when she nodded. "Maybe it was a female angel, and he tried to grope her."
"I doubt it," Rias replied.
"Rias, you know what he and his friends are like," Harry argued.
"I do, and while they are perverts with few social skills, they're not outright sex pests," Rias replied. "The worst thing they've ever done is try to peep on girls while they changed, and while that's wrong, it's not outright physical assault, and they've always been careful to try not to get caught as well. Groping someone in a setting as public as this park would be quite the escalation."
"That's a good point at least," Harry said, looking around. "Is this place always so...dead? I know it's late, but it's not the middle of the night yet."
"The fallen angel must have driven everyone off," Rias replied. "It's not hard to do with a few subtle, well-placed spells."
"I guess we can't help him, then," Harry sighed. "The wound might resist my magic, but his brain won't, so I can numb him to the pain at least."
"There is one thing we could do," Rias replied, summoning the bag holding her remaining evil pieces.
"Really?" Harry asked. "I'm all for saving innocent people, but do you really want to run the risk that someone this perverted will become a stray? You know what he'd do with that power then."
"What I want is to know who's screwing around in my territory," Rias replied. "Akeno senses a fallen angel, and then a couple days later someone is murdered with light magic? I need to know more, and he's in no state to be questioned. More than that, though, there has to be something unique about him."
"A sacred gear," Harry breathed, looking down at the boy, who had stopped twitching since he blocked out the pain receptors in his brain. "Azazel is obsessed with them. Why kill him, though? With his basic nature, I imagine he'd fit in well with a group of entities who, by and large, ended up in their state because of lust."
"I don't know," Rias replied, picking out her last remaining bishop, "but I intend to find out."
She pressed the bishop against Issei's chest, and it began to glow red before slipping inside. Harry watched, already figuring that he'd just peer inside his mind once he was out of danger, only to furrow his brow in confusion when the shape of a red bishop began to glow and pulsate under his skin.
"Uh, Rias?" Harry asked.
"Shit," Rias muttered, pulling the bishop out of him and putting it back inside the bag. "Well, that confirms that there's a sacred gear in play here."
"The bishop wasn't enough," Harry murmured as he caught on.
"No, and I should have known better, frankly," Rias winced, grabbing her last rook from the bag. "Those who possess mid-level sacred gears generally require at least four pawns, and both bishops and knights are worth only three."
"While rooks are worth five," Harry nodded, watching as she pressed the rook against Issei's skin.
Like the bishop before it, it glowed red and sunk inside him.
"I am very curious to see just what he's...oh no," Rias breathed as a glowing red rook shape began to pulsate under his skin.
"What the hell does he have?" Harry asked.
"A high-level sacred gear, possibly even a Longinus" Rias replied, retrieving her rook and standing up. Pacing back and forth as she desperately tried to think of something that could work here, she hissed, "Fuck!"
"What about Sona?" Harry asked. "Does she…"
"No, she doesn't," Rias replied. "She's used her queen, her knights, her bishops, one of her rooks, and five of her pawns, so she wouldn't have any combinations capable of helping here. My parents don't have anything useful, Sirzechs has a full peerage, and Seekvaira doesn't have what we'd need. The only one I can think of who might be able to help us is Lady Serafall, and getting in contact with her at a moment's notice can be...challenging. I don't think we can save him."
She slumped down at that, feeling unusually powerless, and Harry sighed, staring into the eyes of the dying boy.
"This is bullshit!" he thought to himself. "I summon those two in my last moment, and he's the shirtless one?"
"His mind is fading, and even with me blocking his pain, his panic is making it hard to look too deeply into him," Harry said. "If you flash him, that might get him to focus on something else for long enough for me to see what happened to him."
"Seriously?" Rias asked.
"The one coherent thought I plucked from his mind just now was a complaint that I was shirtless and you weren't," Harry said. "Even as he lies dying, all he can think about is tits. I'd find it funny in less dire circumstances."
"I guess it's the least I can do," Rias replied, waving a hand over herself and leaving her in nothing but her skirt and shoes.
Issei perked up immediately, his eyes going wide as saucers, and a wide grin formed on his face. Harry, unable to blame him for being so enamored by Rias' perfect breasts, peered into his mind more forcefully.
"They're...perfect," the boy thought to himself, a tear falling from his right eye. "I've finally seen...real boobs...and they're perfect."
Rolling his eyes at that, Harry went deeper and quickly found his most recent memory before he and Rias arrived.
"Would you die for me?" Yuuma, a girl he'd been on a date with, asked, her purple eyes harder and colder than ice.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Issei asked, confused. "I think I misheard you."
"Would you die for me?" she whispered in his ear, grinning wickedly as she stepped back.
She cackled as she jumped back her illusion slipped away as she let it go. She grew taller, and her face grew more angular. The conservative outfit she'd been wearing disappeared as well, replaced by a black leather lingerie set that Harry decided immediately he was going to have a replica of made for Akeno, and a pair of feathered black wings sprouted from her back.
"Holy shit, she's hot!" Issei thought, not yet aware that he was in mortal danger. "Her rack is even better than I thought, and...wait a second, she looks like a demon. Does she have wings?"
"You know, I will say that you surprised me today," Yuuma murmured, looking down at her hands and the purple scrunchie on her wrist. "Given how immature you are, I didn't expect to enjoy myself at all, but you were actually not a bad date. The gift was very sweet but, alas..."
"Yuuma, wait!" Issei exclaimed, watching in horror as she summoned a spear of red light in her hands and prepared to strike.
"Look on the bright side," Yuuma chuckled as she reared back, "at least by dying here, you'll be spared an entire lifetime of disappointment with girls."
She struck then, burying the burning spear in Issei's gut, and he exhaled forcefully, staggering backward as the agonizing pain consumed him. The spear disappeared, letting his blood gush out either side of the hole, and he slumped down onto his back, gasping in pain as he did.
"I'm sorry, but that thing inside you, alongside the complete impossibility that you'd ever control it, made you a threat that needed to be neutralized," Yuuma sighed, sitting down on the edge of the fountain as she watched him bleed out. "If you want to blame anyone, blame Him; he's the one who gave you the Sacred Gear."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Issei thought to himself, desperately clutching at the gaping wound in his stomach.
"Well, I need to go," Yuuma sighed. "Thanks again for the date."
With that she flew off, leaving him alone to die, and Issei just stared up at the sky in shock, wishing more than anything that he was about to wake up from his obvious nightmare. As he lay there, clearly dying, he reached into his pocket, wondering if shoving the tissues he had in there in the wound would buy him time, when he felt the flyer instead.
"Grant my wish," he begged silently, picking it up with his shaking hand. "I don't want to die."
"I'm sorry," Harry whispered, shaking his head and feeling powerless.
"You saw it?" Rias asked softly, resting a hand on his shoulder.
"I did," Harry replied. "Hmm, let's try something."
Reaching back into Issei's mind, he found him dwelling on his disastrous date with the fallen angel and decided to alter the memory to something he figured he'd find better. In the place of Yumma was a giant pair of floating breasts modeled after Rias'.
"Boobs!" Issei exclaimed, immediately accepting that as normal. "Giant boobs!"
He reached out to hug them, only to look in confusion as he heard female giggling coming from the perfect pair.
"Issei, aren't you forgetting something?" the boobs asked. "We need to get going quickly if we're going to reach Boobtopia in time."
"Talking boobs," Issei breathed. "You do exist!"
"Get on," the boobs said, and he did so, burying himself in their warm, pillowy softness as he'd always wanted to.
The boobs flew off with him on top of them and were soon joined by others just like them, much to his delight.
"Good night, sweet pervert, and may flights of talking tits sing thee to thy rest," Harry sighed sadly, watching as the dying boy sank further and further into the absurd fantasy.
"What?" Rias asked.
"I looked through his mind, and that was honestly the thing that he wanted most," Harry replied. "The worst part is that he actually seems...normal. A pervert yes, but not a bad guy. I wish there was more we could do for him."
"So do I," Rias whispered, resting her head on his shoulder.
Harry kissed her crown, knowing that she was feeling the same sense of maddeningly powerlessness that he was and sighed. "Let's see what's in here."
"Do you think you can do that?" Rias asked as Harry reached towards Issei's chest, intending to search for his sacred gear. "I could probably get Hermione here before he dies."
"I haven't done it yet, obviously, but Azazel's instructions were clear enough that I'm pretty sure I can," Harry replied. "I think she'd put together a containment orb, though, and we might want to try using it if this turns out to be as awesome as it seems. Best care scenario, it's Sephiroth Graal, and we can use it to heal Sebastian. If that's the case, it's not like Issei would know how to use it on himself, untrained as he is."
"I'll go fetch Hermione," Rias said as she got dressed. "Be careful."
She kissed his cheek and disappeared in a magic circle. As she did, Harry turned back to Issei and knelt back down, placing a hand on his chest. His vitals were slowing as blood continued to pool all around him, but he was not terribly close to death yet. Thanks to Voldemort, Harry knew hundreds of ways to kill people, and stabbing someone in the gut was one of the slowest that didn't involve outright torture.
"She could have aimed higher and speared him through the heart, but she didn't," he thought to himself. "For all her talk of 'having' to kill him and being sorry about it, she made sure that it wasn't quick. This Yuuma, if that even is her name, isn't just dangerous but sadistic too. Fun."
Shaking his head at having yet another lunatic to put down, he closed his eyes and reached into Issei's soul as Azazal had described. The process wasn't entirely unlike what he had done before with his own soul and with those of the women he was bonded to, so he wasn't going in entirely blind, but it was still something new, and it took him a few tries before he felt like he'd made any progress at all.
"HOW DARE YOU?!" a deep, deafening voice boomed, and Harry nearly fell back in shock.
"What the fu…" he went to ask, only to trail off in shock as, within his mind's eye, there appeared a vision of a massive and undeniably powerful dragon.
He was crimson, with glowing, baleful green eyes and red scales so thick they looked like armor. His massive head moved closer as he peered at Harry, and the young devil shivered as he opened his mouth, revealing large, razor-sharp teeth.
"Hello there," he said. "Sorry, but I didn't expect to find a dragon inside this boy's soul."
"You're playing around with things you don't understand, little devil," the dragon rumbled, speaking more quietly. "Back away now while you still can."
"Your host is dying," Harry replied. "My wife and I sought to save him, but...we couldn't."
"Slain by a fallen angel whelp, I know," the dragon growled. "If Issei had been more open to me, I might have been able to stop her, but he never developed the senses needed for that. I didn't even get to fight Albion this time around."
"Albi...you're Ddraig!" Harry exclaimed. "Holy shit, he had the Red Dragon Emperor in him this entire time?"
He had done some reading on the most noteworthy Sacred Gears over the summer and learned enough about them to know who he was speaking to here.
"He did," Ddraig replied. "If you can't help him, then let us be. He might not be dying with that much dignity, but he deserves peace all the same."
"You don't need to go with him," Harry offered. "I have in my possession journals written by the fallen angel Azazel and could extract you from him if you like."
"Why?" Ddraig asked. "So that you could take my power for yourself. You devils are all the…"
"No," Harry said, cutting him off. "I seek to challenge a man that not even you could help me against."
"Who do you imagine could match my might?!" Ddraig roared.
"Rizevim Lucifer," Harry replied. "He is apparently immune to Sacred Gears in general."
"Oh, yeah, you're shit out of luck there," Ddraig muttered. "That sucks."
"Tell me about it," Harry sighed. "I could find you a worthy host, though. As things stand, it all goes according to the Tyrant's will, but with a more discerning eye, perhaps you could find a host capable of wielding you successfully against your ancient foe."
"Tempting words, little devil," Ddraig chuckled. "You think you could do a better job than Him?"
"Thank you for not using the name, and I wouldn't say that, but I will say that I would actually be thinking in terms of the potential match-up," Harry said. "By the way, have you ever met Tannin?"
"Of course I have," Ddraig chuckled. "I take it you have?"
"Yeah, he helped train me to fight this dickhead from the Phenex clan," Harry replied. "He's a devil now, if you weren't aware."
"Seriously?" Ddraig asked.
"He wanted to participate in the devil Rating Games, and so he became one," Harry replied.
"Just as much of a battle maniac as ever," Ddraig chuckled. "Well, I…"
"Oh my g...ah," Hermione exclaimed, catching herself at the last second.
Her words shocked Harry out of the trance state he'd been in, and he looked over to see Rias and Hermione standing there. The brunette had a small, intricately carved glass orb in her hands, and she nearly dropped it as she saw the state of Issei's body.
"There's nothing we can do for him?" she asked. "I mean, I know I wasn't his biggest fan, but…"
"If I could, I would," Rias replied sadly. "Did you find anything?"
"He has the Boosted Gear," Harry replied, and both jaws dropped.
"Seriously?" Rias asked.
"I just spoke with Ddraig," Harry replied.
"The Welsh Dragon," Hermione breathed. "Why was he not more...well, more?"
"Those who possess Sacred Gears often end up becoming rather important, but normal humans who have them can go their whole lives without learning how to use them," Rias replied. "If he'd lived longer, perhaps he would have become more than he was, but the fallen saw to that. Is Ddraig willing to come with us?"
"I don't even know if this would work with him," Hermione said. "These artificial sacred gears of Azazel's were meant to bind the souls and power of great creatures like the Tyrant did with so many to make his own. I don't know if it would contain the power of an existing Sacred Gear, much less a Longinus-level one."
"I can ask him," Harry said, looking back into Issei's soul and grimacing when he saw how it was starting to slip away.
"I doubt it would last for long," Ddraig said before he could ask the question. "It might be an intriguing diversion from the usual course of my existence, though, so give it a shot."
"As you wish," Harry smiled, pulling back and opening his eyes.
He reached inside Issei's soul more deeply then, not to peer inside, but to get a feel for the Boosted Gear itself, and once he was sure that he had it in his grasp, he pulled with all his might, freeing the powerful artifact. A glowing red orb that pulsed with green light formed in the palm of his hand, and he gasped at the sheer power of it. Not since he felt Sirzechs wipe out the Dementors had he felt anything like the raw might of the Sacred Gear in his hand, and he shivered as he gazed down at it. If he took it into himself augmented his already significant power with it, he'd be unstoppable. Tempted as he'd never been before in his life, his hand inched its way towards his chest, and though he heard voices in the distance, he paid them no heed. Closer and closer it got until, at the last moment, the image of a redhead appeared in his mind.
"Mum," he gasped, wrenching his hand away just as Rias reached him and grasped his shoulders.
"Put it in the orb, and I'll explain," the crimson-haired beauty said, and he did so without hesitation, sighing in relief when the desire to take Ddraig's power for himself disappeared.
"What the hell was that?" Harry asked.
"Devils are naturally drawn to and tempted by power," Rias replied. "I hadn't seen it before, so I didn't think to warn you, but I think that as you held the Boosted Gear in your hand, it called to you on a level you struggled to deal with."
"Clearly holding it while contained doesn't have the same effect," Hermione murmured, staring down at the glowing red orb. "It's actually formed a gauntlet inside here."
"Really?" Harry asked, looking more closely. Sure enough, in the middle of the red light filling the orb, a clawed red gauntlet covered in glowing green markings had appeared. "Ddraig didn't think this would hold for long."
"It probably won't," Hermione replied. "We might get a couple months out of it, but that would be about...oh."
She trailed off as she sensed Issei stop breathing, and Harry sighed, closing his eyes.
"Who do we call, anyway?" Hermione asked. "I know this was a celestial murder, but the victim is still human, so…"
"I'll take care of it," Rias sighed. "You two head back to the Rookery and let Akeno know what happened."
"Will do," Harry replied, kissing her softly. "Reach out if it takes longer than you expect."
"I will," Rias replied over their mental connection.
With that, all three of them disappeared, suddenly all too aware of the fact that there were multiple genuine threats in Kuoh.
"I liked it better when our villains weren't good-looking," Luna sighed as they finished watching the memory that Harry had witnessed in Issei's head the next morning.
"Do either of you know her?" Harry asked, looking at Rias and Akeno, who both shook their heads.
"Whoever she is, she's not one of the really prominent ones," Rias replied.
"She's very likely who I sensed the other day," Akeno sighed. "I guess she approached him near the school grounds to arrange their date."
"Why go to such lengths, though?" Gasper asked from his box. "Why not just kill him?"
"For fun," Akeno replied darkly. "Taking him out and getting his hopes up all through their date only to kill him in the end was just her playing with her food. Fallen angels bore easily, given how old most of them are, and I'm not shocked that she decided to toy with him for the fun of it."
"Why target him, though?" Koneko asked. "I understand thinking that he was annoying, and if she'd just kicked him in the balls so hard he died, I'd have fully gotten it, but to go to these lengths, it had to be targeted."
"It's because he had this," Hermione replied, pulling out the orb. "This orb contains the Boosted Gear, which was, until last night, inside Issei Hyodou."
"The pervert had a Longinus in him?" Koneko asked incredulously. "That's insane."
"They're distributed at seeming random," Kiba pointed out.
"Why did they not take it themselves, then?" Luna asked. "That doesn't make sense."
"I suspect that they didn't know exactly what they were dealing with," Harry replied, staring down at the orb. "My guess would be that they learned he possessed some sacred gear, judged him likely to use it for reasons that might mess up their plans, and got rid of him as a precaution."
"You don't think she was working alone?" Luna asked.
"I think that we can't assume that," Rias replied.
"Fallen angels rarely work alone," Akeno replied. "They're, by and large, smarter than that. If she was a cadre level one, that might be different, but if she was, Rias or I would have recognized her."
"What did the police say?" Hermione asked.
"They're treating it like a homicide, but one that's going to go very cold," Rias replied. "I fabricate something down the line to give the family closure but we will deal with this angel ourselves."
"Where do we start?" Fleur asked, obviously perturbed, and Harry kicked himself when he realized why. Their investigation of the attempt on Sebastian's life hadn't been a murder investigation, per se, but it was pretty close to one. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she smiled gratefully at him.
"We need to find out where they're holed up," Rias replied. "It will be a spot on the outskirts of town, somewhere isolated and remote where they're not likely to draw attention to themselves. Needless to say, my precaution from before is absolutely still in effect. None of you are to walk around town alone until the threat has been dealt with. Do you understand?"
They all replied in the affirmative and she sighed, standing up.
"The most annoying thing is that we're likely going to have to deal with that stray devil as well," Rias muttered.
"They might do us a favor there," Akeno replied. "They love killing our kind, and a stray wandering into their path would be like a gift to them."
"It's possible, but I wouldn't count on it," Rias replied. "I need intel."
"I'll have the green minions scurry throughout Kuoh and see what they can find," Hermione replied, twisting the ring on her finger.
"A great idea, Dark One," Gnarl piped up, having been listening in through the whole conversation. "The blues could also swim through the sewers and see if they find any sign of this stray. You said that you found the last one hiding away down there."
"That could work," Rias said.
"We'll find them and we'll kill them," Koneko shrugged. Pointing at the glowing orb on the table, "What are we going to do about that in the meantime?"
"The orb should last for several weeks at least, so for now, I'd say nothing," Hermione replied.
"I agree," Rias replied. "I don't know what effect introducing a new sacred gear, especially one as powerful as that one, to someone with an evil piece would have. I'll write to Lord Ajuka and get his advice."
"You realize that if you do that, you'll have to admit that we have access to Azazel's notes, right?" Harry asked. and she grinned.
"My mother dropped off everything we had from him, remember?" Rias asked. "He'd be more surprised if we didn't have copies of our own as well, so that won't be strange. He might gain an interest in you, Hermione, when he learns that you pulled off the creation of this thing, but that would be all."
"If Ajuka Beelzebub wants to pick my brain, I'll just have to live with it," Hermione chuckled. "Thank goodness it's the weekend."
"School won't be fun on Monday," Luna sighed. "Even if most of the girls thought he was a creep, learning that someone you saw day in and day out died can be shocking even when you don't know them. It was bad enough seeing so many people end up petrified my first year."
Before any of the others could respond to that, the front door opened. and they turned to see Sirius walking in, whistling to himself and looking generally pleased with life. His face fell the moment he saw how serious they all looked, and he sighed.
"Okay, who died?" he asked.
"Wow, it's like if Bellatrix was hot," Sirius winced as he finished watching the memory a few minutes later. "So you lot need to deal with this bitch? Couldn't you just call in Grayfia or someone?"
"We'll be perfectly up to the task," Rias chuckled. "I know her outfit was rather distracting, but did you happen to notice her wings?"
"Even with the smashing rack, those were still pretty obvious," Sirius replied, wondering why she was asking.
"She had only two of them," Rias pointed out. "Angels gain more wings as they grow more powerful. The most powerful of them, like Michael on the side of Heaven and Azazel on the side of the Fallen, have twelve."
"Oh, so she's not actually that much of a threat," Sirius sighed, relieved.
"She's still dangerous, and if you see her, you should absolutely apparate out of there, but we'll be able to deal with her and whatever allies she has," Rias assured him. "I'd suggest that you take to apparating too and fro for the next little while in general, given everything."
"If I'm subtle, I'm sure I can pull that off," Sirius replied. "I'm not ready to have the whole 'I can do magic' conversation with Haruka, but…"
"Wait, you're seeing her again?" Harry asked, and his godfather smiled.
"Yeah, I ran into her in town the other day; we got to talking, and I asked her out again," Sirius replied. "I'd like to introduce you, but this place isn't exactly normal."
"I'm happy for you, Sirius," Harry said. "Did you ever find out what her daughter's name is? Maybe she goes to Kuoh Academy."
"Yes, actually, and she does," Sirius replied. "Her name's Aika."
"Oh, I've met her," Luna smiled. "She's very nice."
"She didn't seem a bit off to…" Sirius went to ask before remembering who he was speaking to.
"Not that I noticed," Luna replied. "She did seem very interested in English men, now that you mention it. I thought her interest was because of Harry, but maybe that was her way of asking about you because of her mum."
"As for introducing her to us, the weirdest thing about this place is the minions, and we can close off the basement and send Gnarl to the Underworld for a night," Harry said.
"I am perfectly capable of hiding myself away," the ancient minion bristled.
"If we sent you to Gremory Castle, you could watch Grayfia while she works," Luna pointed out, and Gnarl perked up immediately.
"Could I come?" Sirius quipped, and most of them laughed.
Looking to the basement, Hermione reached out her hand, and her ring started to glow green as she drew dozens of green minions out of their hive. The ones in the Underworld had been brought over the previous night and put in their hives, freeing up the house that Venelana and Zeoticus had lent them. She'd actually been finishing that up when Rias came to tell her about what had happened.
"In all seriousness, it is rather sobering to know that a guy from your school got murdered in the first week," Sirius sighed.
"Even at Hogwarts that never happened," Harry commented, "at least not until Voldemort's invasion."
"Despite the best efforts of all manner of people and creatures," Hermione added. "As Koneko said, we'll find the people who did this and kill them."
"Oh! Oh!" Luna exclaimed. "If there are three of them, we could use them for that ritual!"
"That would require us to be able to take them in alive, but they would be rather powerful creatures," Rias mused, tapping her fingers. "It might work for it."
"Angel sacrifices," Sirius mused, scratching at his closely kept beard. "Do you think you three could pull that off?"
"We'll have to see," Rias replied. "For one thing, we don't even know if there are three of them here, and for another, capturing them would be harder than killing them, but if we could manage it…"
"We might finally find a way to access the world that Flamel stumbled into," Harry said.
"If it looks like we might have a viable way to do that, you'll want to summon him," Fleur murmured. "His journals gave a good bit of information about this strange world, but it would still be a good idea to find out if he left out any important details."
"Of course," Harry replied. "I…"
He trailed off as a ritual circle appeared in the middle of the living room, making everyone jump.
"Who the hell managed to get through our wards like that?" Sirius asked as Gnarl jumped behind him.
"That's the Bael sigil," Rias breathed. "Stand down, all of you."
They did, though none of them truly relaxed, and a moment later a man appeared inside the circle. He was of average height with snow-white hair that he kept rather short and a clean-shaven face that looked younger than his hair would have suggested. He was of a rather slight build, standing there in a simple grey suit, and as he looked around the room, his golden eyes took them in with obvious interest.
"Dagon," Rias said coolly. "Welcome to the Rookery."
"A fine home," Dagon smiled. "My master wishes to meet with the pair of you, Lady Rias, you and your husband."
"Did he happen to say why?" Harry asked, wondering what the older man would say.
He merely smiled and said, "My master says many things, few of them ever for all ears. Unless you are terribly indisposed, I would advise that you meet with him now. He does so loathe protracted scheduling."
"We're free," Rias replied, taking Harry's hand. "I've never been to Lord Zekram's castle before."
"You will find it is exactly as your mother has described, my lady," Dagon smiled, beckoning them into the circle.
"Just go along with it," Rias projected across their connection. "Lord Zekram is very used to getting his way, and just summoning us like this will be nicer than what he comes up with if we refuse."
Harry grunted and followed along, having anticipated something like this the moment she told him that Venelana had told the ancient devil what he was. The truth was going to come out eventually, and he'd been resigned to the fact that he was going to end up the center of attention yet again when it did. He was also rather curious to find out just what the old devil was going to think of him.
"Leviathan," he called out in his mind, focusing on the power of the Resurrection Stone within him, and he smiled slightly when he felt her presence settle in in his mind.
"Ah, so he finally decided to see you for himself," she murmured. "I'll chime in as needed, but I doubt Zekram will cause much trouble. You're a boon to him as well, after all."
The moment they were within the magic circle, all three of them disappeared, leaving the rest of the peerage, Sirius, and Gnarl behind.
"That guy definitely reminds me of my grandfather," the lord Black muttered, shaking his head.
"We don't need to worry about him," Akeno assured him. "Now that he knows what Harry is, he probably just wants to get a feel for where his loyalties lie and what drives him. I'll still go inform Lady Venelana of this, though."
"The rest of us should probably stay here in case the angels decide to pay us a visit too," Hermione murmured, calling on the dozens of green minions she'd summoned to come upstairs. Conjuring an image of the fallen angel they'd seen in Issei's memory in the air, she said, "I want you all to explore the town and look for this woman. Do not let yourself be spotted by anyone, and if you see her, do not engage but just see where she goes and return here."
"Yes, mistress," they all replied in unison before turning invisible and scurrying out of the tower.
"Ah, the fun we would have had with them back in the day," Sirius chuckled.
Rias and Harry arrived in the middle of a richly furnished room and looked around at the furniture. Everything was rather dark and looked immensely sturdy, being made of very dark, heavy wood, and even the black leather upholstery looked to be thicker and stronger than normal. Dagan disappeared the moment they arrived, and Rias led Harry over to the fireplace, pointing at the painting above it. It was of a silver-haired, stern-looking, yet undeniably handsome man whose blue eyes burned with palpable rage.
"This is Lucifer," she said. "I haven't seen a portrait of him in a while, but I'd know him anywhere."
"Does Rizevim look much like him?" Harry asked.
"He has hazel eyes, which he got from Mother, but other than that, yes," a deep voice replied, and they turned to see Lord Zekram standing there, levitating a crystal decanter filled with some sort of thick reddish liquid.
"Lord Zekram," Rias smiled. "It is a pleasure to meet you. We were honored that you came to our wedding."
"Yes," Harry added. "Neither of us expected you to take time out of your busy schedule to…"
"Enough," Zekram sighed. "I didn't bring you two here to kiss my behind. Sit."
Both Rias and Harry swallowed thickly at that and took two seats near the fireplace. Zekram sat across from them and pulled in a nearby table to set the decanter and glasses on.
"Are either of you terribly familiar with port wine?" he asked.
"I've had it a few times but not really," Rias replied.
"I can't say that I have at all," Harry said.
"I've been fond of the stuff since the Portuguese first came up with the idea," Zekram said, stroking his close-cropped, dark beard. "The contents of this decanter are nearly a hundred years old."
"Really?" Harry asked, surprised.
"A terrible insect infestation wreaked havoc on the wineries of Europe through the mid-nineteenth century," Zekram explained, and the two of them shared a mental sigh, realizing that this was going to take a while. "They eventually overcame the Phylloxera, as they're called, but it was a long and difficult process. By the eighteen-nineties, things were improving dramatically, and in eighteen ninety-six there was a particularly remarkable harvest in the Douro Valley region in Portugal. This wine came from that harvest and the dozens of barrels of it that I bought and have held onto ever since."
"It must be incredible," Rias murmured.
"It is," Zekram replied, lifting the lid and pouring three glasses of it. "Try it."
Harry and Rias both picked up their glasses and brought them to their mouths, smelling the thick wine before trying a sip.
"Oh, that's gorgeous," Rias cooed.
"Sweeter than most wines," Harry added, and Zekram closed his eyes and pursed his lips as he floated his own glass into his hand.
"Ports generally are," the ancient devil replied, drinking from his own glass. "Now, with the hospitality out of the way, let's get down to business. I wondered what was so special about you, Mister Potter, when I first heard of your engagement, but I never for a moment imagined that you would turn out to be an incubus."
"It was a surprise to me as well, my lord," Harry replied. "Even Lord Ajuka isn't certain just how it is that I came to be what I am."
"We do know who was responsible, though," Rias said.
"Yes, Rizevim," Zekram murmured, staring down at his wine. "That, I must admit, is a surprise."
"Why so?" Harry asked.
"Because Rizevim is an immature, sadistic tool," Leviathan replied in his head.
"Because for all the time that I knew him, Rizevim never seemed like the sort who would pursue things like this," Zekram replied more diplomatically. "He's an egotist and a sadist, one who believes that the only things in life worth doing for devils are things that prove that we are as evil as the Tyrant declared us to be. Quite frankly, I wouldn't have expected him to have the patience to pull something like this off."
"You figure he would have been more likely to grow bored before he could get anywhere?" Rias asked.
"He's mercurial at the best of times and was never one to give his focus to any one thing for long," Zekram replied. "To have replicated what Lady Leviathan did must have taken centuries of careful research, experimenting, and failing again and again until he succeeded, and I would have expected him to grow wrathful at the first few failures and move on to something else. He once sired a son on a daughter of Nyx, the goddess of darkness, who looked so much like him that he decided to test him and see if he was worthy of his face. They dueled; the boy failed to land a single hit on his father, and out of disgust, he tore his face clean off."
"Bloody hell," Harry grimaced as Rias winced.
"From what Lana tells me, you have reason to fight him," Zekram said. "Unless you reach a point where you can stand against Sirzechs at his full might, don't bother. You're too valuable a resource to lose, and there's no guarantee that, even if you are an experiment of his that has proven successful so far, he would hesitate to kill you anyway."
"Is he insane?" Rias asked.
"No, I wouldn't say that," Zekram replied. "He had the sense to stay out of the civil war, recognizing as I did that the children of other Great Satans did not have what it took to lead us, and that required a degree of sense, but he is wretched and unpredictable at the best of times."
"Sirzechs and Ajuka said much the same," Harry muttered, his grip on his glass tightening.
"Now, as for more pleasant matters, your identity as an incubus is going to come out soon enough, Potter, and I want to make sure that you're prepared for that," Zekram said. "Venelana is politically astute enough to have forewarned you about how the Underworld will react, but just in case she left anything out, I want to hear from you two what you think will happen."
"Well, putting aside how the angels and the fallen are likely to react, the devils will all see me as a potential tool to strengthen their bloodlines," Harry replied. "I'll be inundated with letters from lords looking to meet and introduce me to their daughters or sisters."
"Oh, it will be much worse than that," Zekram chuckled, sipping his port. "You'll be lucky to avoid finding random devil women in your bed when you return home for the day."
"Surely they wouldn't be that bold," Rias scowled. "I'm his wife and…"
"That will prevent the other pillar houses from trying to manipulate their way into having him make one of theirs his first wife, but it won't stop them from ordering their daughters to try to become his mistresses," Zekram replied. "Understand for a moment just what a boon this is for the Underworld. Not only did you demonstrate that, as a newly turned devil, you're capable of besting one of the most promising young devils of this generation on your wedding day, but you're going to reveal soon enough that you're an incubus too? That duel was needed to soothe the Phenex clan's ruffled feathers, so to speak, but beating him as you did will have additional consequences on this front."
"Because he showed that he's powerful," Rias sighed, and Harry groaned, catching on to what they meant.
"If you were barely a step above an average human, you would still be tempting to the pillar houses because of what you could do for their descendants, but they would still hesitate at the idea of introducing such abominable weakness into their bloodlines," Zekram explained. "After how you handled Riser Phenex, however, none of them are going to think you weak. There have been popes who reigned for less time than you've been a devil, and you can already stand against promising young men like that? Who's to say what the limits of your power are?"
"So in besting him as I did, I guaranteed even more interest in myself when word starts to spread," Harry groaned.
"Did you use the example of popes to be funny?" Rias asked, curious about the odd comparison.
"I'd have gone with kings, but there are monarchs who reigned for mere minutes because they only technically held the titles after their predecessors were disposed," Zekram replied. "It makes the comparison rather silly, to be honest. My point is that you have waded into even deeper waters than either of you realized, because that duel was arranged by Sirzechs, and for all his power, he lacks my political acumen."
"What do you suggest then?" Harry asked as Rias tried to hide her bristling.
"The easiest way to avoid turning every female devil in the Underworld into prized cocks pecking each other's eyes out for your attention will be to get ahead of things," Zekram replied, summoning a scroll from his study. "Take this and read it over."
"A list of unmarried female devils?" Rias asked.
"You'll want to pick at least three of them," Zekram said. "They will be women whose families you inform ahead of time about Harry's incubus nature and bring into your family as mistresses. If the rest of the devils see that you've been proactive in this and that you personally welcomed them in, it will shift their focus from trying to seduce him to trying to woo you."
"Which they'll be less direct and insane about," Harry guessed.
"To an extent," Zekram sighed. "This is going to be the biggest story to hit the Underworld since the civil war ended, and I do expect there to be a bit of insanity."
"That's not even counting how the angels are going to react," Harry muttered, and the ancient man merely smiled.
"You might be surprised there," Zekram replied. "Things have changed somewhat since the height of the Great War, and the other factions, while they won't be thrilled to learn that we devils might have found a solution to our fertility problem, won't necessarily see it as a reason to escalate our conflict."
"Katerea Leviathan?" Rias asked incredulously.
"She, alongside all the other names written in red, I added for the sake of completeness rather than practicality," Zekram sighed. "Alas, there aren't any living members of the original Satan families that you could conceivably...conceive with."
"Show me off to him!" Leviathan demanded.
"What?" Harry asked.
"We can trust him to keep his mouth shut about me; trust me there, and he just gave me the perfect segue," Leviathan replied.
"The options that I felt were best I've circled," Zekram replied. "Your cousin Seekvaira, her cousin Latia, and young Sona are the ones that I think would cause the least...Lucifer's Light!"
"Harry?!" Rias exclaimed, her eyes going wide as saucers as she saw him sitting there with Leviathan sticking out of his hand.
His other hand was extended outward, as in his shock, Zekram had thrown the rest of the contents of his glass over his shoulder, and Harry figured that he'd prefer not to see it hit the floor. As he levitated the wine back into the gawking man's glass, Leviathan chuckled.
"Hi, Zeky," she grinned. "It's been a while."
"Lady Leviathan," Zekram breathed reverently, looking between her, Harry, and Rias. Settling his gaze on his descendant, he demanded, "Explain."
"I nearly died when the evil pieces finally worked," Harry replied. "They had been held up by the horcrux I had in my head; that's a whole other story; and when they finally did as they were supposed to, it turned out that whatever Rizevim did to me didn't really work after all. As the process started to go wrong, I subconsciously drew upon the Deathly Hallows, which I had unwittingly claimed for myself, and absorbed them."
"Their energy stabilized the transformative process and also gave him their powers," Leviathan finished.
"Oh, that must be why Hades was in such a state a few months ago," Zekram muttered. "You can summon the dead ancient devils?"
"Those of us who didn't die to light magic, anyway," Leviathan replied. "There's a name that isn't on that list but should be, a descendant of mine that you don't know about."
"What?" Zekram asked.
"Her name is Ingvild, and she's the daughter of a descendant of mine and a human," Leviathan replied. "Unlike Katerea, who would never go along with this plan even if I ordered her to do so myself, Ingvild would likely be far more reasonable once we cure her of her pesky Sleeping Sickness."
"Wait, did you develop a cure for that?" Harry asked, confused.
"No," Leviathan sighed, "I never managed that, but Ingvild's case could be cured; I'm confident."
"Why?" Zekram asked, confused.
"Because she'd had it and been in her sleeping state for about as long as that lovely wine of yours has been aging," Leviathan replied.
"That's not possible," Zekram breathed. "The longest recorded case of someone surviving in the state of endless sleep was…"
"Far less than a century, I'm sure," Leviathan grinned. "She must have some sort of powerful Sacred Gear keeping her alive. If you could retrieve her and bring her to Ajuka, I'm confident that she could be saved."
"Where is she?" Rias asked.
"Deep in my old territory," Leviathan replied. "I don't know if her human relatives reached out to my family's servants when she fell into her sleep or if she grew up in the Underworld, as I wasn't exactly watching her the entire time, but from what I gathered while snooping around there, they've been tending to her for nearly a hundred years. Even Katerea doesn't seem to know she exists."
"Katerea despises humans and probably wouldn't take kindly to having a half-human around," Zekram murmured. "I could make some...discreet inquiries and offer my aid. I have so many questions, my lady…"
"Harry has to be around for us to communicate, and I doubt that any of you wish to keep this meeting going that long, at least today," Leviathan said, and he nodded. "From what I've seen, Ingvild is beautiful and would make a lovely addition to your harem, my darling incubus."
"Who else have you contacted?" Zekram asked, curious.
"We spoke to Zekhail," Rias replied softly, and his eyes widened.
"He wasn't...they didn't kill him with their wretched light?" Zekram asked, his voice going hollow.
"No, they didn't," Rias replied. "We wanted to know about your investigation of the Apocalypse Dragon's scales and knew that he was the more involved one in that."
"Ah yes, your continuing interest in these other worlds," Zekram murmured, weighing whether or not to bother asking about that when he already had so much else to process from the meeting. Deciding against it, he said, "Mister Potter, what you are is still a rather tightly held secret, and it will be some months still before I advise you to go public, but I would suggest that, once you two decide on your selection from this list, you bring them in as well."
"We'll take our time going over it," Rias replied, finishing her port. "Thank you for your help here."
"What benefits you benefits the House of Bael," Zekram smiled, standing up. "Lady Leviathan, I cannot tell you what a joy it is to see you again."
"Just remember that, even if Harry here can bring me to the surface now and then, I am still dead, and your focus must be on the living," Leviathan said softly. "It is what He would have wanted."
"Have you tried to contact Him?" Zekram asked, looking at the portrait of Lucifer hanging over the fireplace.
"I advised against it," Leviathan replied. "We both know what he would have thought of the evil pieces."
"As you say, our focus must be on the living," Zekram sighed, shaking his head. "Write to me when you've made your decisions, and I'll send word when I manage to retrieve Ingvild Leviathan."
"We will," Rias promised as Harry finished his wine, dismissed Leviathan, and stood up.
"It was a pleasure to meet you more formally," Harry smiled, offering his hand, and Zekram shook it.
"I'm afraid I couldn't stay at your wedding any longer than I did," the ancient devil said. "I was most impressed by your duel, I must say."
"I'll write as soon as Harry and I make our decision," Rias smiled, taking Harry's hand.
The three of them said their goodbyes, and they disappeared in a magic circle, leaving Zekram alone. The ancient devil took a deep breath and sighed, refilling his glass and looking up at the portrait of his creator as he pondered everything he'd just learned.
"It seems that all those two do is discover the impossible," he mused aloud, staring at Lucifer. "You wouldn't have liked them, of course, but they may very well be our salvation. Your son, on the other hand…"
More than a few of the original seventy-two devils had resented Rizevim back in the day. He was born after they had been created and yet, despite being younger than them, had arrogantly lorded his status as Lucifer and Lilith's only trueborn child over them. The immensity of his power only added to his arrogance, and while Zekram would forever lament the fact that Sirzechs wasn't named Bael, it did please him greatly to know that a descendant of his was the little punk's equal.
"Of course, even arrogant little punks can have their uses," Zekram chuckled to himself, staring out the window at the lands he'd called his for millennia. "I can sense your hand in the lunacy unfolding around us, Rizevim. This Chaos Brigade might be Ophis' creation on the surface of it, but it's yours, I know."
He chuckled at that, sipping his port, and turned back to the portrait of Lucifer. He hadn't said a word to anyone about his suspicions and wouldn't be doing so. Giving the three factions a common enemy to ally together against suited his purposes perfectly, especially given the bombshell that they'd be unleashing soon enough, and while he didn't know exactly why Rizevim wanted them together, he had a few theories and was already working on countermoves for all of them. The great game had been going on for longer than most of the denizens of the Underworld had been alive, and few played it as well as he did. Smiling to himself, he turned when the door opened and nodded at Dagon.
"You wished to see me?" his old majordomo asked, having felt his summons.
"I do," Zekram replied. "I need to make some very discreet inquiries into the old Leviathan territory. There's apparently a very interesting specimen to be found there, one who needs more help than she's currently receiving."
"I'll send our best spies into the region, Master," Dagon nodded. "What will they be searching for?"
"Servants who are aware of a young woman who has been asleep for nearly a century," Zekram replied, and his servant's eyes went wide.
"A century?" he asked. "How is that possible?"
"That is something I intend to find out," Zekram replied, "but Katerea Leviathan cannot learn about either the girl or our interest in her."
"Is she even there right now?" Dagon asked. "You know as well as I that the descendants of the original Satans move around quite a bit."
"If we're lucky, she won't be," Zekram sighed, "but I've never been one to rely on luck."
"I'll make sure that they know how high the stakes are," Dagon nodded, and Zekram dismissed him before sitting back down in his chair and summoning a book from his library.
"That was a far more intriguing conversation than I had expected," he thought to himself.
"Look, Raynare, you made the news," Mittelt chuckled, showing the other fallen angel the paper in her hands.
"Local boy found murdered," Raynare sighed. "They could have picked a more flattering picture to use, honestly."
"More flattering?" Dohnaseek asked. "Don't tell me you actually liked the little human."
"If I had, I'd have taken him as a pet for a while before putting him down," Raynare scoffed. "I just think I did him dirty enough; the newspaper didn't need to."
"Word will reach the Underworld soon enough that you completed your task," Kalawarna said, grunting as she struggled with a stuck zipper. "Fucking hell, Mittelt, could you help me with this?"
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather I do it?" Dohnaseek asked, leering at her immense cleavage.
"You'd just break the damn thing like I'm trying not to," Kalawarna muttered, smiling at the short blonde as she grabbed it. "We need to deal with Asia soon."
"She's in Japan, finally," Raynare said, shaking her head, "the silly twit took so much longer than she needed to. I have no idea why God's system gave her such a useful Sacred Gear."
"It won't be hers for much longer," Mittelt grinned as she managed to zip up Kalawarna's dress.
"I'm far better suited to…" Raynare went to say when she suddenly froze.
"What is it?" Dohnaseek asked, only for a chill to go down his spine as he sensed what he imagined was the same thing she had.
"I sense something," Raynare mouthed silently to them.
"Multiple somethings," Dohnaseek replied just as quietly.
Kalawarna subtly drew upon her power to make sure that their voices wouldn't leave the confines of the church and said, "We can speak more freely. What the hell's out there?"
"I have no idea," Raynare replied. "I sense living things, but strange. They're sentient, I'd wager, but tiny."
"Didn't the devil bitch here recently take a few magicians into her service?" Mittelt asked, recalling that little bit of intel they'd gained when they were sent to Kuoh. "Maybe it's some of those little elf things they use."
"They recently lost all of those," Kalawarna replied.
"What do you mean lost?" Mittelt asked.
"The guy who controlled them died, and they all went nuts or something," Kalawarna replied. "Lord Kokabiel heard that they were being replaced by these robot things that he thought was a devil plot, and I nearly got roped into investigating it before you asked for my help, Raynare."
"Kokabiel hopes that everything is a devil plot or else something from Heaven that might restart the war," Raynare muttered, looking out the window and expanding her senses until she could finally detect what was out there.
Sure enough, there were about half a dozen little invisible creatures scurrying about. None of them were looking at her, which meant that their defenses were working as intended, but the fact that they hadn't noticed them sooner was disturbing.
"Oh, I see them now," Dohnaseek said as he managed to sense the invisible little things. "I'm sure I'll be able to dispatch them easily enough…"
"Don't," Raynare hissed. "Let them pass. We're best off assuming that, whatever they are, they're connected to the devils, and I'd rather they return back reporting that they found nothing than have them go missing and draw more attention our way."
"They did just find the body of that boy," Mittelt said. "Maybe Lucifer's little sister was smart enough to notice that it was an angel's doing."
"I'll fight her and the other one if I need to, but I'd really rather not bring that sort of heat down on us if I don't have to," Raynare muttered. "Our target's dead, and Asia will be here by tomorrow. Let's just get this over with and slip out without the devils becoming any the wiser."
"As you say," Dohnaseek sighed.
"I'm taking enough of a risk trying this without Lord Azazel's approval as it is," Raynare thought to herself. "Picking the sort of fight that could restart the war on top of that probably wouldn't be good for my health. I'll happily put the little bitch down if she interferes with my plans, but unless it comes to that, there's no harm in being careful."
"She asked me, and I...what the hell?" Harry asked as he and Rias reappeared inside the Rookery to find the living room looking like a disaster. Half of the furniture was thrown up against a wall, Fleur and Luna were both nursing obvious head wounds, Gnarl was limping around, Sirius had dried blood under his nose, which looked like he'd recently healed it, Hermione's hair looked frizzier than it used to, and Kiba and Koneko were both desperately holding the glass orb down on the floor.
"There!" the brunette exclaimed, finishing up the series of enchantments she'd been working on for the past few minutes.
"That thing...is more dangerous than it looks," Sirius muttered, cleaning off the blood on his face and turning to Gnarl.
"Just a sprain, I think," the ancient minion muttered, sitting down and holding out his wounded leg.
"The orb started throwing us all around the room," Luna explained as she finished healing the bruise on her head.
"Luna and I accidentally slammed our heads together as he tried to get control of ourselves," Fleur added.
"It's not strong enough to hold Ddraig," Hermione muttered, picking up the orb. "I strengthened the enchantments on it, but I don't think it's going to last more than a few days even then."
"I thought you said it would last months," Koneko scowled.
"I was wrong," Hermione admitted.
"Sorry about that," Ddraig chuckled, sounding slightly contrite. "I did warn you all, though."
"That's what we get for playing around with things we don't understand," Harry muttered.
"Luckily for you, I do," a new voice said, and they all turned to see Ajuka standing there with Akeno.
"Your brother and Lord Ajuka were visiting when I showed up at Gremory Castle to tell your mother about Lord Zekram's summons," the raven-haired beauty explained, furrowing her brow in concern and confusion as she looked around. "What did I miss?"
"I imagine I can guess," Ajuka chuckled, staring down at the orb in Hermione's hand. "I don't know if I should be impressed by your nerve or annoyed that you actually tried to contain a Longinus like this."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" Hermione winced as the green-haired man just shook his head, looking amused.
A/N: I know this one is going to be divisive, so I thought I'd add a note here. From the moment Rias used up all her pawns on Harry, Fleur, Hermione, and Luna, the most likely consequence of that was Issei dying, since Raynare was still going to target him. Sona had already formed most of her peerage by that point and so shouldn't have had the pieces available to save him, and I felt having Rias go further afield to find a devil capable of it, especially before she realized just what he possessed, would have been a bit forced. I chose to display his death rather than just skip over it and have it be a thing that the main characters learned about from the news, both to pay tribute to the MC of the original story and because at the end of the day, this is still the murder of a teenage boy, and I wanted to lean into the tragedy of that. I also wanted to give Harry, Rias, and the others significant reason to go after Raynare and the others, as that confrontation is going to be incredibly important to the story going forward.