Scarlet 10

   Scarlet 10

…

Comissioned by Sivantic

Wordcount 2500

…

Koneko pulled me out of the wall, after Devil I’d defeated faded away. The pain was more than I expected it to be. Had I not taken precautions, binding up my torso with bandages and wearing a padded, leather vest, I would be out of the fight. As deadly as I was with my array of weapons, I’d known that my defense was lacking, but I originally believed that my protection was a mere precaution.

Instead they were proving to be requirements, even against Pawns, and that did not bode well for my plans.

However, both my concerns and my pain can wait.

“Where are we going next?” Koneko looked upon me impassively. Rias Gremory’s Rook had a tail and cat ears, but I ignored the fact she was Youkai for the moment. I’d be afraid of working with a monster with the form of a human, who’d been turned into a Devil, and presumably further empowered, but not now. “Are we going to assist Gremory or the other two?”

I resisted taking a seat while awaiting the answer. This Rating Game was my chance to present myself as a threat. Caving in a skull with a hammer, as well as gutting a Devil, was a good start. Taking a seat and nursing my wounds was against my best interests. In regards to repuations, appearance mattered a great deal. It was second only to the willingness to do anything in order to win.

If I was doing well in showing off my willingness to break rules, then I might as well properly act the part of an indomitable juggernaut, too.

“Rias.” Koneko’s answer was soft, nearly making me believe that she was afraid of me after my actions, but when she nodded and pointed towards the gymanasium’s exit I realized that I was just imagining things. The white-haired, golden-eyed Youkai in a school uniform, with gloved hands that can easily tear apart buildings, was acting as she typically did. “Akeno and Kiba are doing fine.”

“Got it. Let’s go.”

My body groaned as I forced it forward. It was just pain, but my current body’s natural tolerance for pain has yet to increase. Mentally, I was prepared for pain, but the same couldn’t be said for the young, teenage boy’s body I inhabited, no matter the amount training I’d put it through. However, nonetheless, I grit my teeth and followed Koneko with my head held high and without a sign of pain on my face.

Wounds and pain will fade in time, but a loss here will haunt me forever.

…

Kuoh Academy was the chosen battlefield for the Rating Games. Gremory’s fiancé had been arrogant to the extreme and granted us the environmental advantage. Each of us could easily navigate it, set up ambushes, and escape, while our opponents had to contend with relatively unfamiliar territory. No two schools were alike, so even those who were formerly human couldn’t shake off the disadvantage.

Thus, while we fought, Rias Gremory could hide until the final showdown.

Still, there were other ways to overcome such a strategic deficit on the enemy’s part.

Since sending out search parties resulted in a failure, then indiscriminate firepower applied zone-by-zone was the chosen plan.

Kuoh was burning. The main school building was a smoldering skeleton that somehow still stood. The trees were ash descending from the sky, the ground sizzling brick or molten asphalt, and every remaining building was being smashed apart with firestorms channeled into geyser-like blasts. No one has the tactical advantage in a field of ash, therefore that was the simple, brute-force method that a winner of a multitude of Rating Games chose to take, especially after his pawns were massacred to the last by an opponent he viewed as inferior.

Though I managed to take the scene in stride, my companion did not.

“…” Though Koneko said nothing, the way she stopped and looked upon the blazing inferno of smoke and ash told me all that I needed to know. According the Rias, her Peerage was used to exterminating against Stray Devils. The white-haired Yokai knew how to face and kill monsters, which allowed her to take on and crush beings that used to be human with ease, but looking upon your home as it burned? Even if you logically knew that it was an illusion, you would hesitate. “…What is—

I didn’t give her time to finish, instead electing to pick her up bodily, then put my legs to work.

Our battleground’s roof was punctured by a truck-sized concentration of heat, then the next moment it erupted. The deluge of flame that ripped through the doors nearly overcame me, tongues of fire grabbing onto my extremities, but I managed to outrun the instant firestorm.

If your forces have been destroyed, saturating the area with firepower to plug the gap or annihilate the enemy is basic tactics.

Then, you send in sufficient firepower to mop up the location.

Phenex descended from the heavens with arms crossed, just as I let Koneko stand on her own power… and he effortlessly batted away the knife I threw his way.

“I will admit that I underestimated you, Human. However, there’s only one way this ends for you.” Ddraig was a poor metric for power. He was a being trapped within a Longinus. My erstwhile companion in this new life could theoretically kill god. As such, I was hopelessly, utterly incapable of discerning how powerful another individual was, unless they could compare to Ddraig. As Phenex exerted his power, presumably to intimidate me, I took stock of Koneko’s fright more than my own detection of his power. Her face was placid, but the way her fists shook told me everything I needed to know. “You’re going to pay for fucking with my girls, you bastard.”

Normally, I didn’t engage in banter, but the situation called for it.

Koneko was hesitating.

Himejima, Yuuto, and Gremory were nowhere nearby.

I was cornered, despite being the ace-in-the-hole.

“Big talk for a man hiding behind a dozen skirts.” I had to wrack my head for insults to get Phenex’s attention. I had little practice in goading people into attacking me. Gernally my opponents that on their own. Ddraig was a little help, whispering some advice in the back of my head, but his insults were more for dragons. I happened to be a human against a Devil. They translated poorly. “Wouldn’t your girls be happier if you hadn’t used them as bait?”

“If you had an ounce of honor, human, you’d have faced them in proper combat.” Phenex growled, his eyes entirely on me, and I took a moment to nudge Koneko. She blinked once, still keeping her stance, but when she refocused her gaze her hands were no longer trembling. I could only assume that she was speaking to Gremory and the others. The situation had changed, but the possibility of victory remained, especially if I did what needed to be done. Given the Devil’s words, I had every reason to believe that I could do what needed to be done. “But what can be expected of you humans besides underhanded tactics? Tell me, how does it feel to be so incapable that you must throw aside everything for the sake of the most meagre of victories?”

Phenex’s hands were ablaze. He didn’t intend to speak to me any more than he already had. Again, an experienced, veteran opponent rarely made mistakes. The only reason he was speaking to the two of us was because he was confident in victory. Now that he had the last word, there was no reason for him to continue speaking. The time for dialogue was over, only action remained, and Gremory and her Peerage was nowhere to be found.

Well, then, it looks like there was only one path for me to take now.

“Then, Lord Phenex, how about you enlighten me? I request a duel. A human with all his underhanded tricks against you… the very picture of a Devil?”

For a moment, I thought that Phenex would take the bait, as he stopped in his approach.

I was wrong.

“I refuse, human.”

He only stopped to make sure that he could take both Koneko and I out in a single blast.

Once again, I threw a knife Phenex’s way.

It flew straight and true, but he cared not for it, because he expected it to be the same sort of knife that he’d parried earlier.

That was a big mistake.

The sanctified silver punched through Devil-touched flame and embedded itself into Phenex’s hand. The young man screamed in pain, as the anathema to his species resided in him, perhaps harming him more as he was never human like his Peerage. Instead of drawing blood and inspiring different wounds, Phenex’s wound burned, blood came forth from his hand like ash, and his family’s vaunted healing ability was innefectual due to the blade’s nature.

His hand burned once he realized all of this, as he strove to pull it from his palm, even at the cost of his other hand becoming maimed.

Alas for him, but he’d walked closer and I had no intention of wasting my opening.

With a silver rosary clenched in my fist, I called upon my Longinus and my partner, and summoned it into the bright-red, jeweled gauntlet that appeared on my right arm.

And, in my left was another sanctified blade.

I buried my gauntleted fist into his gut, embedding the rosary into his innards, just as he mustered the courage to pull the bane of his species out of his hand, before shoving the knife between his shoulders and through his spine.

That should’ve been the end of it.

However, my opponent was not human.

Worse, he was a veteran.

When victory is on the line, when all that matters is the next few moments, people show their true colors. By creating a situation where it seems like death is looming overhead, I’ve forced many to surrender. However, I can count on one hand how many times that’s ever worked with individuals like Phenex Riser.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when he abandoned defense entirely, took his wounds, and held out his hand.

The oncoming blast was weak. It was nothing like the ones he used to demolish Kuoh academy. At most it would’ve scorced a wall.

Koneko could have powered through it.

Any Devil could.

However, I was a human.

The gout of flame didn’t push me back, but I was instantly set alight. My clothes provided no protection. The leather I wore beneath my shirt resisted it somewhat, but the binding I used that kept my torso in one piece when I hit the wall came alight. It was like a strong, focused breeze that penetrated my clothes and hit me bodily… then came the scorching heat, the immolation, and nigh-overwhelming pain.

The simulation perfectly captured the pain of being doused by a flamethrower to the torso.

To say that I managed to overcome it would be foolish. The direct blast to my torso sent flames into my stomach, scorching my insides, and that burning mass was destroying me from the inside. The very edges of the attack set skin and cloth aflame. My lungs could not expand, since my diaphragm was ash, and my heart was doing nothing besides uselessly pumping blood to organs. It was a miracle that my spinge manged to hold.

About 30% of my body was gone.

Darkness was overcoming my vision.

It was only because I reacted to the familiar sight of fear turning into conviction did I manage to do anything at all, such as pluck withdraw my shard of sanctified silver and shove it through Phenex’s throat.

As expected of a mere Pawn and Rook cornering a King… the Pawn dies no matter what happens.

However, at the very least, it was checkmate.

…

The victory went to Rias Gremory, though she only hid during the whole of the Rating Game, and her plan to overwhelm Phenex Riser after I crippled him never came to be. It had been a good plan, one that I would’ve survived in, especially given how Phenex had underestimated me and fell for my ruse. However, plans typically never survived in combat. Changes to circumstances, and the fact the enemy has a will of their own, nearly always meant that situations devolve and evolve in equal measure.

Unless you had Thinkers like Dinah or Lisa, all anyone can do is be flexible, prepare, and fight to the end.

You still lost, though.

“Yeah.” In the end, Ddraig was correct. Even if I had defeated Phenex Riser, I’d only managed to do so by sacrificing myself. After I’d managed to goad one of the Pawns to attack me, I’d thought he’d be the same as his companions. Believing that he’d break after being stabbed by holy weapons, and having his insides intertwined with poison lethal to his kind, I’d lowered my guard. If I had backed off and pelted him with sanctified weaponry at range, instead of going for the fastest way to kill a human being, my victory would have been more decisive. “I need more power.”

The Devils were all up after the fight. Rias and the Occult club were celebrating her freedom from her engagement. Phenex and his Peerage withdrew after grudgingly conceding and honoring their obligations.

Yet, I was in an infirmary focusing, so that my phantom pain would disappear more quickly.

I couldn’t keep up with Devil children, even though they were talented amongst their generation, what did that say about my chances against actual fighters of the Devils and other supernatural factions? I’d entered battle armed with their weakenesses, hiding and conserving my Sacred Gear, and all I managed was a pyrrhic victory.

For an average human being, dying in order to kill an Heir of a Pillar family was beyond any being’s expecatations, but not one with a Longinu, the support of another Devil for training, a Peerage at his back, and the element of surprise.

Sacrificing myself for victory wasn’t enough.

After my last life, with no guarantee that I’d ever have another life, I wanted to win decively.

I didn’t want to become a Devil, part of a Peerage, and become a Pawn under another’s control

But… some might say what I would choose otherwise was worse than that.

“I’m going to start packing the moment we get home, then we’ll go.” Humans are at a severe disadvantage in this world. Society and civilization existed only because of a cold war between the Grigori, Hell, and Heaven. Sacred Gears, meant to be humanity’s weapons, have fallen into the hands of both the Grigori and Hell through various means. And, beyond them, Gods and more monstrous creatures existed and lurked in the shadows. “You were right. School was a waste of time. We should’ve left years ago.”

If I wanted a life free of fear, then I needed power, enough power to cultivate a reputation that would protect me and those I cared about.

It won’t be a waste, if we use the Devils and bring along the girl. They have plenty to offer. Take it.

To that end, I needed to do as Ddraig adviced me to do years ago:

Seek out Tiamat, after gathering the treasures he stole and broke, and master my Longinus under her tutelage.

Being a human wasn’t enough, so I had to become a Dragon.