Rias Gremory had been many different things in her life.
The heiress of the Gremory Clan. The Princess of Destruction. One of the Rookie Four. She’d even been (against her will) a fiance, which she had come here to change… Or at least to accept her fate kicking, screaming, and fighting.
Which brought her to what she was now: something new she had never been before.
Bait.
Xenovia walked in front of Rias. Her Knight had her sword drawn and was visibly wary, scanning their surroundings as they walked. She wasn’t armored, instead dressing in a skintight blue and black leotard that clung to her body, prioritizing speed the way that a Knight should.
Rias held back a wince. Xenovia was filling the role that a Rook should have been in. Unfortunately, Rias only had one, and Elmenhilde had been needed elsewhere. Not for the first time Rias found herself frustrated by not having a full peerage, even if she was just one piece off.
Sairaorg and Ruval had no such limitation.
She clenched her fists as they walked through the empty streets of Lilith, tall buildings rising on all sides. She had to trust Ravel’s plan. Crying that this was unfair would only be acting pathetic. It wouldn’t help her.
Kiba moved on Rias’s left with a similar level of hyperawareness to Xenovia. He actually looked more nervous. Akeno was on the right of Rias, smiling the way that she always did. Rias knew her friend well enough to see that underneath that, she was as nervous as the rest of them.
Asia was directly behind Rias. The adorable girl looked as determined as could be, even though she was walking toward the enemy without a single offensive ability at her disposal.
Rias would’ve preferred to set up a base somewhere. There, she could hide Ravel and Asia and protect them, allowing them to control the battlefield. If the match they found themselves in was slightly more fair, they would have used that plan.
As soon as she knew who they were facing, Ravel had tossed those ideas out.
If they sent members out in small groups, they would be torn apart. Their best bet was to group all the enemies in the same place and stall them.
Stall them for what?
For one of THEIR heavy hitters.
“Ravel.” Rias’s voice pinged off of the buildings surrounding them, and echoed in the cavernous recreation of the Underworld’s largest city. “I know that we don’t have many other options… But still, can they really turn the tide?”
Ravel had singled out three key pieces on their side, along with one more wildcard.
Issei was the wildcard. He was untrained and basically a newborn in the devil world. Yet, he was still the Red Dragon Emperor, with power that could one day shake the entire world. That kind of power could always create an upset, within reason. Ravel wasn’t going to send him against Ruval or anything. She took his abilities into account and trusted him to remove one of Sairaorg’s strongest servants; a plausible upset.
The main three pieces were all from Naruto’s peerage. Kuroka, Griselda, and Kurama.
“If you’re asking whether those three can defeat everyone facing us, the answer is most likely no,” Ravel said. “The chances are small. Miniscule. Which is why it’s up to the rest of us to prepare the battlefield, so that we can maximize their chances.”
“Griselda is strong!” Xenovia said. “She’s never lost to a devil!”
“Her opponents aren’t ordinary devils,” Kiba said. He sounded slightly irritated about the praise even though it was given to an ally. “They’re elite even among the 72 Pillars. Far more capable than the church’s usual targets.”
“All the more reason to do our job right!” Ravel had heard Kiba’s tone, and saw Xenovia look back with irritation in her eyes, which explained why she jumped in so quickly. “We won’t roll over! The more damage that we can deal, the better this will work!”
“Ravel’s words are true,” Rias said. “We’ll just have to give it our all.”
Officially, the rating game would end once both the kings on one team were either forced to retire or surrendered. That made her and Naruto the most important targets in the game.
She and her peerage were walking straight into Sairaorg’s territory, where he and his peerage members had established their base. It was an offer too good for Sairaorg to pass up. He’d always loved straightforward fights, so he should be overjoyed to take up what they were offering. Then, it was their job to soften him and his servants up, eliminating as many as possible.
Rias clenched her arm. Slowly, she began to smile
Sairaorg was the strongest young devil that she knew and honestly, Rias didn’t like her chances against him.
Still, it felt GOOD to finally have a target. After years of fighting this ridiculous engagement, she finally had a target that if she hit hard it enough, all her problems would go away!
“I won’t hold it against any of you if you lose here,” Rias said. “But if you don’t fight with everything that you have, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Yes, Buchou!” said the members of her peerage, including the new addition of Xenovia.
Only Ravel didn’t say it, which was because she was looking up.
“Aerial attack!” Ravel barked.
A joint attack rained down on top of them, made up of one half ice and the other half balls of fire.
Ravel was the one who intercepted these attacks. She created a magic circle that shot back fire of her own creation, melting the ice and washing away the weaker flames traveling at them.
The attacks had come at them from the roof of a nearby building. While Ravel’s flames covered the air above them, Rias felt a tingling on the back of her neck.
“Look out—” she said.
Xenovia had already felt the same thing. She sprinted in front of Rias and intercepted a blow delivered with a lance.
The enemy was on a white horse and dressed in armor. Both his steed and his armor had suffered no damage after charging directly through a cloud of flames. Although Xenovia deflected the first blow and knocked his lance up the the air, he swung it down like a hammer and she was forced down onto one knee.
Before he could press his advantage, a blast of black magic swept toward his body. Rias’s Destruction ability would have retired him. However, someone else activated teleportation magic, removing him from the skirmish.
Rias was forced to her knees as the gravity affecting her became much stronger. She put her hands on the ground and growled as she fought to raise her head.
A blond man ran at her wearing a full suit of armor, holding a sword. He came from one of the nearby buildings and charged Rias. His eyes were locked on her and glowing purple, hinting that he was behind the gravity affecting her, while his speed was highly impressive, revealing him to be a Knight.
He was not faster than lightning. A flash traveled over Rias’s head. There was no teleportation spell for this enemy. He blocked with his sword but still screamed with pain and was thrown back. He landed kneeling, getting to his feet quickly, far from being forced to retire.
A heavy crash got Rias’s attention. A man of stunningly tall stature with the rocky skin of the Balam Clan had jumped from a roof and landed on the street, which cracked under his weight. A similar sound made her look the other direction, where a tall lion had appeared in the street. The Bishops who launched the first attack appeared on the rooftops, looking down at Rias’s group, and between them stood Sairaorg himself. Only his Queen hadn’t made an appearance.
“Rias! I’ve always wanted to fight you!” Sairaorg said. “One member of the Rookie Four to another, don’t you want to know who’s stronger?”
“I would’ve welcomed a challenge, if that was all it was,” Rias said. “As it is, right now, with you standing in front of me… I want to hurt you, cousin.”
“Then hurt me!” Sairaorg laughed. “I’ll hurt you back! We can hurt each other, and when it’s all over, we can reminisce about what a good time we had!”
He crashed his fists together. Rias felt like she could see a white outline around his body. A black outline appeared around HER body, made of flickering dark specks of destruction as she prepared to call on more.
“Excuse me.”
Someone else landed in the street, doing so much more lightly than Sairaorg’s peerage had. In fact, she landed so deftly that she didn’t make a single sound. She was dressed in the black and white garb of a nun, with a tremendous black blade held using one hand, its dark surface speckled with red lines. Rias thought they looked like bloodveins.
“Not yet!” Ravel said. “You were supposed to let us weaken them first! That was the plan!”
Griselda looked apologetic. “I listened to your plans most carefully. You have a very bright mind, especially for one so young. But you are too ready to make sacrifices. You don’t understand what that means yet when you’re dealing with people and not pieces on a chess board. You underestimate the toll of losing a comrade, even in an artificial battle like this one. Fortunately, sacrifices are not needed here.”
Griselda looked at Sairaorg, perched on the roof.
“I observed the opening clash,” she said. “Your efforts won’t be required. I can handle this.”
The knight on his horse who’d been teleported away was standing in the street directly below where Sairaorg was. He snapped the visor of his helmet up to glare at Griselda, revealing a face that was extremely similar to that of Naruto’s Knight Bafeel.
“Are you looking down on us!?” he demanded.
Griselda looked blankly at him. “You shouldn’t remove protection in the face of a dangerous enemy.”
“You’re Griselda Quarta!” Sairaorg said. Rias thought he sounded a little giddy. “I’m glad to meet you! It’s not often we can test ourselves against one of the church’s best!”
Griselda stared at him in silence. Slowly, she bent her knees, using the hand that wasn’t holding Arondight to pull on the side of her dress, offering a curtsy.
“You will have to forgive me,” Griselda said. “I didn’t think of introducing myself. Those I hunted had no need of my name, since they would never have a chance to use it, but I am told that death is not permanent here, so I was rude. You are correct. I am Griselda Quarta. Although my master bears you no ill will, he needs you to be removed. Fortunately, removing devils is something I am very good at.”
She stood up straight, letting go of her dress.
“With that out of the way, die.”
She went for the blond knight with the gravity powers first.
He must have been half human, Rias realized, because his power came from a sacred gear. His eyes started to glow in order to increase Griselda’s gravity.
By that time, she had disappeared from his sight, reappearing with her sword through her stomach.
“What?” The knight touched the flat of the blade, failing to comprehend what happened. The shock wore off just enough for him to scream before he was forcibly retired.
“Liban!” screamed the Knight on horseback.
He charged Griselda. As he came toward her, copies of him appeared on either side. More copies appeared above him. Rias heard hoofbeats for each of the copies, so all of them were solid clones, presumably including those in the air.
Something was strange about Griselda. Since she stabbed Sairaorg’s Knight, she had become surrounded by dark energy. It was primarily focused on her sword. The red lines on Arondight glowed brighter. It looked like they were FLOWING. The path culminated at Griselda’s hand.
She looked at the Knight on horseback and did something that should have been impossible.
“Gravity Jail,” Griselda said.
All of the copies were brought crashing to the ground, along with the original.
“That sword…” Kiba breathed. He looked like he might be in love. Not with Griselda. With Arondight.
Griselda clenched both her hands around Arondight’s handle. Sucking in a deep breath, she turned her sword flat to the ground and SWUNG.
Rias’s hair was scattered. She was lucky to have been standing to the side, though. A blade of wind shot down the street in the direction that Griselda had been aiming.
This was somehow more unbelievable than watching her steal a sacred gear from someone she stabbed. There was no magic involved. She just swung her sword so hard that the edge created a blade of wind.
The clones of Sairaorg’s armored knight were cut apart and vanished like smoke. The real one would have been retired, if not for Sairaorg’s Rook jumping into the path.
Gandoma Balam huddled his huge rock body in front of his ally, bracing his legs. When the blade of wind hit his arms, it sent chips of rock flying off.
Sairaorg and his Pawn, the Nemean Lion, jumped into the battle. The lion was huge with a jewel embedded in its head.
The lion swiped at Griselda. She parried its claws and kicked its face. As the lion skidded backward, Sairoarg slid underneath it, moving between the lion’s legs.
He sprang up and threw a punch at Griselda. Rias had been right before; he WAS glowing white. Similar to when Griselda had swung her sword, Sairaorg’s mere punches were so powerful that they were causing explosions of air. While the wind knocked out windows and forced Rias and her peerage to retreat to a safer distance, Griselda was unbothered.
A sharp movement saw her swing her sword at Sairaorg’s neck. It would have cut his head off, except he leaned back barely fast enough, only taking a thin and harmless cut near his Adam's apple.
Sairaorg jumped back after such a close call. His Bishops covered for him by casting magic at Griselda, conjuring high level ice and fire attacks. All Griselda did was swing the flat of her blade at these attacks, which was enough to scatter them.
She gave Sairaorg a curious look, the first moment she had shown anything but professionalism since their fight started.
“Arondight is voracious,” Griselda said. “It swallows up any power held by those it cuts. Yet from you, I feel nothing. You do not have a sacred gear, like the half human from your peerage, nor do you have a powerful devil ability. I do not even sense much magical power from you.”
Sairaorg flexed, slamming his palm down on his bicep.
“Fancy things like that are a distraction!” he said. “All I need is my training and my body, the two things that have never let me down!”
“I can empathize with that,” Griselda said. “In a strange way, you’ve walked the path that exorcists do, pitting our bodies against beings we should not be able to contend with. I would offer to make what follows painless out of respect… But you would see that as an insult. Instead, I will hold nothing back.”
A ring of purple fire formed around Griselda’s feet, just tall enough to pass her ankles. Rias thought that it was some new power the exorcist had been hiding, until she heard Sairaorg’s Bishop laugh excitedly.
It was the one who had been attacking with fire magic. She wore a hood and had mint colored short hair underneath it. As Rias watched, dark lines started to spread on Griselda’s visible skin.
“I’ve sealed her ability to use that sword!” the Bishop yelled. “She won’t be able to do anything—”
Griselda swung Arondight once and parted the flames in front of her. The purple fire was dispelled and the black lines were forced off of her skin. Sairaorg’s Bishop gaped.
“Did you just cut my sacred gear’s ability? That isn’t something you can cut! It’s magic! That doesn’t even make sense!”
Griselda didn’t give them time to grapple with her actions. She attacked Sairaorg again. When the lion tried to get in her way, she landed a kick that embedded its head within the ground. The gravity attack she had used was no longer in effect. Sairaorg’s knight attacked her with his Rook, the two of them making an attempt to surround her.
Griselda performed a back kick that hit the knight so hard that his breast plate shattered. He landed in a heap, heavily injured. It was strange that he hadn’t been retired immediately after that hit. He looked crippled to Rias.
As she kicked him, Griselda swung her sword in the same move. It was aimed at Sairaorg, until Gandoma Balam got in the way.
His arm was cut a few inches deep. No deeper, though, which was a testament to his defenses after what Rias had watched Griselda do.
“Focus on attacking her, sir, I’ll defend you—”
Griselda kicked Gandoma’s knee and knocked his leg out from under him. She grabbed the back of his head. When Rias saw the look in her eyes… It terrified her.
“Against armored opponents, blunt force is most effective,” Griselda said.
Holding Arondight straight up with the handle clutched in her fist like a roll of coins. She punched Gandoma in the face.
The noise was brutal. It sounded like a gunshot. As soon as Griselda pulled her arm back, she punched again. Then again and again… She kept getting faster. Her fist turned into a blur. Chips of Gandoma’s rocklike skin flew off and landed in their vicinity. He disappeared in the middle of the barrage as Sairaorg forcibly retired him.
Sairaorg charged Griselda alone. His lion pawn was still trapped with its head buried in the street. His second knight had finally retired. It was just Sairaorg and his Bishops left, since his Queen seemed to be busy elsewhere in the field.
As Sairaorg clashed with Griselda, the environment was torn up around them. Rubble from buildings fell around them, while heavy clumps of street were upended. In the middle of trading blows with Sairaorg, Griselda struck one of these heavy cement chunks with the flat of Arondight.
It was a perfect shot, striking Sairaorg’s hooded Bishop in the head. Despite how fired up she had been to defeat them, Rias round herself wincing as she watched the girl’s fate. Akeno made a similar noise.
“Sir!”
Griselda finally created an opening against Sairaorg. His eyes widened as he realized that he was done for. His Bishop had seen the same thing, though, and displayed impressive teleportation magic, appearing in front of him and creating a shield of ice.
The ice was no match for the swing. The beautiful blonde bishop watched blood spray away from her chest. She was sure to retire now.
Her last words weren’t what Rias expected.
“I… Collected them…” She gasped. “You’ll be stronger… Using them… Alone…”
She passed something to Sairaorg a moment before she disappeared. Rias could barely see what it was. When she understood, her eyes widened.
“Surely they didn’t—!”
There were six vials in Sairaorg’s palm. One for each of the pieces that had been defeated. All of them were filled with a clear liquid that Rias hoped wasn’t what she thought it was.
Griselda didn’t wait for Sairaorg. She swung Arondight and he couldn’t dodge fast enough. Rias felt a little bit sick as she watched Sairaorg’s arm get taken clean off.
That strange glow was still surrounding him, though. Despite the blood, his arm remained roughly in position. The one that had been cut wasn’t the one holding the vials his Bishop gave him.
Sairaorg uncorked one and poured some of the contents on himself.
One drop was enough for his wound to completely heal, his limb returning to a state that was as good as new.
Sairaorg started to laugh, sounding somewhat insane.
“What a fight!” he said. “What an opponent! I can feel it, Griselda! You’re pushing me toward a place I’ve never been! I want to go!”
He threw himself at Griselda. She accepted his challenge. This time, the blow she landed was a nasty horizontal slice across Sairaorg’s stomach.
The white energy he was surrounded by kept him mostly whole once again. With another drop from the vials he’d been handed, his wounds healed. Griselda frowned.
Phenex Tears. A priceless treasure, which Sairaorg was fighting with a hoard of. Rias couldn’t imagine the value of what he was holding. She was baffled, thinking about how far their parents had gone to stack this game. Were the opponents they chose not enough? This reeked of someone other than her father who was certain they’d be crushed quickly. It must have been Lady Phenex’s meticulous work.
However, all the tears could do was keep Sairaorg in the fight. He was clinging to life, taking mortal wound after mortal wound with a grin on his face. Periodically, he would speak.
“A little more…! Just a bit more…!”
It happened without warning.
Griselda had tried to target the tears he was holding, understanding that was what was keeping him in the fight. It wasn’t easy, though, as Sairaorg would protect them with his body, taking grievous wounds and healing them instead of losing his precious supply.
Rias lost count of how many times he should have died. It boggled the mind that he was still fighting.
Not just that, though. Sairaorg looked like he was having the time of his life, right up until something in his grin CLICKED.
“I FOUND IT!” he roared.
Literally, roared. Rias had to cover her ears. She watched with wide eyes as suddenly, the lion that had been buried in the street disappeared.
As it vanished, Sairaorgy’s outfit changed. After a cocoon of glowing white light faded away, he was completely clad in beautiful golden armor, complete with a fiery flowing mane. He tossed away the vials that he had been holding and Rias noticed that they were all empty. Whatever this was, Sairaorg had found what he was looking for in the nick of time.
“Words can’t express my gratitude,” Sairaorg told Griselda. “I don’t know how many years of training you’ve saved me. To celebrate, I’ll share everything that I can, just as you’ve done for me!”
Rias didn’t see him move. He was twice as fast as before— No, more than that!
Griselda barely blocked his fist with the flat of Arondight.
When she did, she was blasted into a building too fast to track. She flew THROUGH it, bringing the entire building down. Rias felt cold.
“It’s over,” she whispered.
But it wasn’t. Griselda reappeared as quickly as she had been sent away, swinging Arondight down from overhead. Sairaorg blocked with his arm and his gauntlet stopped the sword dead without showing any damage. He was grinning. Griselda’s face was a picture of concentration.
It wasn’t over. In fact…
It was just beginning.