~ I have added this Fanfic to my Patreon. If you'd like to read advanced chapters, feel free to check it out!
~ I'm planning to increase the number of advanced chapters to +18 this weekend!
~ I've edited some of the previous chapters to remove anything you might consider "cringe" or "unnecessary." I'll continue reviewing them from time to time!
~ Very soon, we'll return to releasing two chapters daily, including bonus privileges for Power Stone contributions!
<><><><>
"Was that supposed to be a lesson?" the devil asked him after he managed to regain some of his wits.
No, but if he took it to be one, then that was fine as well.
"If it was," Issei smiled hesitantly at him, "I think it worked."
Good. He hated to think the show of power had gone to waste.
"There might be a small problem though," the boy sounded remorseful.
His lips drew into a tight line. A small problem?
"When I managed to land a punch on you," Issei lifted the armored gauntlet, "I might have expended a little bit more power than I meant to."
And?
The devil scratched at the back of his head.
"Ddraig told me my Sacred Gear might have temporarily lost the ability to Boost."
That certainly was bad. But temporarily did not mean permanently. If the boy waited for a few days, and the latest a week, everything would be back to normal again. He was sure of it.
He was about to make mention of that fact when Issei abruptly turned to face him. The devil looked extraordinarily sheepish, as though realizing he had done something drastic that he probably shouldn't have done.
"About that…" Issei swallowed, "The Rating Game Buchou has scheduled is the day after tomorrow."
Oh.
In the end, it had been a marriage contract that made Rias request his presence in their training session. A marriage contract she had hoped to fight through a Rating Game. It explained why the girl had been so persistent of late in trying to recruit him, and why her attempts had been tinged with desperation. Her situation bore an uncanny resemblance to Mitsuru's, though with the heiress, she had always had a choice. She had initially made the wrong choice, believing that her happiness would always be tied with the well-being of the KirijoGroup, but the choice had still been there. Rias had no such good fortune. Mitsuru could have said no to her prospective fiancé at any time and eventually did, refusing to bow to the demands of the executives of her conglomerate. Rias did not. She did not even have the dignity of making the wrong choice.
He sympathized with her. And as he stood amongst her peerage, watching Issei lying on the ground being tended to by Asia, he wondered if perhaps his impression of her, of all of them, had been biased from the very start.
They were not bad people.
They were devils, not demons, and although he had made that distinction when they first revealed themselves to him, there had always been a niggling doubt in his mind about what their true intentions were. The doubt was still there, but it was diminishing with every passing day.
The disparity bothered him. The demons in his mind were powerful beings and utterly unmerciful. What they wanted they took. What they coveted they stole. If they were the ones pressing him for peerage, they would have found far more devious ways of doing it. But Rias had not done that. She was a high level devil, and no doubt possessed many of the powers he was familiar with. Yet her requests, while sometimes annoying, had always been honorable, always been transparent. And if he was honest with himself, some of those attempts had been genuinely amusing. She had always given him a choice in the matter, and always respected his choice, even if it meant it was to her disadvantage.
That was more than he could say about demons, who knew no such thing as respect for humans, or even angels, who understood respect, but nevertheless ignored it when it suited their goals.
Devils, not demons. More and more he understood the difference, and more and more he found himself respecting them for that difference. Nidhogg had made mention of that, sneering as it proclaimed them to be his brood. There were some truth in those words, but that was the thing about dragons. They had always been cryptic creatures, and spurned the wheel of Fate as powerful beings had every right to do.
Just like him.
"If you had told me this from the beginning," he said impassively, "things would not have ended up this way."
"I understand," Rias said primly from her position kneeling by Issei's side, "and I regret not doing so. At the time, however, I believed the marriage proposal was an issue that was only relevant to my peerage. I did not want to mingle the proposal with my efforts to recruit you. That would have been unbecoming of me. I wanted you to join my peerage on your own accord, not because it is something you feel you are forced to do."
She had no idea how much his opinion of her rose after that. But he didn't tell her that, of course.
"Still, if you had told me, I would have acted with more restraint."
"Restraint he says," Kiba seemed a bit put out, "He summons an Evil Dragon and then talks to us about restraint," the sword-user shook his head, and he noticed the boy's eyes were slightly wild, "I'm sorry, but am I the only one freaked out about this? As in 'how in the world am I still alive' freaked out?"
"I was a bit afraid," Asia admitted from Issei's other side, "when the dragon opened its mouth and headed towards Hyoudou-san."
"A bit afraid?" Kiba retorted, "It nearly ate him! It nearly ate us!"
"Oh, hush Yuuto," Akeno smiled, "It smelled you. That's hardly eating."
There was an uncertainty in her eyes though, and he could tell the older girl was still somewhat shaken.
"I do not believe Angel-san would have allowed his dragon to eat us," Asia added in. It was rather endearing, her confidence in him. It would be far more endearing if she stopped calling him by that name.
Kiba sighed when he realized no one shared the same degree of apprehension.
"We are going to have to keep this a secret, aren't we?"
"Yes," Rias nodded, "Dragons are immensely powerful beings, and their existence always brings attention, most often the wrong sort."
"Hmm," Akeno hummed, "I wonder if that's because our Buchou is genuinely afraid for Arisato-kun's safety or because other devils might take an interest in him."
She did not respond as he expected. Instead of blushing as usual after being teased, Rias looked almost forlorn.
"No. We will keep it a secret. As long as we can, at least."
The two friends shared a look.
"I'm sorry, Rias," Akeno murmured.
The girl nodded, and turned to him. She saw the question in his eyes and smiled haltingly.
<><><><>
~ If you like the story, please leave a review!
~ Push the Story forward with your [Power
Stones]
~ (Soon +18) Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon!
https://p-atreon.com/Anshufanfic
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)