I appear in my living room with a flash of light, and with a sigh, collapse onto my couch.
I'm not going to lie, or mince words here.
At this point, I'm feeling pretty 'eh' about everything regarding that little trip.
I mean, it's not like what I got was bad or anything like that, in fact, I learned a bunch of new stuff I never even knew about before!
But, well, I guess I was hoping for something more actionable.
Charlamagne is still out there, and while I can guess her goal, I still have no idea what her next move is.
Who knows what the Church is even planning?
Or, hell, considering the links, maybe they're even connected?
Heh. A Church-sponsored group with ties to the Hero Faction and Khaos Brigade as a whole?
Talk about something completely and utterly new.
I huff and fall to my side on the couch, staring off into the ceiling.
There's no point in diving too deep into it all now, the what ifs, the who knows, that spiral will just send me far off in the back reaches of my head, with nothing to show for it.
Beyond worry and anxiety, of course. Which sucks, because on the surface, everything should be about done, right?
Besides the Machine Gods, I can't think of any other threat out there.
Most of the Khaos Brigade? Gone. Rizevim is dead as hell.
Oh, oh, Rizevim, you depressed mad-devil you. It actually took two swings to fully put him down. Even asleep and clinically depressed, his natural raw power shielded him enough that he took the first blow.
Took it, but it was still pretty damn nasty. His flailing around after was pretty pathetic; he couldn't muster up any defense for a second, though he let out enough aura in that small timespan to level the palace.
And the surrounding area.
I honestly couldn't give a size estimate for the blast, but it was big, at minimum it could've leveled a mountain, and I'm pretty sure that one attack he did manage was stronger than everything Serafall threw at me at once.
Considering it actually damaged me, I'd say that's a good bet.
Nothing I couldn't power and heal through, though.
Regardless, Rizevim is no more.
I've even got pictures to give to Vali, for when I next see him.
It's a shame he doesn't have a phone number to my knowledge, or else I would've sent them already.
Anyhow, the vampires, Nilrem, and pretty much everyone else in the Hero Faction, such as the Old Satans, are all taken care of. With all those small groups gone, a bunch of the side events from the novels just won't happen.
Lastly, for a big threat besides the Machine Gods of ExE, it's Hades.
Well, a potential threat. My memory is spotty on this, I have only second hand infromation as I didn't read the whole novel in which he and his group do stuff.
So, I'm left in a bit of a pickle, as I remember all that second-hand information perfectly, but I'm not sure how valid it is anymore.
Especially after everything that's already happened.
Right. So, Hades, Alliance of Hell, all that stuff.
In essence, Hades hates everyone else from other mythologies. Although his beef is particularly with Sacred Gears, and specifically, the Longinus as a whole.
Basically, he and the other gods whom he gathers for his 'alliance,' fear the Longinus and their user's ability to evolve, ending with the destruction of the world once their power becomes too great.
If this is correct, then I'm in a bit of a headscratching moment right now.
Because, really, the Longinus aren't exactly doing much with me here now, are they?
Issei was the biggest one, naturally. But he's gone. As for the rest? The Hero Faction that had a bunch of Longinus users in it, I took out; they won't be seeing use in this era at all now.
Which really only leaves Dulio, Tobio, and that one guy from Cross Time Kiss whose name I don't even know how to spell, the guy artificially using two Longinus.
Somehow.
Hopefully, I never run into that guy.
As for the others, Vali, Valerie, and that one witch from the Emerald City-
No, wait, Walburga, that's her name, she doesn't have Incinerate Anthem anymore, Lint does.
Huh, almost let that slip my mind.
Right then, the only real active Longinus users around were Dulio, Tobio, and that guy from XxX.
The question is, are they enough to get to Hades' skeletor boxers in a twist and make him decide killing them, then going off and killing all the Chief Gods, is a good idea?
That's the problem, I don't know.
My gut is telling me it really shouldn't. That Issei was more or less the catalyst that pushed that line of thinking toward the forefront of Hades mind, but I can't be certain on that, even if it does make sense to me.
I take a breath.
Look at me go, spiraling again.
With an annoyed huff, I tug my phone out from under my robe.
Really, there's nothing to get so worked up about, is there? The only threats from the potential Alliance's side are Hades himself and Erebus.
Erebus because he could seal me up, Hades because he's amongst some of the strongest beings in the world.
Somehow, on that last one.
I have no idea how Hades got into the Top Ten. Seriously. If he's that strong, doesn't that logically mean Zeus and Poseidon are also that strong?
Fuck. Now I kind of want to run up to Olympus just to see-
Ask. Yeah, I mean, I was just going to ask.
I wasn't going to challenge Zeus to an arm wrestling competition and see what happens. Definitely not that.
Hah. It's still somewhat surreal that I can say that, and legitimately mean it.
Now, let's see here.
Huh, Rias hasn't said anything after she told me where her brother's office was yet.
I asked, of course, easier and funnier that way.
Can't imagine that'll last for much longer.
Hope she doesn't feel bad, I pulled that right after her big win. I'm petty, but not that much of a dick.
To her. I'm only like that to Sona.
Speaking of, I had to put her on mute a while back.
Looks like Serafall ran off to check up and complain to her sister about me, because now the washboard is sending vaguely threatening messages about what she'll do to me if I ever set foot on the school ground again.
I snort to myself and set Sona's nickname to 'Washboard' before leaving everything else on read.
It did not take long before I saw those three wavy dots pop up again.
The smirk that stretched across my face was so malicious that it'd be easy to see me as a Shinto Evil God.
That's certainly how I feel, anyhow~!
Worth.
My silent scroll through the rest of my messages wasn't anywhere near as vindictive or fun, though.
With nothing else to do on that front, I slide my phone away.
I do actually need to head back to the Academy, not the High School, the Junior Division, to update and warn the club on what could potentially be coming.
I have a hunch that, if I watch closely enough, Charlamagne and her Hero Faction will get tangled up with the club, just like Cao Cao and his side got tangled up with Rias and her club.
When they do, hopefully, I can reverse jump them and take them down then.
Until then, though, I have to do my least favorite activity.
Waiting.
Fuck.
This may sound whiny, but.
I don't wanna!
I've been on a roll for a little while now, and it's starting to get to me. After everything I did for Rias and her Peerage, after roflestomping Rizevim, throwing Euclid on Sirzechs' desk, stopping for an interdeterminative amount of time now just feels…
Really, really weird.
I'm trying to think of something I could do, but really, I'm drawing a blank here.
Maybe I could wander on over to our, technically, allies in the north, see how the Norse are doing?
While I'm at it, might as well tell Odin the details about the Church. Now that I'm thinking about it, I should probably tell my mom about all of that, too.
Not sure it'll really matter to them, but who knows?
With a groan, I slowly stand up and stretch, raising my arms high as I do so.
Really, this listless feeling I get between events, it almost makes me wish I didn't know everything I knew.
Almost.
Ultimately, the knowledge is simply too valuable not to have; it's worth it in the end.
At the bare minimum, it's far better than getting surprised by a few Longinus users, one of whom has a weapon that can specifically, more than any other, hurt and kill divine.
So, man up, it's time to go tell a bunch of girls how there might be someone after one of them for the pervert in their chest.
I barely got one step with that thought before I almost keeled over, a laugh tearing through the back of my throat.
Which was, in and of itself, halted as a red magical circle abruptly burned itself into being in front of me.
I barely had time to recognize the Gremory crest in the center before a flash erupted, and out full on marched a certain figure.
"Did you just hijack Shirone's-" I couldn't even finish before the front of my robe was seized by its collar.
"You," Rias states, intensely, a look between anger and sheer and utter bafflement locked into place across her face.
Ah. I see what's going on here.
"Me?" I reply, innocently.
"Don't." She tried to hiss and shake me by my robe, but it came out more like a tired sigh, and good luck moving me when I don't want to be moved. "Did you, or did you not, just drop my sister-in-law's dead brother, who everyone thought was dead, on my big brother's desk?"
Huh, doing away with formal titles at the moment? She must be absolutely shell-shocked.
I nodded, like one would upon confirming the time, "After I killed Rizevim, yeah." I added, purely for completeness.
Rias didn't seem to appreciate that, however.
She stiffened, her eyes wandering all over my face.
"I know I'm at least above average," I continue, "but isn't this a bit much?"
She stops searching quickly after that, her gaze narrowing directly on my eyes, "That's what you did after my Rating Game. Seriously?" She goes on, completely ignoring my latter comment with total disbelief.
I start reaching for my phone, and begin talking again, " I mean, I have proof if you-"
Yet I am cut off, as Rias merely sighs loudly, "No, no…I actually believe you."
That caught me by surprise a bit, admittedly. My eyes widened a fraction.
Rias lets go of my robe, but not before playfully patting me on the side of my chest a couple of times, "Of course you'd go off and do that. At this point, you just do whatever. Though, couldn't you have waited until after the party for us winning the Rating Game, Noriaki?" She asks, her arms quickly crossing under her chest with a tired little pout.
Ah, I could continue this song and dance so easily, yet…
"You don't seem to really sound all that excited for said party, now do you?" I point out.
It's mostly by how exhausted she sounds. Not discouraged, legitimately tired.
Not only that, but she didn't seem all there in the text messages either.
Initially, I wrote it off as her simply recovering from her big fight with Sai and Regulus, but now?
She sounds borderline depressed.
Which I only see more so, as her pout cracks a little bit, dissolving into a small frown.
With a sigh, she plops down on the couch, right where I was, in fact.
"I really should preface this, it's not that I'm unhappy we won," she starts, her face tightening, "every single one of us worked up a storm to make that win happen, I wholeheartedly believe we deserved this game." But her face fell again quickly after, "But the whole tournament? No, that…that isn't right." She manages, with a shuddering breath.
Wordlessly, I join her, sitting at the foot of the couch.
"We lost, at first," Rias continues, stressing that point, "and I love Sona, really, but she knew this too; there was no way she was making it out of the losers' bracket once I entered it."
Ouch.
But I mean, she's right. Sona, here, doesn't have Saji or a Peerage decked out with artificial Sacred Gears. She's fucked. Especially since Akeno should be using her Holy Lightning at this point.
Rias gained a wistful smile, "Certainly didn't stop her from trying, but that's all she could really do. Sairaorg," her smile dropped, "they didn't want him to win. The commission, the sponsors, all those nobles, none of them wanted him to win. Politics, getting in the way of sportsmanship, after a war," she huffs with disgust, yet pauses as she seems to shrink in on herself further, "and I went and played right along with them." Another pause, far, far longer than the first.
Until "N-Noriaki," she starts with a soft stutter, "should I have let Sairaorg win? S-Should I have thrown the match?"
Hmm, well, the answer seems pretty obvious to me.
"You think you deserved the win, right?" I ask, just to make sure.
She doesn't hesitate, nodding the moment after I ask.
"Then, regardless of the structure, the politics, whatever bullshit those guys in the backroom came up with because they dislike the guy," I wave her off, "he still lost the final match. He couldn't go all the way, so he lost. Simple as that."
At that, Rias perked up.
It somewhat hurts to say that, because I do legitimately like Sairaorg. But I can still like the guy, while absolutely acknowledging his flaws.
In this case? It's his sheer lack of ability to adapt.
Seriously, I don't know if he just had extremely low expectations of coming into the second game with Rias or not, because it was pretty clear he basically just tried their first game, but again.
Except this time, none of it went right.
With Yuuto not flinging himself into the fray like a wild beast, he actually came out with a Balance Breaker mid-match and slapped his opponents around.
Gasper was great for support, even without training his gear to the point that he could focus on freezing someone. Rias was able to use Gasper's ability to turn into a bunch of bats, scout, then have him indiscriminately freeze a whole area before having Akeno blast it while she was out of range of the time stop.
I don't glaze Akeno, but I will admit, she did well as an orbital laser. Her cousin is still better than her, though.
Finally, Rias herself.
She had the fun task of having to fight Sai, by herself, and make sure he didn't run off to support any of his Peerage while they all got taken down by her team.
If Sai had decided to armor up right away, he would have won, I'll say that right now.
Instead? He decided to bench Regulus and fight her himself.
Rias, apparently inspired by Sai's Touki, whipped out what I can only call a variant using her Power of Destruction to fight him.
It was honestly pretty kick ass to see, and also caught Sai completely off guard.
If he had Regulus, he could've completely overpowered her and gone through it, but he only donned Regulus once everyone else showed up, and jumped him in the most chaotic four vs one, well, two, I think I've ever seen in my life.
Shirone tanked hits, but couldn't break through Sai's armor by herself quite yet, so Rias and her were using Castling to swap places, letting Rias soften up spots on Sai so Shirone could blow through them.
Yuuto, with his Balance Breaker, was playing support in place of Gasper, who couldn't go in without catching the rest of his team in a time freeze, sending waves of demonic sword soldiers for Sai to fodderize, slowing him down and forcing him into positions where Akeno could actually smash lightning bolts down upon him from the sky.
I wouldn't exactly call it bullying the guy, even with all that, he was fighting tooth and nail. He actually took out Yuuto, hit Shirone so hard she went flying into Akeno to take out the latter, and nearly took out Rias on top of that.
Rias was pretty much forced to hit Sai with everything she had, while Shirone held the guy in place, and even then, the man didn't go down; he went unconscious while standing.
Shirone, with her Touki, Rook's durability and strength, was crushing him in her hold, and even with all that, Shirone still retired first.
Or, let me put it like this.
Shirone broke his fucking spine, and somehow, someway, with his back literally broken, he fell unconscious standing up.
What the hell is even that!?
That's peak shonen shit right there!
Yet, despite all of that, he still couldn't deliver the final blow.
I smile and look at her, "Besides. You got a problem with the way those old devils are running things? This whole thing being a slight against your cousin?"
She looks back at me, "I, yes, of course I do!" She states as though it were obvious.
"Then get strong enough," I continue with a snap of my fingers, "and take over. Make their wrong right. If you feel like you didn't deserve to win this tournament, then get strong enough to make them do it over, this time, fairly."
Rias looks at me, serious and contemplative, "But, to get that-"
"Blah blah blah," it's my turn to cut her off, even though she looks mildly offended at that, "who cares about buts? Just do it! You already proved you can get stronger, yeah? What, you think your cousin is going to sit around mopping after he lost?"
She frowns at that, her gaze looking down, as though remembering something, "No, I…guess not. At least, last I saw of him…"
"Exactly!" I say with a snap of my fingers, whilst standing back up, "For his dream, even when he faces a setback, he'll get back up again. I know this isn't for your dream, but seeing all this…" I lean down to her and smirk, "If you can help it, why not? Clear your conscience, right a wrong, who cares, well, if you do, then you should do something about it!"
For a moment, Rias looks back and forth, as though conflicted, before meeting my eyes, with a small chuckle, "...you have a strangely devil way of looking at things, Noriaki."
I snort, "Then why am I the one telling you this, Devil Princess?"
She scoffs and bats my face away from her.
Yet, she can't hide the small smile that sprouts across her face regardless.