17 Poltergeist

(Toujou "Shirone" Koneko POV)

I felt something coming. I didn't know how but I knew at that moment that I would die. It was as clear to me as the sun rising each day that Rias loved me and the other members of the peerage.

My eyes wandered toward the sky and here he was falling like an angry god of vengeance, a trident directed at me.

Time both slowed down and sped up. I could do nothing trapped in my own end watching, observing what was clearly my demise.

At least, it was a better end than being put down because of madness right? At least, it was a better end Than losing myself in the enraged whispers of the world and hurting my family, right?

Then why did I feel so sad, so empty? Why did he feel so dejected when this was something I've always wished for?

My gaze was able to slide over the forms of Yuto and Gasper. I could see small smiles etched on the faces of my family.

Yuto for once looked truly happy, satisfied and not like the false mask he displayed to others. It was clear to me how fake it was but It wouldn't have been hypocritical of me to point this out when I was if not worse the same.

He looked at Gasper with delight. I imagine that it was the same way older brothers looked at their siblings with love.

Gasper, a boy who had been able to succeed in the improbable act of being shorter than me, someone who was locked down away because of his power.

Maybe it was why I felt so protective over him. Looking at him, I could only a distorted reflection of what I was, of what I could have been.

The boy had just been freed from his isolation yesterday by their king. Rias had been able to find a way to make sure he had control over his powers.

I had wanted to make him smile, to make him happy, to banish the sadness that seemed to be imprinted on his skin, on his face.

I guessed that it would all be moot, that I would never be able to do such. The gaze of Gasper slowly turned toward me, the joy being slowly replaced by shock and fear.

I closed my eyes. I didn't want the last thing I saw before death to be the face of Gasper submerged in despair, in despair I would be the cause of.

I waited for the agony, for the feeling of my flesh being pierced, the momentary pain it would bring and everything fading away as Death embraced me in her wings.

This is why I was surprised when instead, I felt myself being whisked away by something really as if a cloud had moved its original place in the sky to move me.

I opened my eyes back up just to realize that I had moved away from the spot I was standing on.

I was now at the side of Yuto. We were surrounded by what seemed a dark cloud full of scarlet angry eyes. Slowly, it began to morph, to coalesce on itself to take the familiar shape of Gasper.

I didn't know that he was capable of doing such things. I had thoughts that because of his aversion to blood, the power inherent to his vampiric nature was locked away but it was clear I was wrong.

My thoughts were interrupted when the trident of the being that had almost killed me encountered the ground and made it explode.

A wave of something erupted from the encounter and expanded outward breaking everything around the impact of the collision.

It didn't stop there. Debris, rubble and chunks of Earth came flying toward us like missiles accompanying it.

Before we could do anything, the shadows and the darkness surrounding us took form and closed itself around us like a mockery of a cocoon.

The moment the cocoon disappeared having done its task of protecting us, I pushed with all of my strength against the ground with my right leg propelling me toward the being that had attacked us.

I could see that his spear had pierced through the ground very deeply. I knew that with how strong he looked, it would not be a hindrance for long for him but just an instant in a fight was enough.

I could see all of his other weapons in his nonchalant but tight grasp. I wasn't the best at manipulating my demonic energy even though I was obviously better than Issei, the pervert member of our peerage.

I unleashed my demonic energy. I wasn't talented like my king, Akeno when it came to manipulating it but if the pervert could create a spell with it, there were no reasons for me to not be able to use it to reach the intended goal I had.

I didn't wish for a fireball or something elaborate. I didn't have time for such things. I needed to deal with this.

I had rewatched the fight of my king against the disgusting Phenex scion. I remembered the exact shade of black that my king had created just before the end of the rating game, the spark of black that she had used against the Phenex.

I didn't really know how it worked. I hadn't asked about the mechanisms of the spell to Rias but I already had a frame of reference in my mind.

Demonic energy was supposed to be shaped by imagination so as I closed on the frightening being that had attacked us, that made my heart beat in fear in my chest due to his appearance, I invoked in my mind an image of strength, I invoked her, her standing strong against the odds that were clearly against her.

Slowly, I whispered those words "Black Flash." Black flames or sparks or maybe something else had recovered my form.

I cocked my arm back and with all my strength sent a punch to the neck of the monstrous being. If the being followed even a little the rules of reality, his neck even if he was so more durable than me should be one of the spots where it would be the more easy to in-line damage.

The flat side of his sword appeared before my fist faster than I could even imagine to defend his neck.

A shockwave erupted at the point where my fist and the flat side of the sword met. An undulation of destruction erupted around us with the two of us in the center wrecking even more Academy around them.

To my dismay, I realized that he hadn't moved. His feet were planted in the ground like a proud mountain.

These were my last thoughts before I felt my breath being knocked away by a punch in the stomach. I felt something inside break and tasted the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

The hair on the back of my neck rose before I felt something cut through my neck and lodge itself in it and everything slowed down.

I felt something warm pool from my neck on the ground drenching me. It felt viscous and disgusting yet its presence was followed by everything getting colder.

My vision was becoming hazy making it hard to distinguish things. I could see a shape overlay my side, their hand pushed on my neck as if trying to stop something.

'I am dying,' I realized. The figure was probably Yuto trying to do his best to save my life. "I am sorry," I was a bit to whisper before darkness clouded my vision.

I could hear sounds but they were muffled and were becoming more and more unrecognizable. Someone was shouting, screaming in despair or anger.

It didn't matter at the end. I was too exhausted to care anymore. I allowed myself to stop thinking and let the abyss claim me.

(Kiba "Isaiah" Yuto POV)

I was weak, painfully so. I knew it and I hated it with all my soul. I had never been good enough.

I wasn't good enough to wield that accursed sword. I wasn't good enough to protect my first family. I was a failure that would have made their last action in allowing me to escape useless if Rias Gremory, my king hadn't saved me that day.

I had vowed to grow strong, strong enough to destroy the cause of what had been the suffering of my first family, strong enough so that I would feel this helplessness again.

I trained with Souji Okita, the knight of the older brother of my king, pushed myself, and disregarded the pain, the blood and the agony and all of it had been useless twice.

I wasn't strong enough to protect my king. I almost lost the person who gave me a second family because she had chosen to end herself before being stripped of her freedom.

She had reminded me of the others who knew what would be their end yet still fought against the inevitable, with everything they had so that one of us, so that I, Isaiah could survive.

More than half a decade had passed and nothing had changed. I was still the same terrified boy who watched his family die before his eyes.

I kneeled at the side of Koneko trying to shut down, to stop the bleeding. There was a gigantic gash on her neck here I could see the flesh, the veins and the bones under where her skin had been.

I forced myself to not vomit. 'Push it all down, you'll deal with it later,' I said to myself mentally 'If there is a later, a corner of my mind whispered'. I ignored the feeling of her blood soaking and incrusting itself on my skin, pooling over us like a macabre scarlet river.

'It will be alright, everything is going to be alright'. I needed to believe this not only for Koneko's sake but also for mine. I needed to not lose hope.

The queen of Satan Lucifer is supposed to come to evacuate us. Soon, everything will be better.

The only thing that mattered to me now was her survival. She was losing colour taking an even paler sickly complexion and it scared me.

'What could I do?' Demonic energy was geared toward phenomenons that could only be called negative, entropic by nature had been the words of one of my tutors in magic.

This is why the Phenex were so wealthy even though nobility-wise, they were far from being at the top of the totem pole.

I wasn't Asia blessed with a sacred gear at birth capable of healing. If I had been, maybe my first family would have not been destroyed.

My gaze turned toward the being that had been the cause of the injury of Koneko. It had happened so quickly that I had almost missed it. Fortunately, Gasped hadn't. If he had, I don't think that Koneko's head would still be connected to her neck.

I felt my sacred gear activate without my input. It was fine because I just wanted to make him suffer.

Two simple demonic swords broke on his skin. Four demonic swords appeared and rushed at him. They broke like the first ones. Four swords became sixteen swords that rushed at him. Those sixteen swords increase to become two hundred fifty six burying him in a grave of steel.

I felt something explode in my nose followed by the apparition of the strong metallic scent of blood.

I ignored it, I ignored how I felt as if I was dying, burning from the inside as if my sacred gear was heating me from the inside.

The air, the earth, the sky, they all changed, transmuted under the authority of my sacred gear, under my will.

I pushed and two hundred fifty-six demonic swords became sixty-five thousand five hundred thirty-six swords.

The heat, my sacred gear was burning me from inside like a machine that had been overused.

It sent agony running through my veins but it was alright. Suffering was an old friend. I had already felt worse.

I turned my complete attention to Koneko's body. Nothing seemed to work. Blood was still seeping through my hands. Her body was still getting colder, stiffer. She looked like a corpse.

I needed to do something, to find something that could help. 'Why don't you create it,' a little voice whispered in my mind.

It seemed impossible. How could I Create a demonic sword to heal when swords by nature were meant to destroy and those that were demonic even more?

Could I try to do something like this? With the teleporting sword that Rias made me create, I at least knew how to teleport.

It was a concept that had been easy enough to communicate to my sacred gear but my hands, they had never mended anything. My hands, they had never protected or preserved anything.

'Does it matter?' the voice spoke in my mind. 'You've already let your family die once. Would you do it again?'

I already knew my answer. I couldn't not do anything, stay idle. Koneko didn't deserve this. My family, I don't want to lose it again.

I grasped my demonic energy, I grasped my sacred gear and begged, prayed to the world for twilight, for a weapon that would be strong enough to eradicate sickness, to destroy death.

A spark of something, of creation appeared in the corner of my eyes hovering over us. I knew it was mine, it felt like a second limb and it was draining me. I could feel All of my demonic energy begin to leave my body, siphoned away in the unshaped thing.

Demonic energy was the lifeblood of a devil. It was even more true for a reincarnated one. We

Were after all corpses that were still breathing because of the demonic energy animating us.

I knew what I was risking. I was gambling, betting with my life for something that could be a complete failure.

The weapon wasn't ready yet it was still drinking my demonic energy like an endless abyss.

I could feel myself becoming weaker. I knew at that moment that I would not make it, that I would fail.

It's at least what I thought before I saw them around me like guards standing on a vigil. Their faces were immediately recognizable. How could I not recognize my family? How could I not recognize the bloodstained and butchered forms of those who had died for me?

"This is the end, isn't it," I whispered.

They stayed silent looking at me with their empty eyes. 'I have probably gone mad,' I thought. Maybe it was a delusion in my brain, a false happy ending before everything ended.

Even then, even if it was false, I could not restrain the words that I had wanted to tell them. "I miss all of you. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough so that we could all escape. I'm sorry that I wasted the opportunity you all gave me."

One of the ghosts appeared before him, standing over him like an angry god. "Isaac," I greeted the ghost. He had been one of the youngest experimented on like me. I had called him brother and he had done the same

A sword of light appeared in his right hand. Around me, I watched how the same thing happened with the others.

I didn't try to beg or ask them what they were doing. I had failed them and wasted the opportunity they had given me. I had been unable to protect Koneko. I had not been able to destroy Excalibur.

I understood why they would want to wipe from the surface of the Earth such a disgrace with their own ends.

"I had told you just before you escaped," Isaac spoke. "We didn't want you to live for vengeance. We wanted you to be happy, be free away from it all but you didn't Isaiah. We watched at your side how You let your hatred consume you. We watched how our brother didn't live and lost himself In the past."

"I'm sorry," I told him, them. There was nothing else that I could say except that. Saying that I didn't hate Excalibur, that I could stop hating it and forget the past would be lying and they deserved better than lies from me.

"Do you know what happens to Ghosts unable to pass on because of their regrets, their hatred Isaiah? They change and become corrupted, monsters haunting and affecting the physical world in a negative way."

The lights of their weapons began to darken, taking a black sludge-like appearance like tar. "I wish we could have done it differently," Isaac said before stabbing me In the heart.

I could feel every inch of the weapon slide into my skin, ravage me, infect me from the inside, change me. His sword was followed by the others.

They pierced my flesh one by one each one of their strike sending agony through me. "We curse you, Isaiah," they all spoke in unison.

My demonic energy that had been dried out by the sword I had been creating refilled back bigger, stronger and deeper than before.

"We curse you with living, with going forward, we curse you so that you may live. After all, what are devils if not curses on this world? Were their last words before they disappeared in the ether.

My right hand grasped something. It was a hilt, one without a sword. I knew it as if it was a part of me because this is what it was. "Sword birth," I whispered.

'Living, going forward. Maybe they were right,' I mused. "Balance breaker: Camlann," I uttered and with my words, the sword I had wished for appeared.

It looked like a plain bastard sword. It didn't give the aura or gravitas of something extraordinary but I knew without a doubt that I hadn't failed.

With one swift movement, I plunged it where I knew Koneko's heart would be, it penetrated the flesh as if it were butter. "What are you doing?!" Gasper shouted in surprise and fear.

"Do you think I would willingly hurt her?" I asked the dhampir.

"No," he mouthed.

"So trust me," I told him.

At first, it seemed that it hadn't worked but slowly, I watched in amazement how the blood that was drenching my hands, the ground began to reverse like a waterfall rising, as if time was rewinding before my eyes.

I removed my hand from her neck to find it spotless, the injury created by the being gone as if nothing had happened and this just had been a collective nightmare.

"I didn't know that Yuto-Sempai could do such a thing," Gasper told me awe evident in his voice and scarlet eyes.

"I also didn't that I could do this," I told him truthfully. 'Everyone, Isaac, thanks to all of you,' I thought.

Koneko was still unconscious but now, she looked alive instead of dead. This was a good thing.

There was only one remaining problem. "Do you really think that you are fooling us," I said my voice directed to the mountain of steel, almost as tall as one of the buildings of the school that I had created.

Cracks began to appear in the structure made of demonic swords before it exploded sending shards flying everywhere.

"How did you know?" the monster spoke.

"Just a guess that was proven right."

"Honestly, I was observing. I could see through the weapons you sent to me. I wanted to see if you would fail and she would die."

"So, you let yourself be buried under demonic swords just because of curiosity?"

"I had worse in my youth. I never was in danger so I thought letting you flop around and panic like a fish brought out of water for ten seconds would be interesting."

"You should have continued playing dead," I told him. "Now it is sure that you'll die."

"Me, dying? Do you think you can kill me, boy? I am a god, a war god?" the supposed god spoke.

"Is this supposed to mean anything?" I told him. I could not care more about what he was, about how powerful he was. The curses that were bestowed on me in my soul were still both burning me from the inside and strengthening me. I felt as if I could fight against everything and win.

"Whether it is to one of my blades, my magic or someone else, I can see your future. You'll die this night," I said to the god.

"Such blasphemy in the face of a god. I'm supposed that I could expect nothing else from a devil but even then, I don't think I'll fight you with all my strength," the god spoke.

It emerged from his back like a butterfly from a cocoon. It was a copy of him, one that was different.

The copy's appearance was different from the god it had come from. It was clear that it was the same god due to the features that had not changed but there were now differences that could not be dismissed.

The copy now had two arms instead of eight. In one of his hands, there was just a sword and in the other was a cup that was clearly made of bones. The cup was elaborately mounted with precious metals and jewels.

"The goal was to cleanse this town as much as possible from the taint your kind had contaminated it with. I don't care if I die or not but if it's the case, I would at least be able to do it knowing that I culled a lot of vermins like you," the god spoke.

"This is just one of my aspects. Win against it and I'll give you all my attention or do a favour to the universe and die." The god turned his back and began walking away as if he were taking a peaceful stroll in a park.

A sword appeared at my side and faster than a bullet tore through the air, its target, the unprotected back of the god. The sword didin'reach him.

It was cut in two by a copy that with a movement of its own sword slashed through it. It seems it would not be easy just as I expected.

I rose from my knees, Koneko in my arms and turned toward Gasper. "Can you hold her please while I take care of this?" I asked him softly.

"Yuto-sempain, this is a god! A war god! Even the weakest of them are said to be as strong as high-class devils. We should escape!" the dhampir spoke.

"You're right. The smart thing would be to leave, to try to escape or wait for backup from the underworld but The truth is I don't feel very logical right now Gasper. I feel angry. Koneko's almost died and this is not something I think I could forget so please, humour your dumb sempai a little."

He nodded hesitantly and took Koneko in his arms. "I am scared," he whispered.

"It's alright," I told him. "I can be brave enough for all of us. After all, I'm the knight of Rias Gremory".

"I can help you! I can use my sacred gear! I don't know what the president did but I feel like I can fight at your side!"

I turned toward the aspect. In my right hand, the hilt of a sword appeared. My imagination was all I needed. Images of different effects, swords of different shapes made of possible and impossible things appeared in my mind. "Don't worry Gasper, I'll win," I told him before the aspect and I rushed toward each other.