As Night Turns to Day
Friday was all but wailing at the back of his mind, but he couldn't really pay her any mind, much as it pained him.
He didn't know what was wrong with the living spell, but he could guess and he did have to deal with the likely cause anyway. Something much more pressing, some might say. Something that endangered not only Friday but also everyone else in the house, which included his other familiars, Kunou and Yasaka. So, he limited himself to reaching for her and soothing her as best he could. It wasn't saying much though, considering panic was squeezing his heart and he felt like someone had turned his entire body into lead while also draining him of all the strength he'd gathered through the years.
All the same, he had to soldier through that.
"You said you wanted to talk to me?" he asked, the words feeling like tar he had to force through his throat and out of his mouth.
"I did," Ophis answered, voice calm and almost casual, somewhere between weather conversation and the rehearsed, disinterested approach of a retail employee. "You've been inconveniencing the Brigade."
He imagined she was angry about that, or maybe just annoyed. Mildly inconvenienced? Something along those lines. Yet, he couldn't read anything from her. Then again, Joshua was hardly an expert at understanding body language. Furthermore, he just couldn't shake the fear and the unease Ophis produced him, even though there was nothing outright wrong with her appearance. That is, other than the laughably wrong representation of who she was that her current, girl-like body did.
Was it the eyes, windows to a void that reminded him of death itself?
Was it her strength, which he was acutely aware could end him and everyone he held dear?
Was it a combination of those?
Something else?
"I have," he admitted, because what else could he do? Lie? Lie to Ophis? He remembered her characterization being kind of… oddly innocent and straightforward, but he couldn't risk his canon knowledge being wrong again when faced with literal infinity. He just…
It was then that Joshua realized why Ophis was unnerving him so much, why she likely had absolutely traumatized Friday. Because he'd initially assumed she'd blocked out every spell and sense of his, causing the radio silence that had alerted him of her presence. He'd been wrong. The reason he couldn't pick up anything was because she was too strong.
Everything had been fried, the same way his eyes would have been if he used a telescope to look directly at the sun. His spells couldn't process the inconceivable amounts of power that Ophis was. His senses failed the same way a normal human couldn't follow something moving at the speed of light. Everything was basically failing and showing him the blue screen of death.
"You will stop," Ophis said, every word feeling like wind that washed over and through his whole body, cold as the arctic and dark as the void of space. "I will have Silence," she declared and it felt like a law of the universe being spoken to him, true, inevitable.
"Khaos won't give it to you," Joshua said, finding whatever specks of courage and sanity he could find in the midst of the desolation that Ophis had left with her mere presence. "They don't care for you, or your Silence. All they care about is your power, and they'll take it from you, use it against you."
"They can try," Ophis replied, not the least moved by what he'd said. She ignored his words like they were a particularly insignificant fly across the room. "But you will stop." He almost crumbled and just agreed to that, but he couldn't. What little presence of mind he still had screamed at him that he couldn't agree to that, because one way or another, his family would be in danger. Saying no could have Ophis kill them, but saying yes would have the same effect.
Wouldn't even buy much time, if Ophis could just drop by again and end them all at the smallest sign of an inconvenience on their part. And they couldn't stop. If they stopped, Khaos would just win, no two ways about it. Joshua couldn't let that happen.
So, he did his best to pull himself together. He felt his familiars through their bond trying to support him as best they could, him and Friday both. Cheshire felt particularly out of it too, if not quite as broken by the entire thing as Friday was. They helped, all of them, yet it felt like trying to put out a fire with a single, lonely drop of water.
It had to be enough though.
"What if I promise you Silence too?" Joshua asked and there was a pause, a quiet that fell over the room and seemed to last an eternity. He forced himself to look straight into the abyss, hoping against hope that it would look back and see the truth of his words. "Two chances of getting your Silence are better than one, right? The Brigade and me," he offered, because he knew that Ophis didn't care for anything but the Dimensional Gap, her Silence.
"You?" Ophis asked and for the first time there was a hint of actual emotion in her voice, or maybe it was Joshua's wishful thinking at work. All the same, he thought he detected the smallest bit of curiosity.
"Me," he answered, finding some strength from where he thought there was none to stand the slightest bit straighter. "You said I've been inconveniencing the Brigade, right? That means I'm reasonably close to their capabilities, maybe even better."
"The Brigade has been helping me for longer," Ophis said and he took a deep breath in, trying to keep what little calm he could manage.
"And what have they achieved towards giving you Silence?" he asked, failing miserably to keep the panic and the nerves out of his voice. "What have they done other than further their own aims?" he added quickly when he saw Ophis pause for a second. "I can do more in a month than they've done so far."
"... A month?" the Dragon of Infinity asked, tilting her head.
"One month," Joshua answered firmly, with confidence he had to have. What could he reasonably do in that time?... A lot, if he had any say in the matter. If he had to cut off everything else, he would, because not having a literally infinitely powerful dragon after his ass was quite possibly the biggest priority in the world. "I'll show you something worth sparing us in a month."
"... One month," Ophis agreed with a slight nod and he almost passed out from relief. "I'll come back in a month," was all the dragon said after that, disappearing like she'd never been there before. No circle, no magic, no nothing.
A diminutive part of him wondered how she managed that, but most of his mind was too busy doing one of two things, worrying and cheering. Worrying because now he had a month to get something that'd make Ophis happy enough to spare him and everyone he cared about. Cheering because holy shit, he had just survived a meeting with one of the two strongest beings in the DxD world, maybe three if one counted Trihexa, and Joshua wasn't even sure about that last one. A power that was literally backing the greatest thorn in his side to boot.
'Fucking hell,' he thought, dropping on a couch nearby and finally having enough presence of mind to properly try to help Friday. Not only that, but he had to make sure Ophis hadn't accidentally decimated his defenses when she came in or when she got out. She could most definitely do that if she felt like it, and she could do it just as easily without even meaning to.
Fortunately, everything seemed to go back to normal the moment the dragon went away. The same couldn't be said for Friday, Joshua or the rest of his familiars. 'Fuck me,' he thought, flooding any amount of calm and comfort that he could to his living spell. At the same time, he felt his heart beat like it was trying to make up for how it'd been all but frozen in Ophis' presence. His mind felt frayed in a way that had nothing to do with his soul for once. He even felt tired, just because of how tense he'd been for the whole minute that the conversation had taken, if that. Or had it been longer?
Joshua didn't honestly know, but he also didn't care.
The fact of the matter was that the entire ordeal had wrecked Friday and had left him not in a much better state. 'And I have to do something in a month so that Ophis won't come and erase us all,' he thought, panic clawing at him once more as he considered that.
'It's going to be a long month,' he thought, sighing and deflating where he sat. 'Fuck me.'
[}-o-{]
[Yasaka]
She wasn't worried, not really, but she was a little confused and intrigued.
… And a little worried, maybe, probably.
Absorbed as Joshua could get with his work, after all, he never disappeared for long. He might be absentminded, but he was always present even if his brain was miles away. That was why she felt so confused when she woke up alone when he should have joined her at some point through the night.
And a corner of her mind admitted a scar, a worry.
Set aside, but never forgotten.
Something could have happened though. Maybe Joshua had made a particularly important breakthrough that had made him completely break his sleep schedule. That had never happened before, but Yasaka wouldn't be precisely surprised about that. He'd also had his class with Göndul, so that'd kind of track. Maybe he'd figured out something really good he could do with runes and maybe-
-maybe he had decided to leave too, just like-
Yasaka's next step down the stairs had the slightest bit more force behind it than the others, as if she were trying to squash that thought, that voice. 'Am I ever going to not think about him?' she wondered, taking a deep breath in. She didn't care for him. Had even stopped thinking about him. Yet, sometimes, the pain came back, like a wound that had never closed but she'd learned to forget about until Joshua had come along.
And she felt like she did the man a disservice by comparing him to… There was no comparison, at all. Joshua was already doing leagues better and he hadn't even been with them for nearly as long, hadn't been with her nearly as long. Maybe she'd lucked out finding him, or she'd been particularly unlucky before. Maybe it was both.
All the same, she couldn't quite silence that little voice at the back of her mind and Yasaka hated that.
'Nothing to worry about, see?' she told the voice when she walked into the kitchen and saw Joshua there. There was no cup of tea by his side though. Instead, there was coffee, and maybe that should have been her first clue, but she smiled an exasperated smile that Joshua was particularly good at getting out of her.
And at the same time, she let out a relieved sigh, barely a breath that he'd never be able to interpret correctly, even if he weren't apparently completely out of it.
"Got inspired?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. However, the second clue was enough to make her smile vanish. Because her first response to that was a weary sigh. Then Joshua's shoulders seemed to hunch over for a moment and he looked up towards her.
And he looked awful.
Not only did he look predictably tired, with bags under his eyes that showed he was always running on barely enough sleep. He looked paler than usual too and his expression. That wasn't the expression of someone that had pulled an all nighter because he couldn't contain himself out of inspiration or excitement. No…
That was the look of someone that was worried, desperate.
"More like… motivated," he replied and he sounded so small to her ears. 'What did I miss?' Yasaka wondered, worry of a different kind from before finding its way to her chest. "We got a… visitor last night."
And now that was concerning.
'Someone other than Joshua came here and I didn't notice?' she wondered.
"I had a little talk with Ophis," he said and Yasaka felt her blood turn to ice. "Yeah, pretty much," he added, grinning a bitter, helpless smile when her carefully kept composure was thoroughly destroyed. "Apparently, I've annoyed Khaos Brigade enough that she came for me."
Yasaka moved to sit down, else she might just drop on the floor. Then she just stared at Joshua, because if he thought he could just leave it at that, then he had another thing coming. Evidently, even he could understand that much, because he started explaining immediately afterwards, and what he said was only marginally reassuring. She had a lot of faith in Joshua, for sure, but they could only guess at what Ophis meant by "Silence". Not only that, but even if Joshua's initial assumption was right, there was no way to tell if he could do what he was setting out to.
The Dimensional Gap was… it was a whole different thing from anything that could be found anywhere in their world, be it Mortal Earth, Heaven, the Underworld or any other realm. It was like an entirely different place, with its own twisted existence and rules. There was a reason only Ophis and Great Red could so much as survive in there for any extended amount of time. Not even gods took the Dimensional Gap lightly and for good reason.
"Joshua…" Yasaka started, but even she knew not what to say.
A part of her almost wished she'd been awake when all of that went down, but she knew… No matter how well-versed she was in politics and dealing with people, nothing could ever prepare someone for dealing with a Dragon God. She couldn't honestly tell if she could have helped Joshua any when it came to talking with the Ouroborous Dragon, but she'd have liked to.
"Do you need anything?" she said, instead of saying any of the other things in her mind. All the same, Joshua seemed to pick up on something, even with as out of it as he was after not sleeping and having worries such as the ones he was dealing with at that moment. For as much as he said he was useless when it came to social situations, he could be remarkably sharp when he cared about someone, especially those that were very close to his heart.
And by the gods, Yasaka loved that about him.
"... I'm waiting until it's a reasonable enough hour to call Ravel," he answered eventually, but he was still staring at her. If she had to guess, he was wondering if he should press for whatever was troubling her or not. Ultimately, he let it go, but Yasaka was sure he'd ask if she continued displaying whatever it was that he'd seen. She didn't even know what it could have been. "I kind of need her to help me make a new schedule. I'll have to cut down on a lot of things I was doing. I won't teach anymore, might need to treat less devils and ascend less angels. I'll… I'll…"
"Joshua," she interrupted as he seemed to stumble over his own words and train of thought. Reaching across the table, she took his hand in hers. "We'll help you. We can see if your guess is correct and how we can help you work out a… Dimensional Gap array, I'm guessing is your go to solution?" Because that was his solution to everything: make an array that does what he needs.
Certainly sounded more doable than fighting the Apocalypse Dragon to empty the Dimensional Gap for Ophis. With as much faith as Yasaka had on Joshua, she did believe it was more doable for him to reproduce the Dimensional Gap in an array than it was to fight the Dragon of Dragons. And that was already saying a lot, because… she had no idea where he could even begin working on that.
"I should have known," Joshua commented, a bone-tired smile on his face as he looked down at whatever he'd been working on. "Things were going too well," he mumbled, his expression falling. Yasaka stared at him for a long moment then, watching him go back to working like he didn't have the appearance of death warmed over.
Glancing to the side, she saw Cheshire staring at her and she felt the silent request coming from the feline. Yasaka nodded, taking a deep breath in. Then she moved silently, making a cup of tea and replacing the coffee Joshua had by his side with it. After that, she kissed his cheek, watching fondly as the man smiled, and pulled back.
"Kind of early for a call, isn't it, Ya-tan?"
"I do agree with that sentiment, even if I believe you must have a reason for-"
"Ophis came here for Joshua last night," she said, deciding that the best course of action was to just say it. The communications spell remained silent after that. "Everyone's alive, but they… talked."
"Fuck," she hear Serafall curse on one side. On the other, Yasaka was pretty sure all the noise was Gabriel scrambling to do… something. "Fuck, ok, give us a summary."
"She came to ask Joshua to stop inconveniencing the Brigade-"
"Fucking-"
"-and Joshua convinced her to give him a month to give her Silence, whatever that is. That's what she wants," Yasaka finished and there was yet another pause in the conversation as the three of them processed that. Even Yasaka herself still had trouble wrapping her head around that.
"I'll be there in a minute."
"Same."
"Please do," she replied and the spell was ended just like that.
Having to share Joshua had never looked like such a good thing as it did at that moment.
[}-o-{]
[Kunou]
"Dad! I had a dream that-" she exclaimed as she ran down the stairs. Mom would probably scold her about that, but there was a chance she'd let it slide too. She'd do that sometimes when Kunou was excited and-
"Kunou."
It wasn't one of those days, evidently. So, she didn't tempt her luck further, slowing down, but feeling no less excited. It had been a very good dream, after all. Maybe her dad and her would be able to make a nice illusion to make it play out in real life too! She knew that he would-
Except Kunou froze on the doorway to the kitchen, watching her parents sitting side by side. On one side, her mother didn't look particularly happy. She almost looked like some time before, when she'd been too busy to show many emotions. That was worrying enough, but then there was Joshua, who was sitting there and looking like a corpse.
All the same, he looked up with red-eyes and smiled at her.
"Hey, come here," he greeted, patting the seat on his other side. Kunou moved slowly as she tried to make sense of the sight. "I don't look too good, I imagine," her dad said to answer the unasked question, running his fingers through the mess that was his hair at that moment. "I couldn't sleep last night."
"Was there an attack?" she asked, because Joshua only looked that out of it when there was a hard battle.
"No… Not really," he said, but there was some uncertainty there. Before Kunou could worry properly though, he continued talking. "I just… I have a new project, and it'll take priority over a lot of things. I'll be very busy," he explained and Kunou paused, feeling all the enthusiasm she had when she woke up vanish into thin air. "What's the matter?" her dad asked, blinking at her while trying to understand why she'd stopped or likely why her expression had fallen. She hadn't quite managed to keep that from happening.
"It's nothing," she mumbled, shuffling her way to the seat Joshua had gestured towards. She glanced at her mother for a moment, but she didn't actually look at her. Kunou was suddenly being reminded of other times, when her mother had been very busy too. 'I had it too easy for a while. It actually lasted a very long time.'
"It's not nothing," her dad said, still staring at her. He waved his hand then, making a cup of tea float towards her. Maybe Friday was busy? She was usually the one to hand over stuff like that those days. "Come on, spill."
"It's nothing," Kunou insisted with a pout. She knew it made her look childish, but she couldn't help it. "You'll be busy. It's fine," she mumbled, taking her cup of tea and letting its warmth flow to her hands. "I'll just see what I can do, might call Koneko and Ravel to play."
"I knew you liked playing with them," her dad said, leaning towards her to push her with his body. "Maybe Millicas too?" he asked, but he was very obviously trying to piece together what was going on with her. And she hated that at that very moment, because she was trying not to be a bother or make things difficult for her dad. She'd played that game enough in the past. She was good at- "Is this one of those things I'm too parent to join?" he asked with a chuckle and she froze.
Then Kunou turned to look at him, confused.
"I thought you said you'd be busy," she mumbled and Joshua turned to blink at her.
"Yes?" he replied, only making her confusion worse. "I'm not going to be working all day every day, right? And besides, you know I work from here most of the time. I can take a few minutes to play around. Besides, might get an idea or two from you guys. Wouldn't be the first time," Joshua explained, as if it were obvious and Kunou blinked at him a few times before nodding slowly.
A part of her felt incredibly silly and stupid, especially with how much that had affected her. Also because she knew it wasn't fair to want his attention on her as much as she did. Joshua always had important things to do, much more important than playing cards or watching shows or setting up illusion stories. He was trying to fight bad guys and save people and make sure they were all safe and…
And Kunou was just so incredibly happy that he'd still make time for her, even with all that. Was it selfish? Because if it was, then she was selfish. She wouldn't even argue against that. If she could have her dad and her mom spend time with her every day, then it was all fine.
"That expression's much better," Joshua commented, poking her cheek and making her playfully go to bite his finger. She was too slow to succeed anyway, even with as tired as her dad looked. "Dangerous," he said with a weary chuckle. "Don't do that. I get enough bites from-"
"Joshua," her mom said in that tone that warned one to be very careful.
"-Cheshire. I was going to say Cheshire," Joshua finished in that tone that said that was definitely not what he was going to say. Who else would bite him though? Morag? That sounded dangerous, nevermind Nagini. Maybe Koneko bit? She was kind of a cat at times, more than Kunou herself acted like a fox.
"What's up, Davis family?!" Serafall called then, walking in. "I'm done with the emergency business and I'm back for some cuddles!" the devil exclaimed, skipping all the way up to Joshua, turning his stool at the kitchen table around and sitting on his lap. "Ha! I was faster than Gabriel. That's one win for me, what's the-"
"5-7, still two behind, Sera," Kunou finished, smiling innocently at the pout on the devil's face. That made her feel better about her own pouts, she'd admit. "Also, dad's extra tired today."
"Yeah, I know, kiddo. We're trying to help him with that," Serafall reassured and she nodded while the devil patted her head.
Kunou guessed everything was fine and she'd worried for nothing.
She'd take that any day over her worries coming true anyway.
All was fine.
[} Chapter End {]
Hey guys! How's it going?
I'm sure there'll be people that won't be happy with the way I handled Ophis. The Muse and I did consider the path that most people likely imagined, which was Joshua friending the all powerful dragon with some cookies or something along those lines. However, I kept putting myself in Joshua's place, with all the inconsistencies of his canon knowledge and faced with a being that's literally infinitely powerful which he's been working against so far and…
… And yeah, this is what I saw, so it's what I wrote.
I hope you guys aren't too bothered by this and that you enjoyed the chapter.
As always, if you can't wait until next week for the next chapter, or if you just feel like supporting my writing, there's up to three new chapters in my Patreon (linked below).
Random Question: How good are you at socializing? I suck. Like, meeting new people is pain, because I never know what to say or do. Hell, I'm especially bad at that because for some reason I have a hard time remembering names and dates, and that makes things awkward when I can't remember the name someone told me a minute ago. The whole thing is also exhausting even if it involves people I know well.