April 28th, 2012, Rating Game Dimension, Morning.
The world had dissolved into a screaming vortex of light and heat.
Riser Phenex, the scion of a house famed for its immortality, felt a terror so profound it was alien to him. It was the fear of true, undeniable defeat. His own brilliant, peacock-like flames, which he had summoned in a desperate, arrogant attempt to overwhelm the approaching cataclysm, had been devoured.
Worse, they had been metabolized, their energy siphoned and multiplied tenfold into the monstrous orb of annihilation that was Rias Gremory's Extinguishing Star.
"WHAT!? HOW CAN THIS BE!?"
The shout was torn from his throat, a raw, unbecoming sound that was lost in the roar of the demonic energy.
His eyes, wide with a dread he had never known, tracked the giant sphere as it relentlessly annihilated the roof and the top floor of the New School Building.
Debris vaporized before it, leaving a trail of nothingness in its wake. He tried to fly, his fire wings beating frantically against the charged air, but the orb was intelligent, its trajectory shifting with a horrifying, predatory grace to match his every evasive maneuver, closing the distance with implacable purpose.
In the VIP booth, Sirzechs Lucifer leaned forward, his crimson brows furrowed. "This attack... is it based on my Ruin the Extinct?" The resemblance was uncanny, a shadow of his own ultimate power refined and reborn through his sister's unique talents.
"It seems little Rias really put all of herself into this," Serafall observed, her usual playfulness subdued by the awe of the display. The magical screen before them painted the entire booth in a hellish, pulsating light.
"She did," Sirzechs murmured, his voice a complex blend of immense pride and a sharp, stabbing disappointment in himself for ever having doubted her capabilities. He had seen her as a child to be protected, not a king to be believed in.
'The Priestess has won,' Kohryu's voice resonated with calm certainty within Makoto's soul. '
I agree,' Apollo confirmed. 'Riser Phenex cannot hope to resist the girl's concentrated power.'
Yet, a dissonant note vibrated through two specific beings. A chill, like the touch of a spectral finger on the spine, ran through Makoto and his other self simultaneously.
"Ryoji?" Makoto said aloud, his expression cracking for a fraction of a second.
From a coalescing mass of shadows in the corner of the booth, Death himself manifested. The air grew cold.
"You feel it too, right?" Ryoji asked, his cheerful demeanor absent, replaced by a grave intensity. He then seemed to remember their company. "Oh, hello," he added, offering a casual wave to the stunned Sirzechs and Serafall.
"Mochizuki Ryoji? Oh, you have always been here, right?" Sirzechs recovered quickly, his sharp mind instantly categorizing this new variable—another perk of the Messiah.
Makoto didn't answer, his gaze locked back on the screen. Ryoji did the same, their shared unease a silent conversation.
Back in the dimensional arena, Riser was frantically searching for an escape that did not exist. The edges of the pocket dimension were a shimmering, impassable wall. He was trapped.
"Brother!" Ravel's voice, shrill with panic, cut through the cacophony. She was the last of his peerage still standing, watching her brother's impending doom. Her cry was a trigger. It unleashed not a new power, but a crushing weight of responsibility and shame upon Riser's shoulders. He clutched his chest, as if physically burdened.
'You are losing, mangy bird. And you dare to call yourself a Phoenix?' The voice in his head was a hoarse, grating thing, like stones grinding together in the depths of a forgotten tomb.
"Who are you!?" Riser screamed into the maelstrom, his mind fracturing under the dual assault of external and internal torment.
'I? I am you. Or, I am supposed to say that, but I am not a loser.'
A pain, sharp and psychic, lanced through Riser's skull. He curled up mid-air, his flight becoming a uncontrolled stagger. His eyes, when he opened them, flickered with a sickly, unnatural shade of yellow.
"Brother!" Ravel shouted again, trying to fly to him, but a new phenomenon halted her—a gravitational pull emanating from the Extinguishing Star itself.
The closer she got to Riser, the more its immense energy dragged her inward, forcing her to fight just to maintain her distance.
'I don't lose. It would be a shame in front of the Great Master. You heard it, mangy bird?' the voice asked rhetorically.
The orb was now mere meters away, its demonic pressure crushing the air from his lungs. Riser looked behind him. The dimensional boundary of the Rating Game dimension was a dead end. There was nowhere to run.
"What do you want!?" he rasped, his voice a ghost of a sound against the spell's deafening roar.
'Great Master told me a pawn has meaning only if it moves. So I will grant you my strength,' the voice offered, its tone laced with a sinister mockery of generosity.
"Who do you think you are!?" Riser barked, a final surge of pride-fueled rage giving him voice. But the crude reality of his situation delivered its answer not in words, but in pure, agonizing force. The Extinguishing Star hit him.
The moment of impact was not an explosion, but an absorption. His body was swallowed by the core of the ravenous demonic energy.
It was a pain beyond any his Phenex heritage had ever prepared him for. This was not a clean death followed by instantaneous rebirth; it was a continuous, violent unmaking.
His arms vaporized into motes of light, the sensation a unique hell of dissolution. His body's innate magic flared, regenerating them instantly from the shoulders down, only for the new limbs to be immediately devoured again.
His skin blistered, blackened, and sloughed off, over and over in a relentless cycle of pain and destruction. His magnificent wings, symbols of his pride, were shredded into ethereal feathers and then regrown, only to be destroyed once more.
He was trapped in a vicious, torturous loop. He couldn't fly away because his wings were perpetually being annihilated.
He couldn't counter with magic because his power only fed the beast of an attack that was consuming him.
His screams were a continuous, raw soundtrack to his own destruction, a sound that was less a cry of pain and more the sound of a soul being systematically dismantled.
The Rating Game system, calibrated for swift, decisive strikes, was baffled by this state of continuous, non-lethal annihilation, and thus did not trigger his automatic retirement.
"You are the one who will give up, Riser!" Rias's voice came through gritted teeth. She was panting, sweat beading on her forehead.
Containing the Extinguishing Star, preventing its own chaotic energy from collapsing in on itself, was becoming a Herculean task.
The spell was growing stronger, more wild with every second, feeding on both Riser's regeneration and her own dwindling reserves.
"This is becoming a match of resilience," Sona Sitri observed coolly from her broadcasting chamber, though her mind was racing through the tactical implications.
"Her opponent is a Phoenix! How can Senpai Gremory hope to succeed?" Saji asked, his voice trembling as he watched the pyrotechnic horror show.
In the VIP booth.
"While Rias is still only a rookie and Riser is a Phenex, he isn't used to pain," Sirzechs commented, a small, grim smile touching his lips. He then turned to Makoto. "Thank you for helping my sister, Yuki."
"I am saying this again, I didn't do anything," Makoto replied, his attention divided between the screen and the unsettling feeling festering within him.
"You are too humble, Makoto," Ryoji said, giving the Messiah a pat on the shoulder, his touch cold.
"We should warn the infirmary. I wouldn't want Riser to suffer permanent damage. If that were to happen, who will suffer Lord Phenex's wrath?" Serafall whined, genuinely concerned about the political fallout.
"I think we can wait a little bit," Sirzechs said, a dark satisfaction in his eyes as he watched the architect of his sister's misery suffer.
"Zechs, that's evil," Serafall pointed out, though without much conviction.
In a separate, opulent viewing room within the Runeas Arena, the atmosphere had undergone a dramatic shift.
Initially, it had been peaceful.
Lord Blazalon Phenex, a devil of immense pride and presence, had even magnanimously admitted the potential of Rias's peerage, acknowledging her servants as worthy of both their great houses.
Zeoticus and Venelana Gremory had accepted the compliments with graceful diplomacy.
That fragile peace shattered the moment the Extinguishing Star connected with Riser. The crystal glass in Blazalon's hand began to tremble, the fine brandy within swirling violently.
"Marquis Phenex?" Zeoticus asked, his voice carefully neutral.
"Archduke Gremory..." Blazalon began, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "I thought we had a deal."
"Yes, obviously," Zeoticus retorted, maintaining his composure.
"Then why is YOUR daughter beating MY son!?" Blazalon roared, slamming his hands on the table with such force that the wood splintered. "This Rating Game was supposed to be a formality! Do you have any idea how much I have spent on this marriage!? I have put the face of my house on the line! Has this been only a way to shame the Phenex House, Lord Gremory!?"
His fury was a tangible force in the room. In two days, the greatest ceremony in recent underworld history was scheduled to take place at Phenex Castle.
Blazalon had spared no expense. He had invited the most influential lords and ladies, secured luxuries from across the mythological realms, made promises, and cashed in a mountain of valuable favors.
It was to be the crowning moment of his lineage's prestige.
"Lord Phenex, you are gravely misunderstanding this," Zeoticus defended, raising his hands placatingly. "I would never dare to shame a House like yours."
"Really!?" Blazalon sneered. "Do you know that if by any chance your daughter avoids the marriage, it will be MY house that will suffer the most?"
He didn't allow Zeoticus to interject.
"Not only will I have to personally apologize to all the Pillar Houses for canceling the ceremony two days prior, not only will my own son be humiliated in front of a rookie, but I will lose both prestige and a fortune! This is an insult, Lord Gremory!"
"Lord Phenex," Venelana interjected, her voice a masterclass in diplomatic calm. "Why don't we sit down and finish watching the Game? I am sure we will see this through." Her intervention was a lifeline for her husband.
Zeoticus shot her a look of profound gratitude. Blazalon, fuming, slowly lowered himself back into his chair, his eyes burning with a promise of retribution.
'You better not mess this up, Riser,' he thought venomously. 'You are playing with the honor of our House here.'
Inside the core of the Extinguishing Star, the psychological torture reached its crescendo.
'I hate repeating myself, mangy bird. Call upon my name. Do you want to be humiliated by Rias Gremory?' the hoarse voice mocked, its words sharper than the pain of disintegrating flesh.
'You will become the laughing stock of the entire Underworld. Hilarious, don't you think? You will be the shame of the Phenex House. Your Father will disown you. Your brothers and sister will forget you.'
The voice painted a future of utter ruin, each word a poison dart aimed at the heart of Riser's pride.
'Once a proud devil, now the punching bag of an 18-year-old girl. Defeated by a bunch of high school students, Riser Phenex: the lowest of his House.'
"AAAAAH!" Riser's scream was one of mental and physical agony.
'Mangy bird. What are you going to do? Call me. SUMMON ME. DO IT OR DIE!' The final command was a psychic roar that overwhelmed every other sensation.
Something in Riser Phenex broke. Pride, fear, and a desperate, clawing need for survival fused into a single, explosive impulse.
"P-PERSONA!"
The word was a catalyst that jump-started an immediate chain reaction.
A conflagration of flames erupted from Riser's body, but these were not his familiar, peacock-hued fires. They were a bright, arterial red, the color of lifeblood and burning gems.
The intensity of this new energy was absolute. It did not simply resist the Extinguishing Star's might, it blasted it apart, scattering the concentrated demonic power into harmless motes of fading light all around .
A voice, both Riser's and not, echoed through the suddenly silent Rating Game Dimension.
"I am Thou. Thou art I. From the Sinful Pit of thy Rotten Heart I am free. Losing? That is not a curse I shall accept on me. I am fire! I am life! Now and forever I am PHOENIX!"
Hovering in the air, Riser was reborn. His clothes, previously scorched and torn, were perfectly restored. His body was whole, radiating a terrifying, newfound vigor. And behind him, towering like a omen, was its source.
The Reverse Phoenix was a grotesque perversion of the mythical bird of rebirth. It was a giant, puppet-like avian construct.
Its form was not made of flesh and vibrant plumage, symbols of honour and dignity, but of carbonized, blackened bones upon which were pinned dark, funereal feathers.
Its ribcage was a literal cage, bars of bone trapping within it a flock of tiny, desperately chirping birds, each one composed of a flickering, trapped fire.
Hovering above its skeletal head was a crown of burning orange thorns, levitating with malevolent intent.
"A Persona!?" Makoto's head snapped towards Ryoji, his calm completely shattered. "Ryoji. Elizabeth said the people of this world couldn't have Persona until the birth of a Sea of Souls. Then what is that?" he demanded, his voice sharp.
"I... I don't know," Ryoji admitted, his face a mask of confusion and dread.
'It is clear as day that it is not Phoenix. It is something else,' Kohryu stated.
'I know what that is...' Apollo's voice was dead serious, all traces of his usual levity gone.
'Then speak, Sun God,' Lucifer commanded.
'A Reverse Persona...' Apollo whispered, the name itself laden with a terrible weight.
"It is impossible!" Ryoji retorted. "Riser Phenex is not a Shadow Self, and even if he was, he's still not a Persona User!"
"Mako, what's happening?" Serafall asked, her voice small.
"We must do something! Rias is in danger!" Sirzechs exclaimed, rising from his seat, his power beginning to leak into the room.
But before any of them could act, Grayfia's calm, impartial voice echoed once more, delivering the final, shocking verdict. "Lady Rias has been defeated. The winner of the Rating Game is Lord Riser."
Their eyes snapped back to the screen. Riser stood triumphant on the ravaged second floor of the New School Building. Of Rias, there was no sign, only the fading light of her retirement. The victory had been snatched from her grasp in the blink of an eye.
"Ria... lost?" Serafall breathed, unable to process the reversal.
Sirzechs didn't utter a word. A cold fury and a brother's panic warred within him. He turned and rushed from the room, a crimson blur heading for the infirmary.
On the battlefield, Ravel landed shakily at her brother's side. "Brother, are you feeling good?"
Riser turned to her, a new, unnerving confidence in his smile. "Yes, Ravel, I am fine. You all did a wonderful job." He looked around at the destruction, a king surveying his domain. "No, we have a party we must prepare for."
And with that, the Phenex siblings departed the dimension, leaving behind the ashes of Rias Gremory's hopes.
———
A/N:
• Sorry for the huge delay, but lately I am starting to grow pretty apathetic with both Persona and DxD as franchises. However, I will try my hardest to at least finish this arc and everything I have planned (up until the end of Kokabiel Arc in canon DxD).