- Hey, so, it was not a long battle, but it was supposed to show you how he would do fighting someone who had more brute strength supposedly. Thnaks for reading. Authors Out. -
The arena was small under the dark purple night sky of the underworld—and attention was focused on its center, while the audience was protected by a blanket covered in gold, wine, and ancient laws. The outer ring of the arena was made of polished obsidian, the balconies pale gold. Banners of houses I didn't care to memorize hung, fluttering violently like flags on a windy day. Demons swarmed: nobles with calculating smiles, servants with eyes like ledgers, bored brats who had come to watch a "human" make a public mistake.
Riser Phenex stood in the center of the arena, adorned in a jacket the color of old money, flames billowing from his hands, demon wings illuminated by hellfire, casting a golden, syrupy haze. He was handsome. His ego had a better illumination.
Across from him, calm and unarmed, I planted my feet and breathed. The Boosted Gear glowed under my sleeve like a coiled verdict. Above us, the false sky ran a slow gradient from sugared blue to pageant purple, as if someone had taught weather about cosmetics.
We stared at each other until even the crowd learned to shut up. Magic hummed thick enough to taste—ozone, incense, hot iron. Up on the dais, Sirzechs Lucifer sat with patient authority, a hand at his chin, a small smile that looked too gentle to ever be a warning. Grayfia stood half a step behind him, hands folded, eyes like a clock that knows when you lie.
[Remember, partner. Dragons don't usually start fights. But they always end them.]
Got it, I thought. And this one ends clean.
A ripple shivered through the wards—the signal. Riser moved first, because of course he did. He raised both hands and sang in Devilish tongue: ancient vowels, arrogant grammar.
"Infernal Fire Tempest: Phoenix Spiral!"
The purple-sugar sky split like silk. A cyclone of golden fire and butchered wind tore downward, spiraling in a beautiful, stupid column. The roar jackhammered across the wards. Heat slapped the ring with both hands. Somewhere in the stands a hundred nobles leaned forward with the practiced expression of people who pay to feel intensity without mess.
Rias's peerage did the right things: Kiba angled to cover his queen, Akeno's smile untied itself into focus, Koneko's eyes flickered toward pressure points no one else saw. Kalawarna, watching from a remote circle with Asia thought on helping me, and Azazel's scrying discipline, whispered, "That could melt bones…"
[He is overcompensating,] Ddraig said, lazy as thunder. [A true flame doesn't need to shout.]
I closed my eyes and exhaled once. Let the fire run right past without seeing me. Let my weight sink into stone until the earth remembered my name.
The crimson gauntlet unfurled from my forearm like a confession. The jewel glowed.
[Boost!][Boost!][Boost!]
The pulse hit like a drumline laid into bone. Power rose in clean increments, not a rush, not a flood—stacks on stacks, each beat a rung on a ladder I had built slowly in dark rooms with nobody to clap for it. Heat merged with will until they were hard to tell apart. I caged almost all of it. Let a sliver leak: a tightened air, a red thread around my shape. No spotlight. No pyrotechnics. Just fact.
The cyclone tore into the ring. The barrier groaned; Grayfia's fingers twitched—once, a note to a choir of spells.
I didn't move. I felt where the ring thinned—weak seams in the composite underfoot. Ran my will through it and down. Called—not to molten lake (this was engineered ground, not a volcano), but to the heat stored in the stone. Fire asked. Earth agreed like a stubborn friend being convinced.
Cracks spidered from under my heels, a spiderweb that drank the cyclone's heat. The ring flexed; a seam opened; a tongue of red slopped up—slag, vitrified arena mix suppressing its own scream. The smell was terrible. Good. I extended a hand and shaped the glow.
The slag rose, swirled around my arm, lengthened, hardened at the skin with a skin of force—basalt bones, lava blood. At the tip I spun a tight cone of pressure and bled holy residue into its edges—not an angel's blessing. Something more dangerous. A saint's memory braided into dragonfire.
For a heartbeat, the crowd forgot to perform. Sirzechs' smile deepened, almost psychotic. Grayfia's eyes narrowed a millimeter. In the remote secret circle, I felt Azazel's grin like a distant cigarette.
[Partner, you realize that's insane for someone that was a secret not long ago.]
Yeah. That's why it'll work.
"You like to shout names, huh? Then let me nominate this skill: Spear Skill: Sancti Draco LavaSpear..." Then I mumbled to myself "Shit, this is ridiculous..."
The cyclone came down again—faster, hungrier. I crouched and surged forward, red dragon wings flaring enough to cheat friction. I met him mid-circle.
The explosion wasn't sound. It was silence breaking.
Light flattened the world. Gold and red carved reality into slices. I aimed for the cyclone's throat and threaded the spiral; the tip of the lance bit the seam where Riser's control had braided flame and air. Holy-draconic heat kissed infernal heat and ate it like sugar. The spiral tore. Fire turned to glare. Wind lost its language.
The shockwave hit the ward like a brick in a bell. The first barrier shattered with a sound the nobles pretended not to flinch at; the second caught, humming like an organ. A handful of seats recoiled. One banner became ash. Someone swore they were impressed in a way they would later deny.
When the light went away, my ears came back with their own complaints. I was on my feet, knees bent, lance humming like a threat. Across from me, Riser staggered and dropped to one knee. His flames sputtered, not out—Phenex regen refused embarrassment—but erratic. On his right side, from wrist to elbow, skin peeled blackened; at the stump where his right hand should be, pale fire licked and then withdrew as it lost interest. The holy flare clung like a polite curse. It didn't stop his regen. It argued with it.
"Impossible," he hissed through teeth. "No flame can wound a Phenex."
I walked toward him through the wrecked air, steam coming off my skin in silk ribbons. I was unburned. Sweat ran salt in my eyes. I didn't blink. "Your fire heals," I said. "Mine purifies. That's the difference."
He spat; it turned to steam before it hit the ground.
I dropped to one knee—slow, visible. Let the lance dissolve back into heat and earth, let the ring drink it. Lifted a hand. Drew the holy 'sting' out of his arm like a splinter, replaced it with a simple, controlled fire weave—neutral, a push to his cell division, a truce with his blood. The raw meat shivered and remembered hand.
"Don't get me wrong," I said, steady as an oath and just as unforgiving. "I don't kill for pride. This duel wasn't about that."
"What was it about?" he asked, and the fury had drained to angry confusion—the kind boys get when mom stops cleaning up the mess.
"Control," I said. "Over power. Over ego. Over what we become when we forget why we fight."
His jaw flexed. He lowered his gaze. He didn't thank me. He wasn't idiotic enough to miss the lesson.
Up in the dais, Sirzechs tapped his chin once. "Interesting boy," he murmured, and it carried. "A dragon who understands mercy, and wields holy magic power. Rare breed."
Rias, two rows down, didn't sigh but the air around her did. Relief soothed the line between her brows like a balm. Akeno's smile came back relatable and wrong in the right way. Kiba exhaled—a soldier honoring craft. Koneko bit her cookie and pronounced silently: acceptable.
The murmurs swelled—a thousand opinions making love to their own egos. I stood, dismissed my light, boxed my aura, and let the ring see a boy in a wrecked red sleeveless shirt who was already walking away from his applause.
[You didn't kill him.]
Didn't need to.
[You're learning, partner.]
I smiled without giving it to anyone. "Tell Sirzechs I'll collect my reward later," I said to the air, and meant it and didn't.
I turned my back and left the center to Riser's pride. The lights of the arena dimmed a shade, as if the arena remembered it didn't like being bright. I walked until I could feel the ward threshold hum across my skin, then stopped, cleaned my hands on nothing, and looked up at the dais.
Sirzechs lifted his hand. Silence landed like a feather and weighed a ton. "By the authority vested in this tribunal," he said warmly, "the duel concludes. Victory goes to Hyoudou Issei." A ripple. "As agreed, authorization will be granted for entry to the Familiar Forest, unrestricted, at the holder's discretion."
Grayfia's quill wrote that into the world. The ink tasted like law.
Riser stood with help he pretended not to take. His eyes were hot and small. He wanted to speak. He did not. That was growth. Rias stood too, straightening into her name like she'd forgiven it for being heavy.
I left before anybody could make me stay for handshakes.
The corridors under the arena were all stone and memory. My footsteps echoed. Adrenaline bled off reluctantly. Sirzechs appeared in a side hall, eyes sharp, power hidden, cloak clean and ordinary in a way that fooled no one. "You didn't vaporize him," he said, approval tucked in sarcasm's pocket.
"Wasn't the job," I said. "Also felt rude."
He smirked. "So you do have manners. My mother is giddy. My father is pretending not to be impressed. Rias's crying happy tears and has decided fried chicken is a good meal."
"I'll make her some," I said, and then paused to let the ache wave through me. It hit in a warm, heavy sheet. I rode it out. It had been a long time since I'd experienced something so intense; the last time was when I acquired Ashdod.
Sirzechs stepped close, checked my eyes with a professional's look. "You overclocked your 'base' form without flashing. Good. Can you stand tomorrow?"
"I can stand now," I said. "Walking is extra."
He was absolutely right, I need to talk to Ddraig about swapping my human dermis for draconic dermis. This will increase my overall endurance, and allow me to use more of my power without killing me from exhaustion and lack of resistance to my own power.
We found a bench built out of stone that had been a better wall; I sat; He sat; for a minute, the two of us listened to the building do its work, breath through pipes, settle spells. "He'll come again," she said. "Not Riser. Phenex house. Pride comes in cousin packs."
"Let them," I said. "We have more lessons."
He bumped my shoulder. "Red Dragon Emperor," he teased, playfully enough not to bruise my dignity.
"Please, Sirzechs, no," I groaned, which only made his grin widen.
Grayfia found us in the hall with the grace of inevitability. "Hyoudou Issei," she said, tone that could file knives. "A document requires your signature." She produced a parchment that had never been paper and a pen that had definitely stabbed someone in the past. I signed where it told me. The letters sank and glowed, then disappeared—the good kind of bureaucratic magic.
"Parameters of authorization are attached," she said. "Please inform the appropriate offices before each entry as a courtesy." Her eyes suggested she knew I would not, and that this was furthermore an ongoing joke she could live with.
"Thank you," I said, meaning it. "Tell Maou Beelzebub his ring held well, but maybe it will not in the future."
A breath flickered at the corner of her mouth—maybe the ghost of pride. "I shall inform him, Red Dragon Emperor." She glanced at Sirzechs as if cataloguing which one of us make more problems, then vanished in a neat fold of reality.
Shit, she is a manace.
Sirzechs didn't shake hands at his departure. Good. I am not built to accept compliments from heads of state under chandeliers.
Back in Kuoh the false sky in the arena became memory, and the real one slid dark under the neighborhood eyes. I took the long walk home, every step bleeding out heat and Boost residue. It felt like leaving a war and entering a story you told yourself so you could sleep in it.
At the door, I listened. My house hummed the way good houses do—water through pipes, TV laugh track trying a little too hard, Asia's voice practicing politeness on a language that didn't deserve her effort. I lined up my shoes like respect, washed my hands like religion, and walked into my own life.
Dad looked up. "How was cram school?"
"Hot," I said. "Learned a lot."
Mom slid a plate toward me. "You look tired. Eat first."
Asia hovered near the counter with a towel in her hands like a shield and a flag. She set it down and called me "Onii-san" with the kind of brave that made my chest hurt. Kalawarna stole my seat and then stood to give it back, before departing to her own business. We ate the kind of dinner old gods envy because it is exactly nothing and therefore everything. After, I washed and Asia dried. We laughed at a joke on TV that only became funny because Dad wouldn't let it not be.
Later, in my room, I unwrapped Ashdod and rested my hands on the cloth. The lance hummed through the fabric with an old, patient hunger. It liked the fight we didn't use it for. It approved of restraint because restraint is a kind of worship.
[You left the saint asleep.]
I did.
[You left the dragon hungry.]
He ate enough.
[You kept the man in the middle.]
That's the job.
I lay flat on the futon and let the ceiling be sky. The duel replayed in my head, not as a highlight reel, but as a list of small choices. Where I took heat. Where I gave breath. Where I showed mercy because cruelty wouldn't have taught the thing I wanted known about me.
My phone buzzed once. A single-line message from an unlisted Grigori code: Good form. Next time, try a pure dragon energy based attack. I thumbed back a single emoji and the word noted because I refused to give Azazel the satisfaction of a paragraph.
Another buzz. A different code. Permission token burned in. You have three month window for first entry; renewals contingent on not embarrassing me. Sirzechs? Grayfia? Somebody with civil-service humor. I replied with a very respectful "Understood."
Ten minutes later, a third ping. Kalawarna: You owe me coffee. Me: Tomorrow 8. don't make me knock. Kalawarna: I don't knock either. Me: Criminal. Kalawarna: Obviously.
I slept in a piece at a time. In the dream, a forest breathed in a language that had never met Latin and I walked under branches that remembered people who didn't make it to the clearing. Something old and clever watched me from a canopy that had always been. It didn't speak. It weighed.
Morning arrived with the world doing its job—light at the window, birds uninventive, my mother in the kitchen making the day survivable. Asia hummed a hymn that made the sink bless dishes. Dad found new ways to make paper news loud. I ate, put on a uniform that continued to pretend I was just a student, and went to school like a citizen.
At lunch, Matsuda slapped my shoulder and told me about a video of somebody doing the bottlecap challenge with their mind; I told him he needed new heroes and he told me flatly mine were "weird." Motohama produced a laminated chart proving chili is a conspiratorial plot to sell milk. We existed. It was nice.
After school, I walked the long way home because my future had a forest in it now and I wanted to savor the last day my world had fences I'd built myself. On the way, an old man I didn't know tipped his hat—respect or sarcasm, both fine. An old woman selling daifuku outside a shop tucked an extra into my bag and called me "polite." The sky did nothing dramatic. That was generous.
At the house, I put my hand on the door and promised it I would still be me when I returned from the place where names had teeth.
[The fire that burns twice,] Ddraig murmured, tone like warm iron. [Once to take. Once to refine.]
"Which did I use?" I asked.
[Yesterday? You refined him. Yourself, too.]
I smiled. "Good. I'm not done."
[You will never be done.]
"That's the point," I said, and went inside my house, and let the human peace I'd earned sit down at my table and eat.