Chapter 41 — Shock and Holy Steel

Rias

The moment I stepped into the ritual room and saw Akeno pressed close to Issei’s bare chest, I understood two things at once.

First, the nullification ritual was clearly progressing.

Second, Akeno was enjoying herself far too much.

She was still in that soaked white cloth, clinging to her body in a way that made the phrase ritual garment feel like an insult to honesty.

Issei was shirtless in the middle of the magic circle, nose bleeding, face red, breathing unevenly, and looking exactly like a boy who had been bullied within an inch of death and loved every second of it.

My Ise.

Mine to tease.

Mine to spoil.

Mine to scold when he became too shameless.

And Akeno was very obviously stealing a moment that should have been mine.

“Akeno,” I said, keeping my voice level only through force of habit, “what exactly do you think you’re doing?”

Akeno straightened with that infuriatingly elegant smile of hers.

“Nullifying dragon power,” she answered sweetly. “It was going quite well.”

“It looked like you were toying with Issei-kun.”

“A little.”

She had the audacity to sound pleased about it.

I ignored him for the moment and walked closer.

The dragon power around his left arm had thinned.

I could feel that immediately.

The nullification ritual had worked. The strain in the arm was lower than before.

That softened my irritation by exactly enough to keep me from actually dragging Akeno away by the hair.

“Then move,” I said.

Akeno tilted her head. “Move?”

“Yes.”

“But Buchou,” she said in that soft voice of hers, “it’s my turn today and I haven’t finished.”

That made me pause.

Only briefly. She noticed, naturally, and smiled a little wider.

The problem with Akeno was that she understood the rules well enough to weaponize them.

We had agreed to alternate these moments partly because the dragon nullification worked best through contact and partly because neither of us was saintly enough to give the other girl all of Issei’s suffering and none of his adorable reactions.

She knew perfectly well that it was her turn.

That did not mean I had to like how much she was enjoying it.

“……That’s true. But it looks like you trying to do something beyond just treatment?”

“Ara ara. I haven’t done anything though?”

“Is that so? Even I haven’t……”

“That’s because you’re too slow with it Rias. It might be a good idea to read about it, but it won’t help you with the real thing.”

The door shut behind me.

Kusari san finally stepped fully into the room, while closing the doorquietly behind her.

She had asked to observe what we were doing with Issei’s arm out of curiosity, and I had not seen a reason to refuse.

If anything, her eye for strange power made her a more useful witness than most.

Even if I suspected it might me more than just his arm she was interested in.

Issei did save both of us when he defeated Riser after all. 

Akeno, unfortunately, seemed to read Kusari’s presence as more audience for her nonsense.

“See?” she said. “Even Kusari-chan came because this is interesting.”

Kusari’s expression did not shift. “That is not the word I would use.”

“Oh? Then did you come after hearing about the ritual garments from Rias? I can give you a closer look at it if you want.”

Akneo leaned back from Ise and arched her back suggestively, emphasizing her breasts and how the wet cloth clung to her.

Issei made a helpless, suffering sound from the middle of the room.

Kusari’s eyes tracked her movements but she didn’t respond to Akeno’s teasing. 

I folded my arms and decided to ignore Akeno. 

“Kusari,” I said, “what do you think?”

Kusari blinked once.

Then she looked past both of us and focused on Issei instead.

There was something almost clinical in the shift—her attention narrowing, the rest of the room dimming for her in a way that had nothing to do with romance or jealousy and everything to do with wanting to understand the shape of a thing.

That was why I had let her come.

She crossed the room without hurry, stopped beside the magic circle, and held out one hand.

Akeno put some distance between herself and Issei.

“May I?”

Issei looked between all three of us as if his life had become too complicated for language.

“With my arm?”

“The one with the dragon attached to it, preferably.”

Akeno laughed softly.

I folded my arms.

Issei, red-faced and shirtless and still clearly not recovered from being bullied by Akeno, put his left hand out toward her.

Kusari took him by the wrist.

It was detached and calm. 

I still did not like how that looked.

Akeno noticed my disapproval.

That made my mood worse.

Kusari, uncaring, turned his hand slightly and studied the arm from wrist to elbow with sharp, intent eyes.

Her fingers looked cool against his skin.

Issei went still, more out of confusion than embarrassment now.

“This is unpleasant,” she murmured.

“What do you mean, unpleasant?” he asked.

“It seems like it’s half curse, half possession, half pressure, and extremely messy.”

Akeno raised an eyebrow. “That is three halves.”

Kusari did not look away from the arm. “Then it is exceeding its boundaries already.”

I might have smiled.

Only a little.

Ise, of course, chose that exact moment to look at her face instead of his own arm.

“What do you actually see?”

Kusari’s thumb pressed lightly against the inside of his wrist.

“The draconic power gathered too thickly in the limb and has not finished leaving through the proper channels. It’s less unstable than before. Still ugly.”

“Ugly?”

He was watching her face as she studied his arm.

“It feels like something trying to become more itself than should be allowed.

Akeno leaned one shoulder against the wall, arms folding under her chest as she watched. “How poetic.”

Kusari glanced at her. “I am stating an observation.”

Then she looked back to Issei’s arm.

I became aware, all at once, of how close she was standing to him and how still he had gone under her attention.

Kusari was holding Issei’s arm close to herself and studying him intently.

Issei had gone still under her intense gaze and still hadn’t looking away from Kusari. 

I did not care for that either.

Akeno, traitor that she was, definitely noticed.

“Ara,” she said lightly. “Kusari-chan is very interested.”

Kusari’s gaze did not move. “I’m interested in his arm.”

“Is that all? Because that’s not what it looks like,” Akeno said.

Issei made a sound halfway between panic and protest while glancing between each of us. 

I stepped forward at once.

“Akeno is right.”

Kusari finally looked away from Issei’s arm and instead at me.

Expression flat. Purple eyes clear. Grip still closed around Issei’s wrist.

“You think I’m flirting with the arm?”

“It’s my Ise you’re touching,” I said.

There was absolutely no point pretending otherwise.

Akeno laughed and added, “Buchou sure is possessive. Normally she would be directing her jealousy at me.”

“You normally deserve it.”

“Perhaps,” she said agreeably. “But it looks like it’s Kusari-chan that is the target of Buchou’s wrath this time.”

Kusari looked from me to Akeno and back again.

Then she gave Issei’s hand a small, measuring turn that made him wince.

“What,” she asked with complete calm, “are you both talking about?”

Akeno made a delighted sound.

I narrowed my eyes.

She was pretending not to know. Poorly.

Or perhaps perfectly, depending on whether one judged by irritation or plausibility.

“You know exactly—”

Kusari acted.

No warning.

No buildup.

A tiny curl of violet-black curse-light flashed from her fingertips into Issei’s arm.

He yelped.

“AH—!”

The draconic power in the limb convulsed visibly beneath his skin. The dragon transformation of his arm surged in strength toward the wrist where her hand held him, then dissipated almost immediately. 

The pressure in the room changed immediately.

The buildup was gone.

“There.”

Kusari said calmly as she let go of his arm and Issei jerked away in pain.

Issei clutched his arm with his free hand and stared at her in betrayal.

“That hurt!”

“Yes, I would imagine,” Kusari said.

Akeno straightened.

I felt the difference in his arm at once.

The leftover draconic pressure had broken cleanly.

Whatever ugly knot remained in it from the build up of energy was gone. 

Akeno looked from Issei’s arm to Kusari and then laughed.

“She finished it with brute force.”

Kusari released Issei’s wrist and took one small step back. “Not brute force. Precision.”

“It made him scream,” I said.

“It worked.”

“That,” Akeno said, smiling much too brightly, “is not the point.”

Kusari looked at her.

Then at me.

Then at Issei, who was still rubbing his arm and looking offended that he had gone from erotic teasing to pain.

At last she gave us all the same dull, unreadable look.

“I’m afraid,” she said, “I don’t know what either of you mean.”

That was a lie.

A very bad one.

She enjoyed that she had ruined the chance for an intimate moment with Issei.

I could see a glint in her otherwise calm eyes that would not have been noticeable to someone who didn’t know her well enough. 

Akeno put a hand to her chest. “Buchou, did you hear that? She stole the entire moment and now she’s playing innocent.”

I folded my arms tighter. “Kusari.”

“Yes?”

“That was unnecessary.”

Her eyes flicked briefly to Issei’s arm.

“No,” she said. “It was more efficient.”

That answer should not have made Issei smile.

It did.

I saw it.

Akeno saw it too.

Our irritation doubled instantly.

“You like that answer?” I asked him.

Issei tried and failed to look calm. “W-Well I mean, I really like how Buchou and Akeno-senpai do it. I prefer it that way, but…. it’s just…. the way Kusari-san did it was really fast.”

Akeno pressed a hand to her cheek dramatically. “And after I worked so hard on him too.”

“That sounds dirty,” Kusari said.

There was a beat of silence.

Then Issei covered his face with one hand.

Akeno burst into laughter.

I did not laugh.

I did, however, feel a sharp, traitorous urge to.

Kusari’s gaze moved over all three of us as if she had stepped into a room of idiots and expected no improvement.

The worst part was that she was not wrong.

I exhaled through my nose and stepped into the magic circle at last, close enough to rest one hand against Issei’s shoulder.

Mine.

He looked up at me immediately.

That softened me despite everything.

His hair was disordered.

His face still flushed from Akeno’s nonsense and Kusari’s little shock of curse magic.

His arm was better. His expression, at the moment, was split between embarrassment, relief, and disappointment at the ending of the treatment.

He really was too easy to spoil.

“You should have waited for me, Ise,” I said.

He gave me a helpless look. “I didn’t know you would be coming Buchou.”

Akeno made a scandalized noise. “Buchou! Don’t act like you weren’t about to steal the rest of my turn!”

“I was absolutely going to steal the rest of your turn.”

Issei made a strangled sound.

Kusari’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “You’re all impossible.”

That time I did laugh..

Enough that Issei looked at me as if the room had become even more dangerous.

Let him.

Issei

My arm really did feel better.

Which was annoying, because it meant I couldn’t even properly complain about how Kusari-san shocked it.

And I missed out on more of Akeno-san’s teasing.

After that mess in the ritual room, things moved fast.

Too fast, honestly.

The whole Excalibur problem didn’t care about my dignity or my arm or whether Buchou and Akeno-san still looked at Kusari-san like she had robbed them in broad daylight.

Life just kept shoving the next disaster through the door.

That same day, after the nullification ritual was over and I’d managed to recover a little of my dignity, Asia and I arrived back home from school.

Buchou told us to head home without her due to her needing to stay late at the clubroom.

She seemed upset with me over Akeno-san’s nullification ritual and what happened with Kusari-san too.

I don’t know what I did wrong exactly but if Buchou is upset it must be my fault.

We arrived home as I thought about what to do and Asia tried to cheer me up.

And found two girls sitting in the living room talking to Mom like they’d been invited over for tea.

One of them was a brown-haired beauty with a bright, familiar smile that hit me in the chest before my brain caught up. The other was a blue-haired girl with a severe face and the kind of posture that made “trouble” feel like too soft a word.

They were both wearing crosses, and their presence made my hair stand on its ends.

Exorcists.

In my house.

Talking to my mother.

“And this is a picture of Ise when he was in primary school. Look. This is the picture when his swim suit got ripped at the swimming pool. It was very troublesome. He went down the pool slide and they got caught on something and tore right down the middle.”

My life had really stopped believing in normal a while ago.

The brown-haired one looked at me, blinked once, and then broke into a grin so bright it felt like somebody had yanked open a curtain.

“Hello, Hyoudou Issei-kun!”

I stopped in the doorway.

I knew that voice.

Or I knew something in it.

“A-Ah, hello. Nice to meet you.”

She sprang up from the sofa and jabbed a finger at me.

“You really didn’t recognize me, did you?”

I stared.

She laughed.

“No way. You really didn’t! It’s me, your childhood friend!”

That did not help immediately.

Then her grin widened, and she put a hand on her hip with the kind of easy confidence that belonged to somebody who had known me long before I had become the Red Dragon Emperor.

My mom decided to help by handing me a photo from the album she was holding.

“This is Shidou Irina-chan. Back when you were both little she looked like a real tom-boy. Now she looks like beautiful young woman and I was as shocked as you.”

“Yep! I’m Irina,” the brown haired girl said. “Irina Shidou.”

The name hit.

Not all at once. In pieces.

The little kid in the old photograph.

Running around together.

A short-haired childhood friend I had always remembered as a boy.

And then the rest of it hit too.

I pointed before I could stop myself. “You’re a girl!?”

Irina-san burst out laughing.

Asia made a tiny startled sound beside me.

The blue-haired girl did not laugh at all.

Irina-san actually had to wipe at the corner of one eye. “That’s your first reaction!? Wow, Ise-kun, that’s awful.”

“How was I supposed to know!?”

“You should have noticed!”

“You looked like a boy!”

She put both hands on her hips. “I guess it can’t be helped, since I was such a troublemaker and only hung out with boys when I was younger. But it seems that we have both changed in big ways since we were little. It’s sad that you can’t tell what to expect at a reunion.”

Because now that she had said it, I could hear the old familiarity in everything—the rhythm of her voice, the way she looked at me like I was already being ridiculous, the shameless confidence.

But little-kid me had genuinely believed my childhood friend was a boy.

I had apparently been an idiot from birth.

I also noticed that she meant something with what she said.

She had realized my identity as a Devil.

The blue-haired girl finally spoke. “Irina. We are not here for your reunion.”

Irina-san sighed dramatically. “Xenovia, you’re no fun.”

Xenovia. The blue-haired girl apparently. 

Her eyes moved over me, then Asia, with no softness in them at all.

The mood in the room changed fast after that.

Irina-san was my childhood friend.

Fine. Great. Weird. Dangerous to my blood pressure, but fine.

Xenovia-san was not here for nostalgia.

The conversation sharpened.

Mom stayed blissfully unaware of the real shape of it, because apparently my house was now the place where supernatural factions politely tried not to terrify my parents.

Asia grew tense.

I grew suspicious.

Xenovia-san looked like she had come prepared to move straight through talking and into whatever came next.

They left after that brief exchange.

Thankfully not violently.

Just with the sense that a new problem had gotten closer.

A little while later, after they were gone, Buchou came by to check on Asia and me.

She held us and checked us for injuries.

She asked how the church girls had behaved.

Asia answered gently.

I answered less gently.

“I’m so glad you’re both safe! If something had happened to you two, I…I… A-after you both went home Sona asked me to meet with her and told me about people related to the Church entering the town. She told me that they had brought holy swords with them, and when I sensed their presence at the house I was worried that I was going to be too late. I really thought that I wasn’t going to see you again. And if the last time we had seen each other was after a stupid argument Ise, I never would have been able to forgive myself. I’m sorry that I was acting so childish. I should have treated you both better…”

I tempered what Ddraig told me about Gremory Devil’s caring deeply for their servants.

Between what happened with me today with Akeno-san and Buchou and Asia arguing over sleeping in bed last night, Buchou must have been worried she would have lost us right after arguing with each of us. 

“I-I’m sorry too Buchou. I’m sorry for arguing with you over Issei-san. I thought that you might take him away from me and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, so I panicked.”

Asia tearfully apologized to Buchou.

Buchou hugged her and gently patted her head.

Then the conversation shifted to tomorrow—school, the clubroom, what came next.

Which had led, one way or another, to now.

The following day after classes.

The clubroom.

The whole peerage gathered.

And the church girls standing in the middle of it.

Buchou at the center, of course. Akeno-san near her. Asia beside me. Koneko-chan quiet as always. Yuuto—

Yuuto-san looked calm.

Too calm.

The fake sort.

I noticed because now I knew what to look for.

Kusari-san stood near her, not close enough to crowd, but near enough that it meant something.

Across from us stood Xenovia Quarta and Shidou Irina.

Church girls in the Occult Research Club.

That alone was enough to tell me the day had become serious.

No teasing now. No ball games. No easy lunch nonsense.

This was the real thing.

The room smelled faintly of tea and rain-damp cloth and tension.

Irina looked around with bright-eyed curiosity that never quite became softness.

Xenovia did not bother pretending at ease.

She stood like someone who had come into enemy territory, even if she wasn’t drawing her sword yet.

My eyes kept coming back to Yuuto-san.

Her face didn’t move.

Kusari-san noticed that too.

I could tell from the way her attention flicked toward Yuuto-san between longer looks at Xenovia’s posture and Irina’s smile.

Kusari-san always looked like she was reading the shape of danger from the room itself.

Right now that meant she was reading the Church girls, Excalibur, and Yuuto-san all at once.

Buchou spoke first.

“State your business clearly.”

Xenovia did not answer at once.

Irina did.

“Recently, the Holy Swords Excaliburs kept by the Catholic Church headquarters in the Vatican, the Protestant Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church were stolen.”

Stolen.

Excalibur again.

I felt Yuuto-san go rigid beside the wall without needing to look.

When I did look anyway, her face had gone blank in that dangerous way of hers—the one that meant too much was happening inside for any of it to be safe.

Kusari-san noticed too. Of course she did. Her eyes flicked once toward Yuuto-san, then back to Irina.

I frowned. “Wait. Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox? How does that even work? Isn’t Excalibur just… one sword?”

“Excalibur itself no longer exists,” Buchou said before either Church girl could answer.

I looked at her. “Huh?”

Buchou kept her gaze on our guests.

“I’m sorry,” she said to them with formal calm. “One of my servants is newly reincarnated. Please continue while explaining about Excalibur itself.”

Irina nodded at once.

“Ise-kun,” she said, looking straight at me with that bright familiarity of hers, “Excalibur was broken into multiple pieces a long time ago during the war.”

Even I knew enough legend to know Excalibur wasn’t supposed to be the sort of thing that just snapped into pieces.

Seeing my face, Irina’s smile widened slightly.

“Now it looks like this.”

Xenovia moved as she spoke.

The weapon she had brought in wrapped in cloth was drawn out and revealed properly.

A long sword.

The instant I saw it, my body reacted instantly.

A freezing pressure raced over my skin.

Fear.

Instinctive, ugly fear.

Not the fear of a strong enemy.

Not the fear of losing a fight.

The fear of something fundamentally wrong for my existence.

A Devil’s fear.

It was only a sword.

And it felt like death.

Koneko-chan’s shoulders tightened.

Asia inhaled sharply.

Even Akeno-san’s smile thinned as she watched it.

Yuuto-san stared at it like she wanted to tear the room apart with her bare hands.

Kusari-san’s face did not change much, but I saw the smallest narrowing in her eyes.

Her attention sharpened around the holy blade the way it did around curses, seals, and things she disliked on principle.

Xenovia held the sword upright.

“This is Excalibur,” she said. “One of the seven Excaliburs created from the fragments of the original holy sword. The Catholic Church is in possession of it.”

So it really had been broken apart and been remade.

“The Excalibur I hold is “Excalibur Destruction”, one of the seven holy swords of Excalibur.”

Xenovia puts the sword back into its sheath and wraps it again with the cloth bindings.

Irina stepped forward then and took out what looked like a sole rope.

Before I could ask what it was, the thing moved in her hands and changed form, hardening and reshaping itself into a blade.

A sword.

“This is my “Excalibur Mimic”,” she said, almost proudly. “It can change into any shape, so it’s convenient to carry. This one belongs to the Protestant Church.”

That meant two Excaliburs were standing in our clubroom.

Two.

My skin crawled all over again.

“Each “Excalibur” possesses a different ability,” Irina continued. “That is the nature of the seven swords.”

Xenovia shot her a sharp look. “There is no need to tell Devils the abilities of Excalibur.”

Irina’s smile did not move. “In this situation, we need a relationship built on trust, don’t we? And even if they know, I won’t lose.”

That confidence was not empty.

She believed it.

And honestly, with two holy swords in the room, I couldn’t even call it arrogance.

Irina-san glanced at Kusari-san.

Perhaps she noticed something from her reaction.

I became aware, very suddenly, of the pressure building near the wall.

Yuuto-san.

She was staring at the swords with a face I had never wanted to see again after the rain.

Hatred.

Pure, controlled, murderous hatred.

Kusari-san had shifted half a step closer without looking like she had moved at all.

Not toward the Church girls.

Toward Yuuto-san.

The room’s center still belonged to Buchou.

That was the only reason it had not split open yet.

I clenched my fists under the table.

Don’t move, Yuuto-san. Don’t do anything stupid.

Not yet.

Buchou continued as if the room were not one breath away from a fight.

“So what do the stolen Excaliburs have to do with this country?”

Xenovia answered this time.

“The holy swords were stolen and the thieves managed to flee to this town.”

A bad feeling ran through me.

“This town?” I repeated.

Irina looked toward me again. “Kuoh.”

That one word settled the matter.

There was no misunderstanding left.

No distance. No maybe.

Excalibur had come here.

To our town.

Buchou’s eyes sharpened.

“You tracked them here?”

“Yes,” Xenovia said. “And the priests who came ahead of us to investigate have been disappearing.”

Priests.

Plural.

The room went colder.

“So who is responsible for stealing the Excalibiurs?” Buchou asked.

Xenovia answered

“The Grigori. We know the main culprit of the theft was one of their leaders. Kokabiel.”