"------"

Akeno's vision swam, messy blurs of colours and shapes blending into one another as darkness crept along the edges of her vision.

"......."

Her ears were ringing, a persistent and omnipresent buzz that made her head hurt and focusing impossible.

"....."

And then the pain.

Oh, the pain.

Akeno could say with certainty that this was not the type of pain she wanted to feel when she teased Eren.

"....!"

Eren... mmmh, there is a nice thought.

He was definitely an S, Akeno was sure. If she could rouse his anger... ung, the things she wanted him to do to her.

That was the type of pain she wanted. The short sting of a whip. The tight, almost chafing confines of ropes.

Not this vomit-inducing nausea, this bone-deep weariness, and the omnipresent ringing.

"....! ....!"

Lady Mikasa could join, too. Akeno wasn't sure if Aunty was an S, an M, or both, but she wanted to find out.

An M for Eren and an S for everyone else? Maybe. Probably. Hopefully.

Of course, if the older woman wasn't interested, that wasn't a problem either. Akeno and Eren could sneak around. Akeno really liked the idea of being the mistress, the shameful little secret.

"------"

Ah. Right. Eren was going to die.

Or was he?

Rias hadn't given up yet, and maybe not Mikasa? Akeno wasn't sure.

Akeno would help.

She just had to seduce Eren, then he would want to be a devil and hold her and do naughty things to her and live together and have a family together and never leave her alone and never abandon her, and Akeno wouldn't lose anyone again.

That would be...

"...no!"

...great.

"Akeno!"

Oh, look, the colours were talking. The ringing was quieter. That was good.

Maybe?

Akeno's head was really starting to hurt.

"She's not talking!"

Everything hurt.

[BOOST]

[BOOST]

[BOOST]

[BOOST]

[BOOST]

[TRANSFER]

The speed at which the world flowed back into focus increased dramatically, and everything became clearer.

First came sound.

Dragon roars. The howls of wolves. The clap of thunder and the unending crash of lightning.

Then came smell.

Sweat. Mud. Blood. Burnt flesh.

Next, the disconcerting swirl of colours started to gain defined lines.

Akeno saw the green glow of Twilight Healing in the corner of her vision, but it could not hold her attention.

In the vague form of a serpentine dragon, a mass of shadow writhed around a wolf. Both monsters fought in a savage display of fangs and claws.

The familiar red-black of the Rias's Power of Destruction chased another wolf through the sky. When it turned to counterattack, its way was blocked by a wall of magic sigils conjured by a vaguely familiar white-haired woman.

Other figures fought across Akeno's line of sight: Yuuto, Koneko, Xenovia, Sona... They were all fighting what seemed to be clones of some other dragon. They killed one, but the nine others did not even falter in the slightest.

An idle thought that flitted through her mind. Every one of the clones was taller than Tanin, the dragon Akeno was most familiar with, which meant they had to be at least sixteen meters. Yet Midgardsormr, on which they were cloned, was the largest Dragon King by quite a bit.

Did that mean the clones were big? Or small?

Those sights came and went, vague impressions punctuated by moments of clarity, but two fights seized the Queen's attention.

Not even Asia's mumbled request not to move could stop her from jerking to get a better look, sending another wave of vertigo and nausea through her.

Akeno vomited.

Her dinner, lunch, and a not-inconsiderable amount of blood splattered onto the ground and her outfit.

It helped.

Slightly.

So she vomited again, more blood and bile spilling from her mouth in a truly foul-tasting concoction.

Asia was still healing her, hands pressed against Akeno's head, and the Queen could finally look to the sky. Asia took her movement as proof she could return to healing the mess that was the Queen's lungs.

The first and greatest battle across the sky was... 'apocalyptic' was the best word Akeno could think of in her dazed state.

Loki, the god who had ambushed them, was alight with enough spells that Akeno could not distinguish his form in their incandescent glow.

Odin, the old letch, had shed his veneer of a senile old fool who insisted on touring Kuoh's strip clubs and bars.

What replaced the mask was a true god of war.

His magic was less powerful and bright, but it was so exact and direct that the old god only needed to fire one spell for every five of Loki's. His every movement, every spear thrust, and every spell flowed like a river. One led to another to another to another.

Loki was the more powerful.

Even to Akeno's dazed mind, that was clear.

He glowed with the purple-black power that characterized those who received the snakes of the Oroboros Dragon. Yet, despite being pressed and forced back, time and time again, Odin held on without significant injury.

Their battle was fast. Violent. Confusing. And, more than anything, awe-inspiring.

In her semi-delirious state, Akeno couldn't help but laugh to herself.

These were gods. GODS!

No wonder that, for all their pretentious name, none of the twelve Longinus had ever actually killed a god.

Plenty had fought gods; some had even survived, but no Longinus had ever actually killed a deity.

Even Issei, clad in his Balance Breaker Scail Mail, was relegated to acting as a wall.

Their greatest fighter was relegated to using his Boosts to reinforce himself and fly around, blocking the shockwaves and after-effects of the battle between the two gods so that the others didn't accidentally die.

Occasionally, he'd have a reprieve to transfer some of his Boosts to one of his companions, usually Rias or Saji, to give them an edge in their fight.

Akeno couldn't help but wonder what had they been thinking?

They were kids.

There were undoubtedly kids with potential, but these were beings older than most countries with the power to reshape the map.

They were kids, scrambling in the rubble as two titans clashed, desperately trying to survive the side effects of the true battle.

Akeno realized then that Azazel had lied.

They hadn't been tasked with protecting Odin. Nothing they could provide was better than what the old god could do for himself.

The Gremory Peerage had simply been entertainment.

Curios to demonstrate the future potential of the three factions while the former Norse leader toured, caroused, and negotiated with Azazel about joining the Three Factions' peace.

Maybe not even that? Maybe Azazel had only gotten them involved to give Baraqiel, one of his oldest companions, an excuse to try and make up with his daughter.

Akeno's head, still swimming and half delirious, drooped.

Her eyes fell from the clash of the gods to the final battle.

The third wolf, dwarfing the first two in size by orders of magnitude, howled in fury and pain as Mikasa Ackerman, like a whirling blender, flew around it and carved red lines through its hide with her enchanted blades.

But that was all they were. Red lines.

Not even the best-enchanted blades money could buy or the underworld could produce could significantly damage Fenrir, the God Devouring Wolf.

Mikasa would have been swatted like a bug if it weren't for the two fallen angels.

Azazel and Baraqiel.

They were...

Akeno threw up again, gut-churning at what she saw.

Azazel lacked his usual easy smile and mocking grin. He was deadly serious as he faced down a being that, at its peak, had nearly been a rival to the Dragon Emperors. Spears of light, dwarfing even Fenrir's ten-meter size, rained down on the wolf as it tried to kill Mikasa.

He was meticulous, closer to Odin in approach than Loki, as he laid out a cage of tainted light. It burned fur and flesh, tearing another growl of pain from the massive wolf, but it was all a distraction from the true attack.

Baraqiel, the Lightning of God, unleashed a bolt of Holy Lightning that blinded and deafened Akeno, even though she was far from the battle.

Fenrir, distracted by Mikasa and trapped between giant light spears, could not dodge as a sea of blessed electricity coursed through his body. Its roar of pain sent a shockwave that blasted everything away from it.

Its children, Hati and Skoll, tried to help their father. Saji, Vritra, or whoever was in control at the moment did not let them, as the Prison Dragon held the two in place.

The other battles, the ones against the smaller clones of Midgardsormr, were halted for a moment as allies and enemies were forced to reorient themselves under the wall of sound.

With a moment of reprieve, Issei transferred a few of his Boosts to Rias.

The Gremory Heiress glowed with power, but rather than use it to deal a blow to one of Fenrir's children, she created thousands of raindrop-sized points of Destruction and threw them down.

The black rain tore through the Midgardsormr clones, killing almost all of them.

Rias returned to her battle against Skoll, aiding the Evil Prison Dragon King once more as she let her friends clean up the rest of the 'small' dragons.

Despite the reprieve in the battle between weaker forces, the truly momentous conflict was taking a turn for the worst.

Fenrir's fangs glowed, and he bit through his prison of light to lunge at Azazel with a bite strong enough to end the king of the Norse gods.

Odin himself had faltered slightly at Fenrir's roar, giving Loki the chance to gather power to unleash a truly massive spell.

The one-eyed god fell.

Not dead, but wounded.

Loki followed.

Akeno noted all this with the detached, almost apathetic feeling of watching a movie.

It was like a dream.

None of this felt real in this world of swimming colours and hazy pain.

Certainly not the image of Baraqiel laying in a pool of his own blood, his left side wholly gone.

His right and only arm raised to continue to pour Holy Lighting against the God Devouring Wolf to try and save his best friend from its god-slaying bite.

Akeno's fuzzy head remembered the ambush.

She remembered a tide of massive dragons arriving out of seemingly nowhere.

She remembered fighting them beside her friends. She had been in the air, flying and raining Holy Lighting, when the wolves arrived in a second wave near her.

Mikasa had distracted Fenrir for a moment, and Saji had transformed, using the other Vritra Sacred Gears to battle the smaller wolves for the first time.

Akeno had tried to make some space for better advantage but had been too close to make a clean break.

A Midgardsormr clone smashed into Akeno, sending her toward Fenrir. It snapped at her reflexively, massive jaws trying to swallow her whole.

There had been another blow, one that sent her spiralling out of the sky and the wolf's jaws.

Akeno's last blurry and painful memory was crashing into a Midgardsormr clone and watching a body fall in a torrent of blood and black feathers.

"Akeno-senpai!" Asia cried, continuing to heal the Queen. "Stop moving! You are making your injuries worse!"

Akeno didn't have time to praise the Bishop for her confidence. This was the first time Asia had ever raised her voice to her.

Nor did Akeno have time to listen to Asia.

Uncaring for the mud, blood, and bile on her clothes, Akeno unsteadily tried to rise to her feet.

She almost fell over immediately.

To remain upright and moving, she opened her wings and gasped in pain. They, too, were hurt, but Akeno didn't pay any mind to the pain.

She also did not spare any attention to Asia's surprise at seeing one of her wings covered in black feathers.

Akeno didn't have the concentration to maintain her usual disguise.

The Queen couldn't walk, so she tried to fly.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

She made it less than a meter before falling back to the earth.

Small arms caught her.

"Akeno-senpai," Asia said, almost begging with tears in her eyes, and Akeno blinked the daze from her eyes. "You can't move. You almost died, and I need to heal you."

Right.

No matter how weak she looked, Asia was still a devil. One who had joined them for all their training. She had no problem holding the limp Akeno in her arms.

"...there," Akeno weakly pointed.

It was all she could do. All she could say.

Asia, the angel that she was, looked over at Baraqiel's half-dead form.

Then her tears stopped, and Asia looked intensely determined as her devil wings unfolded.

Akeno absently noted, with the wandering mind of those recently concussed, that the look reminded her of a puppy chasing its tail.

With Akeno in her arms and without the green light of Twilight Healing dimming in the slightest, the Bishop carried her Queen through the chaotic battlefield toward where her father lay.

It wasn't easy.

Asia's boost to strength from her Bishop piece was minuscule, and she had only been training for a few months. Before that, Asia had been comically weak in both strength and stamina.

And that was just the physical aspect.

Carrying a wounded combatant through a battlefield, even with the ability to fly, required more concentration than simply charging at the enemy.

Concentration Asia also needed to keep healing Akeno.

But she did it.

Asia dodged the flailing tail of one of the Midgardsormr clones. She flew to the sky, only to dive again as Skoll tried to swallow her whole.

Through spells, bodies, and weapons, Asia flew.

And in her arms, feeling safer than she had any right to, Akeno surveyed the battlefield.

The Gremory Peerage was winning their battles, and both the clones and Fenrir's children were being pushed back or killed.

Yet their victory wouldn't matter if the greater battles were lost, which seemed more and more likely.

Fenrir was chasing after Azazel, Mikasa barely able to retain its attention for longer than a moment. Baraqiel was grounded due to his injuries, only able to pour Holy Lightning down when the occasional opportunity presented itself. If any of the combatants attacked him, he would die.

It seemed like he would die either way, even if nobody touched him.

To Akeno, it looked like Odin was entirely on the defensive now, holding on only by the skin of his teeth.

How long that could last, she didn't know, but one thing stood out to the half-fallen.

Not because of some great insight into the nature of battle or understanding of strategy.

It was simply because Akeno was recovering from a blow to the head, had a bird's eye view of the battlefield, and from her experience as a sadist.

Loki looked scared.

He had ambushed them, completely taking them by surprise multiple times. Yes, his lesser forces were losing battles, but he was undoubtedly winning this little war.

All it would take was a lucky blow from either him or Fenrir, and Loki would have the chance to kill Odin and achieve his goals.

Yet, in those few seconds of travel, as Asia flew through a battlefield of gods, Akeno idly wondered why Loki was the impatient one.

Why did the attacker look like one of her regular patrons when she broke out the good whip?

Then Asia landed next to Baraqiel and Akeno thought no more on the subject.

Baraqiel was only still alive thanks to his quick thinking of burning his wound closed, but he had already lost a considerable amount of blood and a good chunk of his torso with his limbs.

"Akeno!" Baraqiel grunted in surprise, blood spewing from his lips with every word as he turned his attention from the battle with Fenrir at the sight of his wounded daughter. Then he looked at Asia. "Get her out of here!"

Asia didn't heed the order, instead crouching down between the pair so that one of her hands, glowing softly, was on each of them.

Akeno, who had been the one to urge Asia to come here, did not say anything.

She just zapped him.

"Gah," Baraqiel, Lightning of God, grunted in pain and surprise as he felt, for the first time, Holy Lightning hurt him.

Akeno had felt it hurt her too many times to count over the last few months.

So she zapped him again.

"Akeno-senpai," Asia cried.

Akeno zapped her father for a third time before she said anything.

"You don't get to die!" Akeno spat, her voice a rasp of pain. Every word hurt, but she needed to talk. "You don't get to come into my life out of nowhere and then die!"

"Wha..."

"YOU WEREN'T THERE!"

The battle didn't end or even pause when Akeno shouted at her father in rage and pain.

In fact, only four people heard her words amidst the clamour of battle.

Still, it froze Baraqiel in his place.

"You weren't there when they killed her! You weren't there when we needed you. When I needed you."

Every word seemed to pierce Baraqiel's chest, hurting him more than the pain of missing part of his body.

Akeno knew those looks.

She saw that same regret, pain, and self-loathing on Eren's face. On her face in the mirror.

Akeno did not have any profound realization upon seeing the guilt and pain written across Baraqiel's face.

Somewhere deep inside, Akeno had always known it would be there.

Akeno had always known she was the one in the wrong, the one blaming a man for the death of his wife.

She had always known that if she hadn't run away in anger when he had first found her, maybe she wouldn't still be carrying around this hatred for him and herself.

Akeno had always known that she was just as guilty as Baraqiel.

The last few days, seeing him again, seeing him try to awkwardly find a place in her life, had left her confused, angry, and, more than anything, afraid.

"You weren't there when we needed you," Akeno repeated far more softly. The tears fell as she looked at the man who had lost his wife and child the same day. "You weren't there when I killed her."

"Akeno, you didn't-"

Akeno zapped him again, the Holy Lightning feeble and flickering.

"I did!" Akeno snapped. "Mom died because of me, and you weren't there to save her! We are both guilty! So you don't get to die!"

Akeno didn't know if her words came from her anger at herself, the man bleeding out on the ground, or the boy on the bench.

It didn't matter in the end.

All three needed to hear it.

"You don't get to throw your life away defending me and feel better about yourself! I have to live with this guilt, and so do you! You don't get to die until we move forward. So live, you suicidal idiot!"

And all three heard it.

But neither of the two men who were the targets, one knowingly and one unknowingly, answered.

One, because he was hidden and far away.

The second didn't answer because, this time, the battlefield did freeze in place.

Not because of Akeno's words, though.

Instead, everything stopped because most beings on the battlefield ceased being able to move.

[DIVIDE]

[DIVIDE]

[DIVIDE]

[DIVIDE]

[DIVIDE]

The magic around Loki visibly dimmed as a white armoured figure blew past him, blue wings glowing with absorbed power.

Vali Lucifer used the absorbed power to kill Skoll and Hati in a blast of demonic magic.

Fenrir could not do anything to prevent the death of his children as he was attacked by a giant statue of stone and a monkey yokai in armour.

The God Devouring Wolf would have no doubt torn himself free of the attackers easily if it, too, hadn't been frozen in place by another new arrival.

Akeno had seen fragments of Excalibur before. She felt their aura, and any devil who did would never forget that sensation. The feeling of death and doom.

Akeno knew what six of them looked like, leaving only the seventh, which is said to have been lost to time.

Excalibur Ruler.

It alone had frozen the entire battle.

The blade, held in the hands of a blonde pretty boy, hung over Fenrir's frozen form as if it were a guillotine waiting to descend.

The wolf seemed paralyzed at the sight of it.

No, Akeno realized. Excalibur Ruler was doing something to the massive beast as it tried to wrestle itself free from the giant statue.

But the half-fallen didn't continue to watch, her attention torn to the side as Saji, still transformed into Vritra, started to writhe and roar.

"Oppai Dragon!" A young woman called out from the witch's broom above the black dragon's back. She glowed gold with magic, a large spell formula forming in the air. "Help me put him to sleep! He's hurting!"

Issei, it seemed, wasn't frozen due to Excalibur Ruler, just surprised.

He looked around the battlefield, particularly at Vali, and Akeno could almost imagine Issei's confused face, wondering what he should do.

They were technically enemies, after all. Vali was supposedly Issei's destined rival. One was supposed to always seek out the other and battle to the death.

Issei wasn't the type to care about such things, though. He decided to trust his rival once more.

Vali had recently saved Asia and was fighting Loki, so it seemed like the White Dragon Emperor was on his side this time.

Issei didn't know these others, but if Saji was really suffering, then Issei wanted to help.

[TRANSFER]

"Thank you, Oppai Dragon!" The witch yelled as her magical circle grew to preposterous size. Saji's writhing slowed. "Can I get an autograph later? I'm a big fan!"

"Um," Issei stuttered, no doubt completely befuddled by the events. He wasn't the only one. Akeno could see everyone else frozen in place, watching on in confusion. "Sure?"

A part of Akeno, the sane, rational part, noticed how Asia hadn't been frozen and continued to heal both her and Baraqiel. It also noticed that her father had been frozen but was already starting to twitch free of Excalibur Ruler's control.

That same sane part of her brain told her it was only logical.

He was Baraqiel, one of the first angels to fall and a leader of the Grigori. While she had been severely hurt and put out of commission because of one attack, he had managed to keep fighting with half his body missing when a human, or even most supernatural races, would be long dead.

Another part of Akeno, one decidedly less sane, decided that thinking about any of that was infinitely less important than the fact she had possibly discovered another member she could push into Issei's harem.

It would require some vetting (I.e. teasing) to make sure this witch, whoever she was, wasn't just a fangirl or power digger, but Akeno had a good feeling about her.

(Akeno would note later that, while she wasn't wrong about Le Fay Pendragon, the good feeling probably had more to do with the headache finally disappearing than any innate 'Harem member sensor.'

She, unfortunately, had not noticed that at the time and spent most of the rest of the encounter concocting elaborate schemes on how to convince a young witch to sign a deal with the devil to get into a dragon's bed, all so Akeno could win a bet with her King.

As such, lost in thought as she was, the rest of the battle and its world-changing end went almost entirely unnoticed by the half-fallen, so lost was she in her evil plotting.

Akeno blamed the concussion.

Everyone who ever heard the story thought that sounded like something Akeno Himejima would do, concussed or not.)

"Why are you doing this!?" Loki roared in rage as his power was once again divided. "We are winning! Answer me, Vali!"

Vali, surprisingly, did so.

More than just answer, Vali Lucifer fully retracted his Balance Breaker armor, leaving him flying in the air with only the blue wings of Divine Dividing.

"You went against the plan," Vali said simply, looking almost bored as he hovered in the air with his hands in his pockets.

"The plan?" Loki spat in rage. "There is no more plan! Wake up. He's dead. His plan is dead. Instead of following the plan of a dead man, I made my own plan."

"Without the plan, we will not succeed," Vali said with the bored cadence of someone who was saying something he had repeated a thousand times. "You are not forced to follow the plan, but anyone going against it will fail."

"The Chaos Brigade does not need a plan!" Loki snarled. Ever since the White Dragon Emperor had appeared, all of his calm facade had faded, leaving a god lashing out. In fear, a few observers noted. "We are just using each other for our own ends. Our goal is chaos itself! Why should we bow to the whims of a dead human!?"

"Uhuh," Vali absently nodded, looking at the man standing over Fenrir with Excaliber Ruler. "Are you almost done, Arthur? That noodle place I wanted to try closes at eleven."

"Give me one more minute," Arthur Pendragon said, face furrowed in concentration. "Co-opting a god's control is not easy, even with Ruler."

Loki was no idiot. He knew he was taking a significant risk by going against the orders of the Brigade leader to kill Odin before it was time.

He had simply tried to do it fast enough to not have any of the leading faction come down in time to stop him. Loki wasn't scared, or so he told himself, but rather, succeeding with their interference was much harder.

If he succeeded, he would have used his victory as an example to the others and overthrown the humans who had dared to command him.

But he had failed, and now Loki had to think of the consequences. Underneath the over-inflated anger, his mind had been running a mile a minute for a way out.

But he still had his pride as a god.

Loki could not stand the disrespect shown to him, the blatant disregard by a half-devil mongrel.

All this time, his healthy wariness of the White Dragon Emperor had stopped him from acting rashly, but even fear and caution gave way to rage.

For all his cunning, Loki was famous for his impulsive decision-making.

So he lashed out, almost without thought.

A torrent of magic, powered by Ophis' snake, tore through the sky.

Vali didn't even look at it.

[DIVIDE]

Without his Balance Breaker, Divine Dividing could only use its ability once every ten seconds.

However, Vali didn't look worried, even as half the attack approached him, and his wings vented the stolen power.

As if he knew he only needed one Divide.

A dozen clones of Black Cat Kuroka appeared for a half second, each sticking their tongues out in mockery as they took the blow and dissipated into nothing.

Loki only had time to regret pouring so much of his power into the attack, only had time to realize what it meant for Vali Lucifer to act like this, before the tip of a spear erupted through his chest.

Divine blood splattered the ground, and the spear glowed with white light.

Loki did not feel anything as he was bathed in the power of the Sacred Gear.

There was no incredible explosion, final words, or monumental event to mark Loki's death.

He just died.

Like a mortal.

For the first time in history, a god died, not to another god but to a human.

"This is why so many of our colleagues die," a man said, pulling his ornate spear from Loki's body. It was already dissolving into magic without the divine ego holding it together, yet the god's blood still stained the spear. "They always think they are going against the plan. We never forced anyone to follow it, just told them what would happen if they didn't. They never think that he accounted for their choices in the plan all along."

"Look away!" Azazel, somewhere on the battlefield, yelled, voice filled with command. "That's the True Longinus. Looking at it for long enough will kill you!"

Though most of the young devils gathered were frozen in place by Excalibur Ruler's control, they heeded the fallen's warning and focused their attention on the new arrivals instead of the glowing spear.

None of those new arrivals paid the combatants even the slightest of care.

"Don't give a speech," Vali snorted. "This wasn't a real battle worth celebrating. It was an execution. I hate his missions. There's no fun in a guaranteed victory."

"I think this is a great time to celebrate," the man holding the most powerful Sacred Gear in existence was, in contrast, all smiles. "The first Longinus to ever kill a god. An evil one at that. A deed that will never be forgotten. This is what it means to be a hero."

"Good thing we're not heroes," the monkey yokai laughed as he joined them in the air.

"All finished, Vali," Arthur said with his sister on the shoulders of the stone giant. "We have Fenrir."

"And I got an autograph," Le Fay said proudly. Vali grimaced.

[Oppai Dragon Emperor] Albion's laughter rang out from the white wings. [See what you have become, Ddraig.]

[...shut up.]

"Who are you," Issei asked what everyone was thinking as he carefully kept his eyes off the spear stained with divine blood. "And let my friends go."

"The Red Dragon Emperor," the man said, looking Issei up and down in approval. "I've heard good things. I am Cao Cao, the reincarnation of the hero by that same name. I lead the Hero faction, the leaders of the Chaos Brigade. While Ophis is the backer of our organization, you can consider me the temporary leader while the other two are absent."

Issei immediately went on guard, flying away and placing himself between Cao Cao and his friends on the ground.

"I am not here to fight you. That is not part of the plan," Cao Cao laughed lightly, casually knocking his spear against his shoulder. "We were just dealing with some housekeeping."

"I just wanted the dog," Vali said plainly, looking just as bored as ever with tonight's events as he pointed at Fenrir.

"... Okay, you have it, and Loki is dead," Issei said, relaxing slightly but not lowering his guard. "Let them go."

"Azazel, Odin, and Baraqiel already freed themselves," Arthur said, sheathing his sword. "You and the healer are also free, and the others will be able to move when we leave. I simply kept those we didn't need out of the fight."

"We do have a celebration to get to, so we won't keep you up," Cao Cao was all smiles and charm as if he hadn't completely changed the supernatural world tonight.

As if the fundamental truth, that humans were prey to the gods, hadn't been rewritten.

"Please spread the word of what happened tonight. Killing a god." Cao Cao took a deep breath as if relishing the moment. "I might not have done it alone, but I did kill a god. This shall be an example for humans and monsters alike. Anybody can die. That, Issei Hyoudou, is what it means to be a hero. An example and a warning."

Then he was gone, swallowed in mist, and all the devils present, even Vali, could breathe a little easier as the holy spear left.

"Vali!" Issei called out to his destined rival before he could depart as well. Then he bowed, deep and low. "Thank you for saving Asia."

Vali's eyes widened, but he just looked away and grunted in acknowledgement, nodding toward Le Fay.

"By Oppai Dragon," the witch waved enthusiastically. "Try to stay away from our boss, okay? He said he'd kill you. I'll be sad when you die, and they might cancel your show early, so try to live a little longer, okay?"

Then, before Issei could ask what she meant about that, Le Fay Pendragon teleported Vali, and his team were teleported away with Fenrir.

"Well," Azazel said dryly, and Issei jumped in surprise, looking around. "I am going to count tonight as a success. What about you?"

The leader of the fallen angels seemed to shimmer out of the air, along with Odin and Mikasa and Issei realized they had been beside him for a while.

"The Longinus," Odin said, looking toward where Cao Cao had disappeared. For the first time since Issei had met the old god, he looked... disturbed. "In the hands of Chaos Brigade."

"And Dimension Lost, if I am not mistaken. I can't think of another way they could remain concealed for so long. At least we now have a good idea of their internal structure. We might be able to cause more division and break off more factions if more aren't happy with their leader's plan."

"It will be harder now," Odin grunted. "They had this planned, used us to weaken Loki and waste his tools so they could kill him. They didn't even bother trying to kill us so we would spread the word. Other factions will fall in line. The Brigade might even see a boost in recruitment. They traded one uncooperative god for who knows how many others."

"A dead god," Azazel said, looking to where some of Loki's blood still stained the ground. "The world will be even more chaotic after tonight."

Mikasa was not interested in the talk of old men and used her new freedom to find the young devils scattered around the battlefield.

Most were relatively intact, with Akeno and Baraqiel sustaining the worst damage.

The latter would live, if barely, thanks to Asia's quick care, even if he'd be severely handicapped until Azazel created prosthetics he could use.

"Akeno," Baraqiel rasped quietly as they lay on the ground together.

"Hm?" Akeno hummed, still half-lost in thought over how to get Le Fay Pendragon into Issei's bed so she could have bragging rights over Rias.

From her position on the ground, she couldn't have looked at the True Longinus even if she had wanted to.

"You are right about one thing. I should have been there, but I wasn't," Baraqiel said, staring at the starry sky. Something in his voice tore Akeno from her mental wanderings. "Not a day goes by where I don't regret leaving that day. Not a day goes by without wishing I had not let you run away. I know you don't want me, don't forgive me, but I would... I would really like to get to know my daughter."

"I don't forgive you. I don't forgive myself. But someday, I might," Akeno said, more lucid than she had been in a while. "That's why we don't get to die."

Akeno's wandering thoughts went to the boy on the bench who still hadn't forgiven himself, whose every day was spent in memories as beautiful as they were cruel.

"I am going to move forward until someday, I can forgive us both."

********

"I had forgotten."

"About the orders you laid out for tonight," Kuroka asked Eren as they watched Shirone's Peerage leave the battlefield. They were setting up defences around the area, though. A god had died here, and there would be political and spiritual ramifications. "It's pretty important, nyaa."

"No," Eren denied, looking toward the father and daughter lying bloody in the dirt.

"I had forgotten this fear. The fear of losing someone. I know they won't die. I know I won't be able to smile if they die. Yet... I shouldn't have forgotten what this feels like. I'm glad I remembered."

Kuroka didn't say anything, having noted throughout the night how Eren had tensed every time one of his friends was in danger.

He had almost marched forward when Akeno had been trampled or when Fenrir nearly consumed Mikasa.

Kuroka almost wished he had, almost wished Eren had thrown the entire plan to the side if it meant seeing him transform again.

But he didn't, settling for clenching his fists tight enough that his palms bled and the wood of his cane cracked.

Rather than comment about any of that, Kuroka pointed something else out.

"With Loki dead, word will spread fast."

"I know."

"The others will fall in line. They'll know this was part of your plan."

"I know."

"... You're almost out of time, Eren."

"...I know."

Neither said anything for a long minute, long enough for the battlefield to be cleared.

"I have..." Eren started, then stopped.

He tried again.

"It's been coming to me. An idea. About why I'm smiling, in the end. I am still missing a few pieces, though."

"What is it?" Kuroka tried not to sound too eager.

"I can't say," Eren shook his head. "Not yet. I still have a few more meetings. And I need answers."

"...Have you decided on what to do?"

"I have." Eren's voice was firm and unwavering. "It will be up to them all. Up to her."