Beta read by Shigiya
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-Kuoh-
I had plenty of moments of pure disbelief and shock throughout my life. Some came during moments where I almost died, others during my monotonous high school days. In a world filled with supernatural beings, ancient creatures that still wandered certain regions, and even weird gods who just couldn't act normally or the gods that they were supposed to be, I had learned not to be surprised easily. I understood that strange revelations came with the territory, and I had long accepted that as part of daily life.
But this time, the disbelief did not come from any of those things. It came from what I had just heard directly from Asia's mouth. Raynare of all people had saved her from being kidnapped, only to end up being kidnapped herself. The words didn't make sense in my head. I actually pinched my arm, half expecting to wake up or for someone to jump out of the bushes and tell me I got pranked.
Raynare getting kidnapped for saving someone? Ha! But unfortunately, the pain told me that it was real.
Asia's earlier sobbing had already told me everything I needed to know. She was not lying. Like Gabrielle, she was a terrible liar and actor. So there was no doubt that she was telling the truth. I abandoned any thought of continuing my training and returned straight to the clubroom with her.
When we arrived, the atmosphere was heavy as expected for the situation. The blonde former nun sat in the center of the room, surrounded by everyone else. Koneko and Kiba were nearby, both trying in their own ways to calm her down. Gabrielle stood close as well, keeping a worried eye on her. Asia looked smaller somehow, tears still streaming down her eyes, her shoulders drawn in as if she were bracing herself for some kind of scolding.
I broke the silence. "What happened?"
She flinched at the sound of my voice. "I-It was Ray-Raynare. She she…" Her voice faltered, and the words refused to come out. I stepped closer and gently took her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
"I know," I told her. I did. "She protected you, and got herself mixed up in the fallout. It's not the end of the world; I promise you, she's not going anywhere. Even a Demigod couldn't manage to finish her off. She's damn hard to kill."
I could handle this. We could handle this. But I needed more information. "So what exactly happened? Do you know? Any details at all will help?"
"It happened while she and Raynare were at the mall shopping," Kiba said.
That actually threw me off balance for a moment. That bitch willingly going shopping with Asia of all people was not something I ever expected to hear. The image did not fit what I knew of her bitchy personality, and that made the situation feel even stranger.
"We do not know much beyond what Asia told us when she came here," Rias' Knight continued. "Someone approached her out of the blue and tried to capture her using a binding spell, then followed it up with teleportation. Raynare seemed to had noticed something was wrong and pushed Asia away at the last second. The spell missed their intended target and caught Raynare instead."
A straight story, nothing fancy, nothing extra, but something about the method set off warning bells; too familiar, too recent—not even a week ago, I'd been through it all myself. A face flashed to mind, clear as day. Just minutes earlier, I'd been talking about him, hadn't I? The more I thought about it, the more my irritation curdled into hard anger. Of course he'd go and pull something reckless like this. At this point, it was as though the whole world had decided to trip me up, twisting my words and shoving them right back at me.
"Does that mean you captured the one who tried to kidnap her?" I asked, looking around for anyone who didn't fit in this group. "Seeing as there isn't anyone new here, I'm taking that as a no."
"We went back to check the area," Koneko said calmly. "There was no scent that I could follow. I can try to track them, but there is no guarantee if they teleported away."
"We might still figure out who did it," I said. "A scent should tell us if it was a devil or something else." Even as I spoke, I realized that the answer was already in front of me. "Damn it. It is almost guaranteed that it was that smug fuck; we all already know who it might be."
"I am afraid so," Rias said with a quiet sigh. She rubbed her temples, clearly trying to think. "Since they captured the wrong target, we do not know what Diodo—cough, this person will do next. We also do not know why they wanted Asia in the first place."
"Do you really need to ask why?" I replied. "Did I tell you about a certain brother of Ajuka who came here trying to buy her?"
The room fell silent again, and no one argued with that.
She did not disagree with my point. Instead, she wore a complicated expression. "I know what you're trying to say, but there is also a possibility that it could be someone else trying to frame him. Or someone else who got to Asia in order to get to you instead."
"They literally kidnapped someone who is practically considered a member of my non-existent peerage. If they wanted to get my attention, then they certainly did. Your face alone tells me that you're not believing your own words."
Rias nodded, "We will need to contact Ajuka as soon as possible."
I scoffed. "What good would that do? If he knew Diodora's location, he would have told us already." My fingers curled into fists at my sides. The conversation was circling the drain, and meanwhile, Raynare—of all people—was in danger. My jaw clenched as I realized how much that fact bothered me. The tightness in my chest surprised me. Since when did I care what happened to her?
Why was I even worrying about someone like her? Instead of worrying, I should have been praising the idiot who managed to take her away from me and give them my blessing for a long and miserable life. That would have been the logical reaction. The normal one. Unfortunately, logic had a habit of abandoning me at the worst times… Fuck it, that was also a lie.
The reality hit me like a slap to the face. I couldn't keep lying to myself about what was happening. My chest tightened at the thought of Raynare in danger—the same woman I'd once fantasized about watching suffer, the same woman whose life I'd contemplated ending after what she did to me. Yet here I was, my palms sweating, jaw clenched, planning a rescue. When had that changed? When had she become someone whose absence would put me off kilter like this? Somewhere along the way, without my permission, she'd become important—not just to Kalawarna, but to me as well.
Damn it. If I ever told her that to her face, she would probably laugh in my face and slap me for saying such mushy crap to her. The thought alone was enough to let out a tired sigh. That bitch is fully aware that she hates anything resembling sincerity directed at her.
I forced my thoughts back into order. The decision was clear, and stalling any longer would be pointless. Worse, I was worried that the Fallen Angel would start taunting her captors. Knowing her, she would do it just to pass the time or because she got bored. That could easily push them into doing something stupid, like killing her in the most horrific way possible. Instead of returning her alive, they might decide to decapitate her or cut her apart and send what was left back as a message.
"I want you all to stay with Asia. There is a possibility that Diodora might try again and come back for her. We cannot risk that."
"Wait, where are you going?" Rias tried to stop me as I began preparing the teleportation circle.
I gave her an apologetic smile. "Trying to get that bitch out of trouble. Do not worry. I'll get her out of this mess before dinner."
"What are you thinking? You cannot use your powers anymore—" Both she and Akeno did not even get the chance to finish her sentence.
The world shifted.
In the next instant, I was back at the Himejima shrine—a place that should've been all zen gardens and spiritual enlightenment, but now just reminded me of getting my ass handed to me by Sairaorg. Thanks to him, I couldn't look at a shrine without phantom pain shooting through my entire body. The guy had a special talent for turning sacred spaces into personal trauma zones. Maybe that was his real superpower.
I walked up the stone stairs leading to the clearing once again. Halfway up, I stopped. Sitting at the top was the same Devil man looking down at me while casually drinking what was most likely a protein shake. Of all things.
"From the look on your face," he said, "I take it it is not all bad news."
"Asia is safe. Whoever tried to take her failed to do their job properly and ended up kidnapping someone far more troublesome instead."
"That is kind of ballsy of them," he replied. "I do not see the point, though. Are they trying to have the entire angel faction come down on them? Or are they aiming to start another war between all three factions?"
"Can't say. I honestly doubt they even thought that far themselves. Most likely they did it on the spur of the moment, or out of sheer desperation. Your guess is as good as mine."
He smirked as he said it, the kind of expression that suggested he already had a conclusion in mind and found it mildly amusing.
"My guess is that we'll end up going after this guy and teaching him a valuable lesson, one that may or may not result in their death."
"Well, as long as you don't have any issues killing your own kind," I replied, taking a seat beside him and letting out a slow, tired sigh. "Not even a week into my 'vacation', training arc or whatever you want to call it, and I already have to deal with people like this. I honestly expected things to be much more peaceful, especially after getting backslapped by you during the rating game."
Sairaorg shrugged, "People generally tend to become more aggressive when their enemy shows signs of weakness," he said calmly, as if reciting a basic rule of nature.
"Can't argue against that." I rubbed my face with one hand, staring ahead. The logic was irritatingly sound, and it annoyed me that I had not arrived at the same conclusion on my own. It made sense when I thought about it properly. As much as I disliked admitting it, my reputation beforehand had been domineering, to put it lightly. To have that same individual taken down with a single hit would definitely raise eyebrows. Suspicion followed weakness like flies to sugar.
"You have a name?"
"Ninety percent chance that it's Diodora. Nine percent that it's someone from the Old Satan faction trying to get one of their members back. That makes even less sense, given they should have tried capturing another devil rather than someone tied to the angel faction. One percent chance that it's a random nobody yandere who wanted to capture an angel for their collection. One hundred percent chance that it's an idiot."
He let out a bark of a laugh, and so did I before being able to stop myself. "Yeah, there really is no end to them. But do you really think it will be as easy as going to the Underworld, storming the Astaroth estate, and getting that friend of yours back?"
"His whereabouts are unknown. I got the news from Rias earlier. So it's very unlikely that he will be anywhere there and not somewhere completely off the map."
"That makes things difficult," he said without much thought. The unknown was always the worst part. You could plan around danger, but not around empty information.
"No, it actually doesn't."
A third voice caught both of us off guard. We turned our attention downward at the same time, looking past the edge to see a blond-haired man walking out into the open as if he had not been lurking moments ago. Azazel stood there with his arms crossed, striking a pose so exaggerated it looped around into being ridiculous. The confidence was almost impressive, if not for how forced it looked.
"I heard about your situation and came up with a solution," he announced proudly. "Now you can go ahead and praise me as much as you want."
I stared at him for a moment longer than necessary. "Have you been hiding behind that tree this entire time, waiting for a cue to come out and make yourself known?" I asked, genuinely baffled. I had not noticed him at all when I first arrived. That realization alone was unsettling. Just how absurd were his concealment abilities if he could hide like an assassin without triggering my awareness? The thought made my skin itch.
"Yes," he answered without even a hint of shame. Nodding once, as if that settled everything. "But that's not what's important. I know you two are planning on finding Raynare. The problem is that without knowing where Diodora is, you're basically stuck here going back and forth."
"That's about it."
"The Underworld is a big place. It could take days, maybe a week, or even months just to find a single clue, let alone their actual location. Running around blindly is a waste of time, and time is something you don't have."
The man went on and on, saying things that I already knew. I was aware he was doing so just to build up for the upcoming revelation and make his solution sound grander. He had a bad habit of doing so, and I had just gotten used to it. Still, I stayed quiet. Interrupting now would only encourage him.
And that, unfortunately, felt like the smartest option available.
"I can ask Sirzechs and Ajuka for their help," I said, laying out the only workable option I could see. "They can lend whatever people they have available and cover as much ground as possible."
That was my best solution, and I knew it. There was no realistic way for me to accurately track down Raynare in particular. The Underworld was large enough to swallow the entire earth several times, and that was assuming she was even there in the first place. The possibility that she had slipped somewhere outside the Underworld entirely was still on the table, which meant dumping time and manpower into a search could very easily end in nothing.
"Hah," I replied, sounding almost amused. "And what solution do you have after that?"
If he bothered to make an entrance like that and even show up here in person, then he clearly had something prepared. People like him did not walk empty-handed. That alone was enough for me to keep my mouth shut and hear him out instead of arguing in circles.
"This," he said, calmly pulling a scroll from inside his jacket. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it toward me. I caught it out of reflex, the material heavier than it looked. As I slowly opened it, my eyebrow rose on its own when I saw what was written inside.
"An ownership contract?" I said. A certain memory surfaced immediately concerning this little thing in particular. I had used something like this on Raynare long ago, or rather, he did and passed the ownership onto me before; at some point, I just forgot about it. This one, however, was blank. No names. No bindings already filled in. I did not see why he would be handing this to me now of all times.
"Well, I would say that I'm surprised that you didn't bother to check what kind of contract you had, but I would be lying," he replied without missing a beat. "Whether it remains active or gets annulled by the owner does not entirely erase every trace of it. Especially in the one I gave you. There were several clauses embedded within it that are still active even today."
"What?"
"Back then, I had to keep an eye on her," he continued. "A single contract of ownership was not enough. We were not dealing with someone reasonable, and I wanted to remain as careful as possible — especially when you two were heading into a foreign territory ruled by another faction. She could go fully suicidal and kill you while being perfectly willing to forfeit her own life in the process. Of course, that was the worst-case scenario, and I genuinely did not think she was that desperate. But let's say if that had happened, I needed a way to recover both of your remains. So a tracking spell was inscribed within her through the contract."
My mouth stayed open longer than I would have liked. This was a pretty big fucking revelation!
"You had this with you the entire time, and you never bothered to tell me?"
"No. I thought you already knew. Did you not read the fine print?"
Right. Because I definitely memorized every microscopic footnote in that magical legal document from so long ago. Sure, I'd read it—or skimmed it, whatever—but the only parts that stuck were the ones about soul ownership. Everything else might as well have been written in invisible ink for all I remembered.
"Do not get too excited," he added. "This is not foolproof. It does not guarantee that whoever is inscribed in it is alive. It only gives the general location of the body. Nothing more. So if I were in your shoes, I would move as soon as possible."
"You do not have to tell me that."
There was no need to say anything else. I could already feel the air shift as he prepared a teleportation spell. Judging by the direction and density of the magic, the destination was most likely the Underworld. With someone on his level, preparation time was a luxury. This kind of spell could be completed almost instantly. I stood beside him, the scroll still in my hand.
Just as the light was about to swallow us, a third figure jumped in front of us without warning. "Hey, I also want to join in on the fun!" Sairaorg said, I only had time to glance back and catch the grin on his face before everything turned white.
When the world snapped back into place, we were somewhere else entirely. A luxurious office greeted us, polished surfaces and oppressive authority baked into every corner. I recognized it immediately as Azazel's office in the Underworld. "Oh, I forgot to tell you. I already shared the information I told you with the other members of your group."
He said just in time for me to notice Xenovia, Kalawarna, Kuroka, and… "You are not part of my group. I thought Akeno hired you." I pointed my finger at Rossweiss, the silver-white haired woman standing awkwardly behind the sofa.
"U-Umm… I-I don't know… I was just dragged here…"
I was not sure how it was possible to feel so sorry for this person.
{Break}
-Underworld-
Everything was falling apart.
That was the conclusion Diodora had been forced to accept over the past few days. In hindsight, he should have known from the beginning that this particular human would become a thorn buried deep at his side. From the moment he blocked Asia from becoming his, the writing had been there.
Back then, he chose patience. He decided to wait instead of rushing in blindly. He played the long game and shifted to another plan, making an exchange with Rias Gremory. Of course, reality had other ideas. From what his sources reported, that option was becoming less viable by the day. Forced escalation became inevitable.
Even that attempt was ruined, foiled by that cursed Phenex heir and that dragon whose mere memory made his skin crawl. After that, he had no choice but to retreat and fall back on his second plan. Fate, however, seemed determined to mock him as obstacle after obstacle appeared, especially after he learned that Asia had become property of the angel faction. That revelation was the final blow.
It was now, he was genuinely beginning be wonder if he was cursed or not, for even that did not turn out well as soon as he heard a single phrase of his hideout's guest… "Get your fucking slimy fingers off of me, you cunts! Any closer enough fucking pierce my spear into your guts and give you all a second pussy you can go fuck yourselves with!"
Diodora was genuinely stunned, for rather than hearing the pleading voices of Asia, delivering the same line of how he should show mercy, back to be released, ask for him to search for the goodness in his heart to let them go or straight up just start praying out of panic — he instead heard these kind of words that not even a single one of his conquests ever so much as uttered.
"What the hell is going on here?" This hideout was perfect, in the middle of practically nowhere, a place not even known to the old Satan faction or any of the current Satans. It should have been impossible for any kind of intruder to stumble upon this plate without pure dumb luck and a miracle. "You two, come with me!"
Pointing his fingers at two of the latest batches of pure maidens he received from Rizevim as an award for his role in making sure that Hikigaya Hachiman would get teleported to a specific location in time. While he knew that this would inevitably lead him to have a falling off with the current powers of the underworld, at least he had a powerful backer who was more than willing to compensate him for any period member he lost.
This, on top of granting him two snakes that slithered under his coat, granted him a near-endless amount of power.
Walking away from his private room, he soon came upon a large clearing outside, where at that exact moment, something flew right past him.
Whoosh!
A powerful gust of wind rattled his clothes and the shoveling of his hair, pure made of pure light, immediately missing him by just a hairbreadth before destroying the entrance behind. "Ah!" One of his replacement maidens was not so lucky, for her arm had been completely erased by that attack.
"Shit!" Panic gripped his heart, for his eyes finally went to gaze at the perpetrator of this chaos, and right where Asia should have been present after his pieces managed to fulfill their task and bring her in—instead there stood another person. Several dark wings as cure as the night sky in the human realm, latex clothing that barely covered anything, giving her an overall dominatrix style which immediately repulsed Diodora more than anything.
She dressed just like every other one of those disgusting Fallen Angels. "Who are you and what are you doing here!? This is the territory of the Astoroth clan. Are you looking to die?"
There was a high likelihood that the news of his disappearance had not spread to the other factions and remained contained in a small circle. Having an heir betray the current powers could easily cause a lot of mayhem, so he did not fear that the other side knew of his betrayal and used the clan's name without any fear.
"What the… So you're the dick face we're trying to kidnap Asia? Send me back right now before my carve that snake face off of your body and glue it to your ass, given how much shit is coming out of your mouth."
The sheer amount of hostility that came off of her body stunned him; even more was her words. Was she with Asia? Wasn't the latter associated with the angel faction? What was she doing with a Fallen Angel!?
"Get rid of her now! She's off waste of space and my time!" He shouted, not wanting to deal with this intruder anymore, and then necessary and instead to wish to go back to his office and come up with another plan.
"The fuck you say to me, bitch!? I'll show you who is a waste of space and time!" Several of her wings foiled at once, a large amount of light energy pouring out of her being like an avalanche. This time, wielding two light spears, she sent them flying towards him.
"Damn it!" Did these useless pieces actually kidnap a cadre!?
Having barely any time to react, and drawing upon the power granted to him, the man raised his hand where a neon green magic circle formed with the symbol of his clan prominently shown at the center. Expanding until it covered him only. The spears struck the shield with a thunderous bang, breaking into shards of light but releasing a shockwave powerful enough to send anyone around him flying backwards. The one who had her arm destroyed crashed through several walls until her entire body ended up getting entombed by a mountain of debris.
Losing his original pieces was already a mounting frustration for him; these ones, who also fit his taste, just added further few to his already sour mood. "You idiot! You'll pay for this! What are you idiots waiting for? Take her down now!"
As palms slap the ground beneath, several chains burst forth and entangle themselves around her limbs. Only for Raynare to snap them off by summoning more of her spears and sending them raining down around her in a circular pattern.
Her face twisted from rage to a sneering, shit-eating grin. "That's all you got? These pathetic-ass chains? Jesus fucking Christ! Even that dead-eyed bastard can make me wetter when he ties me up with his goddamn shoelaces than you could with your sad little bondage fantasy. What's wrong? Can't get it up without mommy's help, you limp-dicked motherfucking piece of shit?"
"Just shut up!"
Thankfully, several dozen shadows emerged with mages clad in loose dark robes, each one of them casting high-tier spells at her. Though she could defend herself perfectly against one of them, doing so against so many at the same time instantly pushed her to her limit. Struggling to keep up with all of them while conserving enough energy and stamina. Unfortunately for her, Diodora was confident in his ability to win, for he had been granted powers beyond her imagination. Just to showcase that, one of the snakes slithered around his wrist before appearing within his body, the green aura around him amplifying by several folds.
"Hahahaha! This is it, this is true power!" It was an almost intoxicating feeling, and he wasted no time in testing his new abilities. With a flick of his fingers, a powerful shot of pure condensed demonic energy flew towards Raynare. "Ah!" Even though she managed to intercept it in time, the sheer power behind it made that irrelevant, both of her spears shattering upon impact with the remaining energy slamming into her guts. Saliva and blood flying out of her mouth with her body crashing against a giant boulder, "Now!"
The majors who worked for him did as ordered, shooting several powerful spells at their target at once. With Raynare forced to simply tank them all at once, using her wings as a shield. Though her efforts were in vain, from his point of view, Diodora saw how, bit by bit, wounds started to spread across her body. Small parts of her wings are getting torn off, and eventually, her strength starts to wane even further.
At the end, when the firing stopped, all that remained was a weekend woman struggling to breathe with several of her wings broken and in a miserable state. It was even then, the harshness in her eyes towards him did not go down even a bit; in fact, she continued to smirk.
"And last words?"
"You hit like a three-year-old brat, can't even protect yourself without being surrounded by so many mages. What a pathetic excuse of a Devil, even Hachiman's sneezes do fucking more damage than your piss ass attacks combined." Even now, she spat out distasteful words and that hateful man's name! That human, ever since he met him that day, things just kept getting worse and worse!
He should have just allowed that rating game to happen so that he could showcase the world just how weak a human he was! Even if Sairaorg did that for him, doing so with his own hands would have been far more satisfying.
"Hold on," while his mind went through the events of the rating game, it soon dawned upon him that this woman looked suspiciously familiar. "Aren't you part of that human's Peerage?"
"Peerage? Fuck no!" She answered immediately with a look of disgust before spitting on the floor. "The only reason I'm around him is because of how pathetic he is and how much he needs my help! Bastard can't even go a month without finding himself in deep shit where he will cry out my name at the last second just to save his life! He is my fuck toy, not the other way around!"
His forehead throbbed with pulsing veins as every second of conversation with this woman pushed him closer to the edge of his sanity. Another minute of her taunts would be worse than any torture he'd endured. Yet instead of silencing her permanently, a new scheme began to take shape in his mind—one that would finally make that despicable human pay for everything.
"Either way, it's the same. Since you're part of his group, what a great opportunity to drive him to finally feel pain after everything he has put me through and taken my Asia from me. I will make you suffer, I will break you and use you against him."
Raynare rolled her eyes and spat a bloody glob that splattered across the floor. "Holy shit, could you be any more of a pathetic dickwad? You sound like Kalawarna when she's trying to get my pussy wet with that villain roleplay bullshit. And 'my Asia'? Fucking hell! That's the funniest crap I've heard all day! You're just a nut-less little cunt who can't get his micropenis hard without fantasizing about virgins thinking you're hot shit! Those schoolgirl-chasing tactics won't work on me, shitstain. I'd rather jam a rusty, shit-crusted pipe up my ass that's been marinating in a septic tank for twenty years than let your limp-dick anywhere near me. Here's an idea; I'll tie your worthless ass to a chair and make you watch while Asia rides Hachiman's cock until she screams his name so loud your ears bleed, hahahaha—urgh!"
That was it, he could not bear to listen to this… thing anymore. Blasting her away with another powerful attack. Completely rendering her unconscious and shutting up her mouth, finally. "Throw her inside a cell! Make her suffer! I don't care how, but just do whatever it takes to shut her fucking mouth!"
Just looking at her maid, his urge to kill her grew by the second. But he could not do so, for his little surprise made for that human would be completely ruined.
"I'll get you, Asia… one way or another."
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The next 5 chapters of Snafu, and my other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword with 3 chapters, A Fake Familiar Reborn with 3 chapters, Steel Eyed Faker soon to be 3 chapters, 3 with Taimanin, Hound having 3 and To love a sword having 4 chapters) are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise, Broly and Snafu.