Capítulo 5: Time won't wait forever
We crossed to the other side. Behind me, I heard the noise of my peerage members releasing their wings to stay afloat. Me, I didn't do this. Instead, I used my demonic energy and made the laws of physic my bitch.
Under us, I could see thousands of people walking in so many different directions. They looked colourful and bright as if each of them were stars that had taken human forms.
"It is beautiful," I heard my bishop gasp behind me.
"It is," I confirmed.
I let my demonic energy retreat into my heart and I began to fall. It was a fall in the void, a leap of faith and it made me feel so free.
It seemed that I was falling into an alley. My back was coming closer and closer to the ground but I did nothing. I closed my eyes. Why should I be scared?
Something did stop my fall. Something soft yet firm. I opened my eyes up. My gaze lost itself in the eyes of the colour of the void.
"It wouldn't have hurt me," I spoke.
"I know," Akeno answered me. "My body moved by itself. The street would also have to be repaired and it'll come straight from your bank account."
"So you're only there for my money. I thought you loved me," I told her with a fake outrage.
I could see amusement dancing in her eyes "Of course, your bank account is the most important thing. Good whips, good collars and good handcuffs aren't cheap. Maybe I should use one of them on you because you seem to have become more reckless."
She didn't know that she had given me more rope to hang her with. I leaned on her shoulder and whispered in her right ear "I'm sure you would like to use them or maybe you would like me to use them on you Akeno," I sang her name.
A blush erupted on her face and I felt her stiffen. "Hum hum." A cough interrupted us. I turned toward its provenance. It was from my knight. There was Koneko, Asia and Issei at his side.
I realized that the three members of my peerage had probably been watching us without us noticing it. The three of them were blushing. Yuto looked as if he had wished he wasn't there. Asia had put her hands over Issei's eyes as if she wanted to protect him from watching something sinful.
I left Akeno's arms, my feet entering in contact with the asphalt under me. I acted as if nothing had happened.
I walked out of the alley and felt my peerage follow behind me. "Do you have an idea of what we would do?" Akeno asked me.
"Just broad strokes," I answered her. Looking at the neon lights, in the architecture that I could only call a mixture of modern and retro, I understood why Shibuya was seen as a must-see when coming to Japan.
"I feel ravenous. I feel like I haven't eaten for an eternity, so maybe eating something and after exploring the different shops?"
I turned toward my rook "What do you think of Sushis Koneko?" I asked her.
I wondered how she didn't receive whiplash with the way she nodded so quickly her head in affirmation.
"Is anyone here is against Sushis?" I asked my family.
The way Koneko looked murderously at them, I would be surprised if any of them disagreed. I was proven right when none of them spoke against my proposal.
We entered one of the alleys and I felt the strange but familiar feeling of crossing a barrier made so that no mundane would be able to cross. The alley expanded as if the space itself was being rearranged.
It looked as if we had travelled into the past. With lanterns replacing mega buildings, people are dressed in Kimonos or in Japanese traditional clothing instead of modern clothes.
"Wow," I heard my pawn gasp in surprise and amazement. "Everything changed".
"It must have been a barrier made so that no mundane could enter," Yuto spoke.
"No mundane?" Issei said.
"Issei, Asia, I want you to Look at the crowd and focus on them. Don't try to see like a human. Don't limit your sight," Akeno instructed them.
"It's like there was a fog surrounding them," Asia said.
"Push through it," I told her.
I looked at them. They probably weren't aware but their eyes had changed. The eyes of Issei weren't brown anymore. They shone like gold. They were slit as if they were the eyes of a reptile.
Asia's green eyes couldn't be called green anymore. They looked like entrancing toxic emeralds, bewitching eyes for who would lose their mind and kill.
Since both of them had been reincarnated, they had changed both physically and metaphysically. I wondered if they had noticed that they looked different from what they looked before. Issei had always been complaining about what he called pretty boys.
He didn't seem to have realized that he had fully entered the category. Power was everything for us devils. It impacted the way we thought, moved, acted or even looked. It wouldn't be wrong to say that The more powerful you were, the more beautiful you also were.
It was a world where Eugenics were unfortunately true. You inherited power from your parents or ancestors and from this power all the benefits that came with it.
Asia had looked beautiful before becoming a member of my peerage. She could have been said to have the girl next door kind of beauty. She was beautiful but now she looked stunning. She looked like a celestial being who had chosen to walk on earth.
I wonder how different, inhumane they would look if they arrived or even surpassed their canonical peaks.
"I see it," Asia spoke.
"I do too," Issei followed seconds after her.
The supernatural beings of Japan, They had been called many things. They were called demons, spirits, Youkaï.
What we had done was cross into an area full of them. It was a good thing that the barrier had been erected because at best, they were playful toward humans and teasing. At worst, well, there was a reason why they were called demons even if they didn't compare to the atrocities I know that my ancestors enacted.
The crowd before us could only be heteroclite. I could see children with either toad's heads or slug's heads playing together.
I could see what seemed to be a bipedal canine haggling with a merchant that looked like a human with the head of a crow.
"President, can we be here?" Yuto asked.
It wasn't wrong from my Knight to ask. Japan was the territory of the Youkai, the Shinto and the Hindu. Abrahamic beings like Sona, me and our peerages weren't supposed to be allowed here.
More than sixty years ago, the policy had been to kill or try to kill any foreign supernatural being crossing the soil of Japan.
Japan and the supernatural beings that saw it as their homeland had thought themselves superior to most beings. This is why when the fallen angels provoked the Second World War, they allied themselves with them even though all of the different factions at that time knew that it was just an alliance of convenience, that sooner or later, one side would betray the other.
Contrary to the world I came from where there were more than six million people that died the second world war II of this war had taken from the world of the living more than thrice that number.
In a world where most exceptional people had either inherited a supernatural ability or were lucky enough to be born with the good genes to stand with the greatest of the moonlit world, it wasn't a surprise that the World War II of this world was more murderous.
I learnt through the basic education given to everything pure blood devil that an endless amount of Gods fell under the hands of our ultimate class devils when they tried to invade the underworld.
Diehauser Belial had apparently ripped the spine out of the back of Raijin, the Japanese god of thunder. If Fujin hadn't been there to help him flee, the god would have faded. Apparently, the emperor of the rating games had put over his door as a decoration.
Japan would have continued fighting if Ajuka Beelzebub hadn't intervened. The super devil was the one to murmur in the minds of Oppenheimer and other scientists the formula of the nuclear bomb.
What they hadn't known when they had thrown Fat Boy and Little Man at the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that what truly made the nuclear bombs deadly wasn't the fact that they were nuclear. The super devil had hidden in them what could be considered curses.
Curses that were fuelled by dead souls, magic and negativity. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the Japanese cities except Kyoto and Tokyo which had the more leylines in the land of the rising sun.
Hundreds of thousands of mortals died because of the bombs. That had just been the beginning. The curses swept over all of Japan infecting all supernatural beings or those having an ounce of it in their blood.
It ate them alive, corrupted and twisted their essences. There had been before the bombs eight million of kami throughout all of Japan. After the curses, the number dropped to less than half a thousand.
Only the strongest Japanese gods had been able to survive and even then, they had been greatly diminished.
This was the reason why Kuoh could be given to members of The Abrahamic faction like the dead cousin of the emperor of the rating games or me and Sona.
Japan had been turned into our playground. If they could Youkai and Kami alike would have thrown us out of Japan but they couldn't. They hadn't forgotten what happened when one of the satan was indirectly involved. They knew that if anything happened to any supernatural being coming from our faction, annihilation would be the last of their worries. After all, there were things worse than death.
The remaining supernatural beings were either dispersed into little hidden enclaves like the one we just found or The last strongholds they had were East and West Kyoto governed by Yasaka and the first Nurarihyon.
"Nothing will happen Yuto," I reassured my knight.
I felt something tug on my shirt. I turned toward the cause. It was Koneko and she was pointing to a sushi stand. "I'm hungry," she told me.
"Sorry Koneko," I told her. "Let's go eating."
We walked toward the stand. What seemed to be The chef had their back turned away from us. She had black cat ears and a black cat tail coming out of their coccyx. She was humming under her breath. She was probably a Nekomata. I turned toward my rook who was completely focused and seemed to have forgotten her surroundings.
It is true that the chef wasn't a nekoshou with her lack of a second tail but I feared that being in front of a youkai with cat-like traits even if they were not identical to Kuroka would be enough to put my rook in a bad place mentally. I truly needed to hire a therapist only for my peerage members.
I could see that she was preparing the sushi with utmost care. It looked like art. I could feel myself salivating.
With a twirl, she turned to face us. Now that I looked at her, I could see that my worries were unfounded.
Sure she was of a black colouration like Kuroka but the resemblance stopped there. Kuroko could be said to have a beauty that could be called cutting, cold and one that made you want to admire from away.
It wouldn't be an insult to say that The chef looked plain. She wasn't ugly at all and would have probably been seen as something that could be modelling just because of her face by mortals but when comparing her to other supernatural beings, it would be kind to say that she looked irreverent, like a background character that hadn't even truly be drawn because their existences didn't really matter In the story.
I turned to look at Issei. That still didn't stop him. He was leering, gawking at her breath. It wasn't me yet I felt the need to take a step back.
I could also see that the chef looked uneasy with his lustful gaze. Before I could intervene, Koneko kicked him without looking between his legs. His form crumpled on the ground. "Koneko, Why?" the boy said in agony on the ground.
"Pervert," was her only answer. From the corner of my right eye, I saw how Asia kneeled to begin to heal him.
Maybe it was me but I didn't understand how Issei before becoming a devil had expected to find a girlfriend when he looked at almost every woman as if they were pieces of meat.
If it had been happening somewhere else than Kuoh Academy, he would have been expelled. He and the two other members of his trio hadn't been because a powerful sacred gear had been felt from him, his friend Matsuda had been born with a good enough amount of magic from someone coming from a mundane background and Motohama even though he was a member of the perverted trio had won trophies before and after integrating Kuoh academy.
There was also maybe the fact that Sona and I were literal devils and in the underworld, TV shows made explicitly for children would have been called hardcore porn content by most human adults so maybe they were still there and not expelled because Sona as strict as she was is still a devil and had been raised as such.
"Hi," I said to the Nekomata in front of us. "We've seen from afar what you were cooking. We would like to taste your sushi. We'll obviously pay" I added.
She looked as if she would bolt at any second as if she was literally in front of her own end like a rat before a sadistic cat "Hi dear customer," she answered.
"It's a pleasure for me that you have chosen my fine establishment," she lied. She turned away from us to take the sushis she just had prepared.
Koneko took a seat and we followed suit. The nekomata turned back with the food on a plate. "Hope you like it," she told us.
"I know that it'll be good. You should maybe cook others while we're eating those." I looked at Koneko who was completely focused on the tray placed before us. "The question is if that will be enough."
"But I wa-" I cut the words of the Nekomata by materializing five heavy bars of gold before her.
Her demeanour completely changed "Of course esteemed client. I'll go back to making others."
I smiled at her. One of the greatest perks of being a pure-blood devil more than immortality was the wealth that came with it.
Most of The greatest human industries of the modern ages had been ushered by either devil's contractors, by devils themselves or by fallen angels.
More than that, pure-Blood Devil clans had territories sometimes bigger than human countries full of exotic. resources that had been created through the spilling of blood and demonic energy of countless beings for thousands of years.
It was when you thought about it kinda sad. This humanity didn't truly rise by its own merit. Sure there were a lot of them who had been exceptional through their sheer human will but for most of the things that humanity benefited from today, it had been because of supernatural beings.
By our existence, by our presence, we shackled them, stopped them from opening fully their wings. It was both tragic and pathetic.
Anyway, the point was that being the heiress of one of the royal pure-blood devil's houses meant that I was rich beyond belief. It meant that with my allowance, I could literally buy some countries if I wished to. I wouldn't because it would be a headache and all the moral implications and whatever but I could if I wished to.
I had been on both sides of the economic spectrum. I had known the most luxurious things the world could offer and I had gone through days where I wasn't even sure if I could afford my next meal. Those who say that money doesn't make you happy are filthy liars. I preferred crying in a big mansion to a little cramped apartment.
Koneko had begun eating without us. "We should begin eating too before she finishes everything," Kiba spoke.
Asia put her hands together "O lord, thanks for this ow". She wasn't able to finish.
"We're devils Asia," I reminded her. "The love that is said to be infinite had never been turned toward us."
I took one of the sushi and ate it. The flavour invaded my mouth. It felt so soft and tasty like a piece of Heaven.
Akeno and Kiba followed suit and tasted the sushi. The way their expressions changed to show bliss showed that they found it tasty too.
The only members of my peerage that hadn't yet tasted the food were Issei and Asia. The nun looked miserable and it made me remember that she had been denied Heaven because of my evil pieces, because of Issei.
The salvation that she had always longed for was something that she would never be able to attain again. She was cast out of the love of the god she had devoted herself all of her life and it hadn't been her choice.
She should have been angry at me, the world, Issei, at everything but since she had been reincarnated, she hadn't shown any malice or animosity.
She was literally too good for this world and this had been the reason why in the end, her choices had been stripped away from her.
Issei took one of the sushi and put it before the downward-looking face of the nun. "Asia," he called her name.
"Ye-" she tried to answer my pawn but I could see how impossible it was due to the fist full of sushi that my pawn had put in her mouth.
We all kinda looked at the boy in shock. I didn't know how to react "I was the one who asked the president to bring you back to life. I'm the reason you can't pray and even if I've never truly been a believer I know that it is important for you. I'm weak and I can't change much to your situation. What I can, no must do is to make sure that the sadness you feel never overwhelms you. I'll do everything to make sure that you'll create happy memories greater than everything I've taken from you, so please Asia eat those sushis," the brown-haired boy declared.
I watched how tears began to pool from the eyes of my bishop. It felt dirty as if I was watching something I wasn't meant to. I watched how the ex-nun chewed on the sushi in her mouth and swallowed it. "It is good, I love it," she said to the boy. Her left hand intertwined with the right hand of my pawn.
I could see on both their cheeks the appearance of a pink hue. They continued eating the sushis Issei feeding them to Asia.
Ok, what was that? That was unbelievably smooth?! It wasn't what I would have expected from my pawn even in a thousand years.
I hadn't been the one the words were directed at and I had felt touched. My knight hadn't been able to hide the shock that was plainly displayed on his face. The only thing Koneko had done was to direct some of the sushis in the direction of the two newly reincarnated devils, something that was coming from her an immense amount of respect and consideration.
Akeno was smiling yet I don't know why but it was a smile that felt broken, wistful I would dare to say.
I understood now why the canonical Rias Gremory had fallen in love with Hyoudou Issei. The boy was brash, loud, perverted and so many other negative descriptives that were probably true. His parent had chosen well his name. Honest, Issei was honest in the way he proudly declared his dreams and showed his love.
Raynare had really messed him up. With the way Asia was looking at him as if he was god that had descended from the heavens, It showed that the lasting consequences of his relationship with Raynare had completely destroyed Issei's belief in him being able to find genuine love. It was something that needed to be nipped as soon as possible not only for him but also for Asia. I never loved tragedies.
We continued eating in a comfortable silence, the laughter of young Youkaï behind us serving as a symphony.
*scene*
We left the sushi shop full and with a happy-looking cook behind us. I know that it was shown in the light novel that Koneko had a big appetite but seeing something and experiencing it were two different things.
The content smile on her face and the faces of the other members of my peerage showed that it was at least worthwhile.
"What are we doing next president?" Issei asked me.
"Whatever we want," I answered him. "What do all of you want to do?" I asked them.
"I think that I saw some shops selling Katanas. I would like to be able to inspect them and maybe buy them," Yuto told me.
"You know that I'll never let you use again a sword not made from your sacred gear right?" I said to my knight. "A weapon that can be taken away from you is not one you should invest yourself in using".
It was literally a trope. Sure, you have the super powerful mega boom-destroying sword capable of destroying the world but what's the point when you're yourself weak, when it can be taken from you at any moment?
That's why Kazuma had been able to beat that guy in Konosuba or why Ronan who had literally one of the fragments of the universe in his hand was able to lose against people he should have easily annihilated.
Wait a minute, wasn't possible for sacred gears to absorb exterior things like with Issei In canon with Ascalon or Saji with the other Vitra sacred gears?
I had never seen Yuto summon directly his sacred gear, just the weapon made with it. Maybe if it was impossible for him to project his sacred gear, it could still be possible for him to create a sword capable of absorbing other swords or something like that. I smiled to my knight "You can buy as many swords as you would like."
"I don't know why but I feel like there is something amiss," he muttered under in his breath. Oh Yuto, when I'm done with you, Gilgamesh and Shirou will look like jokes compared to you.
"I wanted to explore more," Asia said. I already knew that it meant that Issei would go with her.
"Alright, just be careful. Nothing should happen but I don't want to rely on the intelligence of the Youkai not being overridden by their emotions."
I turned toward Koneko "What about you? If you want, Yuto can open a portal to Kuoh for you," I told her.
"I'll follow Yuto. Maybe I'll be able to find tasty things to buy before we leave," she answered me.
My gaze slid on my queen in a silent question "I'll follow you Rias," she told me.
"You don't have to you know."
"I know it perfectly, it's my choice," Akeno said to me.
I didn't say anything else. She looked resolute. I knew that nothing would stop her from following me. The memories I had inherited showed that she had always been loyal, devoted but now, it felt different, more. Maybe it was because of the rating game, some kind of guilt that she was harbouring or maybe I was simply seeing nonexistent things.
I walked toward my bishop and took one of the hands in mine. I let my demonic energy flow out of me on the skin of the nun to Mark her. I left her hand and took a step back. Where there had been bare skin was now a symbol, the demonic symbol of the Gremory clan.
"Normally, you would have just been given a credit card with a near-unlimited amount of money but I'm not sure that they would accept a human or modern currency. This Mark will allow you to retrieve from one of the Gremory clan vaults what you would in case you purchase something," I explained to her.
The Mark was disappearing seemingly being absorbed by the skin. "You just have to flare your demonic energy where the mark is."
The others were already connected to our different vaults. They would be able if anything caught their fancy to purchase it. I didn't do the same with Issei because the boy even after training still had an abyssal amount of demonic energy. It would have been worthless to bestow on him the mark.
"Understood president," the ex-nun spoke. "We'll try to not spend too much."
"Spend as much as you want Asia," I told her.
"Bu-"
"No, but," I cut her.
I turned toward my pawn "Issei, make sure she doesn't shy away from spending on things she likes."
"It Will be done president," the brown-haired boy answered. The girl at his side looked overwhelmed. I couldn't blame her. She had never eaten a burger before coming to Japan, which was shocking. The only clothes that Asia also had were the nun outfit she had come with in Japan and the ones that had been bought for her either by Issei's mom or by me.
This was the reason why it was easy for devils and fallen angels to whisk away from the church and its followers. They were an organization built of a lie that I don't think the God they worshipped would be proud of.
Scandals, zealotry, sins, cruelty. It's as if the roles were becoming inversed. Asia was called a living saint, had been since the first time she awoke her sacred gear healing others for free and she, who had been blessed literally by their god with a sacred gear had never eaten a burger. Maybe I was repeating myself but still.
They were the same people who decided that when Asia healed a devil with the gift, the blessing of their god that she was a witch, that she had perverted the gift of their god when they were the ones, in reality, perverting everyone of his precepts, when they were the ones selling a global lie when the new god that sat on the throne wasn't enough like his father or his brother.
All of them, all of my peerage members That each time I looked at them made me feel like everything was okay. Maybe it was because of the feelings I inherited but I wanted to give them the world, make sure that they would never feel sadness again. For that, I needed strength. It was the only thing in this world that mattered.
"I'll repeat myself," I spoke. "I want each of you to be careful but except that, do whatever you want as long as if it doesn't endanger you. If anything happens, I want you to flare your demonic energy so you will be found. Am I understood?"
"Yes president," they said together like a choir before beginning to leave one by one In different directions.
"It's only you and me now," Akeno spoke at my side.
"Like it has always been." We began walking aimlessly my gaze losing itself in all the wonders and supernatural things surrounding us.
"You look enamoured with this place," my queen told me.
"I think I am." We walked before a shop that seemed to only be selling Kimonos. "I mean Look at the way Those kimonos seemed to have been made with the greatest."
I pointed at another shop where multicoloured flowers that looked too different from all the ones I had seen in the underworld or on Earth were exposed. "Look at them. I'm not even sure that such colours could bloom in the mortal world naturally."
We walked leaving behind us both the flowers and Kimonos selling shops. "The truth is that I want to create something like this one day."
"You want to grow flowers or create Kimonos?" she asked me.
"I didn't mean it in that sense." Our steps were taking us away from the Youkaï town toward what seemed to be the edge of the barrier.
"I want to create something beautiful, something that when I'm gone be it tomorrow or in a million years meant that I existed, that something I created was deserving of praise and admiration, that I existed."
"You never talked or acted the way you acted today before like this," Akeno told me. "I still see the Rias that I know but something changed. It is all because of the rating game, isn't it?"
Our walk stopped. Before us was a river. Looking at it with the sight that I naturally had as a devil, I could see that more than a river, it was a barrier. Crossing it would mean leaving this little pocket dimension.
"Would you believe me if I said that it wasn't the case? Maybe I'm a soul that had reincarnated in an anime and because of that, I don't act exactly the way I should."
"I would tell you in such a case that You watched too many animes. You're deflecting," Akeno spoke. If only she knew. I wondered how she would have reacted if she knew the truth. Would she look at me with eyes full of despair and hatred? Accuse me of having stolen, changed in an irremediable way her oldest friend?
"The rating game opened my eyes to many things. I felt it all. Each time that my flesh burnt, each time that I was sent careening through walls and the ground. What's funny is that what has hurt the most was the despair, the crippling fear, the idea of being chained for all eternity to him. This was more painful than any physical attack launched against me."
"I had thought that nothing would change, that Riser would surely win. At that moment, when I had let my power of destruction run amok through me, it wasn't because I wanted an edge or something like that. I wanted to consume everything that would have been the reason for the loss of my freedom. I didn't care if the one that would be hurt was Riser's queen or his sister or even me. I wanted to be free at any cost. When I thought that it would be my end, one that I had at least chosen, I felt something I've always craved for. It was ironically like a religious experience, a baptism. It gave me something that I had envied since the day of my birth. It gave me power.
I placed a hand on my heart "I can feel it there Akeno waiting to unfold, strengthen me at any adversity, protect me, give me the possibility of choosing. This power, This new strength that I feel coursing through me, it feels intoxicating." I turned to look into her eyes.
'They looked sad. They were too beautiful to look this way' I thought.
"This power, It also feels safe, like a promise that everything would be okay."
"Don't you hate me?" she asked me. "You had said nothing but we both know that If I had used what I had inherited from him, you wouldn't have done through any of it."
A wing erupted from her back, a fallen angel wing. Truth be told, it looked beautiful like a piece of midnight that had taken form. "This pain that you felt, the pain I saw you go through, it is all because of me."
"What do you want me to say Akeno," I asked her.
"I want you to blame me! To yell and be angry like you should at me!" Akeno shouted. "You had more than being my king been my everything, that gave me everything yet I chose myself over you!"
I could see tears falling from her eyes "I had chosen not to be there for you like he did."
I did what felt the more natural. I hugged her. "You're not like him Akeno," I whispered to her. "You're better."
I could feel her tears falling on my shoulder. At that moment, there was only one thing that I wished for more than everything. I wanted to erase those tears from existence as if they had never existed.
"I'm not Rias. I am exactly like me. His blood, his tainted blood runs into my veins and with it madness and cruelty. I am something spoiled that could never be cleaned."
How dared she?! That was enough. I broke the hug. I grabbed her head and looked into her violet eyes. Her gaze was shifty. She didn't want to look at me in the eyes but me grabbing her face stopped her from doing so.
"Do you trust me?" I asked her "Or did you stop"
"I will never stop trusting you Rias even if in the future, you discard me," she answered.
"Then what are you insulting me? Do you see me as too stupid to not choose the best? I chose you Akeno to be my queen. The moment I saw you when we were younger, I already knew at that moment that I wanted you to have you for all eternity at my side. I wanted you to be my family and you know what? You proved me right! I don't care that you're the child of one of the cadres of the Grigori. I don't care about your fallen angel blood. What I care about is that you called yourself spoiled, the way you hate yourself. Maybe all fallen angels are tainted but for me, it's not the case for you Akeno. For me, all parts of you are perfect and even if that wasn't the case, I don't care. I love you the way you are and I would never change anything that makes you so please, for me, never call yourself such a thing again."
Above us, fireworks exploded bathing us in multicoloured lights yet my gaze didn't leave her. "Promise me," I repeated.
"I promise," she said softly.
I removed my hand from her face "Good".
"President," I heard behind us. Without looking I knew that it was the different members of my peerage. I could feel their demonic energies coming closer.
I looked at the sky that was still bathed in a sea of colours "This view, isn't it beautiful?" I spoke out loud.
"Yes," I heard Akeno agree at my side. "It's the most beautiful thing in the world.
*scene*
She, Akeno Himejima had been born the daughter of the priestess Shuri Himejima and one of the watchers, one of the leaders of the Grigori Baraqiel.
In the first part of her life, She had grown with everything one could ask for. She was given everything she wished and showered in love by both her mother and her father.
She had admired the both of them. She had admired the beauty, the kindness of her mother. She had admired the strength and the gentleness of her father.
Her mother had told her that she was like Her Father, that she was special, that the wings and the lightning that she had inherited from him were the mark of her future greatness.
She had asked her mother what was greatness. Her mother had answered that it was happiness. It was the ability to protect your happiness and the happiness of your loved ones.
She had told Akeno that it was why she thought her father was the greatest because he would always be there to make sure they were happy.
Her mother had been wrong. Her faith in her husband had been misplaced and because of it, she died at the hands of her own kin.
Her mother and she had prayed to her father. He had told them that it would always come if they called. He didn't.
If she hadn't fled like a coward after seeing the corpse of her mother, maybe she wouldn't have still been alive.
The death of her mother taught her something. It taught her the cruelty of the world. It taught her humility. It taught her hunger, it taught her fear.
She slept in the cold streets, scavenged in trash bins or stole to be able to eat.
No one helped her. Mundane walked before and away from her as if she didn't exist. Supernatural beings at the sight of her either flew away or attacked her.
She was also being chased by the Himejima clan. Their talismans burnt and marked themselves into her flesh. Had she not been reincarnated, they would have still remained on her skin.
She had been hopeful. She had taught that sooner or later, her father would come, that it would take her into his strong arms like he used to do.
Even when the Himejima clan after 6 months of being on the run captured her, she still had hope that it would come and then she had thought, everything would be okay.
She lost hope when she learnt that everything she thought true was wrong when she learnt that the love she had thought truly existed between her parents was nothing but the result of her father twisting the mind of her mother.
They had told her that it was the reason why they decided that it would be best to end the life of her mother.
Akeno they had said was the result of rape, of something innocent being twisted. They told her that it was something fallen angels had the habit of doing to humans they found attractive.
They had told her that if the love her father and her mother had was real, that if the angel of lightning had truly loved her, he would have her and her mother but he didn't come because he didn't care about any of them.
She knew that while being their prisoner it was a question of time for them before they executed her.
She had longed for it, for this end. She had lost everything. Everything she thought was true was a lie. The blood, the inheritance that she took pride in was something tainted, twisted.
When the day came and she walked toward what she knew was her end, a feeling that she thought would never feel again surfaced. It was fear.
She had seen death and she had been scared. She had used the divine lightning she had inherited from him to free herself and flee.
The family members of her mother had still been able to follow her and inflict a significant amount of damage on her. She had almost died and would have if it had not been for her, for Rias.
The heavens had never smiled at Akeno due to her fallen blood but when she had seen her, she had thought that she had been an angel.
She, with her beautiful green-blue eyes, had asked Akeno if she wanted to live if she wanted them to become a family. How could she refuse when it had been what she had longed for since the death of her mother? She had accepted and she had never regretted it.
Rias unlike him didn't break her promise. The years where she had been at her side had been the most joyous that Akeno ever had. Akeno may have damned her soul but it was a damnation that she thought was worth it.
Something happened that maybe she should have expected. She fell in love with Rias Gremory but how could she not?
What had made her fall in love had not been Rias' appearance. It had been her care, her kindness, the way she had treated something like Akeno like something with value.
She had thought about proclaiming it to the heiress until she realized how impossible it was. Rias was promised to Riser Phenex and even if she didn't marry him, she would undoubtedly marry a pure-blood devil.
Even in the impossible case, it would not happen, Akeno may love Rias but Rias will never love Akeno.
She was a half-fallen angel who had been reincarnated into a devil. She was the result of rape, of something holy twisted into a monstrosity.
It was like Heloise and Abelard or Cleopatra and Mark Anthony or Romeo and Juliet. Her loving Rias could only end in tragedy. She didn't want to taint Rias. She didn't want to lose her.
She knew that she would never be able to love Rias the way she wanted, the way she deserved but what she could do was stay at her side until eternity separated them.
Even if the devil that she loved fell in love with someone else, it was okay. She ignored how her heart at those thoughts panged in her chest painfully.
Loving was discarding everything you personally wanted or wished so that the one you loved could be happy even if it wasn't with you.
She loved Rias to the point that it hurt. She had thought that she would do everything to make her happy, that she would always be there doing all in her power so that she could be happy.
She had been lying to herself. The love she had for Rias, which she thought was greater than everything hadn't been greater than her self-hatred.
She had shown her cursed nature and had been exactly like him. She didn't use her holy lightning even though she knew that Rias losing and being married to Riser Phenex would break the woman that Akeno loved.
When she had awoken and seen a rediffusion of the rating game, how Rias' eyes had looked so hopeless, desperate, how the woman she loved, her king chose to hurt herself so that she could win, the self-disgust that she had felt blooming through her had been an endless one.
She had watched how miraculously, Rias had begun to be stronger the longer the fight went on, how even after Riser turned into what seemed to look like a primogenitor of devilkind, Rias still won.
I stayed by her side with the other members of the peerage. I didn't leave it at any moment, unlike the others. I had failed and I had expected anger and hatred to bloom in her eyes at the sight of me but I was prepared for this. It was something I deserved.
Instead when days later, she awoke, she had looked at me with the same Love and care that she always did.
I watched how she acted both so differently and like she did in the past. It was as if she had changed. It was a change I knew had come because I hadn't been the Queen, the family that I was supposed to be to her.
When the others finally left, I found in me to courage to ask her why. Why wasn't she angry? Why didn't she hate me, something as spoiled and undeserving of her love?
She had taken me in her arms. If only she knew how much I wished this instant could last forever.
She told me that I was perfect, that since the first we met, it had been what she thought of me.
She asked me to never call myself such a word again. It would be hard but for her who believed in me, I would try.
"This view, isn't it beautiful?" she spoke out loud.
I looked at her illuminated by the fireworks, at how perfect and beautiful she was. "Yes," Akeno agreed at her side looking at her. "It's the most beautiful thing in the world."
'and I wished it could be mine' she added mentally.
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