บท 20: Chapter 19 - Unfinished Battle

"Wait! Mother! I'm sorry!" A young child yelled as she was pulled along helplessly by a woman with a stern expression on her face.

"If you were sorry you wouldn't keep making the same mistakes Melissa." The woman scolded Melissa harshly as she dragged her daughter by the arm and tossed her into a near pitch black room. "I'll let you out after I think you've finally learned your lesson."

The door closed quickly, snuffing out the light of the hallway. Now the only light was from a small window.

The young Melissa Wargrave sat against the door with her knees pulled into her chest and tears streaming from her eyes.

"Why do I have to fight?"

"Because my last name is Wargrave?"

"I don't understand at all… I hate fighting…"

–

Seeing the lances of light coming towards her and hearing Cthylla's words a sudden memory had come to Cebrail from her past life.

Simply due to the fact that her name was Melissa WARGRAVE she was all but doomed from birth to fight for the church. She had never particularly liked fighting. She could never understand what the purpose of it was. After all, everyone was human and capable of communicating with each other logically, so why not simply look for another solution?

Bloodshed only leads to more bloodshed. Revenge only leads to more revenge. Suffering only leads to more suffering.

It's so obvious that Cebrail had found it strange that people could be so adamant about throwing their fists around to solve disputes. This confusion was what gave her the bad habit of asking her enemies for their reason for fighting.

She always hopes for the reason to be something grand like the rebels who fought for the freedom of expression of humanity. However most of the time while answers were incredibly varied, they were also incredibly selfish or stupid.

In this new life things haven't changed much at all, in fact she found that people are far more stupid than in her previous life.

"You're a bit too young to be trying to assume things about me." Cebrail stated in an icy tone and yet again a barrier enveloped them and the lances of light vanished before reappearing aimed straight for the sky.

The barrier disappeared right after as the sea green light lances shot into the air harmlessly.

"Hehe, if you think that's all I have then you're sorely mistaken!" Cthylla raised her hand to summon more lances however instantly another barrier enveloped the area and Cebrail vanished.

("CTHYLLAAAA!!!!") The girl's retainer screamed in her head but she didn't understand why the dragon sounded so distressed until she felt a searing pain in her abdomen as blood erupted from a deep cut and she fell back.

Just as she was about to hit the ground a set of strong arms caught her.

"Cthylla! Cthylla!" The voice was that of her retainer Shiroyasha, a former divine eastern Dragon that was sealed away long ago. She had lost most of her power when she was unsealed by the contracting power of Solomon's Ring.

"Child. Let me give you a warning since you don't seem to understand what you're getting yourself into." Cebrail turned around staring at the two girls with uncharacteristically cold eyes. "Once you've decided to fight, the battle never ends. After beating one person another even stronger than that will appear and even if you somehow manage to defeat them can you guess what will happen? In the end, battle is just one miserable cycle that will never end unless you finally succumb to it and die!"

(And even after that you may be pulled into battle again…)

"I'm giving you this warning because I've always had a soft spot for kids."

"Cthylla, you mustn't get up!" Shiroyasha said, the girl's wound was healing, however it seemed to have intentionally been made to be deep enough to nearly spill out her organs making it a bit more difficult to heal.

Cebrail's last attack had changed Cthylla's perception of time. While it may have seemed instantaneous to her in truth Cebrail had simply walked up to her, slashed her, then walked past.

"Sorry…" Cthylla did something that surprised everyone. She apologized to Cebrail. "I must have been pretty off the mark if you're so angry."

"Me? Angry? I'm not so irrational as to act on those kinds of feelings."

"You're a good liar. Unfortunately, my Royal Authority sees everything. Including how to beat you!" Cthylla stood and turned to Shiroyasha with a big toothy grin. "Help me out here Shiroyasha!"

"Haaaa, I'm unsure if we can beat this girl, however if this is what you want I must concede." The dragon retainer stood closely next to Cthylla.

"Her barrier messes with the properties of anything caught in it. But it doesn't seem like she's too familiar with it."

"Just knowing her ability isn't going to do much when it's that strong Cthylla."

"Its weakness is obvious Shiroyasha, the larger the barrier the less she can do with the things inside of it. It probably eats up a lot of stamina for things like what she just did."

"Your Royal Authority really is quite convenient…" Cebrail commented raising her dagger once more however just as she did so Shiroyasha grabbed her partner and the two vanished before appearing high in the sky.

A wall of sea green lances appeared in the sky and with the fall of Cthylla's hand they all rained down forcing Cebrail to dance around them narrowly avoiding each one. Unfortunately the density of the attack caused Cebrail to get a few scratches here and there.

"Reginleif."

("On it!") The young Valkyrie responded instantly and just as quickly a blast of magic rocketed through the air.

Shiroyasha taking notice of this dashed in front of Cthylla blocking the blast of magic. Still, the Cadre Princess became distracted for just a moment giving Cebrail an opening.

Jumping high above the trees she uses her barrier and sends several long distance slashes toward the Cadre Princess.

"Tsk!" Shiroyasha grabbed her partner's hand and the two teleported several times to avoid each slash until yet another blast of magic exploded on top of them.

"UGH!" Cthylla was hit by the blast and though it in truth didn't do any damage that couldn't be quickly repaired Cthylla's pain tolerance wasn't very high at all.

Seeing Cebrail appear behind them, her dagger glowing with power, Shiroyasha teleported her and her partner back down to the ground just as a large wave of light power exploded in the sky.

Releasing her wings Cebrail landed gently to the ground in front of the two before putting them away just as quickly.

(That dragon is troublesome, she's manipulating space.) Cebrail thought, then in five steps, she was directly in front of Shiroyasha stabbing toward her.

The dragon blocked with her arms, even if she was greatly weakened a basic blessed dagger could never get through a dragon's scales.

Cebrail made multiple attacks which were parried and Cthylla fired a few light lances forcing the Seraphim Princess to back away to avoid being skewered.

Looking down at her dagger, Cebrail found that it was cracked in several places. She had been using her barriers to push it to its limit. Of course, nothing could use 100% of its power without being damaged as a result however the dagger itself wasn't particularly well made contributing to the speed of degradation. It was cheap and was never made to be anything but a basic sidearm.

"Hmm… I think this is taking too much time. I have a meeting to be at soon, so let's just end this already." Cebrail took a stance pulling her arm back while pointing the tip towards the two girls in front of herself.

A barrier enveloped the area and power focused itself on the dagger tip.

"Well if you're in that much of a rush I guess I can entertain this! One more attack to end it all! One last stand against me! WAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"

"Where do you draw your arrogance from?" Cebrail questioned, almost impressed by the level of delusion in the girl's last statement.

"I draw it from the truth obviously! From the world I envision myself creating!" Cthylla raises her hand alongside Shiroyasha and both light power along with draconic power gathered in a ball.

Cebrail's grip on her dagger tightened and digging her foot into the ground she began moving her hand in a stabbing motion.

Suddenly before either of the two girls could unleash their attacks a strange deep black energy with a crimson red outline disintegrated Cebrail's dagger along with Cthylla's concentrated blast.

"W-What!?!" Cthylla yelled in shock but seeing that such a powerful person had arrived on the scene grabbed the Cadre Princess and teleported them away.

As they left a man landed in front of Cebrail looking at her with somewhat curious blue eyes.

The man was basically the leader of the Devils as a whole.

Sirzechs Lucifer, the older brother of the main heroine Rias Gremory.