Chapter 8: Those endless empty phases
We were all present in the student council room. By we, I meant Sona, me and our respective peerages.
The classes of Kuoh Academy had been suspended until further notice. It was clear that the only superior force existing in this universe after the death of god was the law of Murphy.
What should have happened was Kokabiel attacking my city after stealing the Excaliburs to try to provoke a new great by killing Sona and me.
I knew that it was just a question of time before the future that I knew would become unreliable but it felt too soon.
Sona and I were sitting on different sides of a table, our peerages standing behind each of us well except for Gasper that was sitting on my knees, my arms around me.
I hadn't let him go out of my sight since we woke up. I could say that I was keeping him so close because I wanted to protect, comfort him but it would be a lie, a half-truth at best.
He was comforting me as much if not more than I was comforting him. I honestly felt scared.
I wasn't scared of fighting against gods, angels or whatever supernatural being capable of erasing this reality at will.
What scared me was my peerage, the fear of something happening to them. It's as if they were my heart walking unprotected in a world full of cruelty and pain.
I could see the grim and fearful faces of Sona's peerage members and I'm sure that they were identical to the facial expressions my family now had.
I was brought back out of my thoughts by the voice of my pawn. Sona had been explaining to them the situation. For me, it had felt like white noise.
"War with heaven?" Issei spoke. "That's a joke, right? Right president?" he asked me voice full of hope like a child having learnt that Santa wasn't real and wanting their parents to disprove that fact.
I didn't answer. How was I supposed to say to my pawn that hadn't been a devil for more than two months that soon, the universe would be plunged into a cosmic war where he would have to fight to survive?
"Why should we all fight?" I heard the voice of Asia say at his side. "Why not only punish those that are guilty of attacking the church?" Asia spoke.
I watched how noises of agreement made themselves known from the reincarnated devils. There was only one problem though "People aren't logical," Sona spoke silencing the room.
She removed softly her glasses and put them on the table. "Heavens and Hell had been at best at odds and at worst at war since the beginning of reality. Some of those beings that fought since the beginning of time from both sides are still alive and influential. It could be said that it was just a question of time."
"If maybe only the devil responsible for attacking the Vatican had been caught, we wouldn't be at war but the hatred can't have festered between us since billions of years just needed a spark. Everywhere in the world, devils are attacked. It doesn't matter whether they are reincarnated, low class, high class, half-blood, or pure-blood. Everywhere the heaven has a stronghold is the place of endless attacks by exorcists, priests, Christians, Muslims and Jews aware of the supernatural."
Her cold piercing gaze travelled on every member of our peerages. "Every second that passes is one where a devil attacked, every minute that passes is one where a devil is killed."
"There must be something that can be done president," Saji, her pawn said. "Something so that war won't break out, something that peace may prevail."
"Let's play a game," Sona spoke. "Let's all play a game." Sona's arm moved slowly to stand in the air. The heiress of the Sitri clan opened a palm and what seemed to be a hologram appeared over it.
"It's a game of choice," she spoke. Two stick figures appeared, one a dark red and the other a yellow gold. "Saji and Argento, you said that there must have been a way for peace right? That you're against the coming war. You know what would happen if devil kind followed your instructions?". Before our eyes, a golden sword materialized in the hand of the yellow-gold figure that began to move menacingly toward the red figure that had stayed still.
"What happens when you don't defend yourself is that you lose, you die." I watched how the gold figure in a grotesque showing beheaded the red figure. "Everything that you care about, all your loved ones, this is the Fate they would encounter if we do nothing." I put my hands on the eyes of Gasper to cover them. We watched how the golden figure put the head of the red figure on a stick like a trophy.
"There is no possibility of peace anymore. Do you all think that the only ones targeted by the Heavens are devils? Contractors, magicians and family members of reincarnated devils, they all are targets and if we don't fight, they will also be affected. Saji, do you want your siblings to die?" Sona asked her pawn. The boy reacted as if she had struck him in the face.
"What?" the boy said.
"I'll repeat myself. Do you want your siblings to die?" the Sitri heiress asked him again.
"Of course not. What kind of question is that?" the boy yelled.
"One of necessity, so that you'll understand what is at stake."
Her attention turned toward my pawn. "Sona," I warned. "Don't forget that he's a member of my family." Her only answer was to look into my eyes with her cold amethyst. I could see myself drowning in them, being swallowed and killed in many brutal ways by aquatic monsters. I didn't back down. I flared my demonic energy. It was time that I reminded her that even though we were similar, we could not be called alike, that I wasn't someone she could try to push around.
Windows cracked, furniture bent and all of the members of her peerage fell on their Knees. Maybe I had inherited some deep-seated frustration toward her, maybe I was still bitter over the fact that she had said that I chose, that I maybe wanted Riser to win.
She was the first one to break eye contact. Good, it appears that she could learn. The truth was that intelligence only mattered when you had a chance of winning. Being clever wouldn't matter in a close fight against an endless. Strength at the end is what trumped all.
"Sorry, I slipped," I apologized to her peerage. "You can raise. It's just that thinking about something happening to a member of my peerage made my control slip. It won't happen again," I said with a smile.
They began to rise slowly In an almost cautious way as if they finally realized that before them was a being that was higher than them at every level of the Totem pole.
Behind me, I heard a door being opened forcefully. I turned to see that my pawn was now missing. "issei!" Asia yelled before following after the boy.
Slowly, I removed reluctantly Gasper from my knees. "Akeno, please take care of everything for now," I asked my queen.
"Of course Rias." She grabbed Gasper by one of his hands. "Let's follow Issei and Asia," my queen spoke to the members of my peerage. The sound of their steps became quieter and quieter.
"I would like to talk with my dear oldest friend Sona alone," I said my gaze directed to Sona's peerage members.
They understood the message and it looked like they would begin to protest before Sona turned toward them. "Do what she says. Don't worry," she spoke. "Nothing will happen."
At the hesitation of her peerage members, she asked them one question "Did you stop trusting me?"
"No president."
"Of course not."
"It would be preposterous"
"The president is the best!"
She waited until the members of her peerage finished answering "So please, do it."
I saw how reluctantly as if they were more comfortable with kissing porcupines but they began to leave finally the room. Her queen stopped at the door sending me a scathing look before leaving.
"We are finally alone," I spoke.
"I feel that I made you mad and honestly, I don't really understand why. Better they learn from us than from the world."
"Issei had been shot and stabbed by a rogue exorcist. He saw the dead body of one of his clients nailed to a cross simply because they were contracting with devils. You just said to him that it's probably what will happen to his parents Sona," I told her.
"He had been reincarnated for more than one month. He should at least know with the way he died and was reincarnated that this world wasn't kind. You're trying to cover his ears to the truth," Sona said to me
"This is the thing with truths Sona. There is no real truth. Logically and intellectually, you're right but you forget something."
"What?"
"That living beings are inherently emotional. What animates them to reach greater height isn't logic, what make it possible for humans to slay devils and gods isn't logic. What makes them fight against what should be impossible to beat and win isn't logic," I told her.
"That had always been your problem, Sona. I'm not ashamed to say that for now, you're so much more clever than me. It had always been the case."
"You said yet," the Sitri Heiress pointed.
I continued talking as if she hadn't interrupted me. "You rely on plans, logic, simulations, chess when in reality, those things aren't what matter the most. What matters Sona is strength."
"Are you calling me weak?" she growled. There wasn't a worse insult for a devil. Strength defines our race at every level. I could have called her an idiotic waste of space and she would have taken it better.
I answered her question with another one "When we think about it, who is Sona Sitri, what makes you special? You're smart but not the smartest, you're average when it comes to demonic energy amongst pure-blood heirs of our age. It could be said that everything you are today, that you think you are is because you were given it."
"You're the one to talk Rias. You were born with everything unlike us and before Riser, you had chosen to waste it," she hissed.
"You were born with the power of destruction of the Bael bloodline, one of the greatest abilities someone of our kind can wield, the power of an endless yet you were weak. You didn't do anything to change your situation. I watched you all that time, I watched do nothing!"
"You said that I was given everything Sona but it is false. Yes, I inherited the power of destruction and you want to know something, it had changed nothing because in the end, even with it, I could not choose, decide my own Fate unlike you," I told her.
"You were given the power to choose who you will Mary Sona. I never was. You never had to fear about your future, about losing everything," I spoke.
"Stop being dramatic. Riser is a third son. You wouldn't have lost anything. He just would have been your consort," she spoke.
A sight escaped me "Sona, I'm not the last Gremory born with the power of destruction capable of inheriting."
"Not the las—. Millicas," she said realization appearing in her eyes. Millicas was the son of my brother and Grayfia, the only living child of a super devil and an ultimate devil. Millicas at birth had already had the demonic energy of a high-class devil. He was According to Ishibumi, the character that had the highest potential in the series in terms of natural talent. He wasn't older than twelve yet I knew that Millicas would have been able to beat Riser by himself before his transformation without much difficulty.
We were devils before being members of the Gremory clan and the original Rias had known that losing to Riser would not only mean becoming tied to him for all eternity but also stripped of her title of heiress of the Gremory clan. There was after all already a candidate that seemed more advantageous. "Yes, Sona, my nephew Millicas."
"Millicas would never try to usurp your title of heiress. He's a Gremory just like you and there is nothing that matters to him more than his family," she told me.
"It's probably true," I admit. "But you forget something," I added. "My mother wasn't born as one."
"She has been raised as a Bael. You saw with Saiororg some of the things they do to someone they consider weak."
Saiororg had been stripped of his status of heir. He would be banished with his mother to the edges of the Bael clan territory. His mother would, unfortunately, fall prey to the sleeping disease, the only disease that we devils hadn't found a way to heal. All of this because of his lack of power of destruction, all of this because he wasn't unlike his little brother Magdaran seen as adequate.
"you know how much my father loves her Sona." My father loved her more than anything and he would do everything to make her happy.
I saw something bloom into her eyes, something I had never thought I would have seen, shame. "I hadn't realized truly realized what it meant for you," she spoke softly, her gaze fleeting.
"No, you didn't," I acknowledged. "Sona, when did everything change?" I asked her. It was clear that both of us were harbouring toward each other feelings that could only be called negative when we were sisters in all but names. We had known each other since we were literally babies.
My first memories consisted of Sirzechs, my mother Venelana, my father Zeoticus and her. "Maybe it'll be the last time that the two of us will be able to talk with the coming war," I told her.
"Please, you owe me at least to tell me why I lost my sister," I begged her. She had turned away from me. I felt my voice crack "Sona, please."
She turned back toward me and I saw tears coming from her eyes. Sona Sitri was crying. I didn't have a memory of her crying since we were literally babies. All the anger that I had felt toward her vanished. I didn't want this. "It's because I did what I thought I would never do Rias, I became jealous, too envious of you."
"Son-".
"Rias, please let me finish," She interrupted me. "I don't think that I would be able to do it again if I stop."
I wanted to tell her that I didn't want to hear the reason for everything that had happened anymore, that there was no point if it made her cry, that It was alright, that we'd just try to be better but I just nodded.
"I had always been compared to you Rias. I was the sister of a satan like Rias Gremory. I was almost as strong as Rias Gremory. I was almost as beautiful as Rias Gremory. I tried to act as if it didn't but it did hurt Rias. It made me wish to be you Rias. Maybe if I were you, things would be better, maybe if I were you, people would listen to what I say instead of completely disregarding it," Sona revealed.
"I saw you, everything I wished to be wasting I had thought herself and it burnt here Rias," she said her right hand at the level of her heart. "It burnt so much with hatred, so painfully, so bitterly. This is the reason why Rias. With what I just said to you and the coming war, there is a lot of chance it'll probably be the last time for a long time that we will be talking."
"Rias," she continued. She was now looking in my eyes. Her amethyst had turned soft and looked like the eery but beautiful sky of the underworld. "I'm sorry for everyth-".
I stood up from the chair, walked to her side and shut her up by hugging her. "Don't say that. It won't be the last time we will be talking. I just wanted to know. I never said that I wanted you out of my life."
I knew what it was like to always be compared to a close relative who was just better at every level, and who had been blessed even more than yourself. A relative that felt like a shining sun you wanted to extinguish, so for once, people would be looking at the brightness of your moon.
I had loved and hated them. I had wanted them to fall just to know what it was to be me. I wanted them to thrive so that they could be happy. It made me wonder. Did he cry when I was gone? Did he talk with fond memories of everything mischief we got up together? Well, it didn't matter anymore.
"It would be a lie to say that I don't recognize the fact that I was born lucky Sona. Most of what you said was true. My beauty, my strength, my status, those are things that I didn't work for, that were handed to me at my birth. They were also chains, responsibilities I didn't ask for. Maybe I could have done better but I tried Sona, I tried my best and before the rating game, it hadn't been enough."
"I had feared that I would have lost you when I was watching it Rias," Sona told me. "I had feared that I would have lost my sister. I was scared the same way I am now scared."
A bitter laugh escaped her "I am scared of this war Rias. I am scared of losing everything, of losing Serafall, you, my peerage, my family.!I wished things could be different."
Her voice broke "I'm scared of dying Rias."
I continued hugging her. "I don't care what or who is put on my way. I won't let you leave me, Sona," I whispered to her. "If I have to fight against Death, I would do so, if I have to fight an endless so that you and the ones I care about live on, this is what I will do."
"Everything you just said is illogical to the highest degree yet I believe you," she told me.
She leaned in my embrace. "Can we stay like this for a moment?" she asked me.
"Of course, Sona, of course," I answered her. I was as scared as her to be honest but It didn't matter. I'll do everything so that moments of peace like this could last forever. 'I also wished things would be different Sona' I thought.
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