The crumbling world of a fool.

(A/N: All the Artorias from now on will be written as Arturia instead.)

Family isn't an important thing. It's everything. -Michael J. Fox

_____________________________

"Sister, see this big dragon i have got? Isn't it cool?" Happily exclaimed a 4 year old Morgan.

"Yes it is very cool. But you should not ride that doll, you might fall with your face and hurt yourself." Sternly mentioned a 7 year old Arturia.

Morgan angrily pouted at her sister and responded:

"But this is what princesses usually do right? I have heard stories from Nadia and mom. Princesses trapped in towers with dragons watching them, waiting for a hero or something. But then, they end up falling for the dragon and initiating something that Nadia called, 'the dragon and princess project'. Though she said i am too young to do that."

"Dragon, princess project? I have never heard of it either. But now that you mention it, they do often just fall for the dragon instead of the heroes. But that still doesn't explain why you are riding it."

"I am encouraging him. When the time comes, i will buy a unicorn and you will play the part of a hero saving me, but then suddenly i will ride the dragon and encourage him to beat you to the ground. I need to practice now."

"Why are so interested in this princess and dragon story in the first place?"

Morgan looked down a little bit, her cheeks turning a bit red before she responded with meek voice:

"I want to be princess. When i grow up i want to be the best princess there is."

Hearing that, Arturia was shocked for a second, before she laughed out loud.

Seeing that, Morgan pouted again and asked:

"What is so funny here? My dream is beautiful."

"Hahahah, but Morgan, you already are a princess. You are a fluffy ball of cuteness who will become a very beautiful princess. There is no reason to role play a princess." Arturia said.

Hearing her praises, embarrassment could be seen on Morgan's cheeks.

"But i still have to practice."

.

.

.

.

.

"You are a witch. A filthy woman who plots against his own family. You need to stay away from your sister, as far away as possible." Exclaimed Uther Pendragon, to a girl looking to be 8 years old or so.

.

.

.

.

.

"Well..... father doesn't seem to believe in us. But its okay mr. dragon! I will still become the most beautiful princess there is, and you will become the most powerful dragon there is! We will still achieve our dream and make father proud!" Exclaimed an excited Morgan to her dragon doll.

.

.

.

.

.

'Ehh...what just happened? What?....' Thought, a confused 10 year old Morgan.

___________________________

(Antares POV)

Underground of the Pendragon mansion.

"See anything?" I asked my flat chested companion.

"No. You know this is actually kinda sus. We have been walking for an hour and still nothing. I am pretty sure this place is bigger than the whole mansion." She responded.

Well Arturia did say it was made with the purpose of wasting people's time.

At least we are sure we aren't walking in a infinite corridor. Trust me i have checked. This is so boring.

"Is it always like this?" I asked.

"If you mean the boredom, then no. Usually it is boring to walk around but when i find something important, all of my fatigue leaves me for a moment. But it is always time consuming. Think about it like this, if it was so easy to raid these tombs, then everyone would have already done it before." Astrid responded.

You know i am starting to feel kinda bad for sending her on missions like this....

If it wasn't for 1 factor.....

"Look over there, there are gold bars hidden beneath these tiles."

This bitch is a gold digger, both figuratively amd quite literally. She steals a good portion of the old family's wealth for herself.

No wonder she seems so close to Ruval.

"Stop trying to locate gold bars for fuck's sake. I want you to find a fucking Lance, and a damn sheath, not money. You are spending more time digging than searching."

"Hey what if i find them while digging?"

"They wouldn't be hiding 2 familial artifacts under the dirt. They would hide them inside glorified coffins so that if at some point they wanted their children to inherit those artifacts, they would get to show off their ostentatious design."

.

.

"That...that is fair okay." She said, while trying really hard to look away from the position of the gold bar.

It was at that moment that the earth started shaking and explosive auras could be felt on the surface.

More importantly though, if one had paid enough attention, the barrier broke, after the spacial barrier was put down. An observant person would immediately realise that this means the leader of the attack is inside the mansion. The leader has watched the moment that Caliburn was released from it's pedestal, and only moments later, ordered the attack.

"We need to hurry up now, there will probably be other people trying to get the artifacts too." I said.

"Hmmm? So there is a mole inside the mansion alright. But didn't we already count on the mother being the mole?" Astrid asked

"Its a bit different now. You see, before this, we just believed that the mother was a double agent. But now, i think the mom is probably the one leading this attack, and she probably also knows the location of the artifacts."

"You don't seem too worried." She stated with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, i have made some preparations. This will merely be a warming exercise for us." I replied.

Stella is single handedly the strongest person in this mansion, and Bova can always be summoned. So there is no shortage of fire power in this operation. The only thing to consider is if the enemy is simply stalling for time, until they achieve their main objective.

But that notion doesn't even need to be considered, as i have already dealt with their main objective.

I studied souls and all matters related to them for more than an entire year, granted it was done to deal with the Ingvlid problem but even so, i have to be really incompetent if i couldn't even mess with a curse on Morgan's soul.

Either that, or Archmage is being useless.

In conclusion, they will never be able to a achieve their objective.

This plan was busted from the moment i got here.

"I see something! About 20 minutes in walking speed, there is a gate. There are all kinds of deadly traps around it though." Astrid suddenly mentioned.

"Well then, lets not waste 20 minutes of our time, we are running."

Hopefully this gate leads to something.

___________________________

Meanwhile, with Stella.

'Well, this plan is busted' I thought as i prepared to explode the surrounding area and the witches in it.

How did i get into this situation? Well since it became known that the maids had spells placed on them, i thought to use that to my advantage, as i am a maid myself.

But...

Turns out when you are the only servant who is not being directly mind controlled, they will get suspicious of you.

And so here i am, surrounded by...a number of witches, i can't bother to count every one of them.

The amount of witches is the equivalent of a single light spear. That sounds a lot better in terms of math simplicity.

I spread my wings, and surrounded my body with them, using them as shields, before focusing my holy energy on top of myself, where a gigantic silver spear with black markings manifested itself, before being thrust to the ground, resulting in the complete destruction of this section of gardens, along with every witch of course.

Good thing i don't have to pay for the damages i cause. This mansion and garden look quite expensive.

Analyzing my surroundings while flying, i quickly drafted a plan of action.

'There is a giant circle teleporting witches, we have bombs in form of maids and a betrayer. Objective is to destroy the magic circle and protect the mansion. Easy enough.'

Immediately, i began expelling a large amount of energy out of my body, and focusing on the sigil of Bova's gate.

Moments later, the purple gate was formed and opened up to reveal a gigantic humanoid dragon wearing vambraces.

"It is good to see you Stella. Why have you called?" Asked, Bova.

"Hello there. I need you to protect this mansion. Only those 2 blonde man and girl currently fighting are allowed to enter the mansion." I replied.

"I understand my job. Goodluck then."

With that, Bova turned to the witches gathered at the entry of the mansion and incinerated them with a breath.

I simply took off to the skies, towards the magic circle.

I did take note of the explosive maids. It is disgusting to he honest. But who am i to say anything about that? I am literally a....

"Stupid crow bitch thinks she can defeat us all together?"

"Seems dirty crows have grown quite arrogant too."

There it is. As expected.

But this is just unacceptable.

What right do these idiots of all people have to call me dirty?

There is a reason why there are no men among these magicians.

"Who do they think they are? Some low class prostitute daughter of a worthless, cuckold father, who's mother died due to excessive rape by the hands of the devils, came across another devil, made a contract with said devil, and decided to become his bitch, following in mommy's footsteps. In between each round, she learned a few spells too it seems. It would also seem like she had invited a few friends in. Well, quite the poetic life she has lived, this dog in heat." I murmured as the battlefield grow more silent.

"Crow this, crow that, crow, crow, crow, crow, crow...When will you low class bitches ever come up with something new?" I continued.

Though it would seem my murmuring had been louder than i thought, as all the bitches turned deathly silent after that, none even dared to move.

"What? Mad that this crow has managed to accurately guess your background? Did i hurt the slut's feelings?"

They greeted their teeth and clenched their staffs, hard.

"Well, you all don't have to worry about your poetic lives anymore. Afterall i will be sending you all to your beloved whores."

""Kill this bitch"" They all screamed as it seemed like a dam had broken, hundreds of magic circles appeared to attack me from all directions.

In response however, hundreds of silvery black spears started appearing in the air, their tips pointed straight at one magician each. The aim would be flawless.

"When i am done with you, your bodies won't need graves to be buried in." I exclaimed happily.

As i said that, the spears took off and so did the magic spells.

But.....

*Boooooooooom*

There was never a competition at all. The spears pierced right throw all kinds of spells, be it fire, ice, wind, whatever, and then pierced through the protective barriers as well, before striking the witches and exploding after skewering them.

Absolutely nothing remained of them.

The power of an ultimate class angel.

It was such a beautiful scenery.

________________________

With Arturia.

I could feel the sweat running down my face as i looked at the explosions above my head.

This Angel is crazy.

Though, that line of thought will have to wait, as i needed to dodge yet another icicle shot.

This has been going on for a while now. There is just too many magicians and maids.

The elders were all, already dead.

Though, if there was one good thing that came out of this, that would be my mastery of Caliburn.

The sword is capable of cutting the space, attacking through the space, teleportation, throwing enemy attacks around and even back at them among other things.

It is easy enough to swing the sword and cut the space in front of you, the difficulty of this weapon comes from using it to cut the other side of the space, as you aren't physically there to cut that position. Instead, Caliburn has to cut it's path through the dimensional gap.

Its all about intent and power.

Seeing that their offense has gotten them no results, a group of 20 magicians gathered around a gigantic magic circle.

That is not good, whatever it is.

I stood behind my father, allowing him to defend for me, while i charged Caliburn's holy energy, before cutting the space with it, effectively releasing the holy energy to the space.

Now i just have to will the energy to cut the other side of space where i want it to and...

*Boooooooom*

A huge pillar of light was the result of that, as the witches and the circle were eliminated without me even moving my legs.

This is kinda fun!

"I see you are already getting used to the sword, but try to find a way to get us or rather, them out of here if you can." My father said, as he was using Excalibur ruler to stop all the magic projectiles from reaching us.

I understood what he meant, as technically creatures bellow a certain level of power cannot survive in the environment of the dimensional gap, a place where Caliburn is capable of cutting a way into. And it wouldn't matter much, if the maids explode in the gap either.

"Just focus on it, i will buy you time. Remember, its all about intent." Advised, my father.

Focusing on the sword, i imagined a teleportation circle and the way it worked, only the circle would cut into the dimensional gap.

That part is easy enough, the hard part is about controlling the sword to aim for the enemy, not the allies.

I closed my eyes and felt the holy enegy of the sword going in every direction, targeting everything, even inanimate objects. It seems by default the sword would send everything into the gap.

I immediately tried reversing the process, returning the energy back into the sword. It was a bit of a slow process as i lost control twice, but eventually i got it all back. Now the sword has no target for the attack.

Aiming the same energy that i had absorbed inside, i imagined it targeting the magicians like a beam, and i saw the lights going back to them.

Thinking the process has been done, i opened my eyes and did a simple slash on the ground in front of me, testing the affect of the move.

""Ehhh...Ahhhhhhhhh""

To my joy, the very same slash, appeared beneath each and every person i had targeted, resulting in people letting out weird shouts and free falling into the space gaps.

"Good. Keep that up and get rid of the maids too. We don't need disobedient servants." Said, father.

Nodding to his words i once again repeated the process, only this time targeting the maids, Throwing them into the gap.

*Cleaank*

At that same moment, the sound of shattering was heard as the crazy angel had broken the teleportation circle, effectively cutting the path of the witches off.

I looked around for any stranglers holding on to life, but found none at all. Either scorched by the dragon, thrown out by Caliburn or caught up in holy explosions, the witches and servants were all dealt with, at least as far as eye sight could confirm.

I looked towards my father and the mansion in front of us, before nodding to him.

The message was clear enough to understand.

We both cautiously started walking towards the dragon that was now guarding our mansion. If this leads to a fight, then the mansion is done for, that much is for certain.

The dragon for his part, didn't even seem to notice them at all, looking to the sky with an indifferent gaze.

Was this guy trying to act cool?

I could feel my face morphin into a deadpan at the dragon's act.

Though that was quickly turned into a frown as i measured the dragon's power.

This is an ultimate class dragon.

Even with father's help, we wouldn't be able to win against him. Not after overworking the holy swords to defeat the previous enemies.

We had to be more tactful regarding this matter. Thankfully this kind of thing was father's bread and butter.

"Great dragon, as the lord of this house, i thank you for helping us repel the witches, however i may be quite frank with you, should i consider you an ally or someone stopping me from entering my house?" Father said.

The dragon finally noticing us, turned his head down with his scrutinizing eyes, before he nodded to us.

"You may both enter the house, i will not stop you. In fact, i was told to allow you in."

As he talked however, my attention was drawn to the fallen angel, landing near us.

My father immediately took a defensive stance, not trusting a fallen angel's nature even one bit.

"Why is there a ___

"Okay, okay, i get it. I am a crow okay? Can we get pass that phase? Actually forget about it. I have nothing to do with you at all." She interrupted my father before walking towards me and grabbing both my hands instantly and pushing me to a corner.

A silver spear was conjured at the same time, pointing towards father.

"My master wanted me to tell you that when you go inside there, things you see may be the opposite of what you had expected, however do not judge things from the first glance. Trust your sister. Everything has an explanation." She whispered into my ears, before letting me go and flying away on her own. The dragon following after her.

What exactly was their goal anyway? They just came and went.

Shaking my head from the unnecessary thoughts, i focused on the warning i was given.

Based on the content of the warning, i assume there is traitor inside the mansion.

This only motivates me to move faster to save Morgan.

I ran to the mansion, immediately hearing sounds of battle, i saw the nun from church, fighting a battalion of magicians upstairs.

Ignoring her for the time being, i focused on Morgan's aura, trying to get a feel for her location, which led me to the servant's room.

I rushed towards the room, my father following me. It was strange how quite this place is, considering the battle going on with the nun.

When i reached the doors, i stopped for a second to think about what that fallen angel said to me.

It was like she was explaining a sad story that had already happened, and wanted me to look at it from a diffrent perspective.

Clearing my thoughts, i pushed the door open, only to regret ever walking into the room.

There i saw Morgan. Excalibur transparency in her hands, standing on top of my mother's body that had a hole in the chest area, lots of blood all around the room.

.

.

.

.

.

"Morgan you..."

"YOU DAMNED WITCH." Screamed out my father before i could ask any questions.

He immediately rushed in with Excalibur ruler to slash Morgan's head.

Thinking quickly, i drew Caliburn and with a rush of mana, got in between the 2 of them, using the holy sword to parry my father.

Although the scene looked really bad, the angel had already informed me that it isn't what it looks like.

No, it can't be what it looks like. Morgan would never do such a thing. If i let him execute Morgan now, i would never learn the truth.

*Claaaaaaank*

Caliburn's force, on top of my strength, easily pushed back the Excalibur fragment. Staggering my father.

"Huh?....What are you doing?" Asked Morgan. Her tone devoid of any emotions, it seemed she was in a daze.

My father however had more than a few black lines on his face.

"Are you siding with the traitor? After all that have happened, you still choose your own ruin?"

I stared at him, meeting his eyes head on without backing out.

"Let her explain herself. This may not be what you think it is."

"SHE KILLED YOUR MOTHER." He shouted.

"YES, AND YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL MY SISTER." I shouted back.

While the shouting match continued, Morgan had grown as pale as the corpse in front of her. Trying to wrap her head around the things that had just happened.

She had already seen through the nature of the sigil placed on her soul. The plans of her mother.

Her mature soul rationalized her actions as a necessity for survival.

She never really felt anything for her mother anyway. She was absent almost all of her life, Nadia was more a mother for her than Alessia.

But her childish mind simply failed to comprehend the emotions she was feeling at the moment.

She would really want a good night's sleep now just to swallow all of these events.

More than anything, she was conflicted. How is she going to face her sister now?

Her father? That is already a lost cause anyway.

She had to explain herself. Or at least try to.

"Please.... hear me out." She meekly said, but it didn't seem to have any effect on the other people present in the room.

They just kept on shouting nonsense.

If she wanted them to hear her, she would have to scream herself. As shameful as that may be in her current situation.

"PLEASE STOP YOU 2. Please just hear me out. I will explain everything."

The initial shout was enough to snap the 2 out of their shouting match. They instead turned their heads towards Morgan.

Seeing their faces morphed in anger startled Morgan a bit, but she resolved herself to explain her actions nonetheless.

"She was the one who put spells on the servants. She has been doing that for 1 year now, first time i noticed it, was when Nadia came to me with a spell written on her body. She was the one who instigated this attack with the magicians. She planted a sigil on my soul to swap our bodies and she wanted to kidnap me, saying that this attack was planned by Arturia... I got suspicious and questioned her, then she got mad and attacked me to try and swap our bodies right then and there, i had no choice but to stab her. She would have taken over my body otherwise." She said, almost desperately. Hoping for at least her sister to believe her.

Arturia meanwhile, was just trying to wrap her head around this information.

After all, observation haki did not find a single trace of lies in Morgan.

'So our mother just gave birth to us in order to then use our bodies?'

The church, the Pendragons and now even mother.

'Just what is wrong with this world? Why is everyone just trying to make us into puppets?'

While Arturia was thinking about the events of her life, Uther didn't even bother listening to a single word of Morgan. For him, the answer was always clear.

"LIAR. Disgusting filth, even now you still choose to lie and deceive your own kin." He exclaimed, as he went for an overhead swing, noticing that Arturia is too distracted to stop him now.

However, to his surprise, an icy thing, swept his legs, messing with his balance, before another icy thing slammed into his hands, hard, Resulting in him being disarmed and hitting the ground. He did not even see that attack coming.

"She is right you know. We can confirm that Alessia Pendragon was affiliated with both the church and the magicians attacking you. Those women were a group of people that go by the name of Nilrem. Quite the curious choice of name might i add, it is Merlin, spelled backwards. Anyway, they are a group of rogue magicians who help a certain unidentified devil with their experiments, specially experiments on souls of the dead people or reincarnations. Explains why they were intrested in whatever your wife planned to do with her daughter." Said the attacker.

"Isn't that just beautiful? You claimed you wouldn't repeat the mistakes of your ancestors with Morgan, but you ended up falling for another witch's tricks for 16 years. Being narrow minded is one way of losing the plot i suppose." Said the mysterious attacker, now showing himself, a young boy looking no older than 14 wearing a mask that completely hid his face and all of his magical signature.

"It is true. Alessia Pendragon was going to betray and rob your house for church's interests." Confirmed the woman standing next to the boy, the same nun from before, Emilia.

"As for your evidence....." Said the boy before snapping his finger.

A purple magic circle appeared and out came 2 magicians, beaten and bruised, unconscious.

"You can get any answers you want out of them. I have no use for them anymore after all."

'Of course, some information have been removed from their memories. You don't need to know too much about the world around you.' Thought the boy to himself.

Uther took a look at everything around him but he was still not convinced, perhaps he was just bitter, so he choose the only defense in his circumstances.

"Why should i believe a single word that comes out of your mouth? That purple magic circle is obviously demonic in origin, that means you are a devil. How should i know you aren't that 'Certain unidentified devil'. I mean you have already seduced the nun, who is to say you haven't brainwashed my wife to do your bidding?"

Racism.

It is the final defense of a man in denial.

A fallen angel, a devil, a vampire....

These creatures should never be trusted. Specially by humans.

But...there is a reason why Antares chose to show that fake purple magic circle.

He let out his aura in a frenzy that threatened to destroy the entire mansion. Yet, never did he ever lose control of it at any point, no damage was done to a single thing in the room, even the air wasn't pressured. Everyone could feel and see it. The aura of a satan class devil.

Sweat ran down Uther's face as he realised he is by no means the one in control of anything.

Worse, he immediately tried searching for his holy sword only to find that Arturia had already picked up Excalibur ruler, now duel wielding it with Caliburn.

She had already made her decision.

Antares walked towards him, stretched his hand and slowly caressed Uther's petrified face.

"You should believe every single word that comes out of my mouth Uther. After all, you are still alive to tell the tale aren't you?" He whispered in his ears.

This isn't earth. This is DXD. There is no need to argue with a delusional idiot anymore. In front of higher power, his biases, his opinions, his feelings, everything about him altogether, amounts to nothing more than goat shit.

"Now, i imagine Morgan is exiled from the clan from now on correct? Then i propose the two of you come with me. I can provide you a stable and luxurious life and my protection. In exchange i only ask that you work for me. There would be no conspiracies this time. Just a plain old deal." Antares exclaimed.

Arturia looked back to Morgan for a moment locking eyes with her, as if to confirm a decision then, she nodded towards Morgan. Patiently waiting for her reply now.

In the first place, the essences of Arturia had already confirmed the identity of the masked young man. She trusted him. She had choosen to trust him for a while now, and she hasn't regretted that decision yet. The choice for her was obvious now.

But Morgan will have to make a decision herself.

Morgan looked at the boy for a minute.

The way his body moved, the way he talked, even the tone of his voice reminded her of the cute Faerie who had come to play with her the other night. The one who was kind and compassionate with her.

She understood that she is exiled now. She also understood that Arturia wouldn't leave her. And as shameless as that may sound, she didn't want to undermine Arturia's resolve.

There really is no better place to go huh.

She made her decision and nodded towards Arturia.

"We accept your proposal." The moment the words were spoken, a geas was formed between them, and the essence of bonds had bonded Morgan too. Small things like this, tends to do wonders to earn the other party's trust.

There was a moment in which Arturia looked like she wanted to say something to her father, but she shook her head and looked towards her mother's corpse, as if to show the smallest amount of respect for the dead.

And so the pair of sisters, along with the nun and the strange man, walked out of the room and went outside the mansion, before teleporting away from the human world altogether.

Leaving behind a shaken Uther Pendragon. Utterly defeated and lost. His wife had been a witch who had betrayed him. Apparently his youngest daughter was just an innocent child that he had rejected due to his paranoia and his eldest, had decided to leave him even after everything he did to protect and empower her.

Too dazed to even move a finger, he only had a single thought in his head.

'Truly, have i been too ignorant and narrow minded to the world around me? Could it be that i was the fool all along?'

Suddenly the world looked a lot more bleak than before.