Nuclear

She can almost swear there's a voice in her head. There isn't of course—she had Issei confirm it for her once—but there is…something. Some sort of instinct that drives her. The intensity rises and falls, but it's always particularly loud whenever she fights.

It's a maddening sort of feeling, like some sort of beast is living inside her head, asking her to let loose all her inhibitions and just fight. No grace, no tactics, no planning; it roars and screams for her to destroy.

Akeno isn't quite sure when this feeling began. But she knows it's grown especially prevalent once her horns started growing.

She tried asking Issei if he could find out what's wrong. And he tried.

He nearly died from it. She remembered the way his eyes glowed gold, suffocating every and all things as she stared into that swirling mass. She remembered the way he shook as blood fell from his nose and lips. She remembered the way he'd fallen after that, coughing and quivering as he tried to form a coherent word.

She remembered the terror.

"I failed." He said a day later, looking truly defeated for the first time. "My soul isn't strong enough yet."

She doesn't know what this all means. But it doesn't feel malicious. As beastly as it feels, it also feels…mentoring, for a lack of a better word. It makes her feel strong, strong enough to shoulder even the weight of a cadre's sword.

She smiles widely as she avoids a particularly deadly swing from Satanael's blade. He glowers at her, his frustration showing through his reddened face as he tries and fails to hit her for the fiftieth time.

It wasn't like this before. The cadre had been faster and stronger in every way. But the more this conflict went on, the more corruption she took in as she healed herself, and the stronger she became. Her naginata was swung faster, her kicks became harder, and the lightning that strung her every move only made her harder to hit.

Despite that, she can't help but be disappointed. It'd been minutes since they fought, and it's only now that she's beginning to gain the upper hand.

Issei could've finished this minutes earlier.

She spins her naginata, and Satanael grunts as he shields himself with his sword, bearing the brunt of a lightning-charged blade straight into his sword's hilt. It sends him flying back, and she laughs wildly as she chases right after him.

She loathes Satanael, she thinks. She loathes the way he thinks everything is beneath him. She loathes the way he treats those 'disciples' of his.

But more than anything, she loathes that she'd once lost to him.

Issei doesn't see it like that. He laughed when he realized Satanael had literally run away from them two months before. He'd nearly laughed himself to tears when he noticed that they'd made a cadre fear when just years ago they were barely anything.

She didn't think the same. She hated that she'd played with him too much. She wished she'd taken him seriously and killed him before he had the chance to awaken his sword's true potential. She wouldn't have been forced to defend Kuoh then; to agree on a draw instead of a victory.

She hates losing. It's as simple as that.

"You damn-!" He doesn't get to finish his words as she appears right over him, a mad grin on her lips as she strikes his face with a lightning-powered kick. He screams as he crashes down towards the earth, the impact sending up a cloud of dirt and dust. She calls a bolt of lightning from the clouds above, and she sends it right towards where Satanael had landed.

The bolt cuts through the dust cloud, and she sees him bat away the lightning bolt with his sword. He glares at her, and she grins back as she flies down towards him.

Strangely, she also finds that she's…disappointed. He's a cadre, and had fought in the war against the Angels and Devils. And yet here he is, scouring around like a rat as he fights with the help of a Holy Sword he stole.

"Pathetic," it says, disgust clear to hear. "You are a cadre. Your kind ought to be stronger." It adds in contempt. "And here you are. A noble watcher of men, reduced to a vermin."

"You-!" He screams, his expression twisting with rage. "Don't you dare speak as if you know me, child!"

Ara. Had she said that out loud? How strange. Where did those words come from?

Oh well. It isn't as if she's wrong.

Her naginata meets his sword, and sparks fly as the ground beneath splits apart. This bladed bout continues for several seconds, his blade against hers, his Light against her lighting. The ground tears and shakes and splits as sparks fly all across the air.

They begin to accumulate wounds. His Light cuts through her here and there, digging into her flesh and bones and burning her from the inside. Her lightning strikes him with abrupt speed, charring his flesh and burning through the vessels and nerves hiding inside.

The only difference is that her injuries heals in seconds and makes her stronger, whilst his takes minutes and drains him of his decreasing energy.

Eventually, finally, Satanael slips. The assault she's sending is tiring him, and he catches the glint of her naginata one second too late. By the time he does, all he can do is scream as she slices off his right arm. His sword comes tumbling down, and she kicks it as hard as she can, sending it away before he can take it back up.

And now, with one arm less and completely tuckered out, he has a choice to make.

She bolts towards him, her naginata aimed right between his eyes, and she sees him grit his teeth. She feels a sudden build up of energy, all-encompassing and suffocating, and she sees him scream as powerful winds suddenly blast around him, sending her skidding back slightly.

She sees his body contort painfully. The arm she'd severed grows back, but it looks wrong. The flesh is pure black, and the fingers look more like claws. And another pair of wings explode out from his back, the wings leathery and sharp unlike the five pairs of feathery wings he started out with.

She just frowns. "So this is what Issei meant," she whispers, realizing that this is what Issei meant by him 'sucking up his pride'. It seems Augusta isn't the only one who received power, and Satanael had finally taken the deal.

Satanael laughs. "This…! So this is what it feels like!" He stares at the heavens, his eyes mad with glee. "This feeling of infinity! Why did I wait for so long!?"

The beast inside her screams with bloody murder. It sees Satanael sullying himself even more, and it is beyond disgusted. The feeling of anger and fury is almost suffocating, and she has to take a breath to force the weight in her chest away.

"How putrid." She says. "You cast away His gift for such an insignificant belt of strength?" He responds by firing a beam of light straight to her chest. She deflects it with her naginata.

He launches towards her, cackling all the while. He swipes his right hand at her, and she grits her teeth as she blocks it with her blade. His attacks are certainly heavier than they were before, and the odd energy swirling around his arm is batting away her lightning.

She spins her naginata towards his neck, but he kicks her gut before she can react, sending her flying back. He chases towards her, his flight awkward and stilted due to his new wings. This gives her the chance to dig her naginata into the ground, before volting back towards the speeding cadre.

His eyes are wide as she flies over him, and she grins as she slams a lightning-covered foot onto his back. He screams as he crashes into the dirt, and then screams even more as she cuts a pair of feathery wings from his back. She quickly leaps away, letting a javelin of light barely clip through her hair.

The cadre slowly stands, and then roars as black swirls around him. Another pair of leathery wings explodes out from his back. His hair seems to grow a little longer, and his teeth turn just a little sharper.

She smiles wryly. The cadre doesn't look much like a Fallen anymore, does he?

He's even stronger now, she realizes. Her lightning bends around him, as if some invisible force is protecting him. And his strikes are deadlier, sending tremors down her bones as she does all she can to block. It doesn't always work, and there are times when she's forced to grit her teeth as his claws dig into her bones.

But like him, she's also growing stronger. The more wounds she accumulates, the more corruption she sucks in as she heals herself, and the stronger she becomes. The haze of madness also encroaches more and more of her mind, but she doesn't mind. The gleeful insanity only makes her stronger, after all.

Instead, their battle devolves into this match of attrition. He gets stronger the more he changes, and she gets stronger the more she heals.

Inevitably, at some point, Satanael stops being a Fallen entirely. All his feathery wings are sliced off, and in their place are dark leathery wings that glow an ominous purple. Both his hands have been replaced by scaly claws, and his shirt has ripped to reveal a chest covered by dark scales.

She doesn't really know what he is anymore. Not that it matters all that much.

Because, in the end, nothing changes. Her naginata is still more than able to pierce through those scales of his, and all he can do is struggle as more of his body changes.

He's still conscious, she thinks. She can almost see the terror in his eyes as he screams and thrashes about like a caged animal. It seems he'd submitted himself to this foreign power, only to realize that he isn't strong enough to resist its influence.

"What was he expecting really?" Someone says, and she blinks as she turns to find Issei land to her left. "Tampering with the blessing of a dragon god is just stupid."

She blinks. "Dragon god?" She mulls over it for a few moments, and then remembers the words Satanael said before he lost his ability to speak. "Ophis?"

Issei snaps his fingers. "Yeap. He's a part of an organization called Khaos Brigade, and he-" He cuts himself off with a cough. "Anyway, that's not important. We have something more pressing to attend to."

She feels the air tremble, and she turns to see Satanael glaring at them, his jaw wide open as an orb of black energy slowly builds inside his mouth. "That we do." She agrees. "What do we do? Do we kill or subdue?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Do you really want to put that in your body?" He asks, pointing at the mass of black energy swirling within Satanael's jaws.

She stares at it, and grimaces. The energy the former cadre is emitting is disgusting to even look at. She definitely doesn't want anything to do with that. Absorbing the energy that once belonged to the Dragon of Infinity won't do; she isn't that desperate.

He grins, and bends his knees as he pulls his arm back. She sees energy begin welling up inside him, and his arm is engulfed in a storm of yellows and whites. "On your mark." He says, his voice wobbling through the trembling air.

She grins back, and she plants her naginata upright as she closes her eyes. She feels out the constellation of power living within her flesh, and she calls upon their strength.

Lightning surges from her cranium, mixing together with the Ki laying dormant within her veins. It rushes out across her arms, and up it goes into the blade of her naginata. It begins glowing, first yellow, then blue, then both, before it turns to a blinding white. The air morphs and twists, and what little clothes she had left burnt away from the tremendous heat.

She opens her eyes, and she looks upon the blade of her naginata. Most weapons would've melted at this temperature, the material that makes up their blade turning literally into smoke from the plasma. But months back, Issei had personally enchanted her naginata with as much Divine Energy it can handle, and now here her naginata stands, holding the might of the sun.

She takes a breath. Issei does too.

Then, in a parody of their first meeting with the cadre, they bolt forward, moving as a single unit. Satanael glares at them, and he roars as he sends forth a beam of concentrated energy from his mouth. It flies at them at several times the speed of sound, and in seconds it hangs just inches before their faces.

He punches. She swings her naginata.

Once more, the world explodes as two forces collide. This one is unlike their first collision months before. It's larger, deadlier, and the earth is sent rippling away with forces Japan hadn't seen in decades. The ball of plasma expands and expands, pulling in air as the smoke rises into the air as a mushroom cloud.

But unlike before, the expanding ball of plasma is suddenly split in half as she and Issei burst out of it.

And Satanael can only watch as Issei's fist and her naginata strikes his head at the same time. A second passes, and the air rings as Satanael's head explodes in a shower of blood and flesh and bone, splattering gore all across the ripped earth below.

They skid against the ground, stopping just a meter away from Satanael's standing corpse. The ball of plasma their collision caused is still there, ever so slowly expanding as more air is fed into the titanic heat.

Issei whistles. "That's one big explosion." He whispers with a wry smile. "That's literally just a nuclear bomb."

She smiles. "Well, at least Kanada's new 'Isolation' Ofuda is still standing strong." She says, barely catching the thin layer of energy encompassing this entire area.

"Yeah." He says, before he grimaces. "My skin itches."

"So does mine." She says, equally uncomfortable as she feels her burnt skin healing itself. Granted, it would've been much worse had they not trained in Iceland to increase their resistance, but using Senjutsu to heal burns will never be comfortable.

Issei hums. "Wanna watch the end of the world?" He jokingly asks as he jabs his thumb towards the expanding ball of plasma.

She giggles. "Sure."

And so they sit, watching the world light up in brilliant white as tower-shattering winds wash past them. The earth they're sitting on is hardly comfortable—much of the dirt had split and broken earlier—but it doesn't detract much from the amazing sight.

They stay there for a few minutes, watching the explosion until it inevitably fades away.

…

She subtly glances at him. "Is it bigger-?"

"It's not." He says immediately, silently clasping his legs together. "And why are you looking at it anyway? Shoo."

She giggles.