Lithopedion

The sun fell and the world began to burn in agony. I reacted without thinking. I let my power of destruction run wild.

I needed to protect Kuoh. I knew that if that sphere of divine flames landed without me doing anything, Kuoh would be razed from the map, swallowed by this fiery abomination looming menacingly in the sky.

It exploded from me like a flood of darkness and expanded like a bubble made of dark matter and nothingness.

My power of destruction swam through all of Kuoh. It passed through streets and people like a sea of black tar without leaving destruction in its wake.

I had promised it the ball of divinity in the sky and why would destruction content itself with less than adequate when it could despoil what was divine?

His light and my darkness, his divinity and my demonic power clashed in the sky of Kuoh. I get my teeth.

It felt as if I was touching it with my own hand. It felt heavy and for the first time since I was reincarnated, I felt something equal to my power of destruction for a moment.

The sphere of fire should have been extinguished but it was also endless. It wasn't that I was doing nothing. It's just that the divine flames came back to life as fast as I destroyed them.

I turned toward Akeno who still looked shell-shocked. She had frozen, her eyes were dilated and full of something that should never have appeared in her eyes, they were full of fear.

Anger erupted in me and fuelled my power of destruction. This presence that tried to destroy my fucking town, to take my family away from me forever, that tried to crush this new chance I had, I will make them suffer.

Slowly but surely, my power of destruction began to consume the flames faster than they could grow clearing little by little the sky of Kuoh.

My power of destruction was I knew going toward the source of the flames. I fuelled it with hatred, with my demonic power, its only duty destruction of what had dared to attack me.

The new sun that had been dawning died. Instead what remained of it was a feeble light like a distant star.

I focused on my power of destruction and twisted making it take the shape of a giant spear. It flew true toward the deity, erasing atoms and reality on its path.

This is why I was surprised when the deity instead of trying to dodge or die flew toward my attack and split it in two.

A cold grip grasped my heart. There were two ways to negate the power of destruction. You either needed to be someone connected to the concept of destruction or needed to be so much stronger that it didn't matter.

The figure fell from the sky before us crashing on the earth with a bang creating a shockwave and cratering the earth around us.

My eyes saw through dust, ashes and Earth as if they were not there. They allowed me to see the one that had attacked Kuoh.

He was a man dressed like a Japanese emperor. He wore a made-up of loose-fitting white trousers and a loose crimson outer robe that was styled like a Chinese robe but was tucked in at the waist and decorated with the textile pattern of a man and a woman holding together a spear directed toward the sea.

His hair was as crimson as mine. Flames flickered in and around it making it difficult to know where his hair ended and the fire began. He had eyes the colour of cold gold.

His features could only be called royal. They made him appear as something straight out of a fairytale, someone too perfect to exist that should have been in a museum instead of being real and attacking us.

He was on one of his knees. He rose slowly. "I thought that I would have been able to get rid of all of you quickly. It is surprising that I wasn't able to. I didn't know that one of the sisters of the Satans was as strong as this," he spoke softly.

He acted too calmly, too confident as if he knew already that he had won and that made sirens blare in my head. I put myself before AKeno between her and him. "You realize that you just attacked two pure-blood devil heiresses of the Ars Goetia," I told him. "You also almost killed all of the inhabitants of Kuoh."

"I know who you are. I know you Rias Gremory but it seems that you don't know who I am."

He bowed softly in mock politeness "The name that my esteemed mother chose for me at birth was Kagutsuchi."

Shit, that was bad. Kagutsuchi, the only true child of Izanagi and Izanami, creator deities of Japan. Kagutsuchi who had killed his mother at his birth and who should be dead.

"How?" Akeno gasped at my side voicing the questions I also had in mind. I could feel demonic energies converging toward us.

I didn't need the presence of the other devils of Kuoh. Instead of helping me, they would only make things difficult for me.

I knew that if I wanted to win, I had to give everything of myself. I knew deep down that this fight would be infinitely worse than the one against Riser.

I felt His attention turned toward Akeno as if finally realizing that she was existing. "I feel the essence of my parent in your soul. Under the corruption of the darkness and the twisted light in your heart, I can feel it enduring."

A scarlet tear made of flames fell slowly from his eyes "They took and corrupted your soul, you a child of Nippon, you a child bearing the essence of my parents."

He didn't sound angry. I would felt less uneasy if that was the case. Instead, he sounded heartbroken.

"This land, this city need purifying and my flames are the only ones to accomplish it. I will as a last consideration for you, child of this land answer your question," he spoke.

"The myths were not wrong when they said that I died. I understand why my father reacted in such a way. He lost his other half, the one whom he shared a soul with, whom he loved," the Shinto god began to explain.

"This is why I let myself be cut in many pieces, cut by Father without any resistance. A life for life. It's also not as if my death didn't bring good things to this land. From my corpse, Gods were brought into this world. Kuraokami, Takemikazichi, Nesaku and others. I was in the eternal sleep of the god content. This was until almost a century ago when your kind devastated this country and slaughtered its inhabitants," the Shinto god of fire and the Hearth spat in anger.

Around us, the air began to distort, and the ground around him began to turn into Lava. Something almost like a snowflake fell before me on the ground. I realized it wasn't one when it burnt through the spot of Earth it fell onto and set the Earth around it ablaze.

It wasn't snow I realized in horror. That was some kind of burning ashes and I could see through the exceptional vision I had as a devil fall all over Kuoh.

Hundreds of Thousands would die if I didn't do anything now. I summoned my power of destruction in haste. I needed to swallow with my power of destruction the sky and make sure that none of those things could fall on Kuoh.

Destruction erupted from my back like a geyser of blood. I tried to direct it toward the sky only for something to stop me.

Something was blocking the path of my power of destruction. My attention went back to the god to see that almost like a reflection of myself, his divine fire had erupted from him and was battling my power of destruction.

He's trying to make sure that I won't be able to save Kuoh. "So rude I hadn't finished talking," the Shinto God spoke "But I should have expected this. Rudeness, barbarism and chaos are inherent to your nature."

I rushed toward him the world exploding behind me in a shockwave as I launched myself at the god.

The power of destruction coated my arms and with it, I launched a punch toward the face of the god. My fist came in contact with his face making the Earth shake around us, making flames sizzle.

The god hadn't moved. Our surroundings had been pulverized but he stood on a spot of Earth that had been spared for the strength of my fist. The god stood there with my power of destruction against his skin without any blemishes.

A laugh escaped my lips "This is truly absurd," I could not restrain myself from saying.

My instinct blared into my head that death was coming toward me. My body moved without my own input crouching. Over my head, I felt unbearable heat.

I tried to blast him point-blank with my power of destruction. My vision was obscured by dark scarlet for an instant.

When it was cleared, I could see with dismay that I had been unable to hurt him. I had only ruffled his clothes.

A kick came toward my face. I summoned a shield and crossed my hands to protect me. The kick broke through my shield as if it didn't exist and encountered my arms.

I bit my lips to stop myself from screaming as they crushed and I was sent flying away. While I began to soar In the air, I felt my arms twist back to their original shape.

I turned into the air and ran one of my hands and my feet into the blackened Earth to stop myself.

I created a gouge through the air. Behind me, I summoned my wings to allow myself to stop more easily. I stopped at Akeno's side.

My queen hadn't yet realized what had happened. It had all happened in no more than one microsecond. I had thought that I would be able to speed blitzes him but it was clear that I was wrong.

The god had never been serious since he came. His attack on Kuoh, the sun that he had thrown at the city had just been him playing I realized.

The odds were against me. The gap between Riser and him was so vast that the fight against Riser already seemed like a walk in a park.

There was at least one good thing that this exchange gave me. At the beginning of it, I had been unable to touch him but at the end of it, I was able to ruffle his clothes.

I felt my essence work in me strengthening me against what was clearly a dangerous threat. I could feel my eyes dilate, my vision expanding to see things I could never see before.

I could my power of destruction grow darker, more corrupted, more unholy. I could hear my demonic power rush through all my cells and overcharge them.

I never doubted the fact that I would win. The question was the possibility of doing it without letting the deity destroy everything around us.

My queen finally caught on to what happened and sent a dragon-shaped lightning bolt falling from the sky toward the Shinto god.

Instead of connecting, the attack did something unexpected. It danced around the surrounding him protectively like a dog with his owner.

"Less than acceptable," the god commented. "It's clear that you didn't listen to what I was saying. Takemikazuchi, the god of lightning came from my body, my flesh. Do you really think that lightning could hurt me, child of this land lost in the darkness?"

I could see from the corner of my eyes minuscule bubbles of water also beginning to fall from the sky but unlike the ashes of the Shinto god, I could feel demonic energy in them, one I recognized as Sona's.

I could feel her demonic energy all over the town. The god wasn't trying to stop her. Ashes continued to fall. When they fell, they would be surrounded by minuscule bubbles of water and be consumed. Sona was by herself fighting a battle that was clearly already lost.

It wasn't the logical thing to do. What should have been logical would have been for her to only protect the Academy where most of our peerages were. I will tease her endlessly after that.

"Let me finish answering your question before I kill you," the God spoke. "My younger sister had wanted us to govern the world and she wasn't wrong to think such. The gods and men of this land are simply better, more civilized and stronger. We Brought everywhere we went civilization. We dragged others willfully or by force to the future. The world would have been us if not for one of your Satans."

The god was now showing on his face instead of an emotion he had not since he had fallen from the sky. What showed was hatred, one pure and unadulterated.

"This land was poisoned, its children slaughtered and the ones responsible for this were now the ones controlling it. I saw this from the other side, from the dream of the dead gods. I used the connection I had with Japan even dead and used a great part of his remaining non-contaminated energy and the gods that came from me to accomplish a ritual of resurrection," the god explained.

"The underworld won't forget this," I reminded him. "If anything happens to us, what Satan Beelzebub did would seem tame compared to what Serafall Leviathan and my brother would inflict on this land."

"You know that I went publically to my sister before all the other denizens of Takagamahara to ask her to allow me to get rid of the taint of your race all over and beyond Japan."

A little smile bloomed on his face "My foolish sister said no so what I'm doing can't be considered an attack from the Shinto Pantheon and even in the case your rulers would still be foolish to attack, I made sure to give something that I knew would ensure that this land will have powerful allies before coming here in the improbable event that I lost. You're already at the beginning of a war with the Heavens of the Presence."

'He was right' I thought. A victory could also be a defeat. Even in the case that we, devils won against multiple pantheons full of gods and supernatural beings that hated us, would there still be enough of us to call ourselves a race?

The reason why the evil pieces had been created was that after the end of the great war and the devil civil war, our numbers at every level of strength or status were low.

Even today, after centuries of their creation, even after the influx of reincarnated devils, our population was not even the hundredth of our original number when we had been created by Lucifer and Lilith.

Where was Grayfia when you needed her? If she had been there, dealing with Kagutsuchi would have been so much easier.

"Akeno," I said my gaze fixed on the idle form of the god. "I want you to go find the others and members of the peerage of Sona. Your order is to teleport with them to the underworld. I'll join you later with Sona."

"I can't let yourself fight alone against a god Rias," she told me.

"Right now, you would only be a liability, Akeno," I told her. Saying the words felt dirty and I knew without looking at my queen that my words did hurt her.

"Please," I begged her. "The faster you are, the more the chance of help coming increases."

"Please don't die," she asked me softly. "Not when it is only now that we cou-"

"I understand Akeno," I cut her. I finally turned toward her. "I promise that I'll be Right," I told her looking at her in the eyes.

I saw her nod before I felt a soft brush on my lips and she was gone. My attention went back to Kagutschi who hadn't moved or tried to strike at the back of Akeno.

"There were two things I forgot to tell you," the god spoke. "The first thing is that there is no way for any of you to run. The barrier that you had erected was one erected around this city, a Japanese city. It is now under my control. Nothing enter or leave without my say so and secondly," The sky began to feel oppressive. From it, I saw two stars fall from it.

One felt and tasted like blood, like primal violence, violence turned toward what seemed unholy.

Another felt like a mountain, tall and imposing yet protecting, like nature untouched, untainted from human hands and exploitation.

The stars felt divine like the god before me and I realized with horrors what it meant. I watched how they fell in the city of Kuoh "I didn't come alone," the god finished.

"Those people did nothing," I begged the god. "They're supposed to be your people," I told him.

A sword made of fire appeared and extended from his hand "When an animal is sick, you put it down so that the healthy ones don't become sick too" and with Those words, the sword extended toward my heart.