||You can't do this to me||

Chapter XXII

"Unpleasant as ever, this place is. Ironic if you think of it. Considering this place is right below a bloody church."

Those words came out his smiling mouth without weight as Lucifer emerged from his portal. It would be his last weightless words for a good while once he glanced around the spacious area, and saw her.

Her crimson hair sprawled on the floor. A pool of red flowed from her limp body. The blood flowed like a lazy river, and time suddenly slowed for him.

Like a punch through the gut; Lucifer felt the harsh reality of the world he lived in.

His world crumbled and his smile disappeared.

Rossweisse sat helplessly beside her. An angry red line marring her back, drenching her armor, but he saw only Rias.

Her hands were coated with red. Her clothes were messily bloodied and torn. Rossweisse looked at him in distress. Confusion and terror mixed into one as tears fell from her chin.

A broken look. One he'd sworn to never let her to show.

"And who might you be?" A tall and extremely pale man standing by her with a sword held on his right hand. His red eyes stared at him but lacked the rest of the emotions currently spilling off Rossweisse's face.

"I've seen that face before... Hey I know you!" Freed said, jubilant with the encounter, "We met the other night. No idea why he's here. Hey are you lost?!"

Lucifer didn't respond. As more and more Devils and the church's envoys walked in cautiously through his portal, gaining the attention of Kokabiel and his warrior of light, Lucifer walked towards her. His gait slow at first, but quickly broke off into a panicked run.

"Hmph. Her lover I see." Kokabiel muttered. Passively he observed the young man, now kneeling beside the Gremory. He directed his attention and his light sword to those he believed might be able to grant him amusement. "None of you are, however."

"Kokabiel..." Sona seethed. Seeing the Gremory whom she grew up with since neither of them could barely walk in that state had drained all of her composure. Her vision had never been blurred with red this fast. Anger coursed through her veins, and her body flared with a pale blue aura; a trademark for the Sitri.

"Leviathan's younger sister..." Kokabiel grinned as he recognized her, extending his arms as if to welcome her. "Seems I was mistaken to think this day can't get any better. Your head will make a fine collection to my trophies."

"You... you will pay for this!"

Xenovia only needed one look at her partner to make up her mind. Once she saw Irina, grievously wounded, her knuckles whitened from clenching her sword too hard, and gritted her teeth before letting loose of an enraged roar.

"HRAAAAAH!" She brandished her Excalibur Destruction, violently shredding the wraps and rushed towards him. Griselda didn't get a chance to stop her.

But her rage wasn't the only one that burned and exploded the moment the fuse was lit. Sona had cast a torrent of water, its violent stream resembling a large sea serpent hovering above her and her servants.

As the fighting began, the shouts and the yells and the harsh sound of steel clashing against solidified light, Lucifer remained deaf to everything else. He heard their screams, their battlecries, the violent splashes of water and the crumbling rocks from the stone pillars, the sound of explosions or the buzzing of a light sword, Rossweisse's choked sobs, everything.

In midst of the brewing chaos, Lucifer conjured a small protective barrier. Nothing could hurt her anymore. Nothing should.

Gently, he lifted her by her shoulders, and brought her head close to his chest. Few specks of blood stained his white dress shirt as he cradled her tightly, rocking her back and forth, repeating the word "no." every now and then between his choked sobs.

Her crimson locks fell over his arms, and he found that not even the metallic smell of blood could dampen her lovable scent.

She was cold. How long had her body laid on the cold ground? Her warmth now had been stolen. The silence of her lifeless body was synced with the wails of Rose's wails, desperate to find any remaining flickers of life in her body, only to be met with cold silence.

"No," Lucifer wept, "no. No, no, no— don't do this to me… don't you do this to me." It was a fickle thing; he knew. He had lost many men and women who followed him and the only thing he could do then was move on and fight for them, but this was not the same.

He wasn't at war. He should have the right to love. He shouldn't be losing anyone. The war had long ended.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

"I'm sorry... It's... it's my fault. It's my fault... I'm sorry..."

He was unresponsive to Rossweisse's cries, but only because he chose to. Tumultuous his mind was; he refused to believe she was the cause of this. That wouldn't end well.

"I shouldn't have left." He spoke, barely making a sound. "I shouldn't have left you. Oh god— why did I leave you?"

This wouldn't do. Mourning? Mourning was such a gloomy activity. Too atypical for him and not to mention horribly depressing. It should stay on the sideline. Revenge, on the other hand, had never sounded more appeasing. A needed distraction from all of this.

He laid her down as gentle. Wiping his eyes and exhaling, he took a look at her.

"How are you holding up?"

She sobbed. She sobbed and wept. Guilty tears; he knew.

"Right. Of course." He whispered with whatever comfort he could offer. Lucifer moved next to her, close enough to know he wouldn't harm her injured back as he pulled her into a hug. He could use a shoulder to cry upon, but she needed it more than him so what the hell.

"Save the tears. We'll spend them together later."

"But I... Rias, she's-" her voice hitched as her body was wracked from her cries, all sweaty and red. "It was my-"

"Not now. Not right now, please. You'll stay here, and," he took a glance at Rias, thinking this would be a great time for a miracle. "...stay. Be safe for me dear. I can't lose you too."

"You can't do this to me." He seethed. His blood churned as he redirected his bitter sorrow into bitter resentment as Lucifer glared into the ceiling. "Don't you take her away from me!"

"I'm sorry...!" Rossweisse sobbed harder, covering her mouth with her hands as she watched him stepping out from his shimmering golden bubble-like barrier.

On one side, the girl with the blue hair and a few numbers of the adolescent Devils ganging up on the priest, throwing slashes and magical spells. Some floors away was the chestnut-haired girl, currently not moving.

Despite their number superiority, they were losing. Red cuts were showing from their clothes, and a girl was just slashed, effectively taking her out of the fight.

They were fighting with rage. Fools fight with rage.

Not his problem.

On the other side he saw the pale man, the nun, Sona, and the girl who dragged him out of his bedroom. Their bedroom. He wasn't going to sleep there for a few nights. Weeks. Maybe months. Lucifer never realized how sentimental he could get or how much longer his humorful take on the world could persist and help him deal with everything that wanted to wipe the smile off his face.

Because who knows. Father might. Uncle might too. He might had teared up too soon since the Devils have those magical chess pieces. He hoped the whole reincarnation phenomenon could apply for Devils as well, but if it didn't, then he supposed he could try groveling at his uncle's feet for the little good it would do.

But before all of that, revenge sounded fine.

Once he tapped into his reserve of Demonic Power, and drawing in the thin mana around him more than the needed amount to obliterate a single entity, the world trembled.

The fighting drew into a brief halt once they felt the ground below them was shaking.

All gods, all pantheons, all that was in Heaven, felt a once forgotten feeling of dread as they sensed the rapid shift of the world's mana. The essences of magic surged into one place like a whirlpool; as if a black hole had formed inside this underground lair.

The souls of the damned wailed as Lucifer forcibly tore them away from their eternal damnation; Cocytus. The place where Death had stowed away the irredeemable souls who didn't deserve a reincarnation, where not even Hades could contain them in his prison due to the souls' violent nature.

He felt all of their rage, their unjust hatred, their psychopathic desires to manslaughter; all of their sins, and converted each of them to his strength.

He drew in a lethal power from sins. From the hearts of little children, from the gluttons of the rich, the resentment of the poor and weak. The sloth and lust that corrupted slowly. The wrath that persuaded murder and hate. The toxicity that stemmed from greed and envy.

Once he was the Lightbringer, but then they called him the Father of Sins. Little did they know he was to become its embodiment; to become the bearer of sins that humanity never ceased to produce and reproduce, all because his Father thought humans deserved another chance, and deemed him to become His sacrificial lamb after the death of Jesus Christ.

And he was chastised for refusing to walk down that kind of fate.

The Angels had stripped him of his angelic wings. And unlike his fellow rebels; he was never given a new pair. Beautiful golden, they were; but Lucifer had realized beauty was not exactly the theme for this world.

Torn, mangled wings emerged from his back, shredding through his shirt and his black suit. Terrible black in color, tarnished by glowing violet veins flowing within its horrid jagged appearance; more like crystalized wings rather than anything leathery that resembled the wings of a bat or a dragon.

The two wings flared a thick air of corruptive energy. An appropriate look to represent the malice of the world he was once meant to carry.

He felt it surged like venom. And seeing the veins of his hand turning black, he knew he couldn't stay like this for long. If he lost control of himself, that wouldn't end well for him.

Laughing maniacally as he drove a fist to Xenovia, Kokabiel only saw a black blur from the corner of his eyes as something struck his gut, driving him upward through the ceiling, and then to blankets of concrete between the church and the hidden lair, and then the floor of the church, and then the ceiling of the church.

Finding himself in the sky, Kokabiel whirled in the air. The hit was painful, but he was more surprised and confused rather than being in agony.

He didn't waste a time. With a sneer, he conjured a hundred of lightspears around him, and unleashed a hail of spears of concentrated light energy down to the building. His own allies be damned; they were just his stepping stones, and never a necessity once they outlived their usefulness.

But each lightspear was met by Demonic Power condensed into pellets, destroying them in midair as bright explosions colored the area.

Lucifer erupted through the building, exploding through the concrete and rebar with a flaming greatsword now in his hands.

A coiled steel basked in eternal hellfire; a sword that Kokabiel never thought would see again since the end of the Great War; The Lightbringer.

His lips curved into a manic grin. The so-called strongest Archdevil, the commander of the Infernal Legion himself was before him. A chance against the Exiled Son. If he claimed his head, then crushing Hell would be an easy task—

The optimistic assumption hit a ditch as he met his lightsword against the Lightbringer.

"Lucifer… The Morningstar!" Kokabiel addressed, the swords in their hands screeching an unholy sound. "How nice of you to present your head before me!"

Normally he would retort with a witty respond, but even Lucifer knew there was time to be absolutely pissed off.

His smile waned a little as Lucifer's Lightbringer consumed the light of his sword, seeing it perish within his grip as Lucifer drove his leg onto his side.

Spreading his wings to add surface and use the wind's resistance to stop him from skidding in air, Kokabiel readied himself again. A new lightsword emerged, and dozens of lightspears materialized, launching towards the Archdevil.

Like before, Lucifer conjured his own Demonic Power. Black and red crashed against the yellow lights of Kokabiel's projectile, annihilating it into a burst of explosions as Lucifer cleaved through the thick cloud of smokes.

He gritted his teeth now, grunting as he deflected a sweeping slash. The Lightbringer thundered as it consumed the lights of his sword, and an unholy pain erupted from his chest as Lucifer quickly followed through with another slash.

Kokabiel hastily conjured a barrier made of Light that shattered in a heartbeat, and Lucifer wasn't even ten feet near him. He was just there, floating in the light, beating his terrible wings in a lazy manner, mocking the Fallen Angel through his inaction.

There was a reason why Michael and the other Archangels rarely met Lucifer in battle. Not wanting to fight him because they were once brothers wasn't exactly the only reason why the Commanders of Heaven avoided him. They avoided him because he was once one of them; he once wielded Divine Magic as well. He mastered the basis of which the magic was built upon. And once he was cast out, he researched ways to completely deconstruct it, and render it almost useless.

Michael had once seen this former brother extinguished the Divine Magic of a Seraph's army, crippling them from their weapons, rendering 10,000 Angels hapless as the army of Devils slaughtered them like pigs.

Only Archangels could effectively protect themselves from his deconstructive magic. But no Archangels had ever fought him and his Lightbringer, and survived.

Kokabiel heard of it. But Azazel's advice fell on deaf ears. He shrugged the tales as mere mythos to lower his army's morale.

Until now.

Dread began to devour his confidence, and Kokabiel could no longer smile his wicked smile.

Lucifer darted through the air, his greatsword leaving traces of cinders in the air as he brought it down. Kokabiel ripped a hurried lightning as it burst the moment Lightbringer crashed into it, sending the two away.

Kokabiel struck the ground, whilst Lucifer had twisted in the air, and threw his sword. The warped greatsword flared like a comet it pulverized Kokabiel's chest, missing his heart by inches as he wanted.

A quick and painless death was the kind of death this bastard deserved.

The ground detonated into a crater as the Fallen Angel crashlanded. Lightbringer kept him straddled on the ground as the now bloodied Kokabiel struggled to tear it away, ignoring the pain searing from his melting hand from holding its blade.

Lucifer arrived not long later, hovering above him as the greatsword returned into his grip, leaving a bloody hole on the Fallen Angel's chest.

"Grh… son of a—" As Kokabiel formed his lightspears, creating them behind the Lucifer, using his blindside, the javelin-like missiles struck down.

On him.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAH—!"

His agonized scream tore the sky as his own weapons ripped his flesh, tearing his skin and muscles, breaking his bones, severing his veins. Severing his own fingers, ears and limbs. His vision went dark once his eyes were crushed by the same lightspears. The only reason he stopped screaming was because one landed right through his neck, shredding his throat.

"This is what happen when someone gets too overconfident." Lucifer muttered, slowly descending as the Fallen Angel slowly drowned from his own blood. The entirety of the upper half of his left arm had turned into black crystal-like gauntlet; results from the use of the corruptive power.

His Lightbringer erupted into unholy flames as it vanished from his hand, and his wings burst into black glitters, glowing red before they disappeared completely.

He watched the Fallen Angel writhe, watching his life perish, frowning as he thought he could have let him last a bit longer.

It never occurred to him that Akeno and Sona's little group had been watching the fight from below, and that his presence had scared off the Fallen Angels that was battling against said Devils.

Lucifer abandoned the crater with the dismembered body, and rushed straight back to the church. He jumped down the hole he created earlier when he struck Kokabiel, clawing the layer of dirt and mud he passed through to ease his fall. Falling was an issue when he couldn't fly and had used a good portion of his Demonic Power to maintain his body from crumbling to bits.

Back inside the lair, he noticed the Devils had taken care of the last few of the Fallen Angels. Their bodies lied scattered on the floor, and there was one man that was left alive; the priest from earlier, but Lucifer didn't care about them.

The air was damp and wet. Likely from Sona's water magic, or from their miserable tears as they gathered around Rias, unsure of what to do.

Lucifer said nothing as he returned to her side, cradling her, wishing that he never left her to begin with. The Devils moved away from him, giving him a moment to grief alone as they whisked a torn Rossweisse from the scene.

He felt his eyes began to sting as he wiped a dried blood from her lips.

"Can't you use your Evil Pieces?" Lucifer turned to Sona, but was met with a slow shake of her head. "Fuck I… For heaven's sake… not her..."

{…For what few it is worth, I offer you my condolences.}

This lizard again… His drained power must have let him to break through his muting seal.

{I… er… have been introspecting myself after the words you said…} Ddraig continued awkwardly, {I was foolish. My deepest, sincerest apology. I don't expect to be forgiven, but if there's anything I can do to… to better some things… I would—}

Lucifer exhaled. "You can't do this to me."

To be continued...

F in the chat for Ddraig

While you're here, consider giving "Academy DxD: Gamebreaker" a shot. It's Highschool DxD, but in a University setting and crossed with the Fate universe. It's better than this story because I'm a better writer when I wrote it, I promise you that much

Just click on my profile. You won't regret it. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

There's also a new fanfic discord server I'm forced to advertise.

Come join. It has memes and shit. Writers discuss their stories there too and everyone is a certified degenerate, so if you enjoyed my stories, you probably belong there

discord. gg/V54pcwA

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