Yuuto groaned as he stretched, feeling the crick in his back. Ms. Yamada always wanted him to stay way too long, and he'd been bent over her for... what... a solid hour? You'd think that being a devil would get rid of these kinds of minor aches and pains, but no. They lingered unpleasantly even as he walked home.
He understood that her job at the legal firm was stressful, and he was how she destressed... but really, did she need the massage to last an entire hour?
The pay was good, at least. He contemplated getting Irina something with the money, but it felt strangely dirty, somehow, buying his girlfriend a present with another woman's money.
Issei's stupid talk about "G-rated prostitution" must have gotten to him.
He was suddenly interrupted by a flash of steel which sliced mere inches from his face. It would have cut him in half if he hadn't instinctively dodged backwards, and he instantly activated his Sacred Gear, drawing forth Holy Eraser even before he'd managed to identify his opponent.
The man was about his age, with short white hair and vivid red eyes, currently looking totally deranged as he wheeled on Yuuto, a mad grin creasing his lips. "Oops, just missed," he said, tongue stretching across his lips, licking them like he enjoyed.
"Who the hell are you?" Yuuto asked, even as he increased the distance between himself and the other man.
"Mm, just a stray exorcist, looking to take down a devil," he said, a gleaming white smile stretching across his face, before he dashed forward again.
He moved fast, his blade snapping out in a half-dozen ways, forcing Yuuto onto the defensive. Every bit of his instincts were thrown into keeping himself in the fight at all - not in even trying to win. A strike from the three o'clock had to be countered with a parry. He tried to use his Sacred Gear, summoning a blade, point first, from the nearby wall, aiming to slice into the man's face. He just ducked, dodged, and moved, simultaneously making strikes with his sword that still managed to keep Yuuto on the defensive, pushing him back against the wall.
The ground sliced up towards the man. Instead of dodging, he leapt into the air, landing atop the blade for a moment - and then raised a powerful kick against Yuuto's face before he even realized it was coming, his head swimming. "Ha, nice trick, but you need to practice fighting people who can actually fight back," the man said, giving another two sword strikes that Yuuto had to parry with a swimming, throbbing skull - and the third was the one that actually hit, colliding with the side of Yuuto's face with a powerful thump, the flat of the blade impacting his face and sending him to the ground.
* * *
My phone started going off, and I groaned as I shifted on the bed. Which of my girlfriends was calling me in the middle of the night?! If it was Xenovia again, I'd forgive her, but-! Actually, I'd forgive any of my girlfriends, but that doesn't mean they should do it, right? Forgiveness means it's bad in the first place! I gingerly lifted Akeno's cheek off my thigh, my other hand softly peeling Rias away from my chest. I'd fucked them both into a coma, it looked like, because they were totally ignoring the ringing of my phone.
Sex with the two of them was really fun... hm... I wonder if they'd like sex where I fuck them while they're asleep? Akeno seems like she might like that, but I should get consent when she's conscious.
Caller ID on my phone revealed that it was Yuuto calling me! What the heck?! He's not even one of my girlfriends! What's he doing calling me at... two thirty AM?!? Yuuto, you better have a good reason for this!
"Yuuto?" I asked, my voice coming off as more annoyed than I meant it to.
"Hahaha," came a male voice that was not Yuuto, and presumably wasn't one of his clients either! (Being a G-rated prostitute, all of Yuuto's clients were women!) "No, I'm afraid that Yuuto's a little... indisposed right now."
"What, is he taking a dump?" I asked.
"Wha- no." The man cleared his throat. "No, Issei Hyoudou. I'm afraid that your dear friend Yuuto just got beaten unconscious and is currently lying on the cold stone floor." I don't know how else to put it, but he was doing the 'evil bad guy' voice. "If you want him to wake back up, then listen carefully: come alone, to the abandoned church. If anyone other than you shows up, then Yuuto will die."
"Wait. Why do you care about me?"
"What do you mean, why do I care about you?"
"You know. I mean, I'm just a guy! Wait, are you with the Phenex clan?" That would make sense, coming after me for humiliating their heir!
"No! Consorting with devils? Me? I'd never do something like that. You probably do it all the time, though."
"Um." I did! I just got done consorting with a couple devils, and they were starting to wake up due to the talking! I tried lowering my voice, but Rias and Akeno were clearly trying to listen in on the conversation. I just raised a finger to make sure they stayed quiet. "But then why are you coming after me?"
"I... I just am, okay? Look, uhh..."
"Oh no." A sudden thought hit me, and my stomach dropped. "Did I accidentally NTR you?! Wait, when I say that, I want to be clear, even if you were childhood friends with one of my girlfriends, that doesn't mean she belongs to you! She's allowed to make her own decisions, no matter how deep your feelings for her are!" I know that's easy for me to say, as a guy with eight girlfriends, but it's the truth! "But, if you were actually in a relationship, I don't try to steal girls who are in relationships!"
"No! It's not that! Look, just get over here, alone, or Yuuto dies!"
This guy didn't sound super put together or competent... "Do you really have Yuuto?"
"I have his phone, don't I?"
"I mean, you could have stolen his phone," I pointed out.
"Guh." The man sighed. I heard a thump, and a low groan. "There! That was Yuuto groaning from me kicking him in the stomach."
"It really could have been anyone... just have him talk in the phone!"
"Fine, whatever," he bit out, sounding incredibly annoyed. "Yuuto. Your friend wants you to tell him that it's really you."
"He's a really good swordsman!" Yuuto's voice came through the phone, and was followed by another thump and groan.
"There. Happy?" Obviously, I wasn't happy! You were kicking my friend! "Come to the abandoned church, alone, or Yuuto dies."
"Don't worry about me, Issei-!" Was as far as Yuuto got before the phone cut off.
I understood Yuuto's words. He didn't want me to get in trouble for his sake. He was a selfless friend like that. But, if our positions had been reversed, I would probably say the same thing - and I know Yuuto would ignore it! So it was my duty as his friend to ignore it too! I had to go throw myself into senseless danger on behalf of Yuuto!
"Issei, what was that about?" Rias asked.
"I think I heard Yuuto on the phone?" Akeno added.
I explained the situation to the pair of them - and asked Rias for her help in saving Yuuto.
* * *
Freed fiddled around with Yuuto's phone, while the boy himself laid on the ground, grunting and glaring, his body still bound up. "Oh, you have a girlfriend," he said. "Let's see, sexts, sexts... what?" Searching for words like tits, cock, dick, didn't find anything. "You never sexted with your girlfriend? When she's that hot? What sort of devil are you?"
Yuuto had no answer for that. He just glared. Freed sighed, considering just killing Yuuto now. After all, what could the harm be? Issei was already coming, wasn't he?
But... Kokabiel had a very particular plan for all this, and it didn't involve him killing Yuuto just yet. After all, it was always possible that they would figure out Yuuto was dead, and then Issei wouldn't walk into the church to get himself killed.
So, instead, Freed decided to play some Match-3 games on the phone as he awaited Issei's arrival. It wasn't like he was seriously worried, after all.
He was having a good run, but was nowhere close to beating Yuuto's (ridiculous) high score on Match-3 - probably the loser had hacked the RNG to get such a score - when Issei called out. "Yuuto!"
"Issei, he's over here!" This Yuuto kid was really a pain in the ass. Freed rose from the pew, sword at his side, dropping Yuuto's phone to the ground like a candy wrapper. He didn't even bother to give the guy a kick as he quickly moved away. "He went behind the pulpit!"
"Got it!" Issei said - and then there were the sounds of about one million thunderclaps resounding through the church. It was the loudest thing he'd ever heard, and as he glanced up - there was a secret staircase behind the pulpit, which was where he'd run - he could see the shattered remnants of the pulpit spraying out, bits of wood clattering down after him. What the hell kind of magic was that?!
He decided to cut his losses and run. No sense getting killed.
* * *
The heavy machine gun was warm in my hands as it wound down, the barrel still spinning with ambient energy. Wow! Guns are loud! They don't really make that clear in the movies! The pulpit had been pulped into nothing, but there wasn't any sign of blood or gore, which was good for my conscience, but bad for Yuuto's safety. "I don't think I hit him," I called out.
"Huh?" Right, it was so loud, he was probably temporarily deafened.
"I said, I don't think I hit him!" I yelled it louder the second time. "There's not any blood or gore or anything!"
"I think there's a staircase behind the pulpit," Yuuto called back, very loudly. I nodded, stepping towards the pulpit slowly, my finger ready on the trigger of the rifle. There was a staircase back there, but the guy was nowhere in sight as I peered down into it. Shoot, I should've wished for a flashlight too. Didn't people in video games put flashlights on their guns?
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Issei Hyoudou," came a voice from behind me, and I whipped around. The man was tall and pale, with long black hair and narrow, blood red eyes. "I am Kokabiel," he said, without any signal whatsoever. "I know you came here alone, boy. That gun won't help you. This is the end for you."
There are two meanings to a line like that: one, they're telling the truth and the mook shoots at Superman fruitlessly; or two, they're set up for an ironic comeuppance when their arrogance turns out to be misplaced! Since this was a magic gun made with Rias's help and boosted by the fact that I was super strong so it could be super heavy, there was a strong possibility this was case two! I aimed at Kokabiel and just held the trigger down, the firearm roaring, trying to kick up into the air as I held it down on him.
Unfortunately, it seemed like this was situation one, because his smile never left his lips. When I stopped firing, he stood there, looking extremely evil. "I like my enemies to know why they're about to die. This is for your efforts to tear apart my organization," he explained.
"What?" I asked. I was just confused. "Your organization?"
He just glared at me. "Come. You know perfectly well." I just shook my head. "What, do you have so many organizations you're working to suborn that you don't know to which one I refer? I suppose that you have your fat fingers in the Gremory clan, what with having your fat cock in the Gremory girl."
"Hey!" That's true, but that doesn't mean you can say it! "Rias is a sweet young lady, and I love her!" He just let out a dark chuckle at that. "Who are you with, huh? The Phenex clan?!"
"No, I'm not with the Phenex clan, boy." Man. He was just knocking it out of the park on the cliched villain lines, huh? "You seduced Raynare away from me."
"Um." Was that his wife? I didn't know how to say it, so I'd just say it: "I'm not having sex with anybody named Raynare?"
He snorted at that. "Yes, yes, lie all you like-"
"No, I mean, I really don't know anybody named Raynare? I have eight girlfriends, and then, um, I went on one date with Uroko, she's a naga, but we didn't actually have sex, and I have sex with some of Kiyome's friends, and also with Yuma's sisters, but none of them are named Raynare..."
"Tch. Such lies." The man just produced his phone, quickly calling someone. Since my gun hadn't worked, I decided to let him do it. "Raynare. Issei is about to be taken off the game board. Do you have any comments?" He put the phone on speaker.
"Issei?! Issei isn't a threat, my lord! Please, don't hurt him, he's actually a benefit to our side, don't-!" The man hung up at that point, a sadistic smile on his lips.
I recognized that voice... it was Yuma's! I was pretty sure her family name wasn't Raynare! What the hell was going on here?! No- that didn't matter right now! Right now, I had to deal with this guy! I decided to try shooting at him some more!
The man dropped the phone at that point, and I took a couple shots at it, making him scream. "Argh, my contacts list!" He screamed out, hurriedly rushing down to shield the phone. I took the chance to run over to Yuuto, cutting him out of his bindings with a knife I'd brought along, just in case.
"We need to run," I told Yuuto, who scrambled to his feet right alongside me. Kokabiel was apparently distracted with his phone, because we actually managed to get there, yanking the door open to escape - and then slamming into a blue wall of force. Yuuto quickly made a sword come out of nowhere and tried to jam it through the force field, but it didn't do anything, making a sound like a lightsaber as it tried and failed to cut through the material.
Kokabiel chuckled. "You thought you could escape me, fool?" Seriously! This guy just was just saying every cliched villain line, when was he going to get his comeuppance already?! "Of course, before I entered, I ensured that there was a containment field, so that you would have no chance to escape, so that I could enjoy this."
"Aha, but I actually prepared for this too, you see," I lied through my teeth, which actually made him pause! Fuck! I wish I'd actually prepared for this possibility-! Rias, Akeno, you were flying around outside, right? Right?! You didn't just let me charge into danger blindly, you kept it a secret that you were following me from a distance, so that our enemies wouldn't know about it! So-! Showing up now would be nice!
They didn't show up.
Kokabiel laughed after a few seconds of staring me down. "What an amusing bluff, boy," he said, raising his hand into the air, a blade of pure light materializing in his hand. "But I'm afraid that such bluffs are no good any longer."
Yuuto stood between us at that point, his own magic sword interposed between us! "Issei, keep trying to break through that field," he said. "Let's dance, Kokabiel," he said, a smile on his lips.
I tried shooting at the force field with my gun, just unloading the entire magazine - but it didn't work.
I turned around at that point, and Yuuto and Kokabiel were currently locked in battle against each other, distracted by the clash of their swords. Apparently, Yuuto's sword was a pretty good counter to Kokabiel's, since every time their blades clashed, Kokabiel's would disappear - but also, Kokabiel was clearly a much better fighter than him, because that didn't result in Kokabiel getting his head lopped off.
I hadn't only brought a gun, though! I'd also had Rias give me a special defense, and now was the time to use it. I was, fortunately, a pro-level tennis player by this point, and I removed a pen and a marble, which then transformed into a tennis racket and a tennis ball - then I hit the tennis ball right at Kokabiel's blade as he swung it through the air. Just as it arrived, it suddenly transformed into a giant mirror, and Kokabiel struck it with his sword.
He let out a noise of surprise as the attack ricocheted right into his face, and Yuuto quickly moved to stab him. For a moment, I thought we were victorious, but Kokabiel managed to dodge out of the way of the strike. "Tch," he said - then lunged forward, grabbing Yuuto's wrist, yanking him up into the air inside the Church by it. Leaving him without any surface to make more blades from, that bastard!
I had another marble to turn into a tennis ball, though! I quickly drew it up, and hurled it up at him - and when it hit his head, it exploded like a hand grenade went off, mostly because it was a hand grenade!
Unfortunately, that didn't work either! Kokabiel just glared at me. "What an annoying child you are," he sneered - then hurled Yuuto towards a wall before dive bombing towards me, blade drawn. I turned to run, but his sword slammed into my arm, pain lacing up as I was pinned to the ground on my back. "There we go," he said, casually standing up, leaving me pinned by a giant sword of light, which actively felt like it was searing flesh. "Much better." He idly wiped off his shoulders. "Yes, I let myself get distracted by sparring with the boy."
I was in enough pain to have lost most of my sunny disposition. "Holy shit, you are such a fucking cliche," I said, interrupting his monologue.
"What-" He shook his head. "You're trying to distract me."
"Seriously! You might as well just be a chatbot given the prompt 'Act like the most sneeringly evil villain you can think of!'" It appeared to be working as a distraction, which would give Rias and Akeno time to break through the force field and save me! "I mean, you keep calling us 'boy,' and 'child,' you say 'pukuku, nothing like that can defeat me-'"
"I do not laugh like that," he countered.
"You get all huffy when people make fun of you, you trap us in here so you can toy with us, come on bad guys like you exist to get jobbed," I explained.
"This is real life, not an children's cartoon, child," he told me.
"You're doing it right now!" It's crazy to say it, but honestly, the thing that made me most upset was the thought that I was gonna get killed by a loser like this! "You know what? Just monologue about your evil plan for an hour, I don't even care any more."
"Fine. My evil plan is to kill you, thereby ridding me of your malign influence on devil politics, and my own subordinates. That didn't take an hour," he added, with some smugness.
"Oh yeah. Why'd you call Yuma 'Raynare'?" I asked, suddenly remembering that whole interaction.
"Yuma? Oh," he said, rolling his eyes. "You suborned Raynare to your side, playing on her feminine weaknesses... but you knew that already, and are just feigning ignorance."
"I didn't know that! I still don't! What are you talking abou-!"
I was cut off by the front door of the chapel just about exploding in a massive cloud of dust.
As the dust cleared, there stood an older woman wearing a labcoat and a sleek, extremely tight, extremely form-fitting dress that showed off her very large and plump tits. Her hair was blonde up front, and dark in the back, with violet eyes that flicked to Kokabiel.
Standing at her side was... a girl who looked kind of like Yuma, except older? And she had giant feathered wings? And a very sexy BDSM-style outfit, too. Was Yuma's mom a slutty angel?! I suddenly hoped her weird siscon thing also applied to her mom! (I would confirm first, though!)
"Kokabiel," the labcoat-wearing woman said. "This nonsense has gone on long enough. Stop, now, or die."
"Who the hell are you?" Kokabiel demanded. "And Raynare, your treachery is no-"
That was as far into yet another standard villain monologue as Kokabiel got before the lady summoned dozens of spears of pure light, which promptly all slammed into Kokabiel, turning him into a pincushion.
Raynare (?) let out a gasp. "Amazing, Azazel-sama! You're so strong and amazing, I'm so lucky to be able to see the new you in action, I could just squeal in delight, my Lord!" She sounded exactly like Yuma. Wow. Yuma sounded just like her mom. Yep. That was... wait, that didn't sound right... hang on a second... "Oh no! Issei-kun!" She hurriedly rushed forward to my side. "No, Issei-kun, are you okay?" Her fingers gently poked at the area around my arm where I'd been pinned to the ground.
"Um, thank you, ma'am, but... do we know each other?"
"Ah, sorry, Issei-kun, I'm a Fallen Angel, I should have told you but I thought you'd hate me," her lower lip quivered in worry as she looked down at me. I still didn't quite understand, to be honest!
"So this is Issei, huh?" Azazel said, approaching me. She looked at my arm for a moment. "It's just a flesh wound. He's still human, so it's not as serious as it would be if he was a devil," she explained casually, flicking her really long hair around.
"Wait- Yuuto!" I called out. There was a groan from elsewhere in the chapel, reassuring me that Yuuto was still alive, and I let out a small sigh of relief.
Then my body decided to pass out from blood loss.
You can read the next chapter on my Subscribestar at https://subscribestar.adult/posts/1825539, for the low price of just $3. It features Issei's wakeup and more revelations after getting injured. You also gain access to the latest chapter of my other stories; right now, Superheroine Seducing Accountant is winning the poll for what I will write next month.