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The concentrated Hyper Beam energy sphere inside Rayquaza's jaws shone with the intensity of a newborn star. The air inside the ruined church had become so dense and hot that gravity itself seemed to have collapsed.
Raynare, Kalawarner, and Mittelt were paralyzed. Their immortal minds, accustomed to hunting humans and playing with their prey, had come face to face with a cosmic terror that did not understand politics or factions.
But the Lord of the Stratosphere, despite the atmospheric fury surrounding him, possessed ancient intelligence. He was connected to the will of his Creator. Kaiju had not ordered the annihilation of the hill; his primary directive was the protection of the nun.
With a sharp movement, Rayquaza shifted his colossal snout one degree upward at the very instant of detonation.
The Hyper Beam did not directly strike the Fallen Angels. It pierced through the already shattered roof of the church and tore through the forest behind it, obliterating hundreds of trees and splitting the mountainside in an explosion that painted the night white. However, the mere shockwave of the point-blank blast was cataclysmic.
The sonic impact struck the Fallen like an invisible demolition hammer.
The sound of bones breaking drowned out their screams. The three black-winged women were blasted into the stone walls, bouncing off them like rag dolls. Their wings fractured at unnatural angles, their ribs gave way, and they fell to the ground in pools of their own blood, completely incapacitated, agonizing on the verge of unconsciousness.
Freed Sellzen, being a simple human, was thrown by the pressure against a column, where a heavy wooden beam fell on top of him, burying him beneath the rubble, alive but irrelevant.
The hurricane winds began to slowly dissipate. Rayquaza exhaled a plume of hot vapor that smelled of pure ozone. With a slowness and grace that contradicted his colossal size, the emerald dragon lowered his enormous head until it was only centimeters from the ground, right in front of Asia.
The young nun, still trembling, opened her eyes. The beast looked at her with his immense yellow pupils. There was no hostility. The dragon released a soft, warm huff, gently nudging the girl's shoulder with his snout, indicating that she should climb on.
Asia, guided by survival instinct and renewed faith in the scarred boy, nodded. She stood with difficulty, picked up her bag, and climbed over the emerald scales until she settled at the base of the titan's neck, clinging to one of the red fins.
Once his main charge was safe, Rayquaza's eyes sharpened, fixing on the three broken bodies of the Fallen Angels.
The dragon did not use his claws. His eyes glowed with a faint psychic aura and, by manipulating the air currents, he lifted the shattered bodies of Raynare, Kalawarner, and Mittelt. He deliberately ignored the rubble where the human exorcist lay; his targets were only the black-winged creatures. He kept them suspended in the air, trapped in a prison of wind, and with one powerful beat of his serpentine body, Rayquaza rose into the clouds, leaving behind the church reduced to dust.
At Kuoh Academy, the atmosphere inside the Student Council room remained a living funeral.
Issei was leaning against the wall, his face buried between his knees, consumed by guilt for having left Asia behind. Rias and Sona maintained a sepulchral silence, watching Kaiju, who was still reclining on the sofa with his eyes closed, apparently indifferent to the fact that he had just declared that the nun's guard was worse than him.
Suddenly, the office windows began to vibrate.
It was not an earthquake. It was an abrupt and violent change in atmospheric pressure.
Akeno Himejima ran to the window, her violet eyes widening.
"President... the sky."
Rias, Sona, and the rest of the peerages approached the windows. The dark clouds covering Kuoh were rotating, forming a gigantic and turbulent vortex directly above the academy's main courtyard. Green lightning began to flicker inside the spiral.
Kiba drew his sword by pure instinct, breaking into a cold sweat. Koneko stepped back, her feline instincts screaming at her to hide. The pressure descending from the sky was neither demonic magic nor sacred. It was the fury of nature itself condensed into a single entity.
From the vortex of clouds emerged the colossal serpentine figure.
"A Dragon..." Rias whispered, feeling her knees threaten to give out. The stories of the Heavenly Dragons paled before the overwhelming physical presence of the emerald beast descending toward them.
The titan landed in the academy's wide central courtyard. The impact of his armored body shattered the concrete, raising a cloud of dust and debris. The beast straightened, his immense head reaching almost to the height of the building's third floor, and released a low roar that made the foundations of the entire school tremble.
Issei, peering out the window, felt his soul leave his body, until his eyes caught a detail amid the monstrosity.
"It's Asia!" the brown-haired boy shouted, pointing at the blonde figure awkwardly climbing down the dragon's scales.
Without waiting for orders, Issei ran out of the office, stumbling down the stairs. Rias, Sona, and their entourages exchanged looks filled with dread before following him, moved more by inertia than courage.
By the time the devils burst into the school courtyard, the dust was beginning to settle.
Asia Argento stood on the destroyed grass, hugging her bag to her chest, unharmed. From the shadows of the building, running with speed unfit for a human, Sylvie appeared. The gray-haired girl did not hesitate for even a second; she threw herself at the nun, wrapping her in a protective hug so tight that both of them fell to their knees.
"You're safe!" Sylvie sobbed, frantically checking Asia's face and arms for injuries.
"I-I'm okay, Sylvie-san... the miracle protected me," Asia cried, clinging to her.
The touching reunion brutally contrasted with the scene unfolding behind them. Rayquaza, with a contemptuous movement of his tail, threw three bloodied lumps covered in black feathers onto the courtyard concrete.
Raynare, Kalawarner, and Mittelt fell like discarded trash. They were destroyed. Their wings were broken, their bodies covered in bruises, and blood stained their torn clothes. They groaned weakly, unable to even lift their heads.
Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri, accompanied by their peerages, stopped at a prudent distance. Their eyes moved from the imposing scales of the emerald dragon to the agonizing bodies of the Fallen Angels. Those entities who had kept the local devils at bay for months had been reduced to wreckage.
The sound of slow, lazy footsteps echoed through the courtyard silence.
The devils instinctively stepped aside, opening a path. Kaiju walked with his hands in his pockets, his uniform disheveled and his usual expression of stoic boredom on his face. He did not look at the heiresses. He did not look at the colossal dragon bowing his head to him in submissive respect.
He stopped in front of the pile of broken bodies.
Issei, who had run toward Asia and Sylvie to make sure they were all right, froze when he saw his Master. The brown-haired boy swallowed. The tension in the air was so heavy it was suffocating.
Kaiju swept his one healthy eye over the three fallen Fallen. He tilted his head slightly, observing the misery, the fractured wings, and the blood. He did it with the same indifference someone would have while looking at a candy shop display, deciding which one to choose.
"You... are no use to me," Kaiju murmured, passing over Mittelt.
He moved his gaze toward Kalawarner. "Neither are you."
Finally, his eyes stopped on Raynare's trembling figure. The girl who had once called herself Yuuma-chan was trying to drag herself across the concrete ground, leaving a red trail behind. Her wings were destroyed, and her gaze reflected the purest terror an immortal could experience.
"But you..." Kaiju sketched a small, icy smile. "You still have a role to play."
Without any delicacy, Kaiju crouched and grabbed her by the collar of her leather outfit, lifting her off the ground with one hand as if she weighed no more than a feather. Raynare released a choked scream, spitting blood, her black eyes bulging in panic as she was left suspended in front of the teenager's face.
Rias tensed her posture. She expected to see disintegration. She expected the boy to use Hakai or turn her into ashes in front of everyone to demonstrate his supremacy.
But Kaiju did not do that.
With the Fallen suspended in his grip, Kaiju blinked. The brown color of his right iris was instantly devoured by a deep and blinding Ocean Blue.
The light that emanated from his eye illuminated the entire courtyard. It was not destructive fire, nor conceptual erasure.
Raynare felt heat invade her shattered body. Before the stunned gazes of the demonic peerages and Issei, the miracle occurred. The fractured bones of Raynare's black wings snapped, straightening and fusing perfectly. Her broken ribs returned to place. The internal bleeding closed, the blood vanished from her skin, and her stamina filled to the absolute limit.
In barely three seconds, the Fallen Angel went from being on the brink of death to being in the most optimal and perfect state of health she had ever experienced in her life.
The Blue radiance faded, and Kaiju's eye returned to normal.
Raynare took a deep breath, feeling strength flow through her veins. But her mind was submerged in absolute horror. She knew who this boy was. She knew he had disintegrated Dohnaseek. And the fact that he had just healed her completely was not an act of mercy; it was preparation for something infinitely worse.
Kaiju loosened his grip and, with a fluid and indifferent movement, threw Raynare through the air.
The Fallen Angel flew a couple of meters and landed on her feet, skidding across the concrete until she stopped... exactly in front of Issei Hyoudou.
The brown-haired boy jumped back, stumbling. His heart began beating at a frantic rhythm. In front of him stood the girl who had made him fall in love, who had smiled at him in the park, and who, with that same smile, had pierced his abdomen with a spear of light. And now, she was completely healthy, with her black wings spread and her magical power intact.
Raynare looked at her own healed hands. Then she looked at Issei. A flash of her old arrogance tried to surface, but before she could materialize a weapon, Kaiju's voice cut through the air like a sharp blade.
"It's your turn, Issei."
The brown-haired boy abruptly turned his head toward his Master. Kaiju stood a few meters away, arms crossed and his face devoid of any hint of schoolmate camaraderie.
"K-Kaiju? W-What does this mean?" Issei stammered, pointing at the Fallen. "She killed me! She killed me and you just healed her!"
"I told you I wasn't going to do your job for you," Kaiju answered, his tone resonating with an implacable harshness that made Rias and Sona fall into absolute silence. "This is your story, Issei. She used you, stabbed you, and left you lying there like trash. She created a trauma in you that doesn't let you sleep at night."
Kaiju stepped to the side, leaving the space open between the brown-haired boy and the Fallen Angel.
"I'm not going to let you hide behind Gremory's skirts or behind my dragons. I healed your executioner. She is in perfect condition. Now it is time for your closure."
Issei looked at Raynare. His legs were trembling. His entire being screamed at him to run, to let Rias or Kiba deal with her. But when he glanced to the side, he saw Asia Argento, the girl who had been willing to sacrifice her life for him, watching him. He saw Sylvie, and he saw Kaiju, who looked at him not as a perverted idiot, but as a warrior being demanded to stop being a victim.
He clenched his left fist, adrenaline burning the fear in his veins.
"Rias-senpai, Asia, get back!" Issei roared.
The brown-haired boy closed his eyes and called to the depths of his soul, to that instinct for protection and survival. A crimson flash enveloped his left forearm. The red gauntlet, crowned with a shining green gem, materialized with the sound of celestial gears.
"[BOOST!]"
A deep, robotic voice echoed from the green gem, multiplying Issei's strength at the exact moment Raynare, desperate and cornered, materialized a spear of light and lunged at him.
The brown-haired boy raised his arm and blocked the impact. The clash of divine light against scarlet armor illuminated the courtyard of Kuoh Academy.
Kaiju observed the beginning of the battle with his arms crossed, leaning his back against one of the building's pillars. Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri, along with their respective peerages, watched the fight in silence, finally understanding the brutal pedagogy of the god walking among them. He did not intervene out of mercy, nor did he solve problems out of charity. Kaiju Hano had just orchestrated a therapeutic execution. He healed the enemy solely so his companion could destroy her with his own hands and close his cycle of fear.
While red and white flashes illuminated the night, Kaiju let out a slight yawn. Devil politics were a headache, but seeing Issei finally use his fists instead of crying was a spectacle worth the loss of sleep.
And if the Fallen thought about fleeing, or Issei failed in his task... well. The dimension of eternal darkness and absolute torment always had room for one more resident to keep Dohnaseek company. And Raynare knew it perfectly. She was not fighting to win; she was fighting because stopping meant falling into nothingness.
Issei Hyoudou's closure had begun.