Darling in the Franxx: The First Riders

Chapter 2

Summery from the last chapter: Lord Death's riders had died at the hands of Lucifer. Upon learning this Death began his preparations to find new riders. Selecting from a list of species he chose Humanity as his next riders. Handing a list to his watcher he told the watcher to scout the humans out to determine who would be the worthiest of becoming his next rider. Meanwhile on Earth, a human named Kurisu was going about his day when during the Cherry Blossom Festival, Arachne began to attack. Sending Liz and Jonasan off to go hide he began to run to help when a huge Arachne shows up…during his fight with the Arachne his is nearly killed. When Kurisu awakens he is sitting outside Castle Judgment. Proceeding in he encounters Lord Death who gives him an ultimatum. Become his rider or face permanent death. Faced with this choice what will Kurisu choose?...

Location: Castle Judgment

"So, your telling me that my options are to either become your rider and carry out any mission that you give me or die a permanent death, correct?" Kurisu said.

"Correct." Death said.

Kurisu weighed his options. On one hand he could become an agent for Death and take on enemies that are far stronger than he ever imagined, or he could die. If Kurisu was honest with himself, death was not really an option. If he died, that would leave Jonasan by himself, while this normally wouldn't be a problem and Liz could take care of him if she had to, Jonasan's intelligence made him a bit unstable and he wasn't sure what would happen if Jonasan found out he died. Liz was also an unknown factor. After musing for a few minutes Kurisu had made his decision.

"Lord Death… I accept your offer." Kurisu said.

"Excellent. Let us begin then." Death said.

The shadows in the castle began to move, flowing toward Kurisu. As they reached him, they slowly began to cocoon Kurisu. At first Kurisu panicked and tried to escape but eventually realized that this was a part of the process and stopped struggling. After completely cocooning Kurisu for about a minute, the shadows drained back to their proper positions.

As the shadows drained off him, Kurisu was revealed to be wearing new cloths. He was wearing a full-length black cloak with a high collar that covered everything up to his eyes, on the back of the cloak was a design of a hooded skeleton. Once Kurisu opened his eyes, he marveled at the cloak he was wearing as well as the amount of power coursing through his veins. He felt like he could level a mountain! Just as quickly as he felt that power, it receded.

"What was that?" Kurisu asked in wonder.

"My power, as well as some of your own. I have granted you the power of Umbrakinesis, but you also had the innate power of Photokinesis. The two have blended to give you the power of Photo-Umbrakinesis." Death said.

"What do you mean Lord Death?" Kurisu said.

"You are a natural mage." Death said matter-of-factly. "Had you undergone the slightest amount of magical training; you would have unlocked that ability on your own. Coupled with your swordsmanship, this would have made you a warrior mage. Be proud, my Rider, warrior mages are an extreme rarity among humans."

"That's odd." Kurisu muttered. "I could have sworn that the elves told me that I didn't have any magical potential…" Kurisu shook his head. "Anyway, is there anything that needs to be done?"

"Yes, follow me to my armory." Said Death.

Following Lord Death, they proceeded though a door to the left of Death's Throne. As they entered, they were greeted by a wraith smith.

"Welcome to the Armory, Lord Death, Rider." The smith said with a nod. "I see you have taken Lord Death's proposal to become his Rider, let me be the first to congratulate you Kurisu. Let's get you set up with your weapons." The smith said.

"If at all possible, I would like to continue to use my dual swords as that is the weapon, I am the most comfortable with." Kurisu said.

The smith looked to Lord Death uncertainly. As a rule, the Riders were only allowed to use scythes as their weapon. It wasn't his call to make if Kurisu could keep using his dual swords.

"Normally, I would tell you no, but I will make an exception if you will agree to also carry a scythe with you as your backup weapon." Death said. "Also, Anaorath, re-forge his into Cosminium swords, that way there is no risk of them breaking in battle."

Anaorath nodded and requested Kurisu's swords which Kurisu handed over. While Anaorath was re-forging Kurisu's weapons, Death reached up on a nearby wall and grabbed a skeletal scythe from the wall and handed it to Kurisu.

"What's this?" Kurisu asked.

"That is a possessed weapon, a unique weapon that I gift to the first Rider of each species. Channel some of your energy into it, it will bind the weapon to you as well as change its appearance to complement your abilities and amplify certain ones." Death said.

Kurisu grabbed the scythe, looking over it. He spun it around a few times, confused as to how he was supposed to channel his power into it when the scythe instantly started to glow a bright white. When the light settled down, Kurisu looked back at the scythe. The scythe now had a black handle and a curved scythe with a wavy pattern with white on top and black on the bottom. Where they head met the handle, a Yin and Yang symbol was present that was connecting the two. Kurisu twirled the blade end over end, it gave him the feeling that, when he wielded it, he would have greater control of his Photo-Umbrakinesis.

"Interesting, it appears you favor balance. This is evidenced by the Yin and Yang symbol at the tang (the part where the blade meets the handle) of your scythe. What will you name it?"

Kurisu thought about it for a moment. "I name thee Unity."

Kurisu felt Unity vibrate before he heard a voice in his head.

[Hello master, I am your scythe, Unity. Allow me to guide you through your upcoming battles as you learn how to control your new abilities. Even if you decide not to wield me in battle, I will still be able to give you suggestions on the best way to proceed and efficiently slay your enemies.]

"What the?!" Kurisu said in shock.

"What's wrong Kurisu?"

I'm hearing Unity talk to me… in my head."

"You have already connected to its soul? Excellent! That will make your training much easier."

"What are you talking about?"

"As I said, Unity is a possessed weapon. Unity has the soul of one of my fallen Riders, he should be able to help you master your abilities. Also, depending on who is in Unity, they can lend you their strength in their specific proficiency."

Anaorath handed Kurisu his re-forged swords back to him and then they walked back to the Great Hall. As they were making their way out of the armory, however, Kurisu began to grip his chest in pain, it passed a moment later.

"What the name of the Creator was that?" Kurisu said, still gripping his chest.

"Hmm."

Death flicked his hand and a small portal appeared. The portal showed Kurisu's body with a large green healing circle surrounding it. The small figure of Jonasan was seen near the edge of the circle trying spell after spell.

"A class five healing spell. Impressive, your brother has quite the talent."

"That damn fool. I told him to hide with Liz." Kurisu growled.

"Peace." Death said. "There are no souls in the area he's in and he is doing as he was trained. There's no need to scold him for that."

They proceeded back to the throne room and death settled back onto his throne.

"There are a few things I must cover before I send you back. First, you don't have access to all of your abilities, they are locked behind a set of limiters that I have placed on you. You can only use up to 20% of your full power without my authorization. This is to both protect you from over using your abilities and obliterating a large area unnecessary and to keep you from attracting too much attention from certain gods, as not all of them are in favor of my Riders. Second, as a Rider, you have access to Shadow Storage, which is a section of the Shadow Realm that you can used to store just about anything. If I may make a suggestion, store Unity there when around other humans outside of combat as there is no one in the human world that uses a scythe as their weapon."

"And how do I get access to this Shadow Storage?"

"Simply will a portal to your Shadow Storage to open and it will."

Giving a shrug Kurisu tried it. Reaching out with his left hand, he willed a portal to his Shadow Storage to open and a small black portal opened up. Kurisu placed Unity within and the closed the portal. Deciding to try and see if he could still communicate with Unity, he called out to it.

[Unity? Can you hear me?]

[Yes. Although it is quite dark in here.]

Kurisu then held out his right hand and willed a portal to open. When it did, he reached in and requested Unity. He felt something smack against his hand and when he pulled it out, Unity was in his hand. He then opened a portal below Unity and dropped it and watched as it disappeared back into Shadow Storage.

"Finally, take these two scrolls. I will send a Watcher to find a suitable magic teacher to teach you how to utilize the Photokinesis half of your Photo-Umbrakinesis. When he finds one, you are to present the first scroll to him. The second scroll will be used at a later date, you will know when it is time to use that final scroll."

Kurisu placed the scrolls in shadow storage while listening to Death's explanation. Armed with this knowledge, Kurisu was prepared to eliminate anything that got in his way.

"Now then, I will send you back to your body and allow you to take care of that Arachne problem you're currently having. Remember, you cannot tell anyone that you are one of my Riders. Not Liz, not Jonasan. Also, you have been not-quite-dead for about 10 minutes

"Thank you, Lord Death for this privilege of me being your first human rider. I will make sure to live up to your expectations, I can only hope that there will be more human riders in the future, so I have others to work with."

With that said Kurisu suddenly felt a force pulling him from the Shadow Realm back toward his body.

…

Location: Falcon Haven

10 Minutes After Arachne Attack

"Come on, damn it! I'm not letting you die!"

Jonasan was flooding his healing circle with mana and was drenched in sweat. He had changed the circle to a class six healing circle, which was the limit of his ability, and it was still doing nothing. Jonasan had broken away from Liz when he saw the biggest Arachne, he had ever seen in his life scuttling away from where Kurisu was last. Even though he sucked at reading auras, even he could tell that there was something distinctly wrong with this particular Arachne. It was far stronger than any Arachne was supposed to be.

The Arachne in question was a warrior Arachne. A standard warrior Arachne can take on two, foot soldiers and barely win. This monstrosity was as strong as a Brood mother. The strongest of the Arachne that can take on several platoons of men without a scratch. For a warrior to have the strength of a Brood mother, it meant that, that thing was blessed by one of the Gods which made Jonasan fear for Kurisu's life.

He was right to be worried. As he made it back to Kurisu's location, he found his brother lying in a pool of his own blood and non-responsive. That was 10 minutes ago.

"Come on Lady Luck, please let this work." Jonasan muttered in prayer as he flooded the circle with the last of his mana.

The circle glowed bright green as the magic tried to heal Kurisu. Jonasan was focusing so much on putting every ounce of mana he had left into the circle that he didn't notice when it slowly began to turn white. Just as Jonasan was about to concede defeat, Kurisu came back to life with an abrupt jerk.

Kurisu's eyes snapped open and he looked at the sky in wonder. He originally thought that everything that he just experienced was just a hallucination, but that thought was erased from his mind when he heard Unity speak.

[Master, you know as well as I do that that was not a hallucination, everything you just experienced was real as the sky before you. This is not the time to be doubting your mental state, your about to go into battle.]

[Thank you, Unity, you confirmed that all of that was real. It will just take some time after this battle to wrap my head around what just happened, but your right I have a battle with a stupid Arachne to take care of.]

"Kurisu!" Jonasan shouted, before slamming into him.

"Hello to you too, dumbass." Kurisu said.

"Shut up a moment." Jonasan growled as he looked Kurisu over.

"Stomach wound is healed, no signs of a concussion or head trauma from being slammed into the ground, spine is intact, no bones broken." Jonasan muttered as he used various class one spells to ensure Kurisu was fine.

"I'm fine Jonasan." Kurisu said shoving Jonasan off.

"Let me finish!" Jonasan shouted and roughly jerked Kurisu over to him.

"Ok, ok, jeez."

A few minutes later Jonasan was satisfied that Kurisu was, in fact, fine. He then promptly fell unconscious from running out of mana.

"Idiot." Kurisu said and carried him over to some nearby bushes to hide him.

Kurisu looked around and was not surprised to not see a large Arachne, it had been 10 minutes after all. It was most likely headed toward the square where the other villagers were located. Kurisu drew his twin katanas, noting that they were now made of Cosminium, a divine metal, and proceeded toward the square, murderous glint in his eye.

"Alright then you bastard Arachne, round two. You have a date with death, and I will personally escort you there." Kurisu thought.

…

Kurisu Time: So, our main character has accepted Ridership and has a death date with a certain Arachne. Any Guesses on how this fight will play out Lord Death?

Lord Death: Hmmm, I figure that Kurisu will end up using the Arachne as a punching bag to test out what all he can do, or he will toy with his opponent until he gets the satisfaction, he feels that he deserves from the Arachne for trying to kill him.

Kurisu Time: You may be right their Lord Death. But that is for the next story.

Lord Death: What!? You're going to leave it on cliffhanger? I can't wait that long to find out what happens.

Kurisu Time: Fine, I'll let you preview the next chapter.

Lord Death: Yes! *Immediately begins previewing the next chapter*

Kurisu Time: *sigh* Well then… any and all reviews are appreciated, and the flames will be used to make smores. Addio.