Sorry for the long wait. I've received many, many PM's asking when this chapter would come out. I have been busy with work and distractions. But here it is, please enjoy :)

Note: Issei did not tell them what happened, he closed himself into his room while Xenovia set up a meeting with Rias the next morning through Tiamat and Asia.

This chapter is shorter than the others, but it's more for setting up the next arc than anything.

Story Start:

~Next Morning - ORC~

"So you've come here chasing the Excalibur fragments that got stolen?" Rias asks with narrowed eyes before sighing. "Why are there so many events happening in my territory?"

"Yes, a couple of weeks ago three of the Excaliburs were stolen from the church. The thief fled to Japan, in this town." Xenovia explains.

"Do you know who stole them?" Rias asks.

"The Grigori, or more accurately, the Cadre-Class Fallen Angel, Kokabiel." Xenovia says shocking the room silent.

"The church sent two teenagers against Kokabiel? Do you two have a death wish?!" Rias exclaims and Issei's eyes narrow.

"Yes." Xenovia states bluntly surprising them again.

"If we can die in duty to our Lord, there's no greater honor out there." Irina nods besides her, but her normally cheerful self is gone and she looks devoid of emotion.

"The teachings of the church are as insane as always." Rias says while shaking her head. "Why have you come to me, though?"

"We're here to tell you not to interfere in the battle." Xenovia says.

"Do you believe that we would side with the Fallen Angels?" Rias asks with narrowed eyes.

Xenovia nods slightly. "The higher ups believe it is possible, so we were orders to tell you to stay out of this." Rias looks irritated.

"As the sister of a Maou, I would never side with the Fallen Angels. You need not worry about us stopping you from collecting your Excalibur Fragments." Rias sighs again. "Do you even have a chance to win? Do you have some kind of trump card or something?" she asks nervously. If they fail, this could easily start another war.

"We'll have to find out on our own." Xenovia says with an arrogant smirk. Tiamat snaps her fingers.

"Aha! That's the aura I am feeling. You're the wielder of Durandal, are you not?" She asks and smirks when she sees the shocked look on their faces. "Just so you know, Durandal won't give you certain victory against a Cadre-Class fallen angel. You are simply to weak to be able to handle him." Xenovia's shock turns to anger and growls at Tiamat.

"How the hell would you know?! Your aura feels like a child's aura!" Tiamat raises her eyebrow.

"You do know of aura suppression right? If I released my full aura around you, you'd probably fall to your knees or pass out instantly." Tiamat says calmly as if dismissing her.

"Tch, I highly doubt that." Her eyes widen as Tiamat releases a bit of her aura causing Xenovia and Irina to break out in a sweat and shaking slightly. "T-told ya. I'm still standing."

"Calm down child, this is only 5% of my full power. You have no chance against me, so do not even try." Tiamat says and turns back to Issei. "I'm heading home for now. We'll continue training after school." Seeing Issei nod she vanishes in a magic circle leaving them alone.

"Who exactly was that?" Irina asks Issei. He looks at her still with vacant eyes from last night.

"That was Tiamat, The Chaos Karma Dragon." Issei answers quietly. "She's my familiar." Xenovia visibly pales while Irina chokes on air.

"I just taunted one of the Dragon Kings?!" Xenovia nearly screams. Irina composes herself faster and grabs Xenovia's arm and starts dragging her out of the room.

"Thank you for agreeing to let us do this on our own. We'll be leaving now." As soon as they leave they all see Koneko in front of Issei sniffing him with narrowed eyes.

"You smell like that kendo girl." She says accusingly. Issei looks at her warily.

"She came over for dinner last night. Is something wrong?" He asks her. Asia pouts cutely next to him.

"Katase kissed him yesterday." Asia says shocking the rest as Koneko's eyes narrow more. None of them notice as Kiba leaves.

"Mine." Koneko says and grabs his arm dragging him out of the club room shocking the rest further.

"Why has everything been so complicated since Issei came around?" Rias mumbles while rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"By the way, Tiamat said Katase and Murayama should be coming by after school today to talk to you about trying to learn how to use magic." Asia says and she starts chasing after Issei and Koneko.

~At Lunch With Issei and Koneko~

Issei as usual is reading under a tree eating the lunch Asia made him. Koneko however is sitting next to him holding onto his arm possessively. This is what Katase and Murayama see as they arrive.

"Hello Issei!" Katase calls out as she goes to tackle him. Koneko though caught her and threw her away. "What the hell was that for?!" Katase yells at her.

"Issei's mine." Koneko says quietly glaring at Katase. She pouts and looks at Koneko.

"No fair! I may not be a devil, yet, but Tiamat, Murayama and I agreed to share him already." Katase says making Koneko's glare also turn to Murayama.

Koneko hisses quietly at the girls until Issei rubs her head causing her to purr. "Be nice Koneko."

Koneko nuzzles into his side comfortably and closes her eyes making the other two jealous.

"We'll be coming by the club room after school today Issei. Do you think your devil friends will be willing to help us?" Murayama asks. Koneko opens her eyes slightly at that.

"I'm not sure, but I don't see why not." Issei shrugs. Murayama sits down on the other side of Issei and leans her head on his shoulder. Why do so many girls like me? I don't deserve any of them. He thinks with a sigh.

"Hey!" Katase shouts. "That's not fair, you two took the only spots next to him!" she pouts. "Oh well, I took his first kiss anyways." she says smugly making the other two glare at her.

~After School - ORC Room~

"So let me get this straight." Rias says while rubbing her temples again. "You two want to learn how to use magic." Katase and Murayama nod while glaring at Koneko sitting on Issei's lap. "Why do you want to learn how to use magic?"

"I want to protect Issei. As I am now, there's nothing I can do to help him." Katase answers still glaring at Koneko.

"We couldn't help him in the past, so we promised to always be there for him in the future." Murayama continues on. "If he's going to have supernatural enemies, we need a way to be able to combat them ourselves."

Rias looks back and forth between the two and sees the determination in their eyes before looking at Issei. So many people who want to get stronger just for this one boy. What is it about you that draws them in, Issei? She wonders before smiling The future will be interesting at least. Maybe I should ask my brother if he could help me train this summer.

"Akeno, it's your choice whether to teach them or not. You know more human magic than I do." Akeno nods at Rias and tells the two to follow her to begin their training.

Tiamat appears after a while and takes Issei with her.

~With Issei and Tiamat -2 hours later~

Issei collapsed from their spar using Balance Breaker. Over the last week he managed to double his limit in Balance Breaker, and learned a lot in terms to sensing his surroundings.

"We'll start moving on to more advanced Dragon Magic now. Until now, you've mastered Ice and Lightning magics separately, but now we're going to work on combining them." Tiamat says before holding her hand out and an icicle forms sparking with electricity.

"The electricity inside of the Ice will increase damage output, as well as stunning your enemy giving you more openings for attacks." The icicle melts due to the electricity in it.

"That is what will happen if you use to much electricity when combining the two elements. Once you can manage to merge the two elements together without the ice melting, you'll be learning how to increase the size of your spells, and then compacting the power of those spells to make them as small as possible, with the same power behind them."

~With Kiba - Random Alley Way~

Kiba is glaring at a man running away down the street. At his feet is a sword radiating Holy Energy, and a severed arm. "Now how do I destroy this thing?" Kiba mutters as he takes his shirt off and wraps it around the handle of the blade. "I'll figure it out later." He drags the sword behind him back to his house, never noticing someone grabbing the severed arm.

~With Akeno, Katase and Murayama~

"Now that you have unlocked your magic, what type of magic were you planning to learn?" Akeno asks in a proud tone. In only two hours they managed to unlock their magic.

"I was thinking of taking after Issei and learning all I can from different types of magic." Katase answers with a smile. Murayama sits there thinking for a few minutes.

"I'd like to learn reinforcement magic. I'd rather stick to the skills that I know already, and advance them as far as I can bring them." she finally answers.

"Very well, I'll only be teaching you the basics though. From there, you're on your own to advance your skills. It will be hard work, so be sure to practice every day." Akeno tells them.

"Okay!" The both answer with wide smiles.

One step closer to Issei! They both thought at the same time.

~With Ravel~

As soon as Ravel woke up in the hospital she was surrounded by the rest of her family. They were all disappointed in her for letting Raiser convince her to lie about getting over her fears. Raiser woke up a couple days after, and she was immediately traded to her mothers peerage.

She watched the replay of the rating game, and was amazed watching Issei's will to protect his friends. He pushed himself out of a panic attack because his friends were in danger. He unlocked his Sacred Gear's Balance Breaker to save them.

Raiser and Issei were nearly evenly matched with each other. Raiser ended up the winner of their fight due to his regeneration ability, even though Issei refused to give up, and tried to keep fighting even when he could barely move anymore.

She watched her panic attack, that the entire underworld saw. She felt pathetic. They both had a panic attack during the rating game, but Issei fought it off, where as she instantly gave in to it and lost.

I'm pathetic. The fire was nowhere near me, and I still lost it. She looks up at the screen to see it paused on Issei struggling to stand up with Tiamat standing in front of him and her brother out cold in front of her. The pure anger in her eyes directed at Raiser is suffocating.

"You're pathetic. You'd attack him, even when he can't even fight anymore? You disgust me."

Tiamat's words ring through her ears. She always looked up to Raiser as being a great man, and brother. Tiamat's words echo harshly through her head, changing everything she thought about him.

He was going to kill someone in a game, just because he feared them? Ravel's eyes start to water. Issei is amazing to have been able to take on my brother. He even pushed back all of his fears to do it. Maybe I can be like him.. push past my fears.. protect what's important to me..

Ravel's clenches her fists and leaves her room to find her father. When she finds him, she stares straight at him with a small fire burning in her eyes. Her father looks back at her in surprise.

"I see you've made your mind up on something, Ravel. What is it?" He asks with a smile at her.

"Daddy, Can you help me get over my fear of fire, and help me get stronger?" She asks without breaking eye contact. His father's eyes widen in surprise again.

"Why do you wish to get stronger? I'll help you either way, Ravel, I just want to know why." He asks happily. My little girl is finally coming back out of her shell!

Ravel smiles widely at her father. "There's someone I want to thank for waking me up, but if I can't get past my fears, I'm not worthy to even stand in from of him." She answers honestly and clenches her fists again.

"Is this about that Issei boy?" he asks her and smirks when he sees her blush slightly. "Very well, I'll help you as best I can. But if you don't give it your all, there will be no point in it. We'll start small, and work our way up to get you past your fear." He says as he sets his hand on fire and sees her start to panic. He goes to put the fire out before he sees her eyes harden in determination and forces herself to calm down causing him to smile happily. I'll have to thank Issei myself for saving my daughter it seems.

~With Le Fay~

Le Fay is currently sitting on a cliff watching the sun set, tracing the scars on her shoulders. Tears slowly fall down her cheeks before she feels a hand on her shoulder and looks up to see her brother sitting besides her.

"What's wrong, Le Fay?" He asks her with a sad smile. She shakes her head and looks back at the sunset.

"Just thinking about Issei again. I wish he was here with us." She says softly.

"I know it's hard, Le Fay, but you need to move on. You'll likely never see him again." He tells her.

"I know I won't see him again. But why did he have to die?" She asks him and doesn't notice his eyes widen.

Die? Who told her he died..? He wonders. "Le Fay.. Who told you he died?" He asks slowly. She looks at him weirdly.

"You did, Arthur.. You showed me the newpaper saying that five people died in that building with only one survivor." she answers while crying harder. "There was only those four bastards with us in that building afterall. I was the only survivor" His eyes widen even further.

For four years she thought he died because of that paper..? his jaw drops open even further. That means Issei probably thinks that she died as well!

"Shit!" Arthur says before jumping to his feet surprising her "Issei's not dead you idiot! There were five guys in that building with the two of you! I got you out and took off before the emergency response teams got there! I left Issei out front to be found by them, while I took you right to the hospital. Issei was the survivor, not you! They never knew you were even there!" Her eyes widen in hope as she stares at him.

"W...What? Issei's alive?" she mutters out in shock. I ran away because I thought I got him killed.. but he survived?!

Le Fay gets up and looks out at the sunset again and smiles with tears of joy rolling down her face this time. "Issei.." she mutters out with a smile. She turns to her brother and stares at him determined. "I'm going back to Japan. Tell Vali he can take his group and go to hell if he doesn't like it." she says and starts to walk away before noticing Arthur following her.

"I told you before, Le Fay. I won't let you go anywhere on your own anymore. I almost got both you and Issei killed four years ago, I won't repeat that mistake." He says strongly. Following Vali would have given me plenty of tough opponents for my blade, but my sister is more important to me than that.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The part with Le Fay honestly wasn't planned to be put in. But I've received so many PM's and Reviews hating on Le Fay abandoning him thinking she died that I felt that I needed to. They both thought the other died that day. Arthur knew the truth the whole time, but did not know that they only saw four of the people in the building with them, so never said anything to her about it. I was planning on them meeting again after Kokabiel when Vali tells his group about Issei, but I changed it to this to explain it a bit.

I hope that answers your question at how she's a part of his Peerage, and 'dead' at the same time. I didn't get a single comment thinking that they both thought the other was dead, which surprised me.

Got a comment about Asia being a Dragon Tamer: Yes, I understand that they are simply someone who has a connection to dragons in canon. In my story it goes past that though. She can raise and bond to baby/young dragon's she raises, making them grow faster, and gaining the ability to use their powers when they are strong enough. This only works with young dragons she has contracts with and raises. As she gets stronger she'll be able to calm a dragon's rage, so long as the dragon knows her, or she is stronger magically than the dragon.

Easy version: Asia will over time become part sprite dragon(lightning dragon magic based), which will cause her bishop to mutate which is why she's worth five pawn pieces for Issei rather than the three pieces a bishop is actually worth.

This chapter was mainly setting up the Kokabiel arc up to the Underworld Training arc. I hope you enjoyed it, and again sorry for the long wait, been really busy lately :).