Disclaimer: All property-owned characters belong to their respected owners.

A Passing Figment

By Corvus no Genmu

Rias walked on in silent contemplation with her peerage following in her tread, their conversation lost to her as she delved deeper into her thoughts. Ten days. Not as much time as she'd hope for but far more than she thought she'd get. Was it enough though? For most of her peerage it would have to be, but for the two newest members of her family? Could her beloved pawn persevere against all odds when Fate and Luck were both conspiring against him? Could her sweet bishop stand strong against experts fighters, recognized combatants on the battlegrounds, and emerge unscathed?

No.

Ten days was all of ten seconds by comparison.

She needed a miracle.

Unfortunately, she knew precisely where to find such a miracle. It was up the mountain trail, residing in the mansion that once belonged to her family. It and more was lost long ago, before she was even born, as payment rendered for the most powerful of miracles, the end of a war. It was hardly a loss compared to what else was given, one of several abodes littered throughout the human realm that belonged to her family but it was one of the few that is far from human civilization.

Then again, no one ever said that miracle workers came cheap.

She had asked her brother once what the full price had been, to end the civil war amongst the devils. Her brother didn't answer. He merely turned and set his eyes upon her and didn't say a single word. He stared with an ashen face, pinpricks for eyes, and a trail of sweat upon his brow. A faint tremor began in his shoulders and he murmured a whisper that not even the damnedest of souls could utter.

"First rule of training…"

Rias didn't deign to ask for clarification.

Or anything related to it for that matter.

So here she was, climbing the steps up towards what once was her family's property and now another's with the vain hope that she could strike a deal of her own. She idly wondered at the feeling in her breast, the faint quivering of her heart and the steadily increasing drumbeat of anxiety sounding in her soul. Was this what it felt like to be on the opposite side of the table? To be the one trying for a bargain rather than making the trade, to have only what she could give in the hope of attaining more than she could possibly imagine?

It was refreshing and frightening feeling.

"Rias." Akeno murmured, matching her King's pace. "Where are we going exactly?"

It wasn't the first time that Akeno had asked and though all the other times Rias had remained silent or had even managed to change the subject, she deigned it time to answer as the crest of the mountain path came within sight.

"To the Transient Broker."

Akeno's eyes widened and she stumbled just the slightest bit, which of course merely looked as though she had started to skip but decided against it midway through. To the trained and accustomed eyes of Kiba and Koneko however, the Queen might as well have crashed face first into the ground and their concern grew. The stumble cost Akeno dearly and the few seconds she could have used to try and dissuade Rias, or simply knock her out and beat a hasty but dignified retreat towards sensibility, were forever lost.

For Rias had crossed the threshold.

She walked with her head held high, ignoring the eyes upon her from her peerage and those that remained hidden upon the grounds as she approached him. He sat reclined on a beach chair, a pair of shades over his eyes and a thick tome in his hands. His chocolate brown hair fell in thick bangs over eyes of the same hue. He was dressed in a pair of Bermuda trunks and a Hawaiian shirt that looked like they had taken a trip straight out of an American cinema from the late 80's.

Not that Rias Gremory knew anything of the sort. Rias' attention, though appalled by the horrors of clashing colors that did horrible justice to Magnum P.I., was not to be deterred however and she continued her steadfast approach.

Hard to believe that someone that looked the same age as she could have such a terrible fashion sense but there was that saying of Insanity and Power… She would know considering how often her brother was labeled as both never mind the other Satans.

The Transient Broker licked his thumb and carefully turned a page in his book. "Do you know the works of Mary Howitt?"

Rias blinked, caught by surprise by the question that came so far out of left field it may as well have come straight from the tennis court. "I… can't say that I have."

"Pity. But then, I'd honestly be surprised if you had." Another thumb lick and turn of the page. "Her most famous work is recognized by its parody but quite a few people know of its opening line. It goes, Will you walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. 'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy—"

"The way into my parlor is up a winding stair, and I've a many curious things to show when you are there." Rias finished in a soft whisper. She had heard the poem once when she was but a child, a toddler if even that old, before her brother and his friends went out to do the impossible.

He looked up at her and a small smile sprouted upon his face. "Very good. But do you know how it ends? Oh no, no, said the little fly, to ask me is in vain."

"For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again." Rias allowed no fear to bring a tremble to her shoulders, no caution to clench her hands into tight fists, and no trepidation to moisten her brow with sweat. In the end, it was her eyes that betrayed her, as they remained the crystal clear windows they had been since birth.

"You are either a brave fool or foolishly brave, and yes there is a difference. Whether or not you learn it, well, that's in the future and I only make deals for the past and the present." He tossed the book over his shoulder and it disappeared with a soundless flash of colorless light. "Let's go and see what we have to work with."

Rias had introduced her Peerage to him one by one. She spoke in complete honesty of their strengths and their weaknesses. He stood in silence and looked over them each in turn as she did so, gauging their reactions to her words and measuring their prowess with his own eyes. He saw plainly that her Queen knew of him and his reputation but the same could not be said of the rest of her peerage.

The Knight and the Rook saw the subtle cues of the Queen and knew to be guarded against his gaze but they knew him only by rumor and hearsay, nothing else. The same could not be said of the Bishop and the Rook, who both appeared equally confused by his presence and the deference their King showed him.

He'd have to change that first and foremost if he was to hold his end of the little arrangement struck between him and their King.

Standing before them, on the battered training field that was littered with many a thick and terrible scarring upon its landscape as though it had been rent by terrible swords and mighty claws, he looked at them each in turn before settling his eyes upon the Queen of Rias' Peerage.

Akeno's eyes were firmly upon Rias and nothing else, her amethyst orbs hard with accusation. He cleared his throat and her gaze flickered but did not stray away. He smiled genially at her, like she was a child and he the adult and her back straightened further to emphasize both the difference in their height, slight though it was, and the expansive mounds that contested any such thoughts of youth upon her.

"You know of me." He said, his eyes upon her face and never straying.

She pondered for a moment whether she ought to be offended or relieved before she answered simply, "I do."

"Then you should know that all those stories? Those tales they tell of me in the darkened corners of the Underworld? In places that Devils presume I am too blind to see where they hide and too deaf to hear the whispered words? Each and every one of them is but a piece of the whole that is I. You think that you know enough of me, Akeno Himejima? You haven't even begun to learn the truth that is my existence never mind your own. You there!"

He turned sharply, his brown eyes locked upon the Pawn who started at the sudden attention. "Y-yeah?"

"You don't have any clue as to who I am do you?" He asked not angrily but still with a sharpness of one who would broke no lies be they small or large.

The Pawn scratched the back of his neck. "Uh… besides you being the Transient Broker… not really."

"The Transient Broker…" He repeated with a dry, mirthless laugh, as the earthen brown of his eyes darkened with like an opening chasm of the Abyss. "They were the ones to name me that."

The Pawn blinked and cautiously repeated, "They?"

The Transient Broker shrugged carelessly, "Those of this supernatural World you call home, but do you know why they did so, Issei Hyoudou?"

And he was suddenly there in front of the Pawn, nose to nose with the slightly shorter Devil-boy who squawked in surprise at the sudden proximity and nearly fell onto his behind because of it.

"Because I can make the improbable possible. Turn the incorporeal daydreams into solid realities. I can even take a ragtag band of misfits like yourselves and craft you into warriors the likes of which will be remembered in song and tales until this World is dead and dust! By the end of the time of the Rating Game, I will have made a Dragon out of you yet little Pawn."

A scoff, soft as silk and quieter than the whisperings of the dead, but he heard it nonetheless and was standing before the perpetrator in an instant. To his credit, the Knight did not startle as the Pawn had, but there was surprise in his eyes and steel in his form as he stood before the Transient Broker.

"Is that pride I hear beating in your chest, Yuuto Kiba? Or is it fear? Do you think that I cannot see it pulsing within your heart? Hear it beating frantically in the recesses of your soul?" He started circling the blonde, his voice dropping to a low and dangerous whisper as his eyes darkened fully into bloodied crimsons. "I see your soul. I hear your heart. I know you. I know you though you know nothing of me. I know that beneath the underneath, deep in your heart of hearts, you are afraid."

Tiny though it was, the Transient Broker saw the subtle flinch in the Knight's gaze. "I'm not afraid of you."

And like that, the darkness that had surrounded the Transient Broker was gone. The shadows lightened and the red in his eyes was gone as though it was never there to begin with. A warm chocolate hue shone in the young man's eyes as he smiled sadly at the Knight.

"I never said it was I that you fear. You are afraid but not of me, nor of failing your King. Perhaps when this is over you will know what you fear most. You may even come to me to help you alleviate it. In the end, it does not matter. Your fear is miniscule compared to another's."

He looked over the Peerage once more and his gaze settled upon the smallest of the group, the Rook whose face was as stone, still and unmoving even as his slow approach.

"Koneko Toujou. That is what they call you? That is what you let the Devils name you?" He shook his head. "If I had known this was what I had to work with I would have asked for more from your King than what was already promised. As it is, I suppose I should be grateful that you're so positively adorable."

His words, words that weren't even his to begin with but of another, were rewarded with a tiny glare that would have made a mushy mess out of him if he weren't well versed against any and all things cute. Still, it took all of his self-control —and one tightly clenched fist to prove it— from reaching out and petting the tiny girl on the head and asking if she wanted a cookie.

"You've a long way to go before you can match the stare of a lion yet, little kitten." He chuckled as her glare darkened even further and her KI, her killing intent, rose even higher to match it. He couldn't resist any longer and held out a small treat to the girl. "Here, have a cookie."

The glare lasted for all of a second until the sweet scent of the cookie reached the young Rook's nose and prevailed for half-a-moment more before she succumbed and took the sugary delight gently. With all the great pride befitting a Devil of her station she began to nibble it. This of course lasted up until she actually tasted the cookie and nearly melted to her knees. She proceeded to spend far more time than necessary eating it for fear that she would drop dead at any moment.

For such a treat as this had to be a creation of a Divine, it just had to!

The Transient Broker counted that as another win despite the severe loss that stung harshly in his heart at another of Her Gifts lost even if it was for a good cause. He turned to the last of the Peerage, who stood nervously and with soft fingers twiddling.

"Um…" murmured the Bishop.

"You are never going to be like them." He told her bluntly but with a kind smile on his face. "You are completely incapable of matching them and you know it."

Her eyes turned downcast, her shoulders slumping, and the Pawn's mouth opened to voice her defense but was summarily cut asunder as the Transient Broker continued.

"You are the white mage." The Bishop looked up through her bangs, head tilted in curiosity to his words and he smiled gently at her for it. "You are not a soldier, you are not meant to make war and bring violence to those stronger or weaker than you. You are meant to heal the sick, to love the injured, and to tolerate the bad with the good alike. Do you know what that truly means, Asia Argento?"

"I… Yes…" She nodded and smiled brightly as Holy Scriptures were recited without pain in the recesses of her soul. "Yes, I do."

"Good." Most of the Peerage held their ground thanks to their pride but Issei, whose pride was severely lacking at the moment, took several steps back in fear at the positively vicious grin on the Transient Broker's face. "Because you are going to be the staple figure as to why no one ever screws with the white mage."

He glanced at Issei and smirked.

"Well, unless she wants them to."

He couldn't help but laugh at how quickly the pair of newly reincarnated devils' faces turned beet red at the insinuation, especially when it was the girl whose nose actually started to bleed. He turned back to their King and clapped his hands together.

"Now then! Let's get started."

Gold.

Great towering heaps of gold rose and fell as great towering dunes in the massive caverned halls of the mountain keep. Nary a speck of the floor lay bare of treasure for as far as the eye could see and armed as he was with a devil's eyes, Issei could see pretty far. The young devil, whose heart was forever filled with a lust of the female form felt it stir with a love not his own and his left fist trembled as Boosted Gear came into being with a flash of crimson light.

It was not avarice that bade the appearance of the Sacred Gear upon its bearer's arm for though a dragon's desire for gold possessed only one equal upon the Earth, it was a secondary emotion whose hold was precarious at best. Issei was a young devil and one whose power was weaker than even that of a natural newborn of Hell. His senses, though slightly superior to that of the average human, were still dreadfully subpar. As such, he could not see beyond the great dunes nor could he smell the stench that lay buried beneath the towering heaps of precious gemstones and priceless metals. The draconic soul that lay shackled within the Boosted Gear was not so

Death.

A skull lay there, hidden behind a dune of gold and the skeleton laid a ways beyond it with the still gleaming sword laying buried in the earth between them. A corpse of iron scales red as the bloodied moon lay still and unmoving as an ebony arrow dug deep into the solitary hole in the armored skin. Over yonder, a dragoness lay with her body torn in twain, her great wings spread and torn like tattered cloth.

Issei thought this a treasure trove unlike anything he could ever dream but the Sacred Gear attached to his soul knew the truth.

It was a—

"Dragons' Graveyard."

Issei whirled about with a startled gasp as Boosted Gear slashed upwards and tore nothing but air. The cavern was empty as it had been before and yet the voice of a woman continued to speak softly into Issei's ear.

"Do you know that everything in this world is given a Fate? A destiny that cannot be denied anymore than the sun can cease to rise upon the horizon."

Issei spun again but lost his footing upon the gold coins and tumbled down from his perch. Boosted Gear flashed once more, crimson claws lashing out at the air and futilely dug into the mountain of gold to try and slow Issei's descent. It succeeded where the boy had failed and the young devil's fall was only so great as to bruise his ego and not his head as he landed face first upon the ground.

"Do you see it, Little One? Do you see the fates and destinies of our kind?"

Issei looked up and his scream of shock and revulsion echoed throughout the chamber at the sight that awaited him.

At one time, it had been a great serpent of the sky; a majestic being of the Orient, of Issei's own people, whose regality was akin to the very gods themselves. Now, it was a husk, a dried up corpse with flaking scales and eyeless holes from which trickles of bodily ichor flowed down upon a snout permanently set in a grim scowl.

"We, like all that lives, are destined to die but it is our fate to be taken not in peace and in silence. No, ours is the fate of bloodied fields and roars of defiance as we fall to the might of ours foes."

Issei turned and at last beheld the speaker, a woman as he had expected but a woman unlike any he had ever seen before or would ever see again. She was tall, taller than him, but there was a strange daintiness to her footsteps as she walked, a sort of foreign grace of one unused to walking about on two limbs. Her attire was one meant for the desert sands, long sweeping robes to protect sun kissed flesh from the scratching bite of gritted winds but such material was not to be touched by the uncaring claws of nature. Issei had no eye for clothes but even his inexperienced gaze knew that an inch of that robe was worth more than the entirety of his hometown put together.

The jewels that were carefully sown into it might have been the biggest clue but the fact that the cloth itself was not of silk or cotton but woven strands of gold was the cincher.

Though she appeared to be a woman in her early twenties if not late teens, her hair was as white as freshly fallen snow and while it draped down to touch the treaded earth behind her sandal-clad feet, there was not a speck of dust upon its pristine surface. Yet it was neither the woman's golden skin nor her snow-white hair that had bewitched Issei. It was the Blue of her eyes. Not "blue" as comparable to the lapping waves of the ocean tides or the boundless stretch of a midday sky for such shades are of blue and not Blue itself.

For in the Blue of her eyes Issei saw Compassion, Hope, and Despair.

For him, a young boy turned devil, these were the eyes of a mortal woman.

"Primordial as the Scaled Titans that once dwelled in the Lost Times before the Second Impact, with Powers to shape the World around us with but the slightest of whims, and a Will unrivaled by all but one of Creation's most versatile of creatures."

Such was not so for the ancient soul within the Boosted Gear.

For though the old soul within the Sacred Gear could look upon the world through its bearer's eyes, the inhuman prowess of its own gaze remained accessible and it saw more than what lay bound in flesh, blood, and bone.

In the Blue of her eyes, the ancient soul saw Wrath, Avarice, and Power unrivaled.

"Those that lay here, they were the greatest of us. They took their place in history and even in death, they are remembered and thus, they are truly immortal."

Those are the eyes of a dragon. It realized.

And it told Issei as such.

The young devil flinched and looked down at his gauntlet-covered arm in surprise but his eyes quickly snapped back to the woman as she continued her slow approach.

"Their deeds in life were great but it was their deaths that made them greater. That one there?" She pointed to the skeletal remains where a head lay far from its body. "No sword but one could cut its skin and though its eyes blazed with the inferno of hell itself, it was slain not by knightly man or warrior king but a maiden fair. A child with power greater than any in this modern world could be for her eyes had been clear and free to see the world not as it is but as she dreamed it to be. In the wake of tragedy, she turned an already great and terrible monster of flesh and blood into a foul and nigh unstoppable demon of clockwork gears and machine oil. And still, he fell to her and her single, solitary blade."

She turned to the armored body whose breast lay pinioned by an obsidian arrow.

"Just over there lays the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities. He who had dove straight into the hallowed heart of a mountain and conquered the dwarven kingdom and all the treasures of the underground in a single night. The treasures you see around us are a mere handful compared to what he made as his bed. His avarice was great and his pride the only equal. It was his greed that led to his fortune but it was pride that led to his downfall for he who boasted of his own prowess could not see the chink in the armor he wore. An arrow, black as moonless night, pierced his monstrous heart and he fell to the very waters he tried to set aflame with his fury."

Her Blue gaze fell once more to the young devil and pinned him in place like a tiny mouse before a lion's stare.

"Theirs are the Deaths that Legends are made of. From foul demon to almighty god, each and every dragon here, in this chamber, has perished. For that is our Fate. Our Destiny."

Issei swallowed, his throat bobbing nervously. "Then… what's the point of it all then…?"

"The point of it all?" She repeated with a gentle smile. "Little Drake, don't you see? Has the Crimson Emperor not told you the Truth of Our Existence? We are here, all around you because in Death, we are more Alive than ever before."

Issei blinked, frowning as he futilely tried to comprehend what the Lady with Blue Eyes was telling him. Needless to say, he failed. "… What?"

A wind blew soft and gently upon Issei's back, making the confused boy turn to find its source staring him with amber eyes aglow with primal malice. The mummified corpse was gone into the ether and the ancient wonder it had been was returned alive and whole. The Golden Serpent of the World's Center arose to the sound of a swelling tide, golden coils twisting through a soundless wind.

"In Death, we are Immortal."

The Golden Serpent reared his great antlered head high and loosed a bugling cry of gongs that was soon echoed by others of his ilk. Roars greater and more terrible than the last as the decomposed were made whole once more. The King Under the Mountain arose with fire in his fangs and gold gleaming upon his crimson hide while the Beast with Eyes of Flame let loose a burbling cry of its own.

"In Death, we are Powerful."

The Lady with Eyes of Blue gazed upon Issei and her smile was as one of fangs bared. Her body shattered like fine glass and where once was a Lady there now towered a Dragon. Terrible claws sharper than any spear, wicked fangs that pierced like swords, mighty wings that blew forth a hurricane gale, and a tail that lashed like thunder. Yet there was one aspect of the Dragon that could not be denied.

It bore Scales of Purest White.

The Boosted Gear's emerald gem flashed with the focused brilliance of a muted corona. The Soul within pulled taught against the chains that bound it to its crimson colored prison as it roared with monstrous fury. The primordial calls continued to echo from across the vast chamber as more and more Dragons arose Alive and Powerful once more. Issei's hackles rose while his throat constricted in a tight feral growl as instincts not quite his own demanded that he echo back the challenges with one of his own. To meet each and every adversary head on and lay them low like sheep to the slaughter.

The White Dragon with Eyes of Blue grinned in anticipation.

"In Death, We Will Teach You How To Live."

Dust.

Everywhere that the Knight looked, there was not but dust. The ground beneath his feet was reddened and dry of any life and the ashen gray clouds hung low on the bloodied horizon of a setting sun. Yet there was company to be found in this seemingly dead and lifeless world. They surrounded him from all directions and without any end and though they had no eyes with which to see, the Knight knew that their gaze was upon him in silent judgment.

But then, swords are the best kind of judge. Stoically impartial but for the hands that wield them, fiercely just for the swift strokes that bid them to kill, and cruelly unbending when arose to defend. Swords such as these were what surrounded the Knight. Swords that spanned the ages and across whole continents everywhere the Knight looked there was history conformed into sharpened and unbending steel. Was this place some manner of graveyard perhaps? A long lost resting grounds for the warriors of old where naught but their swords stood as silent testimony to the lives they led and the blood that had been shed?

"…"

A soft sound, the first to be made in the silence of this deathly realm, and the Knight spun with a hastily crafted sword in hand to block the sword; a hook-shaped shotel from the lands of Ethiopia whose pointed tip narrowly missed gouging out his eye as he knocked it astray. The Knight stood with an ordinary blade in his hands, one that bore no demonic taint or magical distinction so quick was the strike and so surprising was the attack. For the shotel had come free from the dusty earth's lifeless grip and had flown through the air to behead him seemingly of its own volition.

And it was not alone.

"…"

More swords arose from their resting place, floating in the air as though grasped by expert hands and they flew through the air in wild and deadly arcs. The Knight used his speed to its full advantage and tried to enhance the weapon in his hands to combat against this new threat that faced him.

Tried and failed.

For reasons he could not grasp, the blade in his hands remained that, a simple and unordinary sword. Though he could change its shape, it refused to allow his demonic essence within its steel and hold Power mundane steel and cold iron never could.

Power that each and every one of these attacking swords possessed though on varying scales. The strongest of them could level a castle wall with but a swing whilst the weakest roared with the strength of a massive inferno. The Knight was so focused on his attackers and defending himself with his strangely limited Sacred Gear that he never noticed that he was being driven like a lone sheep heckled by a pack of wolves. Yet, it was not to the slaughter that the Swords led him but to what could very well be his Salvation.

Or his Damnation…

The Knight is a devil after all.

As quickly as it had begun, the assault had ended and the boy found himself panting for breath in another field of Swords that he almost mistaken as the same as before. A second glance brought forth the truth and seized his breath tightly in a choking grasp upon his throat. He knew these Swords just as he had all those others but those of before were by make and function. In life, they had been Swords. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Nothing and never anything like these Weapons.

These were Noble Phantasms.

These were no mere blades of steel and iron. These were Crystalized Mysteries, Myth and Legend made Manifest and Real. These were the weapons of lesser men and women whose deeds arose them to the heights of gods, and these were the weapons that made the gods themselves quiver in awed reverence. They surrounded the boy from all sides, the blackest of blades to the purest of sharpened steel.

Hrunting the Hound of the Red Plains, the sword gifted to the warrior Beowulf prior to his battle with the mother of Grendel and slew the demonic creature dead in the heart of her hellish domain.

The Feller of the Golden Monarch, Balmung, the one and only blade to pierce the impenetrable hide of the dragon Fafnir and with whose blood made the Norse hero Siegfried neigh invulnerable but for a solitary mark upon his back.

The Crimson Maiden's Sword, La Pucelle, wielded by Joan of Arc the Maid of Orleans and burned with her upon the stake as her whole country turned against her and proclaimed her a witch. She whose faith in God and Heaven remained even as her faith in her fellow man was lost as she burned in the inferno of man's fear and hatred.

The Unfading Light of the Lake, Arondight, black as moonless night and once was pure as a radiant moon in the hands of Lancelot and was forever stained by his betrayal to his king and his oaths as a Knight of the Round Table. Arondight, the Sword that had slain Dragons from their Dominion and had cut down mortal men like stalks of grass stood alone though it was surrounded by others of its ilk.

The Sword of Julius Caesar that was thrice named with Death's Blessing. Agheu Glas the Grey Death and Angau Coch the Red Death by the warring factions of the Welsh. It earned its last name, Crocea Mors, the Yellow Death in the Scholar's Tongue, when it landed the mortal blow upon Nennius but was stuck fast to his shield in the process. Tossing his own sword aside and taking the Sword of Caesar for himself, Nennius slew all whom were struck by the blade and took the Sword of Caesar with him to his deathbed fifteen days later.

Ame-no-Habakiri, the Snake Slayer of the Heavenly Plains, a Sword whose length was that of ten fists aligned and was wielded by the forsaken kami Susanoo who used the blade to rid the world of the dreaded Yamata-no-Orochi. Though grasped in mortal hands, it did not fall alongside its master and still retained the shining brilliance of the High Heavens of Japan.

These and so many more Swords were what the boy saw surrounding him. Swords that made even his most powerful of blades seem like toothpicks by comparison. Yet there was one, just off in the distance… That Sword there…

That Sword was…!

That Sword is—!

"You can't save her." The boy whirled and faced a man. A man of tanned skin, pale hair, and clothes of fiery crimson and obsidian. His eyes were of Iron, emotionless and unbending to anyone's will but his own. "How can you save her when you can't even save yourself?"

The boy's hands tightened as though yearning to grasp a weapon in them but as the Man in Red stood alone and unarmed, so too would he. Such was what his Pride as a Devil and a Knight demanded from him. The Man in Red's depreciative smile changed at the sight of the devil's empty hands, it became equal parts understanding smile and condescending sneer at the boy's naivety.

"Even now, you don't comprehend just what it is that you have become. What you must do when you place yourself on the battlefield."

"What I must do?" repeated the boy knight.

"You must be willing to sacrifice everything that you are." The boy spun once more and saw a distorted reflection of the Man in Red. A man with pale skin and burning red hair, wearing clothes of oceanic azure and shining ivory. Eyes of Molten Gold, warm and kind despite the tragedies they witnessed. "Your hopes and dreams, your life and your soul. Only then can you become a Hero of Justice."

The Man in Red scoffed. "But you don't have anything of the sort do you, boy. What hopes do you have for a future you cannot even dream of? What life do you possess when your soul laments for the long departed?"

The boy faced the Man in Red once more with a fierce scowl and plain, mundane swords, now grasped firmly in his hands. "My friends—!"

"Are dead." The Distorted Reflection said. "But did they die so that you may exist or so that you could live?"

"I…" The boy shook his head. "I don't understand."

"The difference between existing and living." The Man in Red said, "Is how much of the Truth of Your Existence can be denied even unto Death. Whether the Truth that you hold tightly or the Ideals that you built upon it continues when you are dead and dust. Will you be perceived as the Hero or the Villain in your story?"

"In other words," said the Distorted Reflection. "Whether your Ideals will die with you when Your Truth is killed or will they continue to live on regardless of whether you die a Hero or a Villain."

The Man in Red smiled depreciatively, a cruel smirk on an otherwise beautifully crafted face. "You create swords. New and unique but that is all that they are. Blades empowered by your conviction and your ideals. That which you have struggled to strive for the moment you ran for your life even as your friends perished and died all around you." He sighed. "How pathetic."

The Distorted Reflection shrugged and mirrored the cruel smirk with a self-depreciating smile. "I suppose, for one such as you, words are not enough."

In his hands, the Man in Red no held twin Swords of ebony and ivory. Kanshou the Black, and Bakuya the White, created and forged by a loving husband and a devoted wife in Life and in Death. The Distorted Reflection held them as well but they were large, and fragmented beyond recognition as swords. They were no true blade but Broken as the one who wielded them. Together, Red and Blue moved in perfect synchronization with the other, one who would live for his ideals and another who died for his truths.

"If we kill your truth, will you let your ideals die too?"

Alive.

The forest was Alive.

Not merely living as most areas are wont to do in this cruelly modern world but Alive as no forest has been since an Age nearly forgotten by Mankind. When Mankind was young, when Science and Technology was the awaiting Constructions of the Untold Future, the World thrived with Life in every nook, corner, and cranny. The humble dirt and those who crawled beneath, the egotistical mountain and those who climbed their terrifying peaks, the abysmal hearts of the oceans seven whose darkness was daringly pierced by dwellers of the deep, the clouds that rolled on the back of the four winds and were carried alongside those who soared to where only gods were said to dwell.

Such was the World as it had once been. It was still to this Modern Day but it was… muted. The Luster that made it shine like a freshly polished pearl amongst its brethren in the System of planets and moons was tarnished by the Lights of Science, the glimmering steel and the shine of harnessed lightning. Life went on as it was meant to do up until the End but it was all but buried even to those whose connection to Nature was greater than those of Mankind.

Yet here in this forest of emerald greens and trees only half as old as the dirt beneath her feet, the kitten could see it, smell it, and even taste it. She was tempted to release herself from the binding of cloth, of crafted wools and silks but a lifetime of falsehoods as a human could not be broken so easily even in a Forest such as this. As it was, she merely took aside her shoes and socks to feel the grass crinkle between her toes, the earth beneath the pads of her feet thrum to the Heart of the World.

For the first time in a long time, a smile graced the kitten's face.

Nothing could take it from her, not even the appearance of the old nag. A mare that was surprisingly lithe for one of such advanced age that every strand of hair upon it was grayed and light on her hooves too for it to have not made a sound in this dense wood. The kitten regarded the nag in silence, smile still on her face but it slowly started to fade as confusion began to set itself upon her young mind.

What was a horse, an old nag especially, doing in a forest such as this? How could a mare grayed with age step with such lightness in its hooves that she could not hear it? More to the point, why was the elderly horse staring at her with what could only be disappoint in its amethyst gaze as it continued to speak soundlessly to her?

The kitten blinked and murmured, "… Wait."

The old nag shook its head before it turned and was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"Wait!" called the kitten once more before promptly giving chase.

And what a chase it became. Over a river, around the bend and back again, and through the woods; the mare continued to elude the kitten. It was always ahead of her and never too far out of sight, a gleam of silver against hues of earthy brown and forest greens, but she never seemed to gain any ground either. When the kitten began to tire, her breath coming to her in shorter gasps and sweat dripping down from her brow, her resolve only strengthened rather than wane.

Speed was never her strong suit and she was never one for pride but blast it, she wasn't about to be outraced by an old nag!

Being a devil of a kitten, was it any surprise that her injured pride started to crumble apart in regards to the one thing that she had sworn on all but blood, heart, and soul to never allow again? For though a devil now and a kitten still in her heart of hearts, at her soul she was a child of Nature—a creature of the Wild, and in the time since That Day so close and yet so long ago she had separated herself from it all.

She defied Mother Nature's Creed.

She ignored the Untamed Wild's Call.

She denied Her True Self.

No more.

Her pride had been injured and much as she was to loathe Her Self, to fear it as a monster residing within her Heart, she opened its cage door. Just a crack, a sliver really, but to any prisoner, the door might as well have been slammed open for them.

Human ears melted away to nothingness as twin pointed feline ears sprung up from atop her head, laid back against her skull to lower wind resistance. Pupils round and wide turned sharp and thin whilst cool amber began to burn as liquid gold. A pair of tails, long and feline, sprung free from the base of her spine as claws graced the tips of her fingers and toes. Her body lowered, her torso almost parallel to the ground as she raced through the forest in a stance between animalistic pursuit and human racing.

Around a bend and there was her prey, standing calm as can be and she, the pursuer, found herself completely at a loss. Not because her quarry had suddenly given up the game but because, much like the kitten had become a Cat, so too had the horse been changed. Rather, the Cat saw the Truth that the kitten masquerading as a devil could not bear to see.

Old fur shined with an ivory sheen to make polished pearls appear lackluster by comparison, a mane of gray gleamed with the light of molten silver and pinpricks of starlight. Eyes of amethyst returned such jewels shamefully back to the bedrock from whence they came. What was once a horse's tail lashed like a lion's own complete with a fluffy tuft while cloven hooves of a deer tread lightly where equine had once been. Yet, none of these details mattered to the Cat, not when utter impossibility stood prominent upon the equine's brow in the form of a curled horn.

It was impossible. Inconceivable. A myth and nothing more for while there are such things as vampires, dragons, devils, angels, and all manner of creatures both great and small, not all of mankind's fantasies have a root in reality. The closest thing to resemble this creature before her was the Kirin of Asia and even that was akin to comparing a polar bear to a grizzly, some traits are shared but not enough to make them more than distant cousins at best.

Yet there She is in all of Her Glory.

"A Unicorn…?" murmured the Cat

The horned head bobbed and spoke with a Heavenly Note that only a Living Immortal could be given. "I am."

"But… there aren't any unicorns…"

The Unicorn's eyes were bright still but there was no mistaking the despairing acceptance in Her Voice. "No. There are no more Unicorns in this World. In a way, I am the Last of Them. The Last of the Unicorns."

Horned head tilted in silent regard, amethyst eyes softly piercing beneath what flesh and blood could not hope to hide from an Immortal's eyes.

"You are among the Last as well are you not?"

The Cat looked down and saw for herself the claws that now adorned her hands. Her hands clenched to hide them but they though her other feline appendages remained obvious. "Why could I not see you before…?"

"You mean, why did you see me as a mare instead of what I truly am?" The Last Unicorn smiled and it was all the Cat could do not to break into tears for only a Mother's Smile could match that of a Unicorn's own. "Well, how could you hope to see the Truth when you've covered yourself up in Deceit?"

The Cat stumbled over her feet as the Last Unicorn's advanced slowly, cloven feet leaving the grass unmarred with her tread and the air sighing gently with her passing.

"When you look in the mirror, the face that you see is not your own but you call it such. When you fight, you fight as a Daughter of Eve —as a human— would despite being reincarnated as a Devil. You call yourself a name not your own, a name given to you as a sign of affection yes but it brands you like a collar. You forsake both yourself and the one who named you, who risked Life and Soul for you, by denying Your True Self."

The Last Unicorn tossed her horned head, regarding the Cat with a solitary eye before looking to the darkening forest surrounding them.

"Perhaps it is for the best that she teach you first what it means to be a Beast rather than I. For with me, you have remembered what it is to be the Hunter but with her, you shall learn what it means to be the Predator."

"What…?" The hair on the back of the Cat's neck arose as a gust of wind huffed down from far above her head and the shadows stretched longer, burying her in chilling darkness. She woodenly turned and beheld a sight that nearly paralyzed her heart dead. It would have been called a wolf if not for the fact that there was never a wolf such as this creature, this Ancient God that stood as yet another impossibility of an otherwise plausible world. A Wolf God that towered two stories tall at the shoulder, whose gleaming fangs were longer than a man's arm, and her every breath a gust of hoarfrost from the perpetually frozen north.

The Wolf God spoke not as the Unicorn did with a voice of purity, but of the Wild Untamed and said all that needed to be said in a single word from a predator to their prey.

"Run."

As for the Bishop and the Queen… Well, there are some experiences that are too personal to share and are perhaps even beyond the capacity to put into mere words. Experiences that cannot be mired by poetic prose or illustrative imaginations for while the Mind can put them to word and the Heart can try and sympathize with that which resonates to the same beat, the Soul is not so easily shared. That which is for one's Soul can be made to share, to try and explain with whimsical words and pretty pictures but to truly comprehend it, to fully understand it, and to woefully appreciate it…

It is impossible.

It is inconceivable.

But is there no greater failure than the failure to try?

The Bishop is in a place where there is Light. Pure and Radiant and Warm and Loving and as close to Heaven as she, a reincarnated devil, can ever experience until Death takes her back to receive her Final Reward at the Pearled Gates of the White City. For even in the mires of a tamed and humanized Hell and though the Bishop's Heart given to and beating for one that is all but an embodiment of Lust itself, her Purity is unquestionable.

Yet this is not Heaven, the White City of Ivory Towers and Angels High and Low. This is… This was a Kingdom. A Land held in dominion by mortals and even so was as glorious as that which housed the Everlasting Light and the Heavenly Host. For though it lasted the span of a thousand years, in that time since or prior, there has never been a greater age of peace and prosperity amongst mankind.

For in that silver millennia, mankind was had climbed higher than the base of their roots and ascended to the very stars above.

As for the Queen…

…

There are things… Things that are Dark and Cruel and Wretched and Vile and Horrific, beyond mortal measure simply for the fact that these things were made so by mortal hands and as such are better left unsaid.

Sanity is a fragile thing after all but if you deeply desire a hint, if you truly believe yourself capable of handling anything that a mere mortal can conceive and do unto their fellows by the hands of one who proclaims herself as Despair. Not as Living or Incarnate but as Despair, plain and simple and so very much like one of the Endless, one of the very Facets of Creation made manifest. Yet this Despair is no slouch, no Miserable Miser of Woe but a true Bloodied Mistress of Misery. Love of the Heart & Soul, Kin of the Flesh & Blood, and Human Camaraderie mean nothing to She Who is Despair.

She'll kill them all gladly and with great rejoice if it means spreading Her Creed.

Good luck to you, Queen. You'll need it and so much more to win Despair's Game…

He sat with a crouch to his back, chin resting upon the intertwined fingers of his hands. He regarded them each in turn, the Pawn, the Knight, the Rook, the Bishop, and the Queen. Finding the appropriate teachers for them, the lessons that they needed to learn if only to survive what was to come if not to actually win the upcoming Rating Game, had been remarkably easy. Yet the King, his "client," was proving to be a difficult customer indeed compared to her Pieces.

The Pawn for all his potential was ridiculously weak, no different than a child even with the enhancements of being a devil. The Boosted Gear could grant him twice the power he possessed and double that every ten seconds but there was a limit to how much the boy could safely wield. Even then there was no guarantee that the boy could last long enough to reach a level of power to be a suitable threat never mind a dangerous one. So to teach the boy how to wield Power, to deserve of the shackled Dragon that he held, he sent him to those who were Legends in Death and in Life. Dragons of Power unrivaled and yet who were all slain by men and gods alike.

The Knight was equal parts a swordsman and a craftsman, a blacksmith in every sense of the word as each and every blade he wielded was one of his making. His skills with wielding them are great, but were far from being one of the best the Transient Broker had seen. The Knight lacked what all warriors of the sword wielded as they danced with Death on the bloodied fields of War. The desire to live, the will to see that their ideals were made into truth for anyone can die for their cause, but few have the conviction to live and enjoy them in turn. Thus he sent the Knight to one who died for his ideals and one who had lived for them, both the same and yet so different as to be two separate people though they shared the same soul.

The Rook was in denial. Of her self and her potential. She wore the mask for so long that she had nearly forgotten what she was and what she was capable of thanks to the machinations of the Devils and her own sister. He had thought to find her, to call up on what she owed him and have it paid in full by mending the bonds she severed but he knew now was not the time to mend bonds. No, he had to fix what Kuroka had unintentional shattered first before he could reunite a broken family once more. So he resigned himself to making her out to be the prey, to fall under the predation of those who hunted since time immemorial and would continue to do so until the Absolute End. A cornered beast is the most dangerous one after all.

Compared to those three, the Bishop and the Queen were frighteningly easy. The Bishop required confidence in her ability as a healer, to understand just how much of a salvation she could be to her allies and a source of damnation to her enemies. The Queen though… Pain was her creed, something that she dished out because her brought a titter to her heart but as much as she delighted in the physical pain of others and even herself, emotional pain was something entirely different. So it was not Pain that he introduced to her but Despair Herself.

As for the King, what was it that he could teach her? Power? She already possessed the Power of Destruction within her grasp and wielded it with a grace befitting her demonic ancestry. Conviction? She came to him didn't she, knowing what he would ask for, what he would take from her in return. She even knew what she was, what she was born to be, and contrary to her own Rook did not so much as ignore it or even try and hide it. She was a Devil, true-blooded as any of her ilk but therein laid the conundrum.

Rias Gremory was not a Devil as a Devil was ought to be. She was selfish but she wanted for her Peerage as much as she did for herself. She was vindictive of those who harmed or belittled her but she was an outright demon to those who dared to lay claw or foul words upon her "family." She was a monster by blood and by her powers as a spawn of Hell itself and yet she did not enter any battle unless absolutely necessary and used her Power of Destruction as a means to an end, a finishing blow that was more of a mercy than what her own Peerage could wrought on their foes.

Devil she may be by blood, but Rias Gremory's Heart and Soul was undeniably Human.

What could he teach her that she didn't already know? What could he make from her that she wasn't already? She had asked much from him already and what she had bargained to him was all but paid in full. If she had given more or if he had simply asked for such, then perhaps he could do something for her. He could grant her Power the likes of which only the Daemons could wield, the ones that were well and truly deserving of the title of Lords of Hell. He could make out of her a leader unlike any other, the kind that would make the likes of her own brother, who brought an end to a long civil war and a new age for their kind, a mere footnote in the pages of history.

But he couldn't.

Much as he wanted to, he could not, would never, break the Rules he had set upon himself. If he ever wanted to see Home again, to return to the Family that he had lost, then he couldn't even risk toeing the line let alone actually crossing it.

Yet… there had to be something… Anything that he could bestow upon her, to try and impress upon her, to make her stand just slightly above her Peerage as was her right as King?

"King…" He murmured in consideration before shaking his head. "No, no, she is needed for later, when they go missing.

Perhaps a small token then to aid her in the Rating Game if there was truly nothing… Wait…

"Game…" There was a spark in the Transient Broker's eyes. To those who have never known him for long or have only just met him and yet to truly comprehend what he could and would gladly do to fulfill any and all bargains, it was an innocent thing. For those few who do know him and survived to tell tales of the gleam, it is a sign of unimaginable trauma to be had and would send the smart ones running and the brave ones screaming.

The less said of the stupid ones, the better.

Something had changed in his sister and her peerage, of this Sirzechs Lucifer was absolutely certain. Whatever training they had undergone, whatever Hell they had endured, it had changed them all by leaps and bounds. His sister's Pawn had been made into a Drake befitting the Sacred Gear he bore, her Rook into a proper Beast, her Knight into a Sword, her Bishop into a Beacon of Light, and her childhood friend and Queen into a Scion of Darkness. Even through casual observation, Sirzechs could see the differences in them.

The Drake had learned of the ferocity buried into his soul and shackled to his arm, the hunger for battle and bloodied fields forever wrecked at his passing. The Drake glowered at everyone and outright glared at Sirzechs in particular much to the Satan's amusement. When he spoke there was a faint, guttural undertone of crumbling stone and burning coals. There was a resentful acceptance of the boy the Drake had been and what he now was and would eventually become. There was a King somewhere in the Drake's soul, lurking in the heart of the Pawn but would the crown be one of blood and lust or of war and love, it didn't matter.

Either way, it'd be a sight to see. Sirzech's smiled to himself.

The Beast had grown in speed and grace but was further cowed into hiding her potential though it was strangely not limited as it once had been. She shied from the Drake where once she clawed and batted at him like prey, now understanding her place on the food chain and his own steady climb having surpassed her as she remained in the human form she called her own. For curiosity's sake, Sirzechs had thrown a pebble, small and nigh unnoticeable even in his grasp, at her back and was reward with a flash of feline claws that moved beyond what even beastly eyes could see.

Sirzech's grin turned dangerous. Power of a Rook and the speed of a Knight, it'll do.

The Sword had been bent but would not break. Pounded at all sides but still did not shatter. The Sword sought to Live, as he should have from the start, but there was now a new resolve burning in his molten heart. The Sword had seen something had gone someplace that left a stench of rust and smoke upon him. What he had seen had to have been a major source of inspiration to him for the Sword now carried a blade of his own creation, one that the Sword gave everything and nothing to.

The Lucifer nodded. Her Knight will strike only with that nameless Sword and carve his own piece into History.

The Light of the Bishop shown like a beacon even in the slightest of things, a soft smile that cooled the simmering temper of the Drake, a gentle hand that calmed the agitated Beast, and a kind gaze that straightened the Sword's resolve further. She moved with grace now, a poise unbefitting a mere servant of a devil, even the sister of a Satan, never mind one that had been granted so meager a station as a Bishop. Her head held high, her back straight, and every step carefully measured to be precisely what was needed.

Sirzechs wondered not for the first time if that was what would result under the tutelage of a Queen.

The Darkness in the Queen had been grown but it was of the True Dark and not that which fools see as the source of Wickedness. Evil does not discriminate between Light and Dark, it simply exists and will continue to exist until there is nothing left in Creation to make the distinction of Good and of Evil, never mind the minute differences of Light and Darkness. For Rias' Queen, the Darkness had been a bitter thorn in her heart, a cruel reminder of one whom had unwittingly shattered her faith in her elders and in her self. She who delighted in pain of her self and of others barred her heart from accepting what accompanies pain first and foremost.

"Despair she had denied and upon meeting with Despair in the Flesh and Blood, could deny her own no longer and was all the better for it. For now the Darkness in the Queen knew where to strike precisely where it hurts most with wickedly cruel efficiency, a unnatural grace befitting a Queen."

Sizerchs nodded in agreement, his gaze going to his sister when he froze as still as marble. For the first time in an Age, not of mankind but of Devils whose lifetimes are several times that of humanity's own and thus far longer, a crack appeared on the face of he who bore the title of Lucifer. A crack that no one had managed to create, not in the centuries since the façade had been donned, since he bore upon his head the crown of the Underworld.

Because Sizerchs Lucifer knew that voice, quite well for those moments, few and far between though they might be, when he felt like a child again. Hearing this, one might think he meant a measure of weakness for what was a child to an adult but one would be wrong to think such a thing. For he who would take the name of Lucifer for his own did not, could not, allow such meager things as fear or weakness concern him. Yet the feeling remained and only strengthened itself further as he turned to regard he who all but placed Hell's Keys into his waiting hand.

"What have you done, Rias…?"

An eyebrow rose while a bemused smirk appeared on the face of the young, seemingly human, individual standing before Sizerchs who realized too late that he had uttered his thoughts aloud once more. Another old and nearly forgotten quirk that he had thought dead to time and wisdom but returned to the fore at the presence of one he had hoped to never see again so long as he lived.

Coming from one who presumed to live for quite a long span of time yet to come, that is truly saying something.

"Will you walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. 'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy. The way into my parlor is up a winding stair, and I've a many curious things to show when you are there." The whispered words were like poison to Sirzech's ears, a memory of a time he had wanted forgotten coming once more to the fore of his mind as he unwittingly finished the poem.

"Oh no, no, said the little fly, to ask me is in vain. For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again." Sirzechs swallowed noiselessly, his mouth too dry to produce more than a careful breath of air, a cautious murmur of a question. "What deal did she strike with you, Transient Broker?"

The smile was cruel as it was kind, a gentle smile that glinted with malignant loathing but for whom either was intended, Sirzechs had no clue. "I've been given many names by many different beings. So many in fact that only recently, when a devil came to call upon my very doorstep no less, did I at last realize that with all the names given to me, I had forgotten my own."

His eyes met those of Sirzechs and in them the devil saw Age. Of countless lifetimes come and gone, of experiences too many to name and too few to recall, and of an exhausting burden that not even Death could release from straining shoulders. Not once, not even when he first encountered him, did the Transient Broker appear as a human boy in the eyes of Sirzechs Lucifer, especially not now. For human he might appear, young though he may look, there was an Age to the Transient Broker that made the very World seem almost newly born by comparison.

"The name my parents granted to me, the one that She knew me by. The one name that mattered most to me above all others. I had forgotten and in so doing have realized the truth of my own existence."

Sirzechs blinked and wondered for a moment what had drawn his eyes away from the view of his delightful little sister kicking so much behind in her first, unofficial, rating game. He shook his head and returned his eyes once more to the screen. Memories of the past, recent and ancient alike steadily grew warped within the minds of those who encountered the one with Aged Eyes in one form or another. The distortion continued until all that remained of he whom was named the Transient Broker was but a whispered reply echoing in the back of their minds as the memories were recalled.

"I am just a passing figment of your imagination."