I do not own Highschool DxD.

Metal rang against metal as the enchanted blades smashed into one another. Darting in and out, striking each other with immensely strong blows, Arondight and Durandal bashed and clanged, the two blades not even warbling beneath the impacts. The two people who held them, each only seventeen, respected their blades for what they offered them. Both respected power and brute force immensely – some might say a little too much.

Xenovia and Nero each jumped back at precisely the same moment, each reconsidering their attack angles. Each Saint was soaked with sweat, yet neither had lost their breath despite the vigorousness of the activity and the sheer weight of their massive swords, both of which were held in only one hand of their respective owners.

It wasn't the first time or the fiftieth that the two so-called "power idiots" had crossed blades with one another. They'd been rivals in the church for their opposite Holy Swords and fighting philosophies. Sure, Nero had always had the advantage by simple virtue of being a Sacred Gear possessor, but Xenovia was compatible with a sword that should have rendered his Sacred Gear moot – the operative words being "should have".

There was a reason that Nero had been made a Brave Saint long before she had.

Xenovia still had only a basic control over the sword of Roland, and while Arondight was weaker, Nero had more stamina. Yet that had never stopped their spars from being fun and something she looked forward to whenever she got the chance.

Yet the normal joy that Xenovia found in crossing blades with her rival was gone. Not when the other male Saint in her life was in the state he was in.

She'd returned from her duties at her church, a medium-size facility in a village in Spain, to find that Issei had indeed awoken from his short coma. Yet he apparently wanted only to be alone, even refusing the company of Mirana, the Saint he couldn't have had a more obvious crush on.

It hadn't been too long after that she'd pushed her way into his room... only to find it completely empty.

It was then that she'd sought Nero out, just to focus her worries somewhere else.

Yet even as she lined up another attack angle, Nero suddenly planted his sword in the ground.

"What, giving up?" Xenovia asked.

"Your mind isn't quite here, Xenovia," Nero said. "I can tell that much. Thinking about Issei?"

"For a boneheaded power maniac, you're pretty perceptive." The retort had none of its usual joking sting.

"That's rich, coming from Ms. Durandal," Nero said. "Look, Xenovia, there's no shame in admitting you're worried about someone else in your deck. Especially after that video..."

Nero visibly shuddered, and Xenovia followed suit.

It hadn't been but a day before that Michael had called the entirety of Heaven together once more to watch exactly what had happened to Issei.

Nearly the entire video had been horrifying in its sheer violence. Even the former exorcists that made up most of the reincarnated Angels weren't quite adjusted to the amount of bloodshed in it.

What made it even worse was who was behind it.

Nero had only met Valkost once, but he had gotten nothing but a positive impression of her – powerful and steadfast, yet compassionate to her fellows in Heaven and almost unimaginably gentle with believers and nonbelievers alike. Nero would readily admit that he'd had a brief crush on her.

And while Xenovia had never met Valkost at all, she had heard of her in her brief time in Heaven – of her skill and devotion to her slain father's teachings.

Yet Valkost had still butchered two completely innocent people, and what had made it so much worse for the blue-haired Angel was who those people were.

She'd known the Hyoudou couple. She had stayed at their house, shared several meals with them and spoken at length with them after Issei had let her stay there for a brief period before he'd brought her to Heaven. They were the definition of a perfect couple, a match so perfect that it could have been made by God himself.

And then one of God's own children, a born Angel turned Fallen, had butchered the Hyoudou elders for essentially no reason. More than anything else, the sheer pointlessness of what Valkost had done struck Xenovia's nerves.

Killing the Hyoudou couple offered Valkost quite literally no benefit – it would not bring her back to Heaven, and it would not get Issei's cooperation. She'd done it solely to hurt Issei, a person who was no threat to her whatsoever and had repeatedly invited her to kill him.

Then, that horrific transformation had happened, and Issei quite suddenly was a threat. He'd killed everyone, even Valkost in the end, and probably would have destroyed himself if it hadn't been for that man in the white armor, Dulio, Mirana and her King's intervention.

Mirana had later told her that the man was, in fact, none other than Vali Lucifer, the wielder of the White Dragon Emperor – the very same man who had apparently threatened to kill Issei's family during the Peace Conference just to make him fight a little harder. Xenovia hadn't understood that, either.

The whole event ended up utterly gruesome in its ending, and Xenovia could only guess what might have been going through Issei's mind. She had privately wept for the deaths of Issei's mother and father, though she'd known them only a short time. Irina had been much worse.

Xenovia couldn't begin to imagine how hard Issei must be taking this whole event. She remembered how close he'd been to them and how much he'd wanted to protect them from the supernatural.

Where Xenovia's feelings were a complex web, Nero's were far simpler. He knew Hyoudou, knew that the brunette was a lot like him in many respects. Or at least, he thought Issei was like him.

But he'd never seen or heard, of what he'd seen in that video. He'd never seen Issei genuinely enraged beyond all reason, and what it unleashed terrified him. That twisted, broken, horrible corruption of dragon and Angel was something that he'd already had at least one nightmare about.

He'd tried to shake that fear away by his consideration of what his own King had said when he'd asked. Uriel had told him flat-out that Issei almost certainly hadn't activated Juggernaut Drive intentionally, and he certainly wouldn't use it to hurt anyone in Heaven.

Yet that sense of unease remained all the same.

Issei strode into the library with a sense of focused urgency and purpose, thoughts gathering around a certain idea. He paid the person on duty no mind, striding past them with a gait purposeful yet mechanical. His six snow-white wings and golden halo of light made themselves visible as he stepped towards the central gap in the floors. A few flaps of his wings sent him upwards towards his intended destination.

The Jack of Hearts hit the floor walking, thoughts directed towards a specific goal. He knew what sort of spell he was looking for, but not exactly what book it might be transcribed in. Yet he didn't ask anyone else about where to find it. He wanted to be alone with his own thoughts.

Once he reached a bookshelf, he began running his hand down the tomes of magic, looking for any title that sounded like it might be what he was looking for. Every time he thought he'd found one, he would open the book and scan the contents for a specific spell name. That did not, however, make finding one specific spell any easier – there were literally thousands of books on this floor. Not helping matters was the at times unhelpful titles. A book titled The Infinite Metric of Light, to Issei's ears, sounded like a guide to expanding and evolving one's light-based abilities, but was actually centered on increasing one's formation speed to nearly ludicrous degrees. To Issei, that just seemed unnecessary, and he skipped it over.

Issei spent over an hour there, looking through books for the barrier spell that Mirana had tried to teach him. Yet for all his looking, he couldn't find it. He found books on many elements, different methods of manipulating light and a dozen others, but aside from the very last book he picked up (one that, if the introduction was to be believed, was focused on limited spatial manipulation), the brunette could find neither the book containing the spell he was looking for nor anything else close to it.

He did, however, write down the name of the last book.

Issei didn't stop his search just after doing this because he'd suddenly lost the will to continue searching. On the contrary, he would have been willing to keep checking until he'd read the contents of every book on the fifth floor.

No, he stopped because he heard the distinctive sound of his name being called.

"Issei?"

The brunette turned slowly, to look at the speaker. It was a distinctly male voice, one he hadn't heard much of in recent days but knew well all the same.

"Dulio, could you answer something for me?"

The blonde-haired man's eyebrow quirked up. "What is it?"

"How would you get someone to look past the hatred that's consumed them?"

Dulio blinked at him, looking the brunette over with a rather confused expression. "What do you mean, Issei? Who is this person? You?"

Issei shook his head. "Not me. Other people."

"Who, exactly?"

Ordinarily, the Jack would have felt frustration mount as he struggled to figure out a way to explain his predicament in a way that didn't make him sound insane. But his soul was numb. He couldn't have felt that even if he wanted to.

Instead, he just told Dulio the truth.

"The zombified memories of the previous possessors of the Boosted Gear that cause anyone who uses Juggernaut Drive to go insane if they can't resist their influence."

Issei expected Dulio to appear confused or shocked, or to nod and gently tell him that he ought to get back to Fifth Heaven for a psychological evaluation. Or, perhaps even more insultingly, that he needed some rest.

Instead, Dulio's brow furrowed and he stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I see…"

"You believe me?" Issei asked.

"You forget that I'm a Longinus wielder too, Issei. Sure, mine's not quite as… unique as yours, given that it doesn't have the soul of a Heavenly Dragon inside of it, but it's a Longinus all the same. Sacred Gears are strange things, and Longinus are stranger still. Yes, I believe you. I suppose you've already tried to talk to them and it didn't work?"

Issei nodded.

"Hmm…" Dulio said. "All I can think of at that point is to exhaust their anger."

"That's what I figured, too." Issei moved then to turn back to the bookshelf.

"Issei, I came for a couple of reasons, and discussing that particular subject wasn't it."

Issei turned to look at the Joker with vacant eyes once more.

Dulio stepped closer. "Issei, I won't offer you my condolences – I see them as empty words that don't help at all. But…"

As he said that, the blonde-haired man closed the last bit of distance between them and wrapped his arms around Issei, embracing him tightly as he spoke in his ear. "You might not have come from a church facility, Issei, but you're my junior Saint. To me, that's the same as being my younger brother. I know I can't offer much in this situation, but… I lost my parents too. I was younger than you were – no more than ten – but I remember that day and how it affected me like it happened yesterday. If you want to talk about anything at all, I'm here."

Issei nodded. "Thank you, Dulio."

The Joker released him and nodded towards him. "Now then, Issei, I have a message for you from Lady Gabriel."

"Oh?"

"She said she'd like to speak to you at the training field."

When Issei arrived at the training field, he spotted Gabriel there immediately, back turned to him. As he approached and fell into the expected bow, he heard her humming slightly.

"Rise, Issei," Gabriel said after a few moments. "Thank you for coming so quickly."

"It's no trouble, my Lady," Issei said. He still spoke with no emotion, each word an unchanging monotone.

Gabriel turned to face him then, and when she did, he saw the scabbard in her hands. A familiar handle protruded from the top.

Issei's thought was confirmed when Gabriel extended the scabbard towards him in an offering gesture. "Your weapon, Issei Hyoudou. I assume you wanted this back?"

In truth, Issei had barely given it any thought after his discussion with Uriel. His thoughts had switched gears to the Juggernaut Drive, and everything else had seemed secondary. But he said none of this to Gabriel.

Instead, he simply nodded and thanked her as he took his weapon back, pulling the blade from its scabbard out of impulse and holding it up vertically. It caught the light, reflecting off a recently-cleaned surface.

"Now then, Issei," Gabriel said, her tone delicate, "I'd like to make you an offer. It's purely your choice whether or not to take me up on this, and I understand perfectly if you'd rather not."

"What's that, Lady Gabriel?"

Gabriel took a deep breath. "I would like to do what, in hindsight, I should have done from the very beginning. I would like to train you in combat personally, to help you hone and refine your skills."

"Is that necessary, Lady Gabriel?" Issei asked. "For you to take time out of your schedule to do that? I don't want to burden you, and Griselda and Mirana are both good instructors."

"If it were a burden I couldn't bear, Issei, I wouldn't be making the offer. I also say, without a hint of arrogance, that I am a vastly superior swordswoman to either of them and am far more familiar with both photokinesis and the Angelic magic system. Anything related to your own abilities you might wish to learn, I can very likely teach you."

"Does that include the Holy Fortress?"

In reply, Gabriel raised her hand. From the palm that was its center, a glowing, white barrier formed, one denser than Mirana's by far. Then, she dropped her palm, the barrier vanishing as she did so.

"Then yes, Lady Gabriel, I'd like to take you up on your offer. Your generosity is very much appreciated."

"You're welcome, Issei. We can begin immediately." With that, Gabriel's palm raised to the empty air.

At her open palm, a glowing white circle formed, inscribed with the shape of a cross. From the center of that cross, the handle of a sword extended. Then, the moment Gabriel had clasped her fingers around it, she withdrew it from the circle.

As Issei looked the somewhat odd-looking blade over, Gabriel nodded. "True Belisarda. My weapon of choice. Before we begin, Issei, I'd like to ask one final question."

"Yes, Lady Gabriel?"

"Why were you so keen on that specific barrier-type spell?"

Issei took a deep breath, exhaling it as slowly as it went into his lungs. Ultimately, however, he felt no more restrained by nervousness with Gabriel than he had with Dulio.

"Well, Lady Gabriel, what I have to say is going to sound very strange…"

Michael, Sirzechs and Azazel were all gathered in Sixth Heaven.

Or rather, Michael was in Sixth Heaven. The other two were somewhere in the Underworld and the Grigori's main facility, respectively. Their presences were in Zebel due to full-body communication spells that had been set up to facilitate the sharing of events. It was, for reasons none of them could quite explain, much easier to share information between themselves when they could see each other.

"So, you're saying that Issei Hyoudou's name should be struck off Kuoh Academy's records, Michael?"

"Indeed," Heaven's leader said.

Sirzechs nodded. "I see. I'll inform Rias immediately. She effectively runs the Academy from behind the scenes, after all. Truly tragic what brought this on…"

Azazel nodded as well but added no words of his own. Michael wasn't surprised by that in the slightest; the Governor-General of the Fallen Angels had never been particularly smooth with subjects like this.

Instead, after a moment, Azazel cleared his throat.

"Now then, Michael, I seriously doubt that you've contacted both of us just to tell us that one of your Saints is pulling out of school."

Michael shook his head. "Certainly not. I have some information of extreme pertinence to all of us. Within that sinless dimension I described, we were able to retrieve the contents of one of the traitorous Angel's computer systems. We're still examining the data for anything else we might have missed, but what we have recovered so far is unmistakable. The Khaos Brigade was involved in setting up this barrier, and it isn't the Old Satan faction."

The Devil King and Governor-General each nodded. In truth, none of them were particularly concerned about even the leader of that faction's combat capabilities, at least when facing off against one of them. If Cattleya was anything to go by, they'd go down easily enough in a straight fight. The real problem was what kind of ruckus they might create in the meantime, and who might use them to further their own ends.

"Then what faction is this?" Sirzechs asked.

Michael whistled slightly. "It's apparently referred to by its membership as the "Hero Faction". All I can tell you for certain is that they have the wielder of Dimension Lost among their number. A person called "Georg"."

"Georg?" Sirzechs asked. "Like the magician who made a contract with Mephisto Pheles?"

"The very same."

Azazel's eyes narrowed. "I've never heard of this "Georg", and we keep a pretty close watch on the Longinus possessors, Michael." His brow furrowed.

"Something on your mind, Azazel?" Michael inquired.

"Well, I've been sending out Fallen Angels and Sacred Gear possessors to check on the Sacred Gear holders – you know, the usual things. But lately, I've been getting more and more reports back that my subordinates can't find the Sacred Gear possessors they're supposed to be checking on…"

"You think they might have some connection to this new faction of the Khaos Brigade?"

"Quite possibly. I'm not going to put down any absolutes, of course, because I could be completely off the mark. But I have to admit that I think it's quite a coincidence that a terrorist organization just so happens to have a wielder of a top-tier Longinus among them, and that not long before we learned this, Sacred Gear users began disappearing."

"What might they want them for, do you think?" Sirzechs asked.

"As I said, it could be a coincidence. We've got nothing that says yet that these two things have any connection."

"Indulge me for a moment anyway."

Azazel shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, in that case. Maybe they want to steal their Sacred Gears?" He shook his head. "I really hope that's not the case. Sure, the Fallen Angels figured out how to take a person's Sacred Gear out of them without killing them a long while ago, but they wouldn't have access to that information. And death by having a Sacred Gear ripped out of your body is a pretty horrific way to go. And of course, with that many Sacred Gear users, you'd want to do it fast. The only fast way is the lethal way."

Sirzechs nodded. "I see… that is indeed a worrying development. Thank you for that information, Azazel. Will that be all, Michael?"

"Yes," Michael said. He nodded politely towards the leaders of the other two factions.

Without another word, their forms disappeared.

And cut.

I'll admit that I'm drawing on my own experience with feelings of grief when describing Issei's, because canon doesn't give it much of a description and I can't jump into another person's head to feel their view.

Second, Indra establishes that a Sacred Gear can be removed from a person without killing them (he does it to Georg, Cao Cao and Leonardo), and given that the Fallen Angels research Sacred Gears pretty heavily, it's not much of a stretch to think that they'd have figured out a way to do it, too.