"I see. Thank you. See you."

Issei hung up the phone.

He took the elevator down to the training room. Asia and Ruruko were fighting with wooden training swords. They were both in their gym uniforms. Clearly, they had been going at it for a while, because they were both soaked in sweat.

Issei enjoyed the view for a couple seconds before he spoke.

Finally, he said: "It's over."

They stopped fighting.

"Just like that?" Ruruko asked.

"Just like that. Caleb called me. What I said worked perfectly. They found the backup location."

"And he was there?" Asia asked.

"Yeah. And he had nowhere to run to. A difficult fight, but Caleb killed him."

"It feels a bit anticlimactic," Ruruko said.

"Because we weren't there to fight?"

"Yeah."

"But we won in a different way. We figured out how to locate him and that was his only weakness. Once he was out in the open, it was over. Caleb couldn't have killed him without us."

"So we did it?" Ruruko asked, still unsure.

"I had some help."

"Still," Ruruko said. "It feels weird."

"You know," Issei said. "I think William was right about one thing. I'm just a Pawn."

"Ise-"

"No, it's okay. That's not a bad thing. I've thought about it, and I don't want to be on the front lines fighting. Seriously, why would I want to risk my life all the time?"

Ruruko frowned. "You want to… retire?"
"Well not entirely. I'm sure they'll be fights up ahead. But we don't have to look for them. We don't need to think that we have to fight every single battle ourselves. It's okay to be on the sidelines sometimes. And it's okay to admit that some battles are fought above our heads. I'm a Pawn, not a King."

"So what do we do now?" Asia asked.

"Well we could get sweaty training for another fight that may or may not come. Or… we could get sweaty doing something else."

A blush appeared on Asia's cheeks.

"We can't just abandon our combat training," Ruruko argued.

"Well we can abandon it for today," Issei suggested. "And continue tomorrow."

"I… I guess that's okay," Ruruko admitted.

"Shall we?"

He offered his hand. Ruruko took it. Asia took the other one. They walked back towards the elevator.

"By the way, I could use some help," Issei said.

"With what?" Ruruko asked.

"Getting into Rias' pants."

"She usually wears a skirt," Ruruko pointed out.

"Well I'd prefer it if she wasn't wearing anything," Issei said.

Ruruko smiled. "I can help you with that."

"That's what I wanted to hear."

They entered the elevator.

"So what's the plan?" he asked.

"Well," Ruruko said. "I was thinking we could…"

The doors closed.

A/N:

-So this was the final chapter. Thanks to everyone who made it this far. I really appreciate all your comments and support.