Vali, while carrying Asia, arrived at the scene where Issei was rampaging in his Juggernaut Drive throughout the game field. The rest of his comrades were watching from the distance, unable to get close due to his enormous aura that threatened to kill them.
After being filled with fury, Issei unwittingly forced himself to enter into Juggernaut Drive by unconsciously borrowing more power than he was capable of handling from Ddraig and his past possessors who left their will inside of the Boosted Gear. He then used that power to beat Shalba up, before using a move called Longinus Smasher to obliterate him.
Vali greeted them, "You folks seem to be having some trouble."
"Vali!", exclaimed Rias and noticed the girl in his arms, "Asia!"
"I only came to see the fight. The Red Dragon Emperor and his Juggernaut Drive." But as Vali took a peek at Issei's current form, he frowned, 'What's this? It's not purely Juggernaut Drive.'
Xenovia, despite being injured, ran towards Vali and grabbed Asia, "Asia!!!" While crying tears of joy, Xenovia hugged the friend whom she thought of as being already dead, "Thank God... Asia..."
After leaving Asia to Xenovia, Vali took a step forward to get a closer look at the rampaging Issei. Different from what he expected, Issei's armor had something foreign in it. Instead of just red scale mail, some parts of it were black, with strikes of gold.
While Vali was busy observing Issei, Bikou and Arthur started talking to the Gremory Peerage. "This healer chick is your peerage, right?", said Bikou as he watched Xenovia cry.
"We happened to come across her while we were moving through the Dimensional Gap.", explained Arthur.
"Don't worry about her, she's alive.", added Vali. "But Hyoudou Issei... It seems that he haphazardly activated the Juggernaut Drive.
"...Can he revert back to normal from it?", asked Rias.
"Who knows. If he doesn't revert back through sheer willpower, he'll keep expending his life force before eventually dying.", replied Vali.
"Then we have to tell him that Asia is okay!"
"That's pointless. Besides, can you even get close to him? You'd die."
Rias gritted her teeth.
"Then again, I won't stop you from trying.", said Vali and continued to watch.
"There's something else, Vali." Bikou suddenly joined their conversation.
"Hmm? What is it?"
"About him consuming his life force... I can't see that happening."
Vali frowned once again, "What do you mean?"
"He's constantly absorbing Ki from the surroundings and using it to rampage. In my opinion, that mass of Ki, if not for its messy control, is comparable to the damned geezer." Bikou smiled wryly.
Vali and Arthur's eyes widened in shock as they both knew who Bikou always called a 'damned geezer'.
"Is Hyoudou Issei a Ki practitioner? But there's no info about it anywhere.", muttered Arthur.
"He gave it to him.", muttered an unexpected voice out of nowhere. Ophis had silently appeared beside them and answered them like this.
"You're also here?" Vali was surprised. He already expected her to appear, but he thought that she would only do so when Great Red appeared, "Wait, what do you mean 'he gave it to him?'"
"My snakes.", answered Ophis briefly.
'So that's how it is...', thought Vali, when the black color on Issei's armor and the weird aura came to his mind. 'But who is 'he'? I can only guess that it's Kisuke Urahara.'
"Who is she?", wondered Rias, while Akeno pretended that she didn't know her.
"The leader of the terrorist group Khaos Brigade. The Dragon God of Infinity, Ophis." Coming from a teleportation circle, Sirzechs, Azazel and Michael came following after Ophis.
Vali, Bikou and Arthur prepped themselves for a battle and got ready to escape and as expected, Michael immediately casted restraining magic after seeing them. However, before it could even reach them, Ophis waved her small arm, and a wave of black energy erased that magic. After that, Michael only sighed and didn't try anything further.
"Nii-sama, Azazel-sensei and Michael-sama. You're here." Rias and the rest of the peerage greeted them.
Azazel looked towards the unconscious Asia and said, "I already heard what happened to her. Did you save her?"
"We coincidentally came across her.", answered Vali and resumed watching Issei, who was now roaring towards the sky and releasing energy blasts which destroyed his surroundings.
Rias wanted to ask about Ophis, but now that the leaders were here, she left her to them and only focused on Issei's wellbeing.
Hearing Vali's words, Michael and Sirzechs stopped forming plans in their head to capture them. This would be as thanks for saving Asia.
Sirzechs heard Ophis's answer to Vali and asked her, "Why did you give your snakes to Issei-kun?"
"I didn't.", answered Ophis, but that only opened more questions for the leaders. 'She didn't? Then where did that come from?'
Sirzechs thought that the answer to this question could wait for a better time and proposed a plan, "Either way, we have to stop him from rampaging. I heard that to calm a raging Ancient Dragon, a melodic song is needed. I already asked Grayfia to bring that song. We only have to wait for a few more minutes."
But not even a second later, Ophis refuted him, "It won't work."
Sirzechs furrowed his brows and asked, "Why?"
"Because it's not just Ddraig." Ophis then started walking towards the rampaging Issei.
"What are you doing?" Azazel took out his Sacred Gear and got ready to fight, "If you're going to hurt him, you'll have to get through us first."
While walking, Ophis started muttering, "He said, if it doesn't work right, turning it off and on might fix it. If it doesn't, you could also smack it until it works again." Red energy blasts came towards Ophis, but her magic circle deflected it without any effort.
Those who heard her words didn't know how to react and were trying to guess the meaning behind her 'deep' words. But one of them tried her best not to facepalm as she knew only one person who could have said that to her. 'Endure it, Akeno... Dammit. That bastard's influence on her is greater than we thought. Smack it until it works again? What's up with such unreasonable logic! Don't teach that to a being that could destroy the world by smacking it!', retorted Akeno inwardly.
Ophis raised her hand and from it, a gigantic mass of energy in the shape of a hand appeared.
"Wait... She doesn't mean that literally, right!?", exclaimed a stunned Azazel and shouted, "Dammit! Stop her! Issei might die!"
But no one could react fast enough. When Ophis swung her arm downwards towards Issei, the gigantic black hand descended on him and obliterated everything.
"Issei!!!", shouted Rias and was about to fly out to Issei. However, the shock wave was so strong that Sirzechs had to cast a barrier just to block it.
"F*ck! If anything were to be smacked like that, forget about it working any further!", cursed Azazel.
The dust immediately cleared out due to the shockwave and the gigantic hand disappeared, revealing a small piece of remaining land and a bloodied Issei. His armor was broken into tiny pieces and he laid unconscious in the middle of it.
Ophis looked at her hand and muttered, "Holding back... It's hard."
"Issei!!!", screamed Rias once again and launched herself towards Issei. She was also followed by everyone in her peerage.
However, Michael suddenly called out, "Wait! Stop! There's something strange!"
Rias and the rest stopped and were about to ask what was happening. But Michael didn't have to give an answer as a golden orb with red streaks emerged from Issei.
"That is...?", muttered Azazel. He had a feeling that he had seen that orb once before, but his memories were failing him.
From the golden orb, blood-red chains emerged and wrapped around the bloodied Issei. Issei's eyes, which were now pure red, opened widely as he roared to the sky. It didn't seem that he returned from his rampaging state yet.
"That's strange. The moment the Juggernaut Drive disappeared, he should have returned to normal. But even without using his powers as the Red Dragon Emperor, he's still in a berserk state? What's going on?", wondered Vali.
"Isn't this really bad?", added Michael.
"We can be sure that it doesn't look good, but we also don't know the cause. If it's not the Red Dragon Emperor, then what's happening? Is it because of that golden orb?", asked Sirzechs.
"Should we destroy it? It's obviously something foreign.", asked the perplexed Michael.
"We can't. I'm afraid that we might endanger Issei if we were to do something like this. At least, we should know what's going on.", advised Azazel everyone and looked towards Ophis who was now silently watching Issei. "Can you tell us what's going on? I know you have an idea of what that is."
However, Ophis just ignored him and continued watching.
Everyone was already losing their patience when they witnessed how Issei started his rampage with just his bare body. Although they were surprised at the strength he was using, he was also damaging his body in the process.
Sirzechs was about to use his Power of Destruction to destroy the golden orb and the chains surrounding Issei, when a black shadowy snake suddenly jumped from Issei's forehead and gobbled up the chains.
Everyone was startled and didn't know what to do. The snake took only a few seconds, before finishing the chains and opening its mouth to gobble up the golden orb. After swallowing it, the snake circled around Issei a few times in satisfaction, before returning to his forehead.
"W-what was that?", asked a frantic Azazel, but nobody could answer his question. The next thing they knew was that Ophis already disappeared somewhere and left everyone in their confused state and that Issei had already returned to normal and was unconscious.
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Editors:
28th00: So, Phis-chama learnt the time honoured tradition of "Hit it until it works again." along with "Turn it off and on again". I'm so proud! She's growing up so fast! It worked too! The failsafe snake is there for just this very reason! Not a single clue how Kisuke and Ophis set it up, but that's his divine curse eating snake from Medusa, right? It probably just ate his curses, Ddraig's as well. Specifically made to eat divine curses imprinted on the soul and/or equivalent of a soul. I think.
Alexander: I approve the method itself, but she definitely needs to work on the correct degree of used strength. Always remember Phis-chama, hit it means hit it and not pulverize it until there are barely some atoms left.
Goyya: 'Ophis: Hit, hit, hit.'