Human World, Japan, Kuoh.
Around the time that James, Rias, Xenovia, and Rias' peerage entered the barrier surrounding Kuoh Academy, James' peerage arrived at the town's outskirts. When they did, they saw around three hundred fallen angels ranging from low-rank to high-rank approaching the town via the sky.
"Seeing all these crows flying toward us is kinda creepy." Mizore said while wrapping her arms around herself protectively.
"Yeah, it's kinda like that old movie, 'Birds,' We watched with James that one night." Flora said with a slight frown.
"Oh~! Don't remind me!" Mizore said while shuddering.
"That movie was hilarious." Moka said while laughing proudly. "The only thing that movie made me want to do is roll around on the floor and laugh."
"Does anything scare you?" Mizore asked while looking at Moka with a blank expression.
"Shion's cooking." Moka said with her expression turning solemn.
"Hey!" Shion exclaimed in opposition. "My food isn't that bad!"
"Have you ever eaten your cooking?" Lady asked curiously.
"Nope!" Shion said with a pout. "But my cooking help James sleep peacefully."
"I hate to be the one to tell you this, Shion." Shuna said with a solemn expression. "But your cooking made James pass out for six hours with just one bite. If you don't believe what I'm saying, you really should try your own food sometime."
Hearing that, Shion was dumbfounded. All this time, she thought her food was amazing. James never said anything bad about it after eating it. But then again, James never ate her cooking again after that day. After she realized that fact, Shion's shoulders sagged.
"At the very least, we could find a use for Shion's cooking." Dante said with his arms crossed while watching the incoming enemies.
"Really?" Shion asked with her hope reignited.
"Yeah, we could use it as a biological weapon." Dante replied without looking in Shion's direction.
Once again, Shion's shoulders sagged.
"That was too much, even for you, Dante." Lady said with a bit of disapproval in her tone.
"Don't worry about what that tsundere says, Shion." Mizore said while patting Shion on the shoulder. "As long as you practice, I'm sure your cooking will get better."
"Who are you calling a tsundere?" Dante snarled in response.
Ignoring the angry Dante, Mizore continued to try to cheer up the downtrodden Oni woman. After a few moments, Shion was back to her usually cheerful self.
"Alright, folks, I think that's enough idle chatter." Cu Chulainn said while flourishing his spear. "If we don't stop these crows, talk of improving Shion's cooking will be meaningless."
After hearing what Cu Chulainn had to say, Shion went on full alert.
'Are these overgrown crows trying to keep me from improving my cooking skills?' Shion thought to herself. 'Unforgivable!'
After those thoughts, Shion was the next to ready her weapon. Seeing the ferocity glowing in Shion's purple eyes, everyone was surprised. Then, they wondered what stupid thought was running through this woman's head.
"*Sigh* I'm not sure what it is she's thinking." Shuna thought aloud. "But at least she's motivated."
As she spoke, Shuna produced two blood-red fireballs over her palms.
"That's true." Moka said as she cracked her neck and knuckles. "I hope they can provide a decent fight."
One by one, the remaining members of James' peerage prepared themselves for battle. Then, Cu Chulainn as the current leader of the group spoke once again.
"Aim to incapacitate, but don't fret over any kills." Cu Chulainn said as he hefted his spear and drew it back. "Just make sure none of these crows make it into the town."
As he finished speaking, Cu Chulainn launched his spear at the strongest of the high-rank fallen angels. And with that throw, the spear's curse activated, and the fallen angel soon found his heart pierced by the crimson spear. Shortly afterward, he fell from the sky. A moment later, Gáe Bolg returned to Cu Chulainn's outstretched hand.
"[Blood flare]!" Shuna shouted.
The next to act was Shuna as she pushed the blood-red fireballs forward toward the incoming flock of fallen angels. As they were not very fast, they were easily dodged. However, they eventually collided with each other. When they did, the flames expanded in every direction, engulfing many nearby fallen angels. As the fallen angels, especially their wings, caught fire they began to fall from the sky.
The next to engage the enemy were Mizore, Dante, and Lady. Mizore with her projectiles made of ice, and Dante and Lady with their firearms. With ice spikes and bullets flying into the flock, more and more fallen angels were knocked out of the sky.
Because of the long-range bombardment, many of the remaining fallen angels decided that fighting on the ground was a safer choice than fighting mid-air. So, many of them lowered themselves to the ground and ran forward.
Seeing that there were some easily accessible enemies approaching, Moka, Flora, and Shion all dashed forward. Moka and Flora both threw a flurry of martial arts strikes, Muay Thai for Moka and Kickboxing for Flora. At the same time, Shion rushed through the crowd swinging her odachi in all directions. Due to the three of them, many fallen angels, whole and dismembered, were sent flying all around.
Eventually, Mizore and Cu Chulainn joined the other three in the melee. Meanwhile, Dante, Lady, and Shuna continued to fight from long-range, focusing on the still flying fallen angels. After about fifteen minutes, all the fallen angels were brought down from the sky.
When there were no more flying foes, Dante also rushed into the melee. Cu Chulainn had said that he and Lady's pay would be decided by how many enemies they took down. At the same time, he knew that any stray shots that hit or came close to hitting his allies would result in the lowering of his commission. So, he holstered his pistols, Ebony and Ivory. Drawing Rebellion, Dante attacked the nearest fallen angel with overly flashy combos.
"That sneaky son of a..." Lady frowned as she holstered her pistol and submachine gun.
"Why don't you join him?" Shuna asked curiously.
"Because everyone fighting in that clusterfuck moves too fast to guarantee that one of my bullets won't hit them by accident."
"Oh, I see." Shuna said with a nod.
"Maybe it's time that I asked James to teach me some hand-to-hand combat skills." Lady said to herself as she watched the rest of the group fight.
While Lady contemplated her future skill acquisitions, Shuna continued to throw [Youjutsu] spells into the group of fallen angels. Though, she had switched to single target homing spells.
About ten minutes later, all the incoming fallen angels had been incapacitated or killed. Though there were many injuries among those who fought in close range, none of them were worried. Shuna's ability to heal was pretty advanced. And even if they could not be healed completely, Asia was more than enough to finish the healing.
At that moment, however, something no one expected happened. Mizore and Moka who were resting away from all those being healed by Shuna both suddenly experienced a spike in their demonic energy capacity.
"Did they both just...?" Dante asked incredulously.
"Sure looks like it." Cu Chulainn said while tapping Gáe Bolg on his shoulder. "James' peerage is shaping up to be pretty bad ass."
"Yeah, but with a group of freaks like us, it's gonna be hard for him to find a fitting [Queen]." Dante said while sitting against Rebellion which was impaled into the ground behind him.
"Speak for yourself." Lady interjected. "You're the only freak here."
"Wouldn't you say Lancer's bad luck makes him a freak, too?" Dante said while pointing at Cu Chulainn.
"His luck can't be that bad if he managed to get with Tsubaki-San." Shuna said while healing Shion who fell asleep as soon as the battle ended.
"No, his luck still sucks." Flora said. "He gets beat up by everyone far more than anyone with good luck ever could."
"I think that's due more to stupidity than anything else, though." Dante said with a shrug of his shoulders. "He's got a real knack for saying something that he shouldn't at the most inopportune times."
"Shut the hell up, Dante!" Cu Chulainn shouted angrily.
At that, everyone laughed. A few moments later, they felt the nearby fluctuations of demonic energy calming down. Eventually, everything was back to normal, and Mizore and Moka approached the group with bright smiles on their faces.
"Congratulations, you two." Shuna said with a smile. "You both finally made it to ultimate-rank!"
"Yeah, I'll be the strongest member of James peerage soon." Mizore said happily.
"Dream on, Mizore." Moka said with a snort. "That will be me, of course."
"Oh, yeah?" Mizore said as she turned toward Moka. "You wanna have a go and find out right now?"
"If you're ready to know your place, I'm ready to show it to you." Moka said while cracking her knuckles.
"Uh... Have they forgotten that there are three of us that made ultimate-rank before they did?" Dante asked with confusion in his tone.
"Probably." Cu Chulainn said with a shrug. "Speaking of the third one of us to make ultimate-rank, where is she?"
"She's probably shadowing James right now." Lady said while watching Mizore and Moka stare each other down. "Since James didn't give her an order directly, she most likely chose to follow him around."
"No, I defeated a hundred and four of the enemies here." Ayame said from behind Lady.
"What the? Where did you come from?" Lady said as she drew her pistol until she realized the voice was familiar. "Jeez, Ayame, not all of us have perception like James. Could you not just show up behind me like that in the future? If I were still human, I might have died from a heart attack."
"My apologies, Lady-San." Ayame said while bowing slightly to show her apology. "I'll try to remember that in the future."
Seeing the interaction between Ayame and Lady, Mizore and Moka decided to let their little competition go for now.
"I guess we can't call ourselves the strongest until we can detect Ayame-San when she's in stealth." Mizore said while shaking her head.
"That sounds right." Moka said while nodding in agreement. "I didn't even know she was here fighting with us."
"Anyway, I'll contact the Satans about this." Cu Chulainn said. "We'll need some help taking all the living crows into custody."
After saying that, Cu Chulainn contacted Serafall. A few moments later, Serafall accepted the communication magic circle.
"Hey, Cu-Chan!" Serafall said energetically after accepting Cu Chulainn's communication circle. "Is everything okay over there?"
"Everything is fine on our end, Lady Serafall." Cu Chulainn said, intending to continue his report. However, he was interrupted before he could go on any further.
"No, no, no!" Serafall's voice could be heard by everyone around Cu Chulainn. "Call me Levia-Tan. I know I've told you that before, Cu-Chan."
Cu Chulainn could only look around awkwardly. When he did, he saw the other members of James' peerage snickering at him.
"*Sigh* Everything is fine on my end, Levia-Tan." Cu Chulainn said in a defeated tone. Then, he explained the situation to Serafall.
Serafall had already been contacted by Sona who told her many of the same things. However, she was surprised at how only nine young devils were able to take down three hundred fallen angels with no casualties.
"You have all done very well." Serafall exclaimed excitedly. "Please stand by where you are, I'll send someone to detain the fallen angels."
"I understand, Levia-Tan." Cu Chulainn replied. "We'll stand by."
A moment later, the communication magic circle in Cu Chulainn's hand disappeared. Then, he turned to the rest of James' peerage.
"So, what's our next move?" Dante asked.
"We'll wait here until the detainment team shows up." Cu Chulainn said in a slightly tired tone. "Then, we'll rush to the academy and see what we can do to help."
Hearing that, the rest of the peerage nodded in understanding, then they waited for the detainment team to arrive. After the handover of the prisoners, they all rushed toward the academy. Luckily, almost everything had ended by the time they arrived. The only things left to worry about were James' fight with Kokabiel and rebuilding the damaged school structures.