"Everyone to me!" He ordered, "Take to the skies and bombarded him until he's dead." His eyes were filled with an unholy mixture of hatred and fury as he scowled at the veil of dust that hid the Devil.
"And If he fires another one of his swords," A streak of light flashed into his hands as he conjured a spear of light, "just shoot it down before it gets anywhere near us."
...
There was a moment of complete silence as everyone absorbed his words, then the courtyard was filled with the flutter of wings as the Fallen took the skies. There were hundreds of them, easily a thousand strong.
Despite the losses they just suffered at the hands of the red-haired Devil they haven't lost any more than a small fraction of their total strength. And that fact couldn't have been made clearer to me than right now, as the entire world around me completely disappeared behind their raven wings.
They filled the sky, rising up from the ground like a swarm of locusts. Already the numbers the filled the skies were beyond what I could count and still they came, until even the moons and the stars themselves were hidden behind the pitch-black of their wings.
It was then, as my eyes followed the flight of the Fallen swarm as they soared to the night skies, that I caught of sight of Kokabiel.
He was perched on one of the peaks of the school building. He was squatting down, one hand place firmly on the floor before him while the other one was draped over his knee, as he looked down on over the courtyard.
It was like watching one of the gargoyles on the cathedral's roof. Completely unmoving, he blended in so well into the rooftop that it looked like he was carved from the stone of the building. I almost didn't see him, and if it weren't for his eyes I'm wouldn't have.
The only thing stone-like in those eyes were the coldness in them.
I felt my heart stop in my chest in and the air freeze in my lungs as I caught sight of them. They were terrifying. My body reacted on its own, moving several panicked steps backwards, trying to get as far away as I could from those eyes.
I must have caught his attention because the next thing I knew, those cold ice blue eyes turned towards me and - ohmygodimgonnadieimgonnadiediediedierunIhavetorunjustrunawayorimgoingtodiediediedie- and looked away after a moment.
I couldn't hear a thing, the sound of my heart beating so painfully in my chest drowned out everything else. My breaths came out in short shallow pants and my throat felt painfully dry as I swallowed.
I could feel myself shaking, my entire body trembling but I didn't move, didn't dare take so much as a single step in case I drew those eyes back to me.
What ... What the hell was that? What happened to his eyes?
Even when we fought Kokabiel before, he when it looked like he was trying to kill us, there was something warm about him. When we traded blows it he was almost playful about it, not in condescending manner but as if he was truly enjoying himself and held himself back just to draw the fight out.
Back then it just made me angry. Insulted that after all my years of training, my countless hours of practicing with my sword, he saw my best attempts to kill him as nothing but a game, as if I were just a little child trying to whack my father with a foam sword. But now, now I no longer felt insulted, just grateful that he never decided to take me seriously.
Because if the price I had to pay was to look into those eyes, I didn't want to pay it.
I understood now, he was never trying to kill us before. When he attacked us he always held back, using just enough force to put us down without truly hurting us. Always using the absolute minimum to take us out of the fight.
But it was different now.
There was no restraint in those eyes, no hint of mercy, no holding back. This was not the Kokabiel that we faced before.
The one filled with helpful advice even as he crushed us, who was disappointed in our failing as if they were his own. No, this was Kokabiel the Killer. Whose death toll in the Great War was so high that it was enough to mention him in Bible on that merit alone.
The Kokabiel whose took a bunch of Low-ranked unexperienced Angels and turned them to a trained force that were feared and respected by friends and enemies alike. The one whose exploits in the field of combat has dubbed him a battle maniac.
And now that very killer has chosen the red-haired Devil as his latest prey, and there was no doubt in my mind that he was going to kill him. He will call on every scrap of power under his command, use every bit of battle knowledge and experience he has gathered in his millennia of existence, and every drop of skill in his body and bring it down on him.
That was what he was going right now. Perched like some great hawk on the ledge of the roof, he was watching his prey. Examining every attack, analyzing every detail, noting every strength and flaw in his form.
His face a cold detached mask while his glimmering blue eyes glinted like ice picks in the night gloom as they slowly drifted left and right as he scanned the battlefield for the red-head, and all the while he looked for potential weakness to attack, holes in his guard to exploit.
And when he's done finally done. When he collects every bit of information, analysis every data, thinks up plans and counter plans, and forge them in his minds into the tools he needed to win, he's going to descend on the battlefield and kill him.
A bright light caught my attention and I turned towards it, welcoming the distraction no matter what it maybe. Anything was better than looking into ... those ... eyes…
…Fuck my life.
As I started up into sky where the source of the light originated from I could not help but wonder if I had just jinxed myself. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse. I was wrong, Kokabiel wasn't going to kill us after all. We'll all be long dead before he gets the chance.
"We're dead." A voice off to my side coolly stated. The other male devil of the Sitri group seemed to have regained conciseness and he was calmly looking up at the sky as he lay spread eagle on the ground. "So dead."
They outshone the light of the long distant suns and have taken their rightful place as the night's true stars. They gleamed in its darkness, hundreds upon hundreds shinning jewels on a backdrop of black. From horizon to horizon they stretched, filling the sky whole, a painting of glimmering lights with the sky itself as the canvas.
A thousand and more spears crafted from the light of the planet itself hung above the skies of Kaou Academy. So bright that they illuminated the world beneath them with their light.
There before me stood the full might of the Fallen Host. Their tactics have failed, their Phalanx lay broken and so they have abandoned it. Instead they will lay to their enemy from afar, they will rain down death and destruction, and scorched the earth itself if they must to take down their foe.
This was the most basic attack for all Angels, Fallen or not. A tried and true method that was never replaced or abandoned since it was created at the dawn of time. That was because it worked, overwhelming the enemies by pouring down destructions from the Heavens until nothing but ruin was left behind.
And now we're about to experience its power first hand.
The six-winged angel who took command of the Host raised his spear over his shoulder as the rest of the Fallen around him did the same.
"On my call we fire as one." He commanded, his eyes never leaving the cloud beneath him. He cocked his arm back, "Ready!" The stars above us rippled as the entire swarm of fallen prepared their spears.
"Aim!" A thousand and more light spears shifted slightly in the grips of the Fallen, as they adjusting their lengths so that the tip of each spear was aimed at the courtyard bellow. And when the next command was given they will let loose the spear, raining death and destruction upon-
"Having seen the ending, I continue to walk down this road"
The words rippled across the battlefield, the undeniable weight it held gave pause to even the Fallen Angels high above. And as if they were pushed back by his words, the clouds of debris that hid from the Devil from our eyes quickly cleared, revealing…
The silence that fell upon the courtyard was almost deafening with intensity as every as every eye there gazed in wonder at what was they saw.
"He told me yes." The voice of the Sitri's heir drifted out a few seconds later in the absolute silence that had taken hold of the world, sounding just as shocked and disbelieving as I felt.
"I asked him if he had a lot swords and he told me yes. Just yes. The jerk has been hanging around my sister for far too long."
They hung in the air, held up by invisible hands, by the hundreds, by the thousands they numbered. Enough to match each spear and more.
They lined up row over row, spanning the width of the courtyard and still more kept appearing, conjured from thin air. Even the least among them radiated so much power I could almost feel it warming my skin like the heat of a bonfire.
Unlike Griselda or even Irina, I had no talent in sensing magic but I have always had an unnaturally good eyes for swords, sensing their nature far better than anyone Griselda had ever seen before. And I only needed a single glance to tell what masterpieces these swords were.
Swords with powers that could match the Excaliburs were made mundane as they hung next to swords so beautiful that I can look upon it for a day and night and still not have enough of its sight.
Swords more pure than a mother's loved hung next to blades so hideous that I felt them stain my soul simply by the knowledge of their existence.
And still more came, filling the air with every passing heartbeat, all pointed upwards towards the Fallen host.
Now those swords straight out of legend, wielded by villains and hero alike, lined the air as they were brought to existence by the red-haired Devil that stood in the middle of it all. His golden eyes shone with an unmatched resolve as they locked onto the hate filled greys of the six-winged Fallen above him.
His spoke out the words just as the Fallen repeats his command, "Trace bullet-" / "Aim-"
""Fire!"" Their voice rang out as one.
From the Heavens they descended.
From the Earth they ascended.
And in between where the Heavens began and the Earth ended, they clashed.