Game of Monsters - 145 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

It’s up to You, What Will You Choose?

“So, the visit with Sairaorg didn’t go well?” a voice asked beside him and he hummed without turning.

Joshua’s eyes remained forward, looking at the garden in front of him. Plants of all kinds lived together, growing in a harmonious picture that he never would get enough of. There was something just so beautiful about it all, with all its different shapes and colors, even movements in some cases. Plants everywhere, all of them alive and thriving, had been organized and raised in a chaotic array that still worked.

Joshua would truly never be able to properly put into words how amazing it all was to him.

It was the reason why he often came to sit there. It took his mind away from everything and swept him in with its stunning sights. At least, that was the idea. There were other instances, such as that one, where no matter how awe inspiring the place was, his thoughts would still win in the end. It was frustrating, but alas… At least the garden helped, if only a little.

He’d truly never be able to thank Asia enough for what she’d managed to create.

“Want to talk about it?” Jeanne asked, taking the seat next to him on the stone bench. She spoke softly and he didn’t even need to pay attention to know that she was concerned and sad. “Funnily” enough, she was sad because he was in a bad mood and nothing else, he was sure. Her mood had been fine until she found him there, after all.

His spells had told him as much.

“Not really,” he answered wearily. She didn’t press the issue. Instead, she remained by his side in silent support. Eventually, she leaned against his side, resting her head on his shoulder. It was… nice, to know that he wasn’t alone but not having to address the issues that he was clearly dealing with.

Somehow, that helped him deal with them. It didn’t make them go away, nor did it help make them less serious, but it was… grounding. Yes, he had problems and yes, he had to deal with them, but it helped remind Joshua that there were other things around too. It made the issues less… all encompassing, if that made any sense. It added some perspective.

So, it was no surprise for him when the words found him after a while.

“It’s just so frustrating,” he said, and Jeanne shifted the smallest bit, just to let him know that she was listening. “I was so close… His mother woke up and all, but she slipped right through my fingers and fell back asleep.”

“... That means you are right there, right?” Jeanne asked when she realized that he wouldn’t say more after that.

“Almost, but not quite,” he answered with a sigh. “Small changes, big changes, all of them take time,” he explained, deflating where he sat. “It could be a week or it could be a month. That’s what makes it all so bad. It was right there. If I could only have covered that instead of falling just short of it…”

“You’ll get it done,” Jeanne said, and she did so with such security that it took him off guard a bit. “If I know anything about you, Josh, it’s that you can do anything.”

It should have been a humorous statement. Maybe a joke or an exaggeration or hyperbole, those would have made sense. However, Joshua knew, even without needing to check with his spells and senses – although he did so anyway, just in case –, that Jeanne was a hundred percent serious. There wasn’t a sliver of doubt in his sister that he could, indeed, do anything.

“No pressure, huh?” he commented wryly.

“Nope,” Jeanne replied simply and he glanced her way in time to catch a tiny smile. “You barely could fight off some mooks when we met, if that. I remember our first fight against Khaos and how it ended. You were weak and I was even weaker.”

“I don’t think those statements help as much as you think, Jeanne,” he commented dryly, only to receive an elbow to the side.

“Shush you. I’m still talking,” she chided him, although there was a smile on both their faces. “And I was with you all the way until you became… who you are now. Sometimes it’s a little scary, you know? You almost seem like a different person from the guy that picked me up from the street.”

“Do I?”

“And then you say stuff like that,” Jeanne commented, and he could hear the smile on her face. “That’s more like the Joshua that I used to know.”

“You say that as if you don’t know me anymore,” he commented. His tone was joking, but there was some real doubt inside him. Because… Well, it was a real concern, in a way. They met all the time at home, they ate together often and they did a lot of little things together…

However, things had definitely changed a lot from the days where it was just the two of them and his familiars. Back then, there hadn’t been anyone else in either of their lives. They were brother and sister, together all the time, going everywhere and doing all sorts of things, just the two of them.

Now, the two had completely different lives. He had his relationships, Kunou, his friends, his job and his projects. Jeanne had her studies, her own relationship, her own friends and her own things to do. In a way, it filled him with regrets, reminding him of the past, when he’d been too afraid and too awkward to have a real relationship with his own family, nevermind other people.

“I know you,” Jeanne told him, smiling softly at him and getting rid of some of the fears that creeped up in his mind. “We just live different lives and that’s fine. I don’t know all that you do and you don’t know all that I do. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t drop everything to help you if you need me and it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t if I needed you. I don’t even have to ask you. I know it. I think that counts for something. I think that counts for a lot.”

“... I really don’t know all about you,” he replied, a soft smile on his face as he regarded his sister. “The Jeanne I know is nowhere near that eloquent.”

“Oh, shut up!” she told him with a huff and a slap to his arm that did nothing. “I’m being serious here and you are being a meanie. What’d Kunou have to say about that?”

“She’d probably join in.”

“... You are right, but you are still awful.”

“I try,” he replied, smiling despite himself. In spite of their words, both of them were grinning. Because that was just how much of a pair of idiots they were, he supposed.

“We don’t have moments like this nearly enough anymore,” Jeanne commented idly, but it didn’t feel like a complaint or anything of the sort. She was just… saying it, plain and simple. A statement of fact, if a melancholic one. “I missed this,” she added, resting her head on his shoulder once more.

“Yeah… Yeah, I did too,” he admitted, resting his own head on hers back. “So, anything I should know about what’s going on with you?” he asked, wondering if that was the right thing to say. As he often did, Joshua found himself struggling to find what to do or say in a conversation.

Fortunately, Jeanne didn’t have the same problem as he did.

“Well, the other day, Yuuto and I were-”

“Woah, I don’t think I need nor want to hear about that-”

“Stop being an idiot,” Jeanne hissed, poking his side with her fingers. They were about as dangerous as her swords, quite frankly. Certainly felt like those to Joshua. “As I was saying, we were talking the other day, you know?”

“You are not allowed to marry anyone until after you finish school at the least.”

She didn’t even deign that with a response, instead just giving him the flattest yet most annoyed stare ever known to mankind. Joshua was fairly proud of that reaction, if he did say so himself. He may have been an only child for much of his life, but he thought he was doing a fairly good job as a brother.

“Anyway, we were talking and I… I think I want to study management,” Jeanne told him, suddenly turning shy. “I’d like to take over the cafe and… maybe do something more than that. I know the place is yours, but maybe I could start working there and then-”

“The place is ours, Jeanne,” he interrupted, this time softly. “Or, it can be. A family business, if you will,” he added, pushing his shoulder against her lightly. “And I think that sounds wonderful.”

“Just thought I’d share that with you,” she mumbled, still fairly shy. “And… thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” he told her before pausing and letting his thoughts organize themselves a bit. “I want to adopt Kunou. Officially, that is.”

“First of all, that’s not news to anyone. Second of all, a piece of paper won’t change anything,” Jeanne commented, a little confused but mostly amused. “Third of all, I’m sure Kunou will love that.”

“Once things are finally calm once and for all, once Khaos is done and there’s no need for me to go out of my way for this kind of stuff…” he continued, as the thoughts came to him. “I want to get back my home, the one where I grew up, my parent’s. It was my great-grandmother’s on my father’s side and it was… It’s important to me. Once that’s done…”

“A quiet life, tinkering away?” Jeanne supplied.

“That easy to predict, am I?” he replied, not at all annoyed by that fact, really. That did sound wonderful. What more could he want but to be able to enjoy life with his loved ones doing things he enjoyed?

“You are, but that’s not a bad thing,” Jeanne said, unknowingly agreeing with his thoughts. “I don’t have my future nearly as clear as you, but that’s just because I’m not an adult like you.”

“I have a feeling you are calling me old.”

“Me? I would never,” she told him with a hint of a smile bleeding through her poker face, like the lying liar she was. “It’s nice.”

“... What is?” Joshua asked, after Jeanne made it clear that she wouldn’t explain herself without prompting.

“To be able to consider the future and think it can be good,” she answered, her smile turning sad, almost pained. “I used to think there was nothing for me. I used to think I’d be trapped forever in the life I had before, hiding away, ashamed of who I was and always… the freak. The voices would tell me otherwise but I never… it never felt real.”

“Well, you’ll have the best future I can give you, Jeanne. I can promise you that,” Joshua said, pulling her into a one armed hug.
“Consider all your options well, because you’ll have all of them, if I have any say in the matter.”

“I know,” Jeanne said, shifting against his side and wrapping her arms around him. “Thanks for everything, Joshua. You are awesome.”

“No, Jeanne. Thank you,” he replied, and he wasn’t even sure what of the many reasons that popped in his mind he was thanking her for. Maybe it was because she’d come and successfully distracted him at the same time as she improved his mood. Maybe it was because she’d chosen to be his sister, accepted his offered hand that one day and unknowingly helped him just as much as he helped her. Maybe it was because she’d helped give him a family when he’d had almost nothing.

Ultimately, he was just thankful, so he left it at that.

[}-o-{]

[Penemue]

“Did I tell you? Little So-tan is going to be announcing her ambitions with the rest of the stuffy people in the Underworld!” Lady Leviathan said excitedly, sharing an animated conversation with the rest of the people at the table. “I’m so proud!” she exclaimed, looking like a little girl gushing over their favorite plushie.

Penemue wasn’t too sure at what point the conversation had gone on a tangent that led from Khaos Brigade to Leviathan’s little sister, but she thought it was kind of impressive that it happened. She was used to chaotic minds, after all. She needed to be, as Chief Secretary of Grigori. However, Serafall Leviathan seemed to surpass even the people she knew to have such erratic behavior.

It was, indeed, fairly impressive.

It was also annoying.

However, Penemue certainly wasn’t going to be the one to point that out. After all, everyone else at the table seemed perfectly fine letting the woman ramble. Furthermore, she didn’t have any kind of power over the faction leaders arranged around her. At most and being very generous, she could maybe try to steer Lord Azazel, but that was about it.

“I think there was a point to this meeting that we are moving away from, don’t you?” a voice cut through before Leviathan could continue with her nonsense… respectfully speaking, of course. Penemue knew that, after all, despite her oddities, the woman was a force to be reckoned with and very much someone to be careful with. Many supernatural leaders and otherwise powerful people shared that, if not quite in the same branch of crazy most of the time.

“But Josh~!” the devil Satan of Foreign Affairs whined like a child and Penemue went over all the information in her head about why she should have a high opinion of the woman. Sometimes, her position just made her wonder about a lot of things. Granted, her boss was Azazel, so she wasn’t one to talk, but a part of her would always wonder – and sort of hope – that her boss was some kind of exception to the rule. “I was getting to the good part.”

Alas, it seemed that it was the other way around.

“And now you can leave them all with a nice cliffhanger,” Davis continued, drawing Penemue’s considering eyes. “One that you can get through after the rest of the meeting’s points are dealt with.”

“Fine,” Leviathan said, deflating on her seat while Yasaka and Gabriel looked on in amusement. Azazel, for his part, went as far as chuckling. Penemue herself didn’t dare react, but she did appreciate the man’s decision to keep things on track.

Between his relative hold of Leviathan’s madness and Penemue’s on Azazel’s, meetings didn’t stray too far most of the time. Although, she had a suspicion that they were doing things on purpose. After all, the whole event seemed to be going about as smoothly as it was when Penemue wasn’t around to be part of them. She was fairly sure that her boss was just being an insufferable brat on purpose.

She was less sure about Leviathan, since Davis had always been part of the meetings. Then again, the devil was in a known relationship with the man, so… It was something to consider, she supposed.

Penemue knew, after all, that information was the most important thing in the world, the most powerful. Grigori had been, for a long, long time, a group that did a lot of research, thanks to Azazel’s predilections. They knew first hand what knowing more than others could do in a number of fields. Penemue herself, as Chief Secretary, had seen first hand the kind of power knowledge could offer someone, even when they were relatively weak, as was her case.

The feeling of magic washing over her pulled her from her idle thoughts and her focus on the meeting. Blinking, she turned towards Davis. The man had seemingly set down the notebook he barely seemed to look up from during meetings and was looking straight at her.

Suddenly, she found herself very grateful for his usual attitude, because there was something in those deep blue eyes that set her on edge. She didn’t know what the feeling was, if it was positive, or negative, or something else entirely. There was, however, something very… powerful in his gaze. It made her feel small, weak and yet… safe.

“Sorry, but I wanted to talk with you,” he said calmly. “Or Azazel, really, but I imagine you can pass the message and I can kill two birds with one stone by using this meeting. I don’t really participate much in them anyway.”

“I need to keep an eye on-”

“Azazel will behave, don’t worry,” he interrupted, waving her worries off with an easy smile. Glancing towards her boss, Penemue saw him grin at her and turn to actually listen to the meeting, instead of looking like he was searching for a way to derail things. “He has fun being obnoxious, I’m sure you know,” Davis commented.

She did know that, but it didn’t make it any less annoying to see proof of that.

“Anyway, I just need a second, really,” the man continued, producing a file from a Storage Spell and sliding it towards her. Penemue had thought it was strange that he’d sat beside her, but the man usually sat wherever at meetings, even if he did tend to sit besides Yasaka, Serafall or both for reasons that had been made much clearer as of late. “Tell Azazel that Project Ascension was a success. All the data he might want to check is in those documents,” the man told her.

Immediately, she felt her eyes widen.

Before she could say anything, however, the privacy spell the human had cast disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Not that Penemue had any idea what she’d have answered that with. Maybe Davis knew or didn’t know, but Penemue was informed on what that particular project was.

She’d thought it ludicrous, that Lord Azazel was working with a human on such a thing. Something that none of them had managed in millennia. Not the fallen and not the angels, none of them had ever come even close to God’s secret for the wing dilemma that all of them shared. Their father and ancestor had taken that to his still to that day very shocking grave.

Furthermore, Penemue knew that the man worked on it alone. No way Azazel hadn’t worked on that project if anyone else at all did. She wasn’t too clear on why Davis had been allowed to work alone, but he had. Maybe her boss had decided that focusing on his latest obsession – Sacred Gears – was more important or more likely? Or maybe he’d just wanted to see what Davis could do. Either way…

She couldn’t believe it had actually happened.

‘A human cheated God’s design,’ Penemue thought, holding the file and feeling like those light pieces of paper might as well weight the same as the whole world. Mentally, she went over the information on Joshua Davis and overhauled the whole thing. The man was not someone to be underestimated, nor insulted, she decided. Suddenly, Penemue had a human join the likes of Sirzechs Lucifer, Ajuka Beelzebub, Shiva, Indra, Vishnu, Thor, Zeus and many others.

He might not be as strong as them but Penemue had no doubts that he was just as dangerous.

Straightforward power wasn’t everything.

She knew that very well.

[}-o-{]

[Gabriel]

There was only one thing that came to her mind seeing Penemue pass the file she’d been given to Azazel.

There was, after all, only a single project of Joshua’s that she knew of that involved Grigori. Granted, there was a good chance that it was something else entirely, so she didn’t want to assume too much. She still felt relatively sure that it was what she thought though.

“Joshua, could you entertain Kunou for a bit when she arrives?” Yasaka asked kindly, making the man glance up and smile softly in their direction. The gesture was directed at the youkai, Gabriel knew, and maybe even to Serafall too…

However…

“Sure thing,” the man replied before her mind could drift too much in directions she’d rather it didn’t. Things were complicated enough as they were. “She’s on the way, but I can just cast some spells if you need privacy.”

“That’d be appreciated, Josh,” was Serafall’s answer. “This shouldn’t take long.”

“Take your time, just let me know if I have to do something in regards to the reservation we had-”

“Wouldn’t miss that for the world, Josh. Don’t you worry,” Serafall interrupted, beaming even more happily than she usually did. It wasn’t difficult for Gabriel to know that it was a much more honest smile than what her fellow leader of Foreign Affairs usually showed.

Gabriel’s eye twitched.

“Well, I’ll leave you to that then,” Joshua said with a nod, before using a similar spell to the one he’d cast before to isolate himself and Penemue. Not that it stopped anyone from listening in if they wanted to, but it was more like a polite way to ask others to mind their own business. Anyone that breached that would be immediately found out, or so Gabriel assumed.

“So, did you two need something?” she asked curiously, turning towards Yasaka and Serafall. It was strange, after all, for them to want to talk further after a meeting was done. Despite the tentative alliance against Khaos Brigade, most of them had drastically different things on their plates to deal with. Sure, they could interact with each other for one reason or another, but the fact that both wanted to talk with her at the same time-

Gabriel got her answer before a single word was used, because both women glanced, almost at the same time, towards Joshua.

‘Oh… Oh no.’

“We are pretty sure you know, Gaby,” Serafall said, evidently reading her as easily as she read them. “So, you wanna let the cat out of the bag yourself or do we?” she added, a smile that was equal parts playful and… vaguely threatening, but that might have been Gabriel’s own mind warping things.

“I assure you that I have no idea-”

“Gabriel,” Yasaka interrupted, raising an eyebrow at her. She felt her smile grow brittle. “Please,” the youkai said, giving her an unimpressed and slightly teasing look.

It was a fool’s errand and she knew it, but still. What else could she do? What option did she have other than try and play it off? ‘Well, I could…’ a part of her mind started before quickly being shut down. Greed wouldn’t take a hold on her.

Neither would Envy.

Least of all L-

“We are not trying to threaten you, Gabriel,” Yasaka continued calmly, talking as if they were on one of their casual tangents in a meeting and not… Not…

“We do know we are right though,” Serafall took over cheerfully and Gabriel could see some hints of triumph in the woman, which was ever so slightly annoying. She was not, after all and contrary to popular belief, oblivious to the rivalry the devil felt they had. She even participated in that, if a lot less enthusiastically and obviously than her counterpart.

Some friendly competition was always good.

Now though…

“So, I’m sure you realize that we need to talk about things,” the devil continued, turning surprisingly serious as she said that. “Because if not, this is bound to become… troublesome.”

“Indeed,” Yasaka pressed on, before Gabriel could even try to come up with anything. “So, what’s it going to be?”

She almost decided to go with the coward’s way out, she really did. However, something unexpected interrupted her thoughts on the matter. Her eyes darted to the side at the same time as Yasaka’s and Serafall’s. The door had opened and in came little Kunou, sparing her a single glance before the girl’s attention was thoroughly stolen by her dad.

Joshua, for his part, welcomed his daughter with a smile before both of them started animatedly talking and…

And Gabriel deflated.

“So,” she said, turning towards the two women in front of her and feeling like she was heading into a battlefield. “Where do we start?”

She really, really didn’t like the smiles on their faces.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

I’m here, once again, talking about how insecure I feel with my writing. It’s honestly annoying even for me, in case you guys didn’t know. I’d like nothing more than to look at something I write and think (yeah, this is great and people will love it). Alas, my negative ass can’t do that, apparently.

Well, at least I’m pretty happy with the first part of the chapter. I’m sure at least some of you guys might have noticed that Jeanne’s not around all that much anymore. I kind of address that in the chapter, but the gist of it is that she has her own life separate from Joshua’s. If we were seeing this story from her perspective, it’d be Joshua that doesn’t appear much anymore.

And that’s fine, I believe, because sometimes families are like that. I’m not nearly as invested in my own family’s lives, but I still love them to bits. We are just… different and have different lives, and I believe that’s fine. I kind of wanted to show that through my writing and this chapter in specific.

I know people probably want me to address that chapter end… but I won’t. :D

I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: I’m sure people have a very specific idea for that chapter end, but don’t let that stop you from sharing that. What do you think is going on? What’s your opinion and theories? Tell me, tell me, tell me.

See you.