Game of Monsters - 84 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

Maybe I’m Drifting, Maybe I’m Lost

“Thanks for this, Kuisha,” Joshua said, his voice low, almost a whisper. At least his body wasn’t giving in after a few words, that was progress. A whole day and he still felt like absolute shit. He could barely move his body and speaking required effort. The only reason he’d been able to move around the house was Cheshire, since his first familiar had taken the role of steed, having him mount her if he needed to go somewhere.

“Don’t mention it, Joshua,” the devil reassured him with a bright smile as she finished setting a meal in front of them all. “The Satans know that you’d die if I left you with only Jeanne’s cooking as an option.”

“Gee, thanks,” his sister grumbled, stabbing the food on her plate like it’d personally offended her. “Asia can’t cook either.”

“And she has a legitimate reason,” Joshua spoke up, a slight grin on his face as he regarded the three girls. Especially the sad nun to his right. She looked hurt by Jeanne’s comment and he couldn’t have that. Besides, she’d already been down because she hadn’t been able to help him with her Sacred Gear. “She doesn’t know how to cook, but she can learn. It’s more than we can say about you, huh?” he asked, drawing a huff from his sister and a giggle from Kuisha.

“Just because I’m not good at one thing…” Jeanne grumbled.

“Still, thank you, Kuisha,” Joshua repeated, starting to eat. “I know it’s a bother to have to come here and do this for us. I’m sure you have better stuff to do with your time.”

“I don’t mind at all, Joshua, really,” the devil reassured him, waving him off. Then, a second later, she grew nervous, her smile unsure. “I hope the food is good? I know I’m not as good as you but-”

“The food is great, honestly,” he told her immediately, giving her a smile. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“The food is really amazing, Miss Abbadon,” Asia told the devil, beaming brightly at the devil. Joshua was almost surprised the girl didn’t suffer some holy damage or something from just that. The nun could be like that, sometimes. Too good for the world, Asia was. He saw then, as the younger girl hesitated for a moment, likely holding back a comment about “the Lord” or such, which was a bad idea considering she was speaking with a devil.

“I’m glad you like it,” Kuisha replied, before sending a playful glare towards Jeanne. “Unlike some ungrateful people.”

“I did my best, but she’s a barbarian like that,” Joshua lamented, holding back a grin at the look his sister directed at him and at her friend. “I don’t know where I went wrong with her.”

“You suck, Joshua,” Jeanne muttered, all but pouting. “The food is good, Kuisha. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” the devil reassured her with a soft smile. “I know you’ve been on edge. I understand,” she added, looking at Joshua out of the corner of her eye.

With a sad smile, he continued eating then. Jeanne had taken what had happened badly, which was understandable, really. As such, she was… Well, her mood was all over the place at the moment. One moment she could be smothering him, worrying too much and such. The next, she was like she was at that moment, very easily annoyed.

Joshua was about to reach for his glass but he stopped midway through the motion. The exhaustion almost caught him off guard. He’d been pushing through it, but it had evidently been too much at that point. Leaning back against his chair, he took a deep breath in. It sucked, that he couldn’t get through a meal, without his body giving up under him, but it was what it was.

He heard a chair scraping against the floor before Jeanne was at his side.

“Water, right?” she asked, and he saw the concern in her eyes.

“‘s fine, Jeanne…” he breathed out but she waved him off.

“Take it easy, Josh. We agreed we’d only let you do stuff if you told us when it was too much, didn’t we?” she asked him, worried but firm. He gave her a weary grin and a slight nod. “Right, drink some and then go back to the room. You can finish the rest of the food later.”

“Yes, Nurse Jeanne,” he mumbled, drawing a huff from the girl.

“Shut up and do as you are told, idiot.”

“Sorry, Kuisha, I-”

“Don’t worry about it, Joshua. I’m just glad I can help. Is there anything else I could do?” she asked, but he gave her a wave of his hand that almost sent him to the ground. Fortunately for him, Cheshire had turned into her tiger form from where she’d been laying next to his chair in cat form. Stabilizing him, the feline helped him get up together with Jeanne before they set him on top of the tiger.

“Some sight I must make,” he muttered under his breath, his grin twisting into an annoyed grimace.

“Maybe if you stayed in your room, you wouldn’t look so bad,” Jeanne told him, unimpressed.

“Oh, shut up.”

[}-o-{]

Joshua found himself reminiscing a whole lot on the days after the attack at Philp’s… Old house. Suddenly, memories of his uncle and the twins flooded his mind without stopping. Moments that had occurred in the last few months, moments from long ago, when his parents were still alive. It was almost like they had died, really.

‘Might as well be dead to me, I guess,’ Joshua mused, his hand idly petting on Nagini’s soft scales as Margalo stood on his shoulder. His familiars seemed to have taken it as a personal mission to not let him be by himself even for a moment. Since Cheshire was the one that helped him move around and such things, the other three seemed to take turns when he wasn’t moving, like when he stayed in the medical room or like at that very moment, while he watched Rias’s peerage training with Jeanne and Asia.

Margalo trilled her Gentle Song, making him smile at her, even if it was a weary, sad thing.

“Thanks, girl,” he whispered.

It was a small confort, really, to remind himself that Philip and the twins weren’t actually dead. They were out there, living their lives again, none the wiser to how close they’d been to death. Unware either, of the fact that they’d spend months with him that they’d never remember. They would never know how much it hurt that Joshua couldn’t visit them. They would never know how much he wished he could.

‘The twins were so excited about coming to Kyoto too,’ he thought, making his heart twist and turn in his chest.

It hurt to know that his already small family had been cut down in such a manner. Now, all he had were his familiars, Kunou and Jeanne. They were great and all but it felt so… So little, at the same time. ‘Why is it that every time I feel like my family is getting bigger, that things are getting better… I lose something,’ he lamented to himself.

First, when he started making an effort to reconnect with people, his parents were taken from him. And now, when he was doing the same, he had to give up his relationship with his uncle and his cousins. What would he have to find himself without the next time?

Taking a deep breath in, Joshua used Life Concentration once more, to try and push off the exhaustion that was creeping on him once more. As he did, he watched as Kiba and Jeanne continued sparring. Off to the side, Rias and Akeno were working on their respective magics. ‘Maybe I can let up and take a nap here,’ he mused, his eyes dropping for a moment as his head rested on Nagini’s body. With another deep breath in, he used Life Concentration again, relaxing his body and-

“You are still doing it,” a voice whispered next to him and he half-opened his eyes. Koneko seemed to have come for a visit. “It’s dangerous.”

“It’s really not… Well, unless I do it wrong,” he replied, his voice weary. “I’ve done it with… youkai supervision. I’ve asked all the questions I could… think of and it seems to be… fine. A hard thing… to practice… but otherwise… mostly… fine,” he explained, growing more and more tired with each word.

It was frustrating, but the periods in which he was mostly fine were getting longer and longer. He just had to put up with it for, at most, a week. That was what he had been told a few days prior, at least.

There was a deep meow that came from Cheshire in her tiger form. It was strange to hear her make such sounds in that shape, but one got used to it. Joshua was more focused on what she was feeling, honestly. There was some sort of… comforting feeling and he realized, as he opened his eyes, that she was rubbing herself against Koneko.

“Why then…?” the girl mumbled. Those simple words made Joshua pause and snap out of his drowsy state. “My sister went mad because of it.”

“Then either she was in a very bad place… or Senjutsu wasn’t the reason,” Joshua explained to her. He didn’t remember the specifics of hers and her sister’s situation, but he remembered that the elder youkai had gone on a rampage to protect her. If nothing else… He could respect that, he supposed, even if Kuroka had traumatized the poor girl in the process and likely left her in a bad spot before Koneko found her way to Rias.

“Why then…? Why did she… leave me?” Koneko asked and he saw her tense up then, before Cheshire walked around her, wrapping the girl with her body and leaving her the only option of facing Joshua. “I don’t understand…”

“I don’t know… all that much about… what happened to you, Koneko,” Joshua said, making an effort to recall what he’d could have picked up here and there in conversations with Koneko or other members of the peerage, which was mainly Rias.

“I… My sister went mad… killed her King, he’d taken us in… She went mad…” the girl said, sounding like it was a struggle to even get the words out.

“Then she was either a very bad person…” Joshua said, trailing off as he took a breath in, to make sure he spoke clearly. “Or a very good one.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Koneko said, for once not sounding like a detached person and more like just a girl, albeit a confused, distressed one.

“There are few things I wouldn’t do for my sister, Koneko,” he told her as a way of explanation. The girl remained silent then for a long moment, simply standing there, likely taking comfort on Cheshire’s presence, as the feline intended.

“Could I… sit here?” she asked softly then, her voice barely audible.

“Sure, go ahead,” Joshua answered with a slight smile. Neither said much after Koneko took a seat next to him, leaning against Nagini. However, it wasn’t as bad a silence as he thought it’d be. Eventually though, it was broken by the white-haired girl.

“Can you explain it to me?” she asked, her voice even lower than before, if it was possible. “Senjutsu?”

“I’m no expert,” he answered. “But I can try.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

[}-o-{]

[Kunou]

“Mom! Dad is being mean!” she protested, pointing at the offending man, who only gave her an amused, weary smile in response. Clearly, he was unrepentant for the sin of bullying her while they played with Project Strategy. Chess just wasn’t for her, couldn’t he see? Was it too much to ask for that he take it a little easy on her?!

“Joshua, must you make her angry?” her mother asked, raising an eyebrow at the man. ‘Success!’ Kunou cheered in her mind.

Maybe it was underhanded from her, but the girl had been doing her best to try and call Joshua dad and her mother… well, mom, as often and as close together as possible. She hoped it’d put the idea of actually being together in both their heads, with some luck. She wasn’t sure she wasn’t just jumping to conclusions with what her mother had said regarding that before, or that it had just been to humor her.

Even if that was the case, maybe she could get Joshua to open up to the idea. Kunou didn’t want to pressure the man, however. He’d been going along with her whims and demands so far. Joshua had comforted her more times than she wanted to count and he’d been patient and understanding more than once.

However, the more he did, the more she wanted. On the other hand, the more he did it, the more Kunou wondered if she was a step closer to the line in the sand. Would the next demand be the last straw? Would Joshua decide that it was finally too much? Would it just earn her a chastising or would it be worse than that?

“She won’t get better if I coddle her,” her dad answered with a slight shrug. “Besides, we read about that play the other day, Kunou. Were you not paying attention?” he asked, turning towards her and the girl looked away, her ears feeling warm.

She might have… gotten a little distracted. It wasn’t her fault that her dad’s voice was so nice to just listen to and that it lulled her to sleep! Besides, how was she supposed to know that he’d use those moves against her? She thought he was just teaching in general!... Then again, she should have seen that coming really…

But that was besides the point!

“How are my favorite people doing~?” a new voice asked somewhere away from the room they were in at her dad’s place. “Ah, I see you are keeping the boring stuff for when I’m not here. Nice,” Serafall said, looking at the chess game Joshua and her had been playing.

“That’s kinda rude. I like playing chess, you know?” Joshua asked, raising an eyebrow at the woman. Kunou tried not to get too happy about a possible point against Serafall. She was nice and all, but if there was a chance of Joshua being with her mother and only her mother… Well, she couldn’t be faulted for preferring that, could she?

Although, she did occasionally wonder how it would be to have aunts…

That was besides the point too, however.

“But it’s boooring,” the woman whined, taking a seat. “Feeling better, Joshua?” she asked, her voice almost serious as she asked. Almost, but not quite.

“Getting better, yeah,” Joshua answered after taking a deep breath. Kunou noticed that he did that when he started getting tired. At least there were signs of that now. Not like before, when he’d be tired all the time, if he was even awake.

Kunou couldn’t wait for her dad to be fine.

She hated seeing him as he was those days. She hated to see him struggle to even move. She hated whenever he was out of breath for talking “too much”. She hated that all he could muster were weary smiles and tired chuckles at best. She hated that he was sad all the time.

And the worst part was that Kunou couldn’t help him.

She hated the whole situation.

“You sure? I could get some people to check on you,” Serafall said, sounding concerned. Kunou would reluctantly give her points for that, even if the offer was unnecessary.

“I already have people checking on him daily, Serafall, don’t worry,” Yasaka reassured before Joshua could speak. Kunou’s mother likely wanted the man to save energy, even if he seemed determined to do as much as possible, even if it slowed down his recovery. “His body just wasn’t ready for the levels of energy that stopping the fallen’s attack required. It was too much too quickly.”

“I’m here… you know?” the man in question asked before taking a deep breath in and rolling his eyes. Behind him, Morag climbed on his back and gave him a pat on his shoulder. “They are being mean… Morag,” he grumbled, making the gigantic spider click her jaws. Kunou did her best to hold back a giggle as the scene before her reminded her of… Well, herself, which was probably on purpose, she supposed. “How about… a break?” her dad asked then, turning towards Kunou. “Want to draw?” he asked, drawing a smile from him.

“Sure,” she replied, moving to sit on his lap as he took out a notebook and some supplies from a storage spell.

“You shouldn’t use magic, Joshua,” her mother told him, with a narrow-eyed gaze that made Kunou nervous, even if she wasn’t the target.

“One spell,” the man replied with a slight grin as his shoulders slumped. “Will just watch…” he added, tilting his head to look over Kunou’s shoulder, even if she hadn’t gotten started yet. “How is the… show going?” he asked then, turning to Serafall. “Missed the last… chapter.”

“We can watch that together then!” the devil replied, bouncing on her seat excitedly. Kunou’s mother, for her part, simply sighed.

“I’m surrounded by children.”

[}-o-{]

[Joshua Davis]

For a change, a few days after the incident with the fallen and the stray exorcists, he found himself sitting at his cafe. After all that time he was “trapped” at his place, it was nice to be somewhere else. He hadn’t actually worked though, simply going there and sitting at one of the tables. Several people approached him, asking if he was alright and such, but otherwise it had been a relatively calm day.

Then, with the place all but closed, he’d set out to do a little project he’d come up with. ‘Doesn’t look half bad, I think,’ he mused, looking at one of the walls of the cafe. He’d put a board there, covering it with photographs of his family, the family he no longer had. His parents, Phil, the twins, his grandmother, who had passed away some time ago. He added pictures of Jeanne, Asia, Cheshire and Margalo. Nagini and Morag were… a little more complicated to explain, unfortunately, but he doubted they’d care overly much.

“I’m fairly sure that Jeanne said you shouldn’t be allowed to do anything,” someone said from beside him.

Joshua turned, a slight grin on his face.

“We’ll just say you did it for me, yeah?” he asked Issei, who gave him an uneasy smile. “Say, do you like sports, Issei?” he added then, making the boy blink before he turned to the TV that was set on one of the cafe walls. Usually, it’d just play some random video with sights around the world or something as generic at that. Right then and there though, it was showing a football match.

“I don’t, really,” the boy answered with a shrug. “Didn’t take you for a sports guy, really, Joshua-sensei.”

“I’m really not,” Joshua admitted, gazing sadly at the screen for a long moment. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure, what do you need?”

“Can you bring me a beer from the fridge?” he asked, before blinking. “Actually make that two.”

“You sure you should be drinking?” Issei said, making Joshua grin. Mainly because, despite the doubt, the teenager still moved to do as he was told. “Weren’t you recovering from something?”

“I’m fine,” Joshua waved off, looking as the match went on. “I’m mostly just very tired, otherwise I’m fine.”

“If you say so,” Issei mumbled, setting the drinks on the table. “Why two though?”

“You want one?” Joshua asked him, making the boy blink before his eyes widened.

“I-I can’t!” he exclaimed, making Joshua chuckle.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to, I guess,” he told the teenager, turning back to the TV. “I had my first beer before the legal age, honestly,” he said, a sad smile on his face. “I’d occasionally drink one with my father from time to time. It was… a bit of a tradition, I guess. He’d put a match and we’d watch it together. Even if I couldn’t care less for the sport… It was nice to share that moment with him,” he explained, bringing the drink to his lips and taking a gulp of it. His other hand, meanwhile, moved to fidget with the locket that hung over his chest.

After a moment of silence, he heard the boy open the other beer and then a groan.

“Ugh, that’s awful,” Issei muttered.

“Yeah, it’s an acquired taste. I didn’t like it for a while. Still don’t, but… Somehow, it’s not so bad sometimes, it certainly wasn’t when I shared it with my father,” Joshua said with a shrug.

“If you say so…” Issei said, and he turned to see the teenager’s skeptical expression, which made him chuckle even harder than before.

“You can leave it if you don’t want it. I get it, honestly,” he reassured with a grin.

“So, uh, who are you cheering for?” Issei asked, making Joshua laugh once more. “What is it?”

“I used to ask my father something similar every time. I was like “Who are we cheering for?” whenever it wasn’t a team I knew he was a fan of,” Joshua explained, shaking his head. “Like right now. Honestly, I’m going with the red ones. Don’t ask me why though, they just got my attention, I guess.”

“They are losing,” Issei pointed out.

“Yeah, I like cheering for the losing team too, I guess,” Joshua replied with a shrug. “You gonna go for the other team? I’m weak, but I can still punch you,” he joked, drawing a chuckle from the boy.

“Wouldn’t want to bully the old,” Issei told him with a grin as he feigned being hurt by the comment. “So, I guess I’ll humor you with the team.”

“Back in my day there was more respect,” Joshua grumbled, before the both of them shared a chuckle. “So, things going well on your end?” he asked, finding it sort of… fitting, that he was on the other side of the conversation now.

“Yeah, I… I’m not hanging out with Matsuda and Motohama anymore,” Issei told him, although he didn’t sound particularly sad about that. “I’ve… made new friends, I think. There’s this girl that’s… really weird, but not in a bad way. Not worse than I am, at least.”

“That’s not saying much,” Joshua pointed out with a grin before taking another gulp from his drink. Issei seemed to see and followed suit, even if he grimaced at the taste.

“Asshole,” the boy breathed out. “Also, the Kendo Club is being… sort of friendly, I guess?” he added, unsure. “They talk with me on occasion, and not just Jeanne.”

“You’ve improved your reputation, I guess,” Joshua pointed out, meaning it. He’d asked the Kendo club for help, but he hadn’t asked them to befriend Issei themselves. It hadn’t even sounded like they would, really, from how things had gone back then. Maybe they’d realized Issei wasn’t so bad when he was by himself. “Good for you, buddy. That much closer to a girlfriend, huh?”

“A long way to go still, but I’ll get there,” the boy said enthusiastically, taking another gulp from his own drink. “Ugh, I don’t know if I’ll stick to it long enough to enjoy it.”

“You are free to get yourself a soda or something. It’s not like I’m forcing you to drink it, man,” Joshua pointed out with a chuckle.

“You always say that one shouldn’t waste food and stuff,” Issei shot back.

“I mean, if you hate it, then it’s fine. I don’t want you to puke or something,” Joshua told him, still chuckling before shaking his head and taking another gulp himself.

“I’ll still finish it,” Issei muttered, before his eyes locked on the screen. “Oi, that guy just threw himself to the ground. That’s not foul!” he protested, with a frown on his face, raising the hand that held his drink.

“Yeah, gotta hate when that happens… in favor of the other team, that is,” Joshua commented with a dejected expression. “I don’t think we are gonna make a comeback, Issei.”

“Well, that sucks,” the boy muttered, deflating on his seat as he forced himself to take another gulp of beer. Turning to look at him, Joshua let out a slight smile before turning back to the screen.

“You are a good kid, Issei.”

“You are not so bad yourself, old man.”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

I’m really, really curious about what you guys will think about this chapter, so I’d really appreciate it if you left a comment. I don’t have much else to say, however, so I’ll leave the notes short.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

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Random Question: A bit of a repeated question, I’ll admit, but which is your favorite part of the chapter?

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