Game of Monsters - 123 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

To the People, the Good and the Evil

Joshua moved through the cafe with a tray on his hand and a smile on his face.

He didn’t go there often and it felt like he did so less and less as time passed. He was often busy and there always seemed to be something to do. His plate was permanently full and things continued stacking on top of it anyway. At times, as his situation became more evident and came to the forefront of his mind, Joshua would feel exhausted just thinking about it.

However, it was always great whenever he could find a moment to relax and do something just because it was fun, or relaxing. Sometimes he’d make time to spend with Kunou, teaching her or playing. He’d go out with Yasaka or Serafall, or just spend time with them at his place or Yasaka’s. Not Serafall’s, however, because she said she’d gotten used to going somewhere else to relax with her visits to them and he honestly didn’t think much of that anyway. If she was happy, he was happy.

Other times, he’d sit at his place by himself and draw or spend time with his familiars or Jeanne or Asia. He already felt like he didn’t do any of those enough as it was, so he tried to make time whenever he could. It wasn’t often, but maybe one day things would get less hectic. He could only hope.

Another thing he liked to do to decompress was working at the cafe, like he was at that moment. He could basically turn his brain off and go through the motions. Go to the tables, ask for the order, prepare it, deliver it. Nothing complex and nothing to think over. It pulled enough attention to distract from other things but not enough to be tiring.

It also let him have a moment in which he wasn’t a magician or a supernaturally connected person in any way. It was just a cafe with normal people and normal drinks and food. People looked at him and saw a guy that owned a cafe and they treated him like that. There weren’t people expecting grand things from him there other than Aika and Issei. There wasn’t anyone being deferential to him or being impressed or looking down on him. He was just one more person in the crowd and that had its own appeal.

“You are smiling a lot,” Issei commented as they both worked on an order each. “It’s kind of weird,” he added, making Joshua turn towards him and raise an eyebrow, even if he kept his smile in place.

“Why? It’s not like I never smile,” he replied, shaking his head and continuing working absently. Maybe Issei was right though, he was feeling pretty good that day. Things were going fairly well, Hexennacht was dealt with, Project Awakening had taken an important step forward and even the weather was good.

It was a good day.

“I mean, yeah, but your expression is either thoughtful or flat,” Issei explained, looking a little weirded out. “Then you smile when you find something funny or nice or whatever, then back to normal, you know what I mean? Today you are all smiles. Weird.”

“Well, it’s just a good day, what can I say?” he replied with a shrug as he finished setting up the order on the tray and started moving to deliver it.

“Did something good happen? One of your, uh, projects or whatever?” Issei asked, glancing around in a way that gave away there was a secret more than his words did, really. They’d have to work on that more.

“I mean, yeah, several, in fact.”

“That and he got laid,” Aika commented when they passed by her table, her boyfriend leaving her a cup of tea next to her books. The poor boy almost spilled the drink on her table with how hard he choked and stumbled.

“You could not talk like that in my shop, you know?” Joshua said over his shoulder as he started lying down the drinks and snacks that a couple had ordered. The two were looking a little awkward at that very moment, but he was fairly sure that it was mostly Aika’s fault, the little shit.

“I didn’t hear a no,” the girl said, a grin on her face as she pushed up her glasses. Joshua, for his part, simply rolled his eyes and started walking around the place to see if anyone needed something.

“Whatever you say, Aika,” he replied, feeling half amused and half exasperated.

“There’ll be a lot of heartbroken people around here, Joshua. How could you?!” she shouted dramatically.

“Whatever you say, Aika,” he repeated with a chuckle.

“Joshua-sensei!” Issei was the one to cry out this time, which was the sign for Joshua to cut things there. Else, he was sure the boy would make it all spiral out of control. His cafe wasn’t a place for that kind of thing and he’d made that clear, damnit.

“That’s that with you and your girlfriend’s nonsense, Issei,” he said, giving the boy a look.

“What did I even do?” his employee asked, offended. Joshua did nothing other than raising his eyebrow at him. “You are so unfair sometimes, sensei.”

“Sure am,” he replied with another roll of his eyes. “Anything I can get you, ladies?” he asked then, turning to address one of the tables that had a gathering of women. “You look a little down. Is there something wrong with the snacks or the drinks? I can prepare a new batch, free of charge.”

“No, no, don’t worry about it, Joshua,” one of the ones that looked fine reassured him, giving her friend to her side an amused look. “Maki and Rika are just feeling a little under the weather, is all. We are cheering them up, you see.”

“Say no more. I’ll bring a cake just for you,” he told them with a smile before turning towards the kitchen.

“I told you!” Aika called behind him. “Heartbroken!”

Joshua just groaned.

[}-o-{]

[Griselda Quarta]

She sat at the table, part of a meeting that would have been, some time ago, way above her paycheck. Still was, in a way, because she was officially lower in the chain of command than any of the people that were sitting together with her. All of them were in charge of a major Church base and all of them commanded a fraction of the Church’s power.

And then there was her, a mere enforcer and teacher. Admittedly a high ranked and well liked one, but an enforcer and teacher all the same. Griselda took missions, taught students. She didn’t participate in political and strategic meetings such as this.

Now, everything had changed at the same time that nothing had. Her job hadn’t changed, officially, that is. Unofficially, she was becoming a representative. She was a representative from Heaven with the Church and from both with the outside world. The Angels trusted her to act in their best interest and those loyal to her side of the civil war still tearing apart her faction trusted her to show them the proper way, approved by Heaven itself and God.

She felt a pang in her chest at that thought, the whispers of the Tempter at the back of her mind telling her that her life was a lie. She couldn’t let those win. Their Lord had sacrificed everything for them, just like the Son had and Griselda wouldn’t spit on that sacrifice.

Taking a deep breath in, she focused on the meeting. She might not be a real part of it, but she could still hear everything. She needed to know how things stood for her faction. On top of that, even though they shouldn’t, these people insisted on asking her every so often if she agreed with things.

She was sure that half the time that was to find a crack in her armor. They respected who she was and who she acted in place of, but that didn’t mean they liked it. If they could find a way to take her off the board, they would. They longed to replace her with someone they found more agreeable with or more “deserving” of her position, whatever they thought that meant.

“Sorry, everyone. I was held up by some unexpected paperwork. You know how it is,” one of the base commanders said as he entered the room. Instantly, Griselda tensed up. The rest of the room, however, welcomed the man warmly, some even sympathetically after his brief explanation.

It wasn’t out of the norm for something like that to happen, after all. Some others were still late for the meeting and it hardly ever happened that most of them arrived on time, let alone all of them. That latter case had yet to even happen while Griselda was part of things. They were all busy in the best of days, and those were clearly far from the best of days.

“Is that so?” Griselda asked, making the entire atmosphere of the room shift. She hardly spoke during meetings unless directly addressed, after all. So, having her speak out certainly caught the room’s attention. “Would you mind explaining a bit further?”

“Of course,” the man answered, not nervous but certainly looking confused. That was also understandable, considering most of the time reasons for a delay were more or less waved off. They were all dealing with a lot of things, meetings between leaders were less important than making sure said bases continued running as they should. There’d be a report on it later on anyway, to make sure of things.

This was a special case, however.

As she heard him talk, Griselda had to hold back a frown. Nothing he said was wrong and he repeatedly said that it’d all be in his report for the delay and such. She could see, glancing around on occasion, that the leaders were upset about the interrupting and unnecessary waste of their time for this when they could be talking about important matters and get back to their bases.

Sadly, she couldn’t allow that.

After all, Joshua’s spells were telling her something.

The magic kept poking at her every so often, informing her of all the signs of the man lying to them. His excuses were lies, blatant ones considering how much the spells flared. The report parts weren’t though, which meant that he was going to feed his lies to them through the report.

It made Griselda wonder how often the reports were lies.

She had to wonder, how deep did the opposition go in their ranks. Because none of their spellwork had pointed at the man, and that meant that there was inside work to make sure nothing seemed amiss there. Someone had to have done something so that the man’s lies would go unnoticed. And they had done so so thoroughly that they would have absolutely gotten away with it if not for Joshua’s spells.

“So, is that all, Exorcist Quarta?” the man asked her, sounding amused and bemused, as if he couldn’t understand why she was questioning him but found it funny. Griselda simply continued staring at him impassively.

“No, it’s not,” she answered, making him blink and several of the other leaders frown. Behind her, she heard the slight shift in Xenovia and Irina. “Because you are lying,” she pointed out, drawing the same confusion from the man.

She didn’t care for any of that, however. He could act all that he wanted, but she was sure that she was right. Joshua’s spells were never wrong. They never misunderstood. The man was so thorough that he wouldn’t dare place something anywhere with even the slightest chance of failing. If she could trust anything, she could trust those spells.

There was a reason her faction and Heaven trusted him to cast defenses over their bases. Regardless of how suspicious some of Seraph Gabriel’s interactions with Davis were, there was no denying that the man was good. If she couldn’t trust the angels then who could Griselda trust?

She had to believe in something.

“Excuse me?” the man asked, going from confused to irritated, borderline annoyed. He was a good actor, Griselda would give him that. She wouldn’t even have realized he was lying to their faces if she hadn’t had the spells to help her. “I know you think you are important, Quarta, but you should really-”

“You are going to tell me exactly what you were doing that caused you to be late and if you don’t, then-” Xenovia’s sword made a sharp sound as it was pushed ever so slightly outside the scabbard. “-We are going to have to be drastic.”

In the end, they did have to be drastic.

And it was so very sad, that it was neither a new thing nor a surprise.

Griselda was truly hating this Civil War.

[}-o-{]

[Walburga]

When she came to be, it was with a jolt, feeling cold stone on her skin. As she opened her eyes, she had to blink several times to try and get to see around her. The place, wherever she was, was dark, cold and made mostly out of rock.

“Where the fuck-?”

“Finally woke up, huh?” a voice asked, making her turn towards it. That’s when she noticed, almost hidden by the shadows, a set of metal bars that led to a corridor and then a – another – cell across from it. Walburga moved, slowly, towards the set on her side and found, with growing trepidation, that there wasn’t even a door to begin with. It was just the stone walls and the metal bars on that one wall. “You don’t have any idea how happy I am that someone else was thrown into this hellhole.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Walburga asked, narrowing her eyes and trying to discern the person on the cell across from her. She could see the shape in the shadows, but little else. Looking to the sides, she saw other such areas, but all of them were empty besides the two of theirs.

“An old acquaintance, Walburga,” the man told her with a bitter chuckle as he stood and moved to approach her. “Miss me?” he asked, that superior smirk that was now more self-deprecating than mocking.

“Georg,” she spat with a sneer. There was an insult at the tip of her tongue about how the idiot had been taken out by a nobody, but then again, she’d been taken out by the same nobody, right? She didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. Didn’t mean she couldn’t wish she could say it though. “This is where you’ve been rotting all this time after you went down against a regular magician?” she asked in the end, because at least she had the excuse of Davis getting better, she supposed.

“That was no regular magician,” the man argued weakly, more bitterly amused than angry as she expected. “And you should know, from what I hear. I was overconfident, what’s your excuse?” he asked, looking straight at her.

She gritted her teeth and kept her mouth shut then. No way she was admitting that she’d made the same mistake. Smug asshole hadn’t let a chance pass him by to put people down before. Just because he’d lucked out in the talent department, he felt like he could just mock everyone. She was no slouch and she still had to envy the fucking bastard.

“It doesn’t matter, I guess,” Georg told her, snorting softly and shaking his head. Then he moved back into his cell, sitting against the wall on the far end. “He took me down, took you down, probably has taken down more, if I had to guess. And he will take down more.”

“Only you and me, I’m sorry to say,” Walburga said, sneer still in place. “He did give Leonardo some trouble before they had to run away.”

“Huh… Interesting,” the man replied, with that voice that said he thought it was anything but and he wasn’t even really listening. She so wanted to bath him in Incinerate Anthem… But when she called for it, nothing happened. Where her Sacred Gear had been, there was now nothing.

‘It… it left?’ she wondered hollowly, looking at her hands in disbelief. ‘Incinerate Anthem left me?’ she asked herself, trying to reach for it once more but finding nothing. There was nothing at all there and she let out a short, breathless laugh.

Then she chuckled.

“Something amusing?”

“No, something very sad,” she answered, still laughing as she shook her head. Incinerate Anthem had left her, for Davis. She didn’t have any proof of that, but she also didn’t have any doubts.

“More sad than you?” a voice asked and it wasn’t Georg, Walburga realized instantly. Looking up, she was just in time to catch the other Khaos Brigade magician- Ex-Khaos Brigade magician scampering to the corner like a frightened rat. She’d have mocked him if her attention hadn’t been stolen by the figure that walked in, bringing light with them. “Good to see you are getting comfortable in your new home,” the woman commented, placid smile on her face.

It took Walburga barely a moment to recognize her and it was only that long because her mind was scattered. Even with the loss of Incinerate Anthem and being captured after a fight she was sure she would win, Walburga could still very easily recognize one of their biggest enemies in Khaos. One of the few that were aware of them and organized enough to actually fight back.

Yasaka, Leader of the West Youkai branch.

Despite her borderline friendly expression and disposition, however, Walburga knew better. There was something dangerous hiding behind those amber eyes. There was an edge there, a steel and a fire, that promised nothing good.

“So, now that you are feeling at home,” the woman told her, looking straight at Walburga as if trying to make a hole in her skull with just the power of her gaze. “How about you tell me all you know about your friends in Khaos Brigade?”

“How about you go fuck yourself?” Walburga asked back, the sneer she’d been directing at Georg now with a new target. “Or better yet, that pet magician of yours?”

“You mean the one that got you here?” she shot back calmly, amused even. “Maybe later. For now, you’ll answer… or you’ll answer. Just like your friend there did,” she told her, casting a glance towards Georg and making the man whimper pitifully.

‘Maybe,’ Walburga thought, gulping at the sight of the man. ‘Maybe I’m in trouble.’ As she saw literally fire forming around the golden eyes of the youkai woman, she realized that there was indeed a reason why George had reacted like he had.

And she was very much in trouble, she confirmed quickly.

[}-o-{]

[Asia Argento]

Another battle and more, many more, people for her to treat. Good and bad people, some would say. Allies and enemies others said, which she found a little more accurate. Asia believed in good and evil, but she didn’t believe in judging people as good and bad that easily.

Ultimately, she hated it either way, be them good or evil or allies or enemies. She hated whenever Joshua came to tell her that she was needed. She hated being called to the field to help them. She hated having to see them hurt.

She hated having to see people hurt.

The Lord had given her a gift, however, that allowed her to stop them from hurting. So, Asia would do what she needed to do, and help them feel better. That didn’t mean she had to like it, however, even if she’d never say-

“It sucks, I know,” Joshua told her when they got back to the house. Looking at him with wide eyes, Asia had to wonder if she’d spoken out loud without knowing. “I can feel it, even if you are a very good actress,” the man said, giving her a small, soft smile. “How about we go to your garden, yeah?”

“It’s… your garden, Mr. Joshua,” she mumbled under her breath. She knew what the answer to that would be, of course, but she had to say it anyway. After all, it was nice to…

“It’s your garden, Asia. You made it, you care for it, you do everything, basically. You might not own it but as far as I’m concerned, it’s yours,” the man explained to her, making her smile back at him.

Was it bad, that she took pride in that? She loved hearing Joshua say that to her, because it told her that she could do more than just be there when people were in pain and dying. She could do something, be useful, be someone, without needing others to suffer. She liked that.

“Come on,” Joshua told her, planting his hand on her shoulder and carefully guiding her through his house in a path she knew well. “Something I can help with?” he asked.

“Can you stop everyone from getting hurt, Mr. Joshua?” she asked back, a slight smile on her face as she joked sadly. She would have liked to think that there wasn’t bitterness there, but that would be lying and she didn’t like that, even if it was just to herself. “Because that’s what I want.”

“I think I liked it more when you asked for plants,” he joked back at her with a wide smile, even if it didn’t reach his eyes. “Much easier to get, you know?” he added, giving her an affectionate shake with the hand that he still had on her shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do though,” he finished with, repeating the same words he’d always say when she did, indeed, ask for plants for his garden.

If nothing else, she found that comforting.

Joshua didn’t say things just to say them, after all. He meant what he said, she’d learned. Maybe he couldn’t get her what she truly wanted, but he’d try. He was trying, she knew. He was helping the Church, Heaven and many others. He was helping them make a safer world and Asia couldn’t ask much more from the man.

She smiled knowing that, and smiled a little wider when she heard the song of Margalo reach her ears. The bird's magic was always such a wonderful thing. The first time she’d heard it, Asia had been sure that it was a song of angels.

“Thank you, Margalo,” she said when the bird perched herself on her shoulder. Pausing on her song, the familiar preened a little and affectionately pecked at her hair.

“Great as always, girl,” Joshua said, rubbing his finger against the side of the bird’s head. With that, however, the two of them fell into a silent walk while hearing Margalo’s singing. Asia was perfectly fine with that, if she were honest.

It was nice to be able to relax after having to go through the ordeal of healing so many people. It was just as nice to have company that was on her side, that had her back and that she could trust not to ask for anything. Because Joshua didn’t ever ask her for anything, not really.

Asia gave him things he needed for spells at times from the garden, but she did so because she wanted to. She wanted to repay some of all the kindness he offered her and that was as good a way as any. Asia would heal him or others during their training sessions, but he’d never asked her to do it, not really, and now she didn’t even need to anymore, since he’d developed his own spells for such things.

All Joshua had ever done was offer her his home, space and time to do as she pleased and even a comforting shoulder to lean on when she needed it. He’d offered her his family and his resources with a smile and kind words. He didn’t want anything from her and he kept offering her more, if she so wanted.

It was overwhelming, but it was also very…

She didn’t even have the words to describe how nice it felt, if she were honest, which was a shame.

“Joshua?”

“Hm,” the man hummed, a moment later turning towards her with raised eyebrows. It wasn’t often that she didn’t call him mister, after all. She gave him a shy smile at that, feeling awkward and unsure. “Yes, Asia?” he asked kindly.

“Just… thank you.”

“Well, I don’t know what you are thanking me for, but you are welcome. It was probably not as much as you deserve anyway,” he said with a chuckle as they continued walking.

Privately, Asia disagreed, but she kept that to herself. It would only lead to a pointless argument, she knew from experience. As it was, she contented herself with the fact that she’d voiced her gratitude.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Well, always nice to take a peek at the background stuff, I guess. I don’t often do that kind of thing, preferring to fully center on the MC, but I had fun writing this chapter anyway. If I’m not wrong – which I could be – several people asked for a look into things with Heaven and the Church. With some luck, this was a good enough attempt on my part with some added stuff.

I hope you liked the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What’s the last game you played? I was playing some Arknights a few minutes ago while taking a break from editing.

See you.