A/N:
" " : Dialogue,
' ' : Thought,
"Italicized text" : Telepathy,
[ ] : Spells, Techniques and Sacred Gear Casts,
"Bold text" : Ddraig & Albion.
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Narrator POV
Before Haruki rushed over to his home, Vali had gotten there, intent on retrieving Kuroka. He knocked on the door, and was met with Hanabi, who like her son and husband, had grown a dislike for Vali ever since he joined up with the Khaos Brigade. "What are you doing here, you brat?" She asked with her arms folded.
"Come on now, Natsuhiko-san. I'm still the same Vali you've always known." Vali said. "Yeah, you tell yourself that. You joined a band of terrorists, and you expect me or any of us to welcome you with open arms? Get over yourself." Hanabi said with a dismissive wave. "And if you're here for Kuroka, then it'd be best that you go back, because she's not leaving. I don't want my daughter-in-law to get sad, especially after she just got her sister back." She said, then slammed the door shut.
Vali looked at the door for a few seconds without blinking, then sighed as he activated the Divine Dividing. He felt some magic defense activate as Hanabi slammed the door, but had no idea what functions it had beyond it being a barrier to keep intruders out, so he planned to Divide it until it was either deactivated or until Hanabi decided to let him in.
"[Divide!]" Albion's voice rang out as his crystalline wings glowed, immediately dealing damage to the house's barrier… or so he thought. The very next instant, the barrier on the house shuddered, and what felt like a Bounded Field was suddenly deployed. However, for Vali who had grown quite familiar with Bounded Fields over the years, he could tell that the dome over the neighborhood was anything but.
"Hmm… This feels a lot like that Georg guy's Sacred Gear. What was its name again…?" Vali wondered aloud as he looked at what he assumed to be the end of the barrier. "Dimension Lost. The most powerful barrier-based Sacred Gear." Albion said, impressed by the fact that a human had been able to recreate something so close to a Longinus level Sacred Gear.
"Yeah, that. By the way, how'd you know the exact one it was?" Vali asked. "He was amongst those Hero Faction kids… and being around Azazel has had its own benefits." Albion replied. "I see. Well, all that's not much of a problem for me…–" Vali began as he cocked his arm for a punch. "– since I'm just here to grab Kuroka and leave." He said, then let off a powerful punch charged with demonic energy at the door. The collision caused released an explosion of force that kicked up a sizable cloud of dust.
A few seconds passed as the dust settled, Vali whistled as he noticed that the door was still intact, impressed by the sheer resilience of the barrier. He then prepared to attack the barrier again, but was soon interrupted by a familiar voice. "What the hell do you think you're doing at my home, Vali?" Haruki said, his voice low. Vali smiled as he heard the edge in Haruki's voice, then looked at him. "What's the matter, Haru? Am I not your aniki?" He said, eager to fight the boy that looked up to him in his younger days.
"That doesn't answer the question, Vali." Haruki said as his aura began to suffuse the environment. "Be careful, Vali. He's a lot stronger than you remember." Albion said, surprising Vali, as he had only ever received such a warning once, and that was when he challenged Azazel to a spar for the first time. For anyone else, such a warning would have made them tense up in caution, but for Vali, it only served to fuel his intent to fight.
"Well, you took my teammate from me, so I'm here to get her back. Or are you going to get in my way?" Vali said, as the Divine Dividing began to slowly pulse. "I already told those three… unless Ophis-chan herself comes to ask for Kuroka, she's not returning to you idiots. And besides, what the hell makes you think that she would prefer going back to you over fulfilling her own revenge?" Haruki said, his tone practically mocking the prospect of Kuroka returning to the Khaos Brigade.
Vali wanted to respond, but very quickly found that he couldn't bring up anything that would actually be so important to her that she'd leave the Natsuhiko household, and this irked him. "If you can't think of anything, then do us all a favor, and fuck off." Haruki said, his displeasure with Vali's presence clearer than the sun in a cloudless sky.
But rather than leave or react with anger, Vali had his grin grow wider, as he felt that he was on the verge of causing Haruki to lash out at him, which would lead to another fight for him to enjoy. "No, I don't think I will." He said to Haruki, and Haruki sighed lightly in response. "I see... Albion." Haruki called out, his voice flat. "It seems that your host hasn't learned to pick his battles." He said, then released the restraint he had put on his power. flooding the area with pure draconic presence.
Vali froze, as he hadn't even considered that Haruki had become an actual dragon when Arthur and Leon told him that he had the same level of power as a low-level Dragon King. "Vali, I normally tell you to just remain cautious of those you fight, but this might be the first time I'll say this: Run. You're not at the level where you can face him without using… that." Albion said, as he sensed a much deeper gulf between Haruki and Vali's power than he had expected.
"Your concerns have been noted, Albion. Now, [Balance Break!]" Vali said with an enthused grin on his face, then charged towards Haruki as his Scale Mail manifested. He flew as a streak of bluish-white light, quickly reaching striking distance, then threw a punch at Haruki, who was simply looking at him without doing anything, not even placing up a guard. Vali's fist struck true, practically caving in Haruki's chest… or so he thought.
An instant before Vali's fist impacted, Haruki moved with Shundō, but rather than leave a mere afterimage, he fashioned poison into a 1:1 simulacrum of himself as he slipped past Vali's blow. The moment that Vali's fist hit it, it exploded into a veritable cloud of pure toxicity that covered the entirety of the barrier's space.
"It seems that your host doesn't have much resistance to poison, Gwiber. Ironic, considering your past" Haruki's voice rang out as he called Albion by his old name. And just as he said, Vali was affected by the poison cloud, heavily so, but unlike what Haruki was insinuating – Vali lacking poison immunity, this was actually a result of the Dragon Slayer attribute that was packed in every bit of Haruki's body and energy.
Since he didn't become a dragon by having a body crafted for him by another dragon, or purely by consuming parts of a dragon, but rather had his dragonification come as a result of a Dragon Slayer's Dragon Seed, even now that he had become a dragon through and through, every attack he made carried a strong Dragon Slayer attribute, meaning that his attacks were super effective against Vali. The fact that he was also a Rank ahead of Vali in power was also a contributing factor to this effectiveness.
Even while his body was envenomed, Vali looked around for Haruki, as his senses couldn't pinpoint Haruki's location. At the same time that Haruki had gone through his full dragonification, he had also reached the peak of senjutsu – Sagehood. With that as well as his power of nature, he was very easily able to blend into nature, concealing himself at a moment's notice.
"Damn it. [Half Dimen-!]" Vali was about to cast Half Dimension, but was stopped as Haruki rushed in with Shundō and landed a punch with a fist covered in reddish-black lightning on Vali's chest, causing a sharp jolt of agony to travel throughout his body, seemingly bypassing his Scale Mail. Haruki didn't stop with just that, as he landed blow after blow, reddish-black lightning crackling violently with each impact.
Pushing through the pain, Vali tried to block the blows with both his arms and magic, but failed, as Haruki's blows seemed to flow and snake past his guard and land on his body every time, hitting heavier and harder, and leaving spiraling cracks on his Scale Mail that only got larger and deeper with every hit. Even while he was getting pummeled by Haruki, Vali still propelled his power, with Albion's voice continuously shouting out "[Divide!]", but it didn't seem to slow down or weaken Haruki's barrage.
Around them, nature seemed to reach out to Haruki, supplying him with more energy whenever his lowered, which for Vali, who was constantly draining his energy, was quickly starting to become a negative feedback loop, as the energy was too much for his body to take. He released the excess energy into the environment to lessen the burden on his body, but this just meant that he was ultimately fueling Haruki's assault, as Haruki would absorb the ambient energy.
As Haruki's barrage continued, Vali's body eventually started to get affected by the poison, and he slowed down, giving Haruki an opening, which Haruki took advantage of posthaste, sending a spear-hand at Vali's torso. Vali caught on to the attack a second too late, and Haruki's hand turned into a metal blade and pierced his Scale Mail, and as it did so, an extreme amount of pain surged through Vali's body from that point.
Haruki quickly withdraws his hand and grabs Vali by his neck, then slams a fist covered in reddish flames on Vali's head, sending him hurtling to the ground like a meteor. Vali collided with the ground with so much force that he cratered the ground, and the deep cracks in his Scale Mail finally gave way, breaking the armor apart and kicking him out of his Balance Breaker state.
With the armor gone, the state of Vali's body was plain to see, and it was definitely a horrible state. His body had blackened veins carrying poisoned blood, parts of his flesh had been burned by the repetitive intense lightning strikes, and his ears were leaking blood. If any of the members of Vali's team in the Khaos Brigade were to see him now, they would be immeasurably surprised at the amount of damage he had gotten from facing Haruki.
Even when considering the number of beings that had joined the Khaos Brigade, Vali was undoubtedly one of the stronger beings amongst them. So seeing Haruki damage him to such an extent would definitely put them on guard against him.
"You know, I sometimes think about the words you said to Issei back then, Vali." Haruki said as he stepped closer to the White Dragon Emperor. "You called him lowly and ridiculed him for the fact that he didn't come from some special bloodline –" He said, stopping just a single meter away from Vali. "– but in my eyes, that makes his growth that much more impactful, and even greater than yours, descendant of Lucifer." He finished as he looked down at Vali.
Vali ground his teeth as he felt his own anger be stoked this time around. He would have attacked Haruki, but the combination of the residues of slayer-attributed poison and lightning coursing through his body had essentially put him out of commission, until he found some way to fully recover.
"*Sigh.* Just leave, Vali. Although you tried breaking in, you didn't harm anyone. So, I don't have any need to kill you." Haruki said, taking a few calming breaths. "It'll be best if you and your clique did your best to stay away from me and those I care about." Haruki said as he retracted his scales and horns.
"Oh, yeah? *Cough x3.* Why not just kill me? Since you've already got me at this point, why not just finish me off?" Vali said, coughing out blackened blood. "Because I know that someone over there in your merry band can heal you. And I want you to realize that the only reason that you were able to get back to them, the only reason you would be alive… was because I decided to show you mercy." Haruki said, then stepped away from Vali.
Vali, overtaken by a sense of shame and a new fire to get stronger, tried teleporting away, only for the spell to fail. "Oh, right… Mom, you can turn it off now." Haruki said, and Hanabi disabled the barrier from within the house, and as she did so, the damage to the environment seemed to reverse, leaving the street looking as pristine as it did before their clash.
Vali was surprised and impressed by this, but he understood that he didn't have much else he could do without drawing outside attention to the area, and he didn't want that if he wasn't fighting the Red Dragon Emperor, and so he teleported away. As he left, a flash of regret made its way to Haruki's face, as he wished that the relationship between him and Vali wouldn't have turned out like this.
…
Location: ???
The members of the Vali Team of the Khaos Brigade were waiting, hoping for Vali to return with Kuroka in tow, but when the familiar light of Vali's teleportation circle appeared, they were shocked to see that Vali was not just wounded, but heavily so, all without Kuroka as well. Contrary to their beliefs, he had failed, and quite badly at that.
"Vali!" Bikou shouted as he rushed over to him and supported him. "Heh. He gave me more of a fight than I expected." Vali said, then punctuated his statement by coughing up a few globs of blood. "Damn it." He said with a groan, as he felt the lingering damage of Haruki's blows.
"Hohoho. To think that the great and might White Dragon Emperor is in such a state, and not even by the Red Dragon Emperor. How amusing." A female voice said out with mocking glee, causing Vali to groan in annoyance. "Quit playing around, Selene. If you aren't going to help me, then shut up already." He said, exasperated by her attitude.
"Mind your tongue, boy. I was not called the Moon Dragon God for no reason." She said, flaring her power in annoyance. "And you were only called that by humans who had no proper scope of power. We all know that you do not have anything that can make you even minimally comparable to a Dragon God, so get your head out of your ass." He said back with a groan.
"Hmm. And what are you going to do if I don't? Will you grab it?" Selene said with an amused smile, as she swayed her hips. Vali just clicked his tongue against his teeth and turned away from her. As he did so, he noticed a small girl with long black hair, black eyes with reptilian slits and ears with pointed tips, wearing a Gothic Lolita dress with her chest exposed, and black x-shaped pasties on her nipples – despite the fact that she was flat-chested. This was the current form of Ophis, the Ouroboros Dragon and the Infinite Dragon God.
She walked up to him and sniffed him. "Haru…-chi." Hearing her softly say the name of the same person that beat up Vali caused everyone to look at her with curious gazes, except for Vali himself, who already knew that Ophis had something of a friendship with him. "G-Greetings, Ophis-sama." Selene said as she bowed her head, not daring to look Ophis in the eyes.
"Heal Vali." Ophis said to Selene in the same monotone, nigh apathetic voice that everyone that had interacted with her was familiar with. "Of course!" Selene said, feeling jittery under Ophis' gaze, as she employed her magic to heal Vali of his wounds and burns. It was at this point that Vali noticed that he was no longer being affected by Haruki's poison.
"Hey, Albion. How come I'm no longer poisoned?" He asked. "It's because he pulled most of it out of you while he was pummeling you. It seems that just enough was left, so that it'd only become dangerous if you didn't get healed." Albion responded, his reply surprising Vali, as he had expected Haruki to truly be trying to kill him, but as he remembered the last exchange between himself and Haruki, he understood that this was still part of Haruki's intention.
"That so, huh?" Vali said, more to himself than anyone else. He smiled as he thought back to his battle with Haruki, happy that he wouldn't be facing a shortage of people who could give him a thrilling battle, even if it would mean plunging the rest of the world into chaos.
Chapter End.
Word Count: 2,841
Thanks for reading!