High School DxD: The Lucifer's Devil Trigger — Chapter 52

Chapter 52: Into the Bloodbath

Levi never intended to keep Vali’s true identity a secret. The fact that the White Dragon Emperor was his own flesh and blood was already known to those who needed to know—Sirzechs, Ajuka, Grayfia, Kuroka, Ingvild, and Artoria.

But Sakura was different. If he dumped that kind of revelation on her all at once, the fragile thread holding her composure together would surely snap. Some truths required a slower, gentler approach.

Setting the matter aside for now, Levi patted Sakura’s shoulder and shifted his attention to Shirone.

The little Nekomata looked utterly defeated. Overshadowed by Sakura’s recent progress, she had sunk to the bottom of the team’s hierarchy. Her white cat ears drooped flat against her silver hair, and her twin tails lay limp against the floor.

Levi reached down and scooped her up by the waist.

“Nya? Nya… nya!” Shirone let out a startled, distinctly feline squeak as her feet left the ground.

Levi settled her against his chest and casually ruffled her hair. “Don’t look so discouraged. Remember what I told you before. Your time will come, and you’ll be more than strong enough when it does.”

Shirone nodded vigorously, her golden eyes brightening. Her gloomy mood vanished in an instant. She nuzzled deeper into his shirt, shifting around until she found the absolute most comfortable position, and curled up like a contented kitten.

A few steps away, Kuroka watched the display with a twitching brow.

It wasn’t that she had any real objections to Levi being affectionate with her precious little sister. In fact, she wanted them to be close. But there was a glaring issue here—Shirone was not an adult yet. An underage Nekomata couldn’t actually do anything useful in these situations.

If Levi truly had those kinds of desires bubbling up, then as the older sister, it was her absolute duty to step in and take the burden…

“Hehehe… hehehehehe…”

A low, eerie giggle drifted through the room. Levi paused his head-patting and let out a long, helpless sigh.

“Kuroka. Stop making that face, it’s creepy.”

The older Nekomata snapped out of her fantasy. Her golden eyes locked onto him, and with a playful, predatory hum, she pounced. She hooked her arms around his neck from the side, clinging to him like a spoiled, overgrown cat. The sheer momentum sent them both tumbling back onto the sofa.

“I want to play too!” Ingvild’s orange eyes sparkled. Without a second thought, the Leviathan descendant threw herself onto the pile.

Sakura stood off to the side, completely bewildered. Her hands hovered awkwardly in the air. Was she… supposed to join in?

Tiamat simply covered her face with one hand, exhaling a long, exhausted breath.

The chaotic dogpile only came to an end when the doors opened, signaling the return of Grayfia and Artoria. Levi finally managed to untangle himself from the girls, straightening his rumpled collar and clearing his throat.

“Alright, since you’re back, give me the report,” Levi said, his tone shifting back to business. “What’s the situation in Kyoto?”

He had sent the two of them ahead to scout the ancient capital, expecting a relatively standard faction war.

“Levi-sama, the reality on the ground is entirely different from our projections,” Grayfia reported, her silver hair catching the light as she stepped forward.

Levi raised an eyebrow. He had assumed the three yokai factions would handle this like a traditional turf war—picking a designated battleground, lining up their forces, and clashing away from the public eye.

“Kyoto has descended into absolute chaos,” Grayfia continued, her voice grim. “Two-thirds of the city districts have been reduced to rubble. Yokai are slaughtering each other openly in the streets. Hagoromo Gitsune assassinated Nurarihyon’s son and grandson. In retaliation, Nurarihyon personally drove a blade through Hagoromo Gitsune, completely destroying her plans for reincarnation and childbirth. With their leadership driven to madness, both sides are killing indiscriminately. Yasaka, attempting to maintain order as the leader of the Kyoto faction, has been dragged into a death match with her own subordinates.”

Artoria nodded in agreement. “It is a total mess. You cannot turn a corner without stepping into a skirmish. The battlefield is expanding rapidly, bleeding into neighboring cities. Even ordinary humans are beginning to notice the monsters fighting in their streets.”

Levi absorbed the information, his fingers tapping rhythmically against his armrest. Looking back at the original timeline, the later stages of the Kyoto conflict had indeed spilled over into the human world, leaving the city heavily scarred.

“I understand,” Levi said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. “If it’s already a free-for-all, then our late arrival changes nothing. In fact, this works perfectly in our favor.”

He stood up, his gaze sweeping over his assembled peerage.

“Since they’ve all lost their minds to bloodlust, we don’t need to waste time establishing diplomatic contact with any of them. We’re going to charge straight in and beat these rabid dogs until they cool off. We can handle the politics after they remember how to sit and stay.”

The girls stood up in perfect unison, their auras flaring to life.

“Yes, Levi-sama!”

Whoosh— Hah—

The alleyway was pitch black. The sickening sound of four heavy, clawed feet scraping against the pavement echoed right behind her, closing the distance with every frantic heartbeat.

The golden fox ears atop Kunou’s head twitched violently, picking up every dreadful detail of the monster’s pursuit. For once, she hated her enhanced yokai perception.

I’m going to die.

The sheer malice rolling off her pursuer crashed over her like a freezing tidal wave. A hollow, grating laugh echoed through the dark—the sound of bone grinding against bone, like claws reaching up from the underworld. The massive, swaying shadow had already swallowed her tiny silhouette.

She couldn’t run anymore.

As the beloved daughter of Yasaka, the supreme commander of the Kyoto yokai, Kunou had lived her entire life wrapped in a protective cocoon. Kyoto was her home, her family’s absolute territory. The yokai here loved her, and her mother’s power kept her perfectly safe.

But tonight, her home had become a slaughterhouse. She had only slipped away for a moment, just a tiny lapse in judgment, and this suffocating malice had locked onto her.

Her legs felt like lead. Her strides grew short and clumsy, her breathing ragged, her lungs burning as if they were packed with shattered glass.

The monster behind her didn’t care about her royal bloodline. It was completely lost to the killing intent of the war. To it, she was just enemy meat.

Kunou forced herself around another sharp corner, glancing back over her shoulder.

Smash.

She ran face-first into solid brick. A dead end.

She spun around, her back hitting the cold wall. The yokai had already blocked the only exit.

Eight massive bone claws dug into the brickwork on either side of the alley, emitting a sickening click-clack as they gouged the stone. Its skull resembled a demonic bull, and thick, pitch-black flames slithered through its empty eye sockets like living snakes. It crawled toward her with the unnatural, disjointed movements of a spider, its jaw unhinging to reveal rows of jagged fangs.

Kunou’s voice died in her throat. She slid down the wall, curling into a tight ball. She threw her arms over her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

It’s over.

Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. She waited for the agonizing bite, for the tearing of flesh, for the darkness to finally take her.

But the pain never came.

A long, heavy silence stretched through the alley. Kunou slowly opened her tear-filled eyes and peeked out from behind her arms.

A tall figure stood between her and the monster.

The man was unhurriedly sliding a katana back into its scabbard.

Click.

The brass tsuba met the wood with a crisp, final sound.

Behind him, the towering bone yokai froze. A second later, it erupted into a pillar of dark fire, crumbling into a pile of lifeless ash before it even hit the ground.

It was dead. Erased in an instant.

Kunou stared, completely paralyzed by shock.

The man turned his head, looking down at her with a bright, easy smile. “Are you okay?”

The city was burning. The streets echoed with the screams of dying yokai. Yet, looking at that calm, gentle smile, the dam inside Kunou finally broke. She burst into loud, ugly sobs, throwing herself forward and burying her face into the stranger’s coat. Her tiny fists gripped his clothes in a death grip, refusing to let go as she cried until she was gasping for air.

Levi looked down at the trembling fox girl clinging to his waist, momentarily at a loss.

Well, whatever.

He wrapped an arm around her small shoulders, pulling her into a proper embrace. Kunou shuddered against him, her tears soaking his shirt.

“Save the tears for later,” Levi’s voice rumbled calmly above her. “Let’s fight our way out of here first.”

Kunou choked back a sob, rubbing her eyes as she looked around. Her blood ran cold.

Without her noticing, the alley entrance had been completely sealed off again. Dozens of bone yokai, identical to the one that had just chased her, crawled over the rooftops and walls, forming a suffocating wall of bone and black fire.

Panic seized her chest, her small body locking up tight.

Levi kept one arm securely around her. His free hand rested lightly on the hilt of Yamato.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, a confident smirk touching his lips. “When you yokai fight, isn’t the rule that whoever chickens out first loses?”

The moment the words left his mouth, his hand vanished.

Kunou didn’t even see him draw the blade. There was only a blur of motion, a metallic hum, and the blade was already resting back in its scabbard, as if it had never moved at all.

Then, the air shattered.

A storm of crisscrossing, spatial sword marks flashed through the darkness. In the blink of an eye, the entire horde of bone yokai was swallowed by an expanding sphere of black demonic flames.

They were incinerated instantly, leaving nothing but scorched earth and drifting embers.

Kunou’s jaw dropped.

Who… who exactly is this person?

Her golden eyes were wide as saucers.

A stray yokai leaped from the roof, trying to ambush them from above. Levi didn’t even draw his sword. He casually swatted it out of the air with a backhand, shattering its skull against the brick wall, before looking down at the stunned girl in his arms.

“If you’re still afraid of this kind of fodder while standing next to me, my reputation is going to take a hit,” he teased.

Kunou stared up at his face, her mind completely blank. She didn’t know what to think anymore, and honestly, she didn’t need to. She just nodded numbly.

“…Mm.”

Levi closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, his Observation Haki sweeping over the surrounding city blocks. Once he confirmed there were no other ambushes waiting in the shadows, he gently set Kunou back on her feet.

“Alright, let’s get moving. I have some business to take care of first, but I’ll escort you back right after. If you stay missing much longer, your mother is going to tear this city apart looking for you.”

Hearing her mother’s mention snapped Kunou back to reality, and she nodded frantically, sticking close to his side.

“Kunou… have you still not found my Kunou?!”

Deep inside the Kyoto yokai headquarters, Yasaka glared down at the Tengu scout kneeling before her. Her golden eyes burned with a terrifying, oppressive pressure, her nine tails lashing violently behind her.

“S-Sorry, Yasaka-sama…” the Tengu stammered, pressing his forehead to the floorboards.

Since the war broke out, the messengers assigned to Yasaka had been rotated out several times, unable to handle her crushing aura. This newly arrived scout had no idea how to pacify the furious clan leader and could only shiver in terror.

Yasaka’s patience was hanging by a thread.

But compared to Nurarihyon and Hagoromo Gitsune, she was still holding onto her sanity. At the very least, she hadn’t seen her daughter’s corpse with her own eyes. That single thread of hope kept her from completely losing control.

Still, her instincts screamed that something was deeply wrong.

“Kunou was inside my personal barrier. She never wanders off during a crisis. It is physically impossible for her to tear through my wards from the inside…” Yasaka muttered to herself, pacing the room.

The more she analyzed the situation, the more this entire war felt orchestrated.

That ancient fool Nurarihyon couldn’t protect his own grandson right after his son was murdered? He might have been negligent, yes. But what about Hagoromo Gitsune? She was paranoid and calculating. How could she have left herself open enough to get stabbed during her most vulnerable moment?

When pieced together, could all of this really be a coincidence? Could simple bad luck spark a bloodbath of this magnitude?

Impossible.

But Yasaka knew it was useless to point fingers now. Neither Nurarihyon nor Hagoromo Gitsune would listen to reason. They had locked onto each other as mortal enemies, and their armies were drowning in bloodlust. The war could no longer be stopped by words.

And if she were in their shoes… if she found Kunou’s broken body in the streets… she would likely burn Kyoto to the ground herself.

Kunou… my sweet Kunou…

The barrier was perfectly intact, yet her daughter had vanished into thin air.

Yasaka’s gaze suddenly turned freezing cold. The demonic aura erupting from her body grew so dense that the wooden floorboards began to splinter and groan under the pressure.

A specific title flashed through her mind. An existence from ancient legends—calling her a mere yokai was an insult. Perhaps she should be referred to as a Great Sage.

If it was truly her doing, then everything made terrifying sense.

“The method of Kunou’s disappearance…” Yasaka whispered, her fists clenching until her knuckles turned white. “It perfectly matches the ancient art of Spirit Away!”

After Levi led his peerage into Kyoto, he had ordered them to scatter, allowing them to familiarize themselves with the layout of the urban battlefield before regrouping.

Along the way, he had conveniently stumbled upon Kunou, and shortly after, he reunited with the rest of his team at the designated rally point.

“Did you find anything?” Levi asked, glancing over his gathered subordinates.