High School DxD: The Lucifer's Devil Trigger — Chapter 78

Chapter 78: Severed Ties and a New Path

Before Azazel had fallen from grace, they had been angels of the same generation—practically classmates in the grand halls of Heaven. Because of that shared history, Michael knew the Governor General’s temper like the back of his own hand.

“…Could it be that the Lord who has yet to awaken is currently residing with the Fallen Angels?”

Michael murmured the thought aloud in the empty sanctuary, but quickly shook his head. He still had not fully comprehended God’s final, cryptic words. For now, he decided to turn a blind eye to the scattered intelligence reports. God had promised that He would eventually return.

“It is best not to stir up unnecessary trouble right now,” Michael decided, his gaze shifting toward the distant horizon. “Since the devils have proposed a three-party peace treaty, we should sign the agreement first. We can slowly search for that Lord afterward.”

While the angels and Fallen Angels plotted their respective courses, Levi was busy cleaning house.

He grabbed the struggling Augusta by the collar. With a casual flick of his wrist, he drew Yamato, the dark blade slicing through the very fabric of reality. A jagged spatial rift tore open in the air. Without a second thought, Levi tossed the woman straight into the Imaginary Space, sending her directly into Tiamat’s waiting domain.

‘First, let’s see what this intelligence from Oz is really about,’ Levi thought, sheathing the katana with a sharp click.

With the immediate nuisance handled, Levi gestured for the still-dazed Lavinia and a highly amused Vali to follow him. They made their way toward the top floor of the building. His Observation Haki pulsed outward, painting a crystal-clear picture of the battlefield above.

Ikuse Tobio and his companions were locked in combat with Himejima Todou.

Grayfia had already swept through the building, systematically wiping out the Void Cicada organization’s nest. The remaining small fry were nothing but disposable trash tossed aside by the Five Great Families. Though some of those stragglers possessed underhanded magical techniques, they stood absolutely zero chance with Grayfia and Ryougi Shiki holding the line.

Only Himejima Todou remained standing. Because Levi had specifically designated the man as Tobio’s prey, no one else had dared to intervene. Had Levi not given that order, Grayfia’s silver magic would have bound the tool-wielding rogue into a neat, helpless package long ago.

Down on the floor, however, Ikuse Tobio was fighting a losing battle.

He stood before Himejima Todou, his chest heaving like a broken bellows. Blood seeped from dozens of shallow lacerations across his arms and legs, dripping steadily onto the concrete. The black blade resting by his feet was chipped and fractured along its edge.

In stark contrast, Himejima Todou looked entirely unbothered. Aside from a few slightly torn threads on his robes and a singular, thin red scratch across his chest, the man had sustained zero real damage. The sheer difference in their physical conditioning was a deadly chasm.

By all logical metrics, Tobio had no chance of winning.

Yet, the words Levi had spoken before leaving continued to ring in his ears.

“Tobio, I have only one request. In this battle, you must maintain the initiative from start to finish.”

Seeing Todou shift his weight for a counterattack, Tobio forced his battered legs to move. He lunged forward a fraction of a second faster. He raised his black scythe high above his head, the shadow-blade at his feet flying forward in tandem with his strike.

Metal screamed against metal. Sparks showered the dim room.

Tobio’s scythe bounced off Todou’s specially crafted staff, the impact sending a jarring shockwave up the boy’s forearms. The gap in their experience and technique was painfully obvious; Tobio’s wide, sweeping strikes resembled the desperate death throes of a cornered dog.

Todou simply adjusted his grip, steadily deflecting every single strike without even altering his breathing rhythm.

One strike. Two strikes. Three strikes. Every desperate swing met solid defense.

Tobio’s muscles screamed in protest. He should have collapsed minutes ago. But Levi’s singular demand anchored him to the floor. The strength in his bleeding hands grew heavier, the velocity of his swings increasing with reckless abandon.

He refused to disappoint Levi.

Originally, Levi had ordered him to simply kill Himejima Todou, a command Tobio hadn’t been able to stomach. Levi had compromised, stepping back and handing the final choice to him. The absolute least he could do was fulfill that one, simple condition.

He would not fail to live up to Levi’s expectations.

A Longinus, at its core, is an extension of the wielder’s deepest emotions. As Tobio clung to his desperate resolve, the black shadow beneath his feet began to boil. It spread rapidly across the floor, wrapping around his calves, crawling up his waist, and finally engulfing his entire body in pitch-black ink.

The shadow-canine, which had previously looked like a standard hunting dog, violently expanded into a massive, terrifying beast.

The sky outside the shattered windows darkened. Thick clouds rolled overhead, blotting out the stars, leaving only a pale sliver of moonlight to illuminate the carnage.

This transformation was not the result of his grandmother’s seal breaking. It was not a sudden, accidental loss of control.

It was pure, unadulterated obsession.

He had forced the evolution himself.

Balance Breaker: Night Celestial Slash Dogs!

Across the room, the wooden box tucked into Himejima Todou’s robes suddenly emitted a soft, ethereal glow. Todou had stolen the item from the home of Tobio’s childhood sweetheart—it was a memento left behind by Tobio’s grandmother, Himejima Juba.

The wooden lid snapped open. A glowing crystal floated slowly into the air, projecting a familiar, gentle voice into the ruined room.

Tobio, half-submerged in his new Balance Breaker state, froze.

It was his grandmother’s voice.

“I want to make it clear to those who approach this child with malicious intent. I raised him. I raised him to be more considerate of others than anyone else. Because he… was born with that forbidden means known as a ‘False God’.”

The recorded words left Todou staring in shock, and even Grayfia, watching from the shadows, narrowed her eyes in surprise. If Himejima Juba’s words were true, Ikuse Tobio possessed the terrifying ability to use a Longinus Balance Breaker from the moment he was born.

The gentle voice continued to echo through the silence.

“Tobio, I’m sorry. You must be very sad, right? Very scared, right? Forgive Grandmother for leaving before I could tell you the truth. But, Tobio, it’s alright now. You don’t need to be afraid anymore. You don’t need to cry anymore. Sing it. Although you’ve forgotten, you should be able to remember it now. So, sing—sing that forbidden song of the Blade Dog.”

The memory finally clicked into place.

When he was very young, his grandmother had taken him to a quiet shrine. She had knelt beside him, her expression unusually solemn.

“Listen well, Tobio.”

He remembered it all now. She had told him that if he ever truly reached a dead end, there was an incantation that could save his life. But it carried a terrible price. It could only be used at the very last moment. If he spoke the words, everything he knew would be gone.

If he used it, he would no longer be human.

But as the shadows swirled around him, Tobio realized the truth.

He didn’t need it.

Grandmother, it isn’t needed anymore.

Tobio hadn’t sung a single note of the Blade Dog’s forbidden song, yet he had shattered the balance on his own. He had simply reached out and reclaimed the power that had belonged to him since his first breath.

The black shadow consumed him entirely. His facial structure elongated, bones cracking and shifting as he transformed into a towering, pitch-black werewolf. His eyes burned a piercing, blood-red hue.

The massive Blade Dog at his feet uncoiled its body, raising its head to match its master.

Two pairs of glowing crimson eyes locked onto Himejima Todou.

Right on cue, Levi, Vali, and Lavinia stepped onto the floor.

“So this is the Balance Breaker of the Blade Dog?” Vali asked, a feral, battle-hungry grin spreading across his face as he took in the towering werewolf.

Levi calmly activated the Voice of All Things, probing Tobio’s mental state. Finding exactly what he expected, Levi called out across the room.

“If you want to do it, just do it. You haven’t gone crazy, Tobio. You aren’t just slashing around blindly like a wild beast.” Levi’s voice was smooth, cutting through the heavy tension. “Do you remember what I told you? You are Ikuse Tobio. The Night Celestial Slash Dogs is just your Longinus. It is your power—but the one holding the blade is you.”

Levi crossed his arms, his silver eyes gleaming. “I handed the choice to you. How you want to live from now on… you decide for yourself!”

‘Yeah.’ Levi heard the silent affirmation echo in the boy’s mind.

Tobio’s blood-red eyes narrowed. He—or rather, the beast he had become—raised the massive shadow scythe high into the air. Beside him, the Blade Dog dipped its head into the darkness and pulled a massive greatsword straight out of the shadows.

It was a silent farewell to the weak, hesitant boy he used to be.

The scythe swung down in a blinding arc, and the Blade Dog charged forward like a cannonball.

He severed everything tying him to his past.

A sickening, wet tearing sound echoed through the room. The unbreakable staff, the defensive magic, and Himejima Todou himself were all split perfectly in two.

Tobio and his hound stood in a expanding pool of crimson, looking down at the bisected corpse at their feet. His monstrous face betrayed no emotion, though his heart hammered wildly against his ribs.

It took over ten minutes for the shadows to recede, leaving a bruised and exhausted Tobio standing in the center of the room. Levi listened to the boy’s erratic heartbeat slowly return to a steady, calm rhythm.

Tobio walked over to Levi. He carried his usual quiet demeanor, but his voice had dropped several degrees, carrying a new, freezing edge.

“The Void Cicada matter is a closed chapter. As agreed, my life is yours from now on, Mr. Levi.”

Levi offered a faint, satisfied smile. “Fine, Tobio. Welcome to the team.”

The Void Cicada incident officially ended with Himejima Todou’s death.

The Fallen Angels arrived shortly after to clean up the mess. They treated the wounds of the children who had been forcefully transformed, wiped their traumatic memories, and quietly returned them to their normal, everyday lives. The entire bloody affair was swept under the rug, hidden from the mundane world.

But some people could never return to the light.

People like the Longinus wielders of the Four Perils. People like Ikuse Tobio.

Tobio stood at the mouth of a quiet alleyway, hidden beneath the flickering glow of a streetlamp. He stared across the street at a two-story house radiating warm, yellow light from its windows.

It was his childhood sweetheart’s home. Her family had returned safely.

Even the supernatural lion from Oz that had been hiding inside her—a beast that had long since lost its nerve—had been surgically extracted by Levi’s Yamato and shipped off to Lucifer for magical study.

Her world had returned to normal. The only difference was that Tobio no longer existed within it.

Levi leaned against the brick wall in the shadows, watching the boy’s silent vigil. He let out a quiet sigh.

“You know, it’s not like I’m forbidding you from having contact with normal people. If you really want me to protect a few civilians for you, it requires zero effort on my part.”

Tobio slowly shook his head, his gaze never leaving the warm window.

“No need, Mr. Levi. Just let them live their lives peacefully. I can’t go back. And I don’t want her to ever see anything scary again. Not even once. I won’t risk any accidents.”

He turned his back on the light, stepping fully into the shadows beside Levi. He didn’t look back.

“I have severed my ties with the past. From now on, I need to change how I live. So—” Tobio paused, looking up at the devil beside him. “I’ll be in your care, Mr. Levi.”

Recognizing the absolute finality in the boy’s tone, Levi didn’t push the issue. He pushed himself off the brick wall and dusted off his coat.

“Let’s go. I’ll take you to the contact person to get you settled. As for tonight… do you want to grab a drink?”

“No. I’m not of legal age to drink yet.”

Levi scoffed, a dry smirk on his lips. “Tsk. How boring.”

A faint, slightly shy smile finally broke through Tobio’s cold exterior. He fell into step beside Levi, and the two of them walked deeper into the darkness, leaving the warm, safe light of the alley far behind them.

After handing Tobio over to his new handlers, Levi finally washed his hands of the entire ordeal.

He arrived back at his own residence, pushing open the front door. Instantly, the rich, savory aroma of a home-cooked meal washed over him. He knew that scent perfectly—Ryougi Shiki had taken over the kitchen again.

It was strange. Despite having a massive castle filled with powerful subordinates waiting for him in the Underworld, stepping into this small, ordinary house always made the tension bleed out of his shoulders.

Was it just because of Shiki’s incredible cooking? He couldn’t quite say.

Levi kicked off his shoes in the entryway, rolling his shoulders to loosen the stiff muscles. But as he stepped further into the hallway, his instincts flared. Something felt slightly off.

The house was too quiet.

Ryougi Shiki was not there.