DxD : Emiya Shirou

All Know Its Name

It was all I could do to bite back the scream that threatened to tear its way out of my throat, whether it was from pain or frustration I did not. I lost. As I laid on the ground, broken and defeated, I felt nothing but shame fill me at the thought. What made it worse was I had no one to blame but myself.

He was right. I did not know why I kept Durandal hidden for so long, but he was right. If I had just used it from the start I may have stood a chance of winning, no matter how small. 

At the very least I would have fought him with my full power, but instead I let the chance slip by without even getting the chance to use my sword.

It made so much sense when I had first thought of it. I felt so smart, so cunning, to have a hidden ace. One that would catch the enemy off-guard and allow me to turn the battle in our favor. 

But he was right. What's the point of having a trump card if I lost before I could even use it?

And now as I cradled my broken arm to my chest I laid defeated, helpless, on the ground. All I could do was watch the red-haired Devil, the same one who almost shatter my Excalibur in his bare hands, calmly stand as he was surrounded from all sides by the spears of the Fallen.

I did not understand the words he spoke or why he called himself a bone of his sword, but the Fallen around him decided to take it as a provocation and responded with deadly force.

It was over in an instant.

The dozen Fallen thrust their spear as one at his body. Surrounded, their attack came from every angle, leaving him no room to maneuver or escape. 

Even to my eyes there was no hesitation or imperfection in their form. Unlike the comrades I had trained with and fought with in the Church, there movements were flawless, their coordination was perfect, inhumanely so.

It was then, as I watched the unnatural gracefulness of even the weakest among them, that I truly understood what we faced were not human. 

These were Angels that have lived for millennia, who have fought and survived a Great War and have been training for the next one ever since. Warriors and veterans, every last one of them, and it showed as their thrusts flew unerringly towards the unmoving the red-head.

It was over in an instant.

Before I could so much as blink a bloody mist erupted into the air, painting the night crimson as the bifurcated corpses of the twelve Fallen fell to the ground around the Devil.

I didn't even see him move.

Fast! I could feel my eyes involuntary widening at the sight of the Devil standing in the middle of the corpses of Fallen, having not moved a step form his original fast, not even Griselda could move that fast! But that's-

"With a Body of Iron, And a Heart of Fire"

I felt the words reverberate through me like the ringing of a bell. I did not know why but those words, they felt heavy, magical. So much so, that I felt the thoughts in my head derailed and grind to a halt as they washed over me.

"That sword!" Irina yelled from where she fell just a few yards away from me.

It was then that I noticed the sword he held in his hand and I felt my eyes widen again, "But that's-"

"-Excalibur Rapidly!" Griselda finished for me, sounding equally unnerved as we did by the sight of the blade in his hand. I glanced at this down at the hilt she refused to relinquish from her grip, where only a fragment of the ruined blade remained attached, before I looked back up only to be stunned again.

That was not Excalibur.

I did not know what happened but the sword he held in his hand was no longer Excalibur Rapidly. Though the wooden hilt remained unchanged, the blade had not. 

It had elongated and broadened, turning the once elegant rapier into an unwieldy claymore. Its once smooth unblemished surface was fragmented, cratered by hundreds of splinters. It had become fragile, it had become brittle.

It had become broken.

Before any of the surrounding Fallen were even able to respond or comprehend what had just happened, not that I was in any position to fault them for their confusion, he flicked the Not-Excalibur into the air over his head. The blade shot in the sky faster than any arrow, flying unerringly towards the group of Fallen that hovered above him.

The Fallen were caught completely off-guard by his actions. Unprepared, they could do nothing to defend themselves in time, not when they were that close to him, not with the speed his sword was traveling.

Even as some of them called upon their spears or desperately tried to dodge, I knew it was already too late for them, there was nothing they could do to save themselves. The attack was too unexpected, the blade traveling too fast, for the Fallen to do anything but watch as the sword flew right towards them and…

"… he missed?" Irina gaped in disbelief as we watch the blade tear past them, flying between their numbers as it failed to hit any of them.

I could not blame her, I was pretty much in the same state as she was. I watched as the sword, our hope, soared past the first line of Fallen towards the second group that hovered behind them, higher up in the sky.

It looked like the sword was in the direct path of one of Fallen in the middle of the group but it was already too late. The surprise had been lost. While the first group had been caught unprepared and by surprise, this group was anything but. Being farther off they had far more time to react and by the time the sword reached them they were ready for it.

It shot towards a Fallen who flew near the heart of the formation. He already had a spear in hand and despite the speed of the sword as it approached him, he swung his spear at it with a perfect timing, with an almost contemptuous ease, to knock it out of the sky.

He was the first to die.

I barely turned away in time as a miniature sun was born in the skies above Kaou Academy. It was nothing but pure luck and reflex that made me look away in time to save my sight as the sword detonated, releasing a surge of fire so bright that I was certain it could be seen clear across the city.

A wave of heat, as real and dense as any tide of water, washed over me as the false sun bathed the school grounds in crimson light. It burned for but an instant before it extinguished, burning itself out, but by then the damage had already been done.

A crash, just a few yards before me, made look up. It was a Fallen, dead. No, it would be more accurate to say to it was half a fallen, as the entire left half of his frame was missing. Gone, his body ending in a line of crisp blackened flesh that ran down the middle of his body. 

His face, what remained of it, was frozen in an expression of pure surprise. I looked up to discover the fate of the rest of the Fallen, and most didn't fare much better.

The dozens of Fallen near the heart of the explosion are gone, completely incinerated, leaving nothing behind but clouds of ash drifting in the air. 

While those that were fortunate enough to not have been caught up in the blast were knocked clear across the sky from the shockwave of the explosion. 

Many had successfully regained their balances in the last moment while more than a few had found themselves crashing into the ground both within and outside of the school grounds.

Even the Fallen that were on the ground, thus completely safe from the blast, had instinctively leapt backwards and away from the fireball, leaving a clear open space beneath the heart of the explosion, and consequently around the red-haired Devil who now stood alone in the center of the space.

Billowing clouds of soot and ash, born from the explosion fell down from the sky, blanketing the grounds of the courtyard beneath it from sight, hiding both the ground and the Devil with it.

However, just before the clouds of soot blocked his form from our eyes, I caught sight of him. At how his eyes of solid gold shone in darkness, how they locked onto the line of Fallen before him and how the way he looked at them reminded me so much of a cat eyeing a mouse, of a hunter watching its prey.

In the very last second I saw his lips curved, as they formed out the words that he intoned.

"Utterly alone I forge my Steel"

Then he was gone, hidden behind the grey clouds, leaving behind the disordered mass of Fallen.

When I looked around at the surrounding Fallen, who fortunately were completely disregarding both me and the others, all I could see was the looks of complete shock and confusion on their faces and hear the sound of raising panic taking hold of the Fallen Host.

And how could blame them for their confusion? I barely understood what was going on anymore.

One moment they had already won, their enemy lay defeated beneath their feet and within only a single swing of achieving their goal of starting a war. 

Then the next moment, their barrage of spears were halted by a flower –I mean really! A flower! It was even PINK for Heaven's sake-, their comrades killed by the dozens, and what was practically a sun appearing in their midst. 

Even ones as ancient as them would not be able to maintain their composure after such events.

Disorientated, shocked by the both the suddenness and the ferociousness of the attack, the ranks of Fallen had dissolved into a confused mess. The order and composure they held was lost as chaos took hold, turning what was once a disciplined force into a disorganized mass of bodies.

However that only lasted for but a moment. In the next second I understood why Kokabiel's forces were among the most respected in the Three Factions. Say what you will of these accursed Fallen, and I tend to say more than a few unflattering things about them in my prayers, they were known as veterans for a reason.

Over the steadily rising murmurs of the panicked Host, shouts of commands and instructions were barked out as the senior and ranking Fallen Angel swiftly and ruthlessly took command of their men by using a combination of orders, threats and insults to get them to obey.

To my eyes, it occurred remarkably fast. The panic that was quickly building within the ranks of the Fallen was brutally and swiftly stomped out by pure discipline as their training kicked in and the Fallen snapped to attention like the soldiers they were.

Within a few beats of my heart, order had already been restored within the ranks of the Fallen and discipline had been reestablished. And it did not stop there. 

The instant it was clear that their men had calmed, several senior among them took command over several squads and had them surround the still lingering cloud that hide the Devil. 

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