Beneath Her Eyes

Occult Research Club Room, Kuoh Academy

Issei is currently sitting at a sofa while Rias do the same at the opposite side. He's showing her his Boosted Gear so that Rias can tell Issei what she knows about it.

"So I can boost my power for each 10 seconds, and each boost multiple my power by two?" Ask Issei.

"Exactly. There's a limit however. If your body can't handle the strain, it will either stop boosting or reset you power to normal." Replied Rias.

"Yep. Still owe Hawk 500 bucks."

"Who is this Hawk you're talking about?"

"He's a hunter. He has...some sort of 'gift'. It allows him to see something hidden at someone's soul. He said that I have a power that can rivaled deities. I didn't believe him. Then we have a bet. Guess who lose."

"Well, that sucks."

"Anyway, Gremory..."

"Rias."

"Pardon me?"

"Call me Rias, Issei. We're close enough to call each other with first names."

"Fine, Rias. I once hear from other members that Kuoh is Gremory's territory. Can you explain it further?"

"It's exactly what it said. When I went to this school and decided to take an education here, my brother gave me the land and asked me to protect it. This is some sort of training related to the fact that I am Gremory's heir."

"What makes you decided to chose this school instead of others?"

"Many reasons. But the two most important are that because it's in Japan and except stray devils, most time there isn't any danger here."

Issei's eyes become wide when he hear it.

"Rias...do you know why there's not many monsters in Kuoh?"

"Because this is not their territory?"

"That and because for its size, Kuoh has a large number of hunters. To put it in your perspective, your territory is filled with people who would love to kill your kind."

Rias takes the words for few seconds before her eyes become wide as she realize what kind of territory she had. This fact will make both her and Sona's works a lot more harder; not only they need to protect the town, now they also need to make sure that none of its citizens know about their existence. It was an extreme luck that none of their clients reported them to the hunters. According to Issei, he's only a hunter who had finished his training, which means that the veterans are deadlier than the already deadly hunter.

"You don't know about it." Said Issei as he observes Rias' face.

"No. Now excuse me because I am going to be really busy." Said Rias as she goes to her desk.

"I'll take my leave then."

Issei stands up, goes to the doors and exits the room.

Street of Kuoh

Issei is walking as he remembers the events at school; came like usual, spreading firecrackers near a changing room so that the Perverted Duo get caught, watching as they got beaten up, running away from the kendo club when he flirted with one of their member, went to the ORC room, and so on. It's quite normal.

Issei suddenly stop when he see a woman in front of him. The black-haired woman seems to be looking at him.

"Is there something you want, ma'am?" Ask Issei.

"It's not what I want." Replied the woman as her eyes suddenly become black. "It's rather what we want."

Issei quickly takes out a bottle of holy water and spreads the content on the demon, burning her skin. He begins to run away from her, but someone suddenly pushed him to the ground. When he looks at the culprit, Issei sees a demon possessing an African man. He takes out a gun and shoot it at the demon. Normally, it has no effect against demon. But because he inscribed devil's trap on the bullets, the shot incapacitated the demon. Issei stands up and resume his escape...only to runs into a large group of demons.

Isseis shoots few demons and manage to incapacitate them. However, a red-eyed demon suddenly appeared in front of him. She disarms Isseis and then punches him at the face. The red-eyed keep punching him in the face for half a minute. One of the demon then covers Issei's face with a cloth. The red-eyed demon holds Issei by the shoulder and then teleported to somewhere with the hunter.

Unknown Location

Issei can feels the cloth on his face removed. He tries to look at his surrounding for a moment before his sight is normal again. When he looks around, he see a demon possessing a Caucasian man. He looks around again and see that he's being tied into a chair and inside an empty room.

"Oh, it's you. What do you want?" Ask Issei. The demon punches him in the face as a reply.

"Answer my question and I'll make sure that you only dead." Demand the demon with cold tone. "Why are they interested in you?"

"Who? The devils?" Issei received another punch from the demon. This time in the stomach.

"Don't you dare call those abominations 'Devil'! They don't deserved to bear one of Lucifer's title!" Shout the demon. "And you're wrong. I am not talking about them."

"Then who? The Winchesters?" Again, Issei received a punch.

"No, you fool! The Angels!"

"Dude, the only angels I know were dead and not in a good terms term with me."

Outside

Two demons – one is an African woman and the other is a Chinese man – are guarding the entrance to the place where they held Issei. The Chinese takes out a cigarette and puts it in his mouth. The African demon rolls her eyes.

"Really? You do realize that you will be the first demon to smoke because you want to do it?" Said the African demon.

"I know. I just want to try it." Replied the Chinese demon.

The demon then search for a lighter. Suddenly, he hears a noise, like a whistle. He ignores it at first but the noise is getting higher in frequency. It's getting higher until both demons are now covering their ears. They then fall to the ground, still covering their ears.

A figure suddenly appears out of nowhere and approaches both demons. The duo's eyes become wide when they see the figure.

Inside

The demon wipes his non-existed sweat from his forehead as he backs away a little from Issei. The hunter is badly wounded due to the demon's attacks.

"Now, do you want to confess?" Ask the demon.

"Yeah. I want to confess; you're nothing but a prick! You don't even know the sentence 'I don't know'!" Replied Issei.

The demon is about to reply when his body suddenly glows in orange light. The light comes out from his eyes and mouth. Some of his bones are also visible due to the light. The demon then fall to the ground on prone. On his back is a knife with a paper stabbed through it.

Issei blinks for a moment and suddenly he's untied and his wounds are healed. Issei stands up carefully as he approaches the demon. He takes the knife and the paper. Issei then read the paper.

Use the knife on demon

Issei makes a ball from the paper and toss it away. He wipes the blood from the knife and head towards the door. He opens it and exist the room. In front of him is a corridor with many turns. He walks through the corridor for few minutes before a demon sees him.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Ask the demon who then runs towards Issei.

Issei prepares for the demon to come to him. When the demon is close, Issei charges to the demon and stabs the knife at his chest. The demon glows orange before collapsing. Issei looks at the knife, then the demon, then the knife again.

"I got myself a demon-killing-blade." Said Issei.

Issei walks through the corridor once more. He see two demons who immediately run towards him. Issei avoids their attacks manage to stab them in the vital place. Once again, Issei goes through the corridor, trying to find a way out. He then meets a group of demons.

"Seriously?"

Few minutes later...

After encountering at least a dozen of demons, Issei finally see a door. When he opens it and walks through it, he finds out that he finally managed to get out. When he turns around to look at the place where he was being held, he sees an abandoned factory.

Suddenly, someone throws herself to Issei. When he sees the culprit, he sees the red-eyed demon. The demon punches Issei at the face. Then, two other demons appear and held Issei, each holding his arms. The red-eyed demon then punches Issei repeatedly.

Without warning, the demon propelled to Issei. This caused the other two demons to let go off Issei as he and the red-eyed demon are propelled from the demons and fall to the ground. Someone then pushed both demons to the ground. Issei and the red-eyed demon manage to gain their composure and are now looking at someone who's fighting the other demons.

The figure has a long black hair, indicating that it's a woman. She wears a grey business suit without a tie and a black shoes. Somehow, she looks familiar to Issei. Upon closer look, Issei's eyes become wide.

"Ra..Raynare?! I thought Rias said that she killed her!" Thought Issei.

Issei suddenly jump back due to instinct. It's a good thing that he hears it because the red-eyed demon was trying to punch his face. Issei charges towards the demon, trying to stab her with the knife. But the demon teleported behind Issei and pushed him to the ground. She then held Issei's right hand which holds the knife and begin to choke Issei. Suddenly, her left hand broke, freeing Issei's hand. When they look at the culprit, they see "Raynare" is pointing at the demon with her right hand while her left is holding a demon on the ground. Issei immediately stabs the red-eyed demon at the neck, killing her. Issei shoves the vessel away and stands up as he observes "Raynare".

"Raynare" is holding a demon by his neck. Another tries to put her into a choke hold, but without seeing the target "Raynare" punches the demon at the chin. She puts her right hand at the demon's forehead. The demon's eyes and mouth glows white as he lets out a scream. The light then disappear as she retract her hand. The last demon punches "Raynare" at her face. However, it has no effect as she immediately stand straight and punches the demon three times at the head. She then grab the demon by the collar and puts her left hand at his forehead, doing the same thing like what she did. "Raynare" then let the body fall to the ground.

"Raynare" turns around to look at Issei, only to be stabbed at the chest by him. She looks at the chest, rolls her eyes, retract it, and then gives it back to Issei.

"Don't do it again." Said "Raynare" with emotionless tone. "Follow me!"

Issei is left speechless by what happened. Nevertheless, he decides to follow "Raynare".

"What kind of creature are you?" Ask Issei as he tries to keep pace with "Raynare".

"I am an angel of the Lord." Replied "Raynare".

"Don't you mean 'was'?"

"No, I am just pretending to be a fallen angel."

"Pretending? I never thought an angel can do that. Say, Ra..."

"...niel."

"Pardon?"

"That's my real name; Raniel." Replied Raniel.

"I see."

Both of them then see a Mustang Convertible which is red at the body and black on at the roof. Raniel opens the driver's seat's door and gets inside. Issei, while confused, opens the passenger's seat's door and gets inside. Raniel then start the car and drives away from the factory.

Issei looks outside for a moment before asking a question.

"An angel driving a car?"

"I don't need to. However, with this you can ask something while heading to your home." Replied Raniel.

"Can't we just do it at my home?"

"No."

"Alright." Issei thinks for a question for a moment. "Why were you trying to kill me?"

"A test."

"A test?"

"We want to see how good you are in dealing with the higher echelon of supernatural beings. So far, your rank is 'Excellent', but lower than the Winchesters."

"You know I can get killed."

"We'll just revive you."

...

"So who are 'we'?"

"Me and other angels."

"Alright. How do you still alive?"

"When that stupid Gremory heir tried to kill me, I teleported fast enough and at the right moment, making them think I am dead. Same thing with my subordinates."

"Who?"

"Daniel, Kalew, and Mittoltes. You might know them as Dohnaseek, Kalawarner, and Mittelt."

"Those three are also angels?"

"Yes. Though please don't speak about them for a while. They're rather mad due the fact that they lost their vessels."

"Vessel?"

"Angels' true form and voice can't be seen or heard by normal humans unless you want to loose your eyes and ears. For us to interact with you, we require a vessel."

"So you possessed some poor lady?"

"I have her consent. It's a must for all angels if they want to possess someone."

"OK. Why did you tried to take away Asia's Sacred Gear?"

"It's a big mess up. The plan only involved taking it away, put the gear somewhere safe, and then revive her. However, something happened that make us unable to do the last thing."

"Oh, and what did you mean by 'somewhere safe'?"

"With Argento's personality, I doubt she would check the patient first before healing them. Even after her mistake."

"Yeah, can see that happened."

Both Issei and Raniel stay silence for the next few minutes.

"Say, can you please tell me about the Three Factions?" Ask Issei.

"I can. First, the Devils. What do you know about Lilith?" Ask Raniel back.

"Well, she was Adam's first wife until she became the first demon."

"Correct. You see, after creating Lilith, Lucifer did a series of experiments to see whether or not he can empowered the next generation of demons. The results; epic fails. From hundreds of thousands of souls he used, only 72 survived plus several extras. They will later became the 72 Pillars and Extra Devils."

"Then, the Angels. The creation of 'Angels' happened after Lucifer's experiments. The Devils were very wild during that time. It had been decided that they must take care of the Devils. However, for us dealing with them was like dealing with sewer rats. No one wanted to dirty their hands doing that. The Scribe of God came to our rescue; he showed us a way to created an angel; not like us obviously but they're like the usual depiction of angels. Long story short, we created cannon fodders and home for them, their own heaven."

"Calling your own people cannon fodders?"

"You can't compare the Factions' angels with us. For us it would be a big insult."

"Finally, the Fallen Angels. Because we're obviously not a god, some of the angels we created became corrupted and fall. That's why there are three factions instead of two."

"Wow, I just hope the Bible have such a good story. Church will always be full of people."

"Good thinking. Anyway, if you meet any high-ranking member of the Factions, don't be surprised if they say that God is dead."

"Why would they say that?"

"I'll explain some other time, but the Heaven Host nicknamed the reason as 'The Trickster's Greatest Trick'."

"Fine then... Oh, why were you wearing that kind of clothes as a fallen angel and why were you disguising as one?"

"...I blame the fallen I must replace. As for your second question, the information is classified."

"Really? Classified?"

"You can say I am an agent of angelic CIA."

"That explain everything."

Suddenly, Raniel stops the car. When Issei looks the outside, he sees that he's in front of his home. Issei opens the door and exits the car.

"I'll meet you some other time, Issei. Just wait. And don't tell this meeting to anyone except I allowed you to and the Winchesters." Said Raniel.

"Of course, Ray."

"I told you my name is Raniel."

"Still calling you Ray."

Raniel don't reply it and just drives away. Issei turns around and walks inside his house. Once inside, he realized something; what makes him trust Raniel to just do what she wanted? Issei then shrug it off because he's tired and the reason might has something to do with the Heaven.

When Issei goes to the kitchen to grab something to eat, he finds a note from his parents.

Will come home late. Problems with demons. Taking care of them with other hunters.

"What is exactly the reason for the demons to be here in large number?" Thought Issei.

And this chapter is done.

If you have question or suggestion, feel free to tell me.

Review please.