The world was a blur.

A coldness sunk into his body, yet he felt warm. It was like a fever had taken hold of him making him uncomfratable in his own skin. Opening his eyes he saw that he was in a tunnel, but he was not walking through the tunnel he was moving through it feet first. Drifting down its length like a slow moving raft. Soon after he awoke he began to feel restless.

There was a light that appeared overhead every second, passing over and over again into infinity in a never ending stream. He was floating and he didn't like not being able to even tell if he was alive or dead. He hoped he was alive, otherwise he was in for an eternity of watching that damn light driving him slowly insane with the flashing blandness that he was already quite tired of seeing. Their was a faint droning in his ear, it was the only other thing in this bland work besides the light and if it wasn't there he would've been driven insane by the light throughout the eternity he had been floating down the tunnel. It was as if someone was shouting as loud as they could and was just close enough to be heard but not have a single word legible. There was multiple voices, some sounded male others female that shouted and rushed about as the light passed endlessly on its track. It was mocking him, laughing at him as he floated helplessly along as it flew in circles around him. If he was alive, he would soon find his way out of this tunnel and move on from there. But only after he smashed that goddamn light to pieces.

That was if he wasn't dead.

If he was dead then perhaps this was the light seen at death. If so then why didn't it remain still instead of speeding ever onward into oblivion? Some people said that it was a door, but if it was a door then why didn't it remain still? Others said that is was god, waiting to welcome you into heaven. If that was true then why wasn't the fucker standing still, he was taunting him. Laughing at him for the things he had done.

Was this hell? Eternally watching heaven flee from you like Tantalus and his grapes? Watching god taunt you with a paradise lost? If so then it was mighty clever, Issei wondered what the pope would think. He wouldn't be pleased that was sure, but Issei could appreciate the joke.

Suddenly as if drawn by the tolling of a bell, a thick black curtain swooped from oblivion and broke through the haze like the dawn and choking the life from that cursed light. With his new enemy dead, Issei beheld a face within this darkness, and his gaze met the eyes of an angel. Such a rich purple, a glorious shining amethyst. A treasure to be sure, but this wasn't the girls greatest treasure, not her eyes that shone like gemstones, not her lips colored pink as periwinkle, nor her hair which fell like black silk, but a heart that caused her to weep for a dead man.

A man that did not deserve her kindness, but one that received it all the same. A man whose weakened gaze caught something in her eye and in a moment of clarity he realized something.

She knew.

He knew she knew. There wasn't a doubt about it, though he didn't know how, and he didn't know when but somehow she had found out about him. She must have, it was the only explanation as to why his angel was weeping over him. She knew he was dying, she had to. Why else was she crying?

But...then again, maybe she didn't. He couldn't actually remember a thing about the last few days so it could've been anything. He didn't even remember what day it was, but maybe his train crashed, maybe he was shot, or stabbed, or hit by a car or anything or maybe it was all a just dream.

Issei didn't know which he would prefer actually.

A tear struck Issei on the cheek, one followed by another and another. A cascade of diamonds on his pale skin that meant more to him then anything because he hated seeing her cry.

Gathering all the strength in his body, it was quite pitiful how little there was, just barely able to force his hand up long enough to roughly palm her face. It was a such a simple thing, a tiny guesture to sooth her worry. But as her tears soaked into his palm, she smiled and said something but he didn't hear her words. If it really was time, then death had taken his ears and robbed him of her voice. Perhaps those indecipherable voices he could hear were the dead, but was it the indiscriminate dead waiting in limbo, or were his brothers and sisters welcoming him to heaven?

All things considered, it was far more likely they were waiting to drag him to hell.

Made much more sense.

Either way, looking on the bright side, he got to see his angel one last time, her dark hair spilling over him like thick black curtains calling an end to the theatrics that was his life. Or perhaps, it would be more fitting to say, it enfolded him like the black wings of his own sweet angel of death carrying him gently to the afterlife for their long over due meeting.

Yes, he liked that idea better.

Much more fitting.

He closed his eyes.

*][*

Rias was keeping pace at a respectful distance behind the gurney rushing through the hospital crowded with doctors and nurses swarming out from wherever they were hiding. She was the pique of propriety, yes she was concerned, she had a considerable amount of time invested into Issei after all, but she didn't ride in the ambulance mewling like a child.

But the crow did.

Glued to Issei since he had fallen into its arms, squalling and screaming all the way from his doorstep to the hospital the fallen one was maintained a constant presence next to Issei. Even now as he was being rolled into the emergency room for surgery she was clutching him like a doll. The Gremory heiress was honestly astonished at the crows devotion to the role, having guessed it would've flown off as soon as things took a turn for the worst yet here it was the devoted friend, girlfriend, or whatever guise it had used to entrap the boy with.

Whoever she was it seemed that Issei was at aware and appreciative of the crow's presence. From her place in line she could see the moment he reached out to cup her face while the doctor shouted orders to the nurses who either complied or were already fulfilling task. Issei seemed to care for the crow, which Rias supposed was as much of a good thing as it was a nuisance, it meant that he wasn't an unfeeling psychopath but it also meant that it was going to be harder to persuade him from the crow's side.

It was only when they reached the operating room doors, the ones that only patients and staff were allowed behind, that orderlies managed to pry it away the crow from Issei so they could drag his motionless body through the doors and even then it hovered by the entrance frantically asking anyone who passed back through if Issei was okay.

Rias waited for a good fifteen to twenty minutes, taking the time to grab a drink and find a decent seat before the crow decided to give it a rest. And even then it sat down on the far side of the waiting room staring blankly out into space. Dedication, Rias saw that it was checking all the boxes: worried, flustered, shocked, just in case Issei survived, that was professional and Rias could begrudgingly respect her for that at least. It was a rare thing to see indeed. She almost clapped.

Bravo.

A few minutes later, Rias had just managed to inform her peerage of the goings on via text when her attention was pulled from her phone to the crow glaring at her from the seat across the aisle. Admittedly the girl looked a mess, with those red and puffy eyes, shallow cheeks, hastily donned and mismatched clothing, and a rats nest of wild hair she was the perfect example of the terrified and concerned lover. To be honest, of Rias didn't know better even she would've been fooled.

"May I help you?" Rias asked setting aside her half finished drink, she would be polite. She had no desire to be evicted from this hospital, not before she could confirm a few of her suspicions at least. Time was marching ever onward, and she had little of it left to waste trying to sneak back into the hospital to test them out on Issei's corpse. As it was it would be much easier to simply wait until the doctors were done and see whether or not he survived what ever it was that was afflicting him and go from there.

"What did you do to Issei?" Hissed the crow, voice low and dangerous with a near mad gleam in her eye. Her fingers bit into the arm of the chair, squeezing the wood in an effort to hold herself back. Smart bird, it wouldn't do to cause a scene in the waiting room of a human hospital. Even if it didn't escalate into a full out magical brawl, a cat fight would surely cost either of them dearly. Rias couldn't afford to miss this opportunity, and the crow apparently needed to maintain her cover for at least a while longer. Which was a good sign that this basket was indeed the right one for Rias to place a few of her eggs.

"Me? I did nothing at all." Rias folded her hands in her lap and watched the crow across from her.

"Liar!" It yelled before getting a hold of itself, seemed she had a temper. Perhaps she was desperate, all the more reason Issei interested the heiress. "He was fine when he left, but then he comes back with you and all of a sudden he's in the hospital. You did something to him I just know it so talk!" the crows fist smashed against the nearby table, causing more than a few nearby eyes to cast in there direction momentarily.

Rias smirked letting the moment hang in the air and allow the attention dissipate. "You call me a liar and expect me to tell you anything, why should I?"

"You'll tell me because if you don't I rip that fucking grin off your goddamn face bitch!" The crows fingernails turned into talons that gouged into the wooden chair as she lent forward threateningly. Not one to be daunted, Rias lent forward herself until the two could feel the breath of the other on their skin and pierced the fallen with a glare of her own.

"I would like to see you try."

To an outside observer it would seem as if the two where heatedly discussing something rather than preparing for a full out brawl, that is if the outside observer didn't know what these two were and knew nothing about women. Fortunately, the observer happened to be a bit of an expert on both.

"My, my, it's quite hot in here wouldn't you say Yuuto?" Said Akeno as she rounded the corner entering the waiting room and began fanning herself with her hand. She was beautiful as ever and dressed in her Miko uniform, the chaste red and white of a shrine maiden.

"Indeed." Affirmed Kiba entering the room behind her, he himself as gentlemanly as ever with his suit like uniform and knightly decorum. The only ones missing from the peerage was Koneko, who was stuck on a contract, and of course there was her bishop but he never got out anyway. Not that he had any desire to anyway.

Their arrival interrupted the two who were about to fight as Akeno walked to the end of their aisle and looked between the two.

"Aw, Rias has been making friends without me again." She pouted, but a flicker of lightning passed through her fingers unnoticed by the humans in the room but to the crow the message was clear.

Back off.

"Not at all." Rias assured her closest friend. "She was just leaving, after all the good doctor has arrived." The crow blinked but followed Rias' outstretched hand behind her to see a tall man with a tanned head enter through the wide double doors at the end of the room and call a name, soon after 'Yuma' rushed after him. Curiously enough, Rias noted, this doctor was not among the throng that swarmed them at the entrance, nor was he the fat middle aged doctor that had taken Issei to the operating room. This man was middle eastern, Iraqi perhaps, or some other Persian descendant, wore glasses, and was broadly shouldered.

How curious.

With the crow gone, they relaxed. Kiba less than the others as he quietly watched the crow and the doctor conversed. Now that it was open, Akeno claimed the seat across from Rias resting her hands in her lap.

"So that is the little bird that's been roosting around Issei?" Akeno said once she was settled.

"So it would seem." Said Kiba, still standing at attention. "President, how is Issei?" He added after turning his eyes to Rias.

"Why Yuuto I thought you didn't like him." Akeno teased but Rias could tell she was wondering the same thing, if only for Rias' sake. The girl really was a true friend if nothing else.

"I told you that I thought there was something wrong with him, that death hangs around him. I assumed that was because he was dangerous, perhaps I was wrong." Kiba said with a somber shake of his head.

"No, you were right. He is dangerous, the crow nearly bit me because she thought I had done something to him. If they are that desperate to keep him then he is dangerous. We only need to find out why he is dangerous and how to control him. If we can manage that then he would be exactly what we need." Rias smirked.

"But President, what if he is too dangerous? What would happen if we can't control him?" Yuuto asked, carefully watching the room.

"If he is too dangerous we will just ignore him and let nature take its course." Akeno proposed with an easy smile. "And we will do the same if he is unreasonable. After all, fate has given us the perfect tools to deal with the threat and all we would have to do is wait. If the little bird is pecking for answers from Rias it means that the fallen have no idea what ails Issei, so there is no reason to believe he would survive long enough to be worth the effort of recruiting him so we have nothing to worry about Yuuto-kun so relax and should anything happen we'll leave him to his fate. However, if it makes you comfortable I can pay him a visit in a minute and remove the problem." Akeno reached over and sipped Rias' diet-coke as simple and as easy as she would after commenting on the weather rather than cold blooded murder. Though Yuuto himself balked at the idea, he had no illusions that if Rias asked her Akeno would fry Issei alive with little remorse. The sadist was probably aching to do just that, death meant little to her. Yuuto himself had seen how excited she got during battle, and how terrible she could be when aroused.

"That won't be necessary Akeno." Rias said as her best friend relaxed back into her chair. "Despite himself, Issei has done nothing to truly provoke us and it is best not to jump to any conclusions."

*][*

Yuuma was a mess, the ride to the hospital was not an easy one and she didn't know who it was that had called the ambulance, she didn't really care. She was tearing herself apart with the thought that today was Issei's last day. That everything she had done to be with him had been for nothing and she felt that somehow it was all her fault. She didn't know how, but she believed that somehow she could've prevented this. If only she had noticed that damn mirror sooner, she could've gotten him the help he needed. She wrestled with the guilt tearing her up inside along with it's sibling worry. A sickening feeling that clenched her gut and drowned her senses until all she could think about was how much she loved Issei. Love was a strange feeling for her, in her nearly fifty years of life she had never loved another soul quite the same way that she loved Issei. Her life revolved around targets, seduction and assassination. She killed and fucked, love was never part of the equation for someone that breathed death and sex. But Issei...he...understood her. He had a gentle wisdom about him that brought her back to when she was a girl, before all the sex and death, back to when malt shakes and dancing was a wonderful idea for a date and leather jackets were exciting. She could sit with him and the whole world melted away to a much simpler time.

The doctor, Amir he said, had tried to conceal how bad it actually was from her.

"It was just a simple heatstroke he'll be fine." Amir assured her, he was much taller than her and his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. "Just leave him here for a few more days and everything will be okay." But he was lying, everything was not okay. Issei was not fine he was going to die and he knew it. She could see it in the falsity of him smile and the way the lie rolled off his tongue. She knew he was lying, how could she not when she was far too practiced in the art. Her entire life as Yuuma was a lie, she didn't exist. Everything from the way she walked to the bakery she worked in was a goddamn lie built to ensnare the one person she had come to love and it was all slipping away from her.

She didn't argue with him, she didn't call him out on his lie. She didn't have the energy to spare so instead she just fell to her knees and cried. She cried out all the pain and loss she felt and ever could feel. She wailed at the death of the only dream she ever had. She already mourned Issei, even though he lived and breathed only meters away. She mourned at the loss of the only happiness she had ever known and how it was all a lie.

And that was where Kalawarner found her, on her knees in the middle of the lobby long after the doctor had left her behind. Ever the professional, Kalawarner knelt behind her 'daughter' and gathered her in her arms, tucking the tender girl beneath her chin as Raynare cried out against the injustice of it all.

Minutes past and the wails had ebbed away into choked sobs. It was then that Kalawarner whispered into the girls ear a plan. A devious plan, one that would save Issei. And all she needed was the foreign saint from Kyoto.

]*[

Rias watched the elder crow lead 'Yuuma' from the hospital constantly whispering something in her ear that seemed to awaken the girl from her stupor. She strained her ears to the ends of their limits but still couldn't manage to catch what it was she was saying even, despite this Rias was glad to see them go as the crow had really been working on an Oscar for the better part of an hour. All that wailing had really gotten on her nerves and she felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. Her sigh of relief bid the pair goodbye and she turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

"Kiba." She called, gathering the attention of the blond who had been intently guarding the coffee machine since the pity party began. It appeared that even the fake tears of a fallen left unanswered grated against his honor. "I have a task for you."

"Yes, president?" He said, and Rias believed that if they weren't in public he would've saluted based on how he snapped to attention.

"Here." Rias held out a key for him to grab. "This is the key to Issei's house, when he was in my car this apparently slipped from his pocket. I want you copy it and place the original in Issei's belongings after that I want you to go investigate his house."

"Are you sure that's a good idea Rias? If we want to be on his good side I'm afraid that snooping around his home is not a step in the right direction." Akeno cautioned as she leaned forward in her seat.

"Yes, but our little actress has just given us a clue. Remember how the doctor said that it was only heatstroke?" Rias asked her companion, who possessed the same supernatural hearing as she did, and tapped her own ear. "Such a thing hardly requires such a performance and I believe that our crow has found something in that house that warrants such a thing." She said while passing the key to Kiba, who nodded and left to fulfill his task.

Having been assured of her masters reasoning, Akeno relaxed back into her seat. "Well then, lets hope that cute little Issei worth all this trouble."

*][*

Issei's eyes slid slowly open to be greeted by the warm chestnut ceiling of the room he was in. Based on the machines to the left and right of him and the bed he guessed that he was in some hospital but he had didn't know how he had gotten here, he did have an idea why he was here though.

"It happened again, didn't it." He asked the man he was sure was in the room, and he was right. A tall middle eastern man wearing dark sunglasses materialized out of the shadows of the room.

"Yes, yes it did. You are quite the lucky man you know. Two little birds came after you, both are very beautiful." Amir spoke darkly as he stepped closer to the bed, the dusty scent of sand grew stronger in his presence. "Very beautiful." He repeated, this time with sinister inflection as his hands came to rest on the steel rail of Issei's bed.

"You will not touch them Amir." Issei said sharply, a warning in his blue eyes at the looming specter. "I do not care what oath or creed protects you wizard, if you cause either of them harm I will kill you."

Amir chuckled darkly. "Such brave words from the dying young one." Issei just glared at him in silence for sometime.

"No matter." Amir said breaking the tense silence before reaching into his coat to withdraw a small papyrus envelope that was passed to Issei as he proceeded to business. "This month's shipment as agreed. The rest has been placed at your house in the usual place and I have tidied up this little mess as a bonus. With that said, I believe that this marks the end of our contract?" The sudden shift in tone was nothing new to Issei who nodded his affirmation, the two had played this game for quite a long time.

"There is a red convertible in the garage, in the back are two duffle bags. Take what you are owed and leave." Issei commanded Amir, who removed his remaining hand from the railing and stepped away from the bed.

"Very well, I never did like watching an extinction." Amir said shuffling off into a shadow and leaving Issei alone with his thoughts.

The room returned to silence and only the occasional beep from the medical equipment kept the room from the silence of a tomb. Issei didn't like the quiet. In fact he longed for Yuuma's presence despite how he knew she would react to his condition. Strangely, he remembered something. A sliver of a fragmented memory, or perhaps it was a dream.

A dream of moonlight, and a girl named Selene.

*][*

A little shorter than the last, but I decided to leave somethings for the next chapter. Thank you guys for your support, I have a twisted sense of humor so I find it funny that I find more support about my condition than I do in real life. Anyway, I got myself a job so I've been a bit busy with that. It isn't much, nor is it glorious but it keeps me from rattling around my own head all day which has translated into myself being in a better mood. I don't believe it will effect my writing schedule, as it is there is a huge gap between updates, if anything my betterment of mood will expedite chapter release.

With deep respect and admiration, Aarnael.