The Death We Seek

The Fragile Nature of the Inhuman Psyche [Prologue]

Ascalon sunk deeper into the bloodsoaked mud quietly, its once glistening, holy aura having fled long ago. It was beautiful, crafted and gilded like one would expect of a weapon of renown. Now, it was a sword. A piece of steel used to carve his enemies asunder. Dirtied with mud and violence, as a sword is.

[Breathe.]

A once wise and powerful voice reduced to a distant tired echo within his mind. His partner did not speak aloud, lest he wishes for him to be swarmed and executed. Although not enough remained to rally towards him as their previous numbers could, one or two were enough in his state. The gods once reigning over death and the various afterlives had passed long ago. What was left for his soul once he inevitably died to the onslaught of machines was a mystery to any scryer or foreteller, not that any were left unslain.

'Thank you.'

Issei Hyoudou was what remained of humanity, of devilkind and the supernatural. The product of most magic kept for oneself by the strongest of the world. Born human, albeit endowed at birth, and forced to test any teachable or begrudgingly gifted magics by all those laid to waste before his moment. The wicked creations of man had taken everything from him alongside all others, leaving nothing but an unflinching resolve to not let the billions of lives lying at his feet go to waste.

He hoped to die a good death.

Perhaps the next fight would finally be his last. Although built by man, these piles of scrap were designed to rip and tear through armies. Using blood as fuel, they ravaged the defenceless humans and the comparatively strong supernatural pantheons.

Heaven was the first to fall of the Three Biblical Factions. Those machines, nicknamed 'mirages' by Azazel before he too fell in bloody battle, wielded guns that pierced barriers like paper, were covered in metallic plates that deflected magic like water and with their four pairs of glowing yellow wings, they were designed to be airborne one man armies. They were once hundreds of millions in number, reduced to mere fractions after many of the battles to cut down the Hindu Faction, mostly by Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu; a more recent example of the devastation caused by the fight over Hell finalised by Sirzechs Lucifer, the last standing Maou, before he gave his life on the steps to the Underworld.

The only beings other than him to survive were those that chose near certain death as opposed to seemingly feeble attempts at combat. Very small groups of people fled into the Dimensional Gap, a crack between spatial dimensions where the laws of physics weren't even meagre suggestions. It was a poisonous void to any without a clearly defined existence within the universe. Most of these groups died immediately, the rest dying a short while later.

By his knowledge, he was the last frontier of existence. The last task for these hellish creations to complete, with their final motive unknown.

But what was a frontier with nothing to protect?

Worthless. Pitiable.

Issei was worthless. A shell of a reincarnated human, fighting not unlike a puppet to protect a corpse-littered battlefield. His light had long vanished. The mirages had attacked his home while he was protecting the Grigori from the first wave by earnest request of the Governor General.

His lovers, his parents. Slaughtered. Like mere cattle.

That day marked the beginning of the end, as the Underworld trembled when the grim curse of the Boosted Gear descended again. The condemned souls contained within let cry their hatred; Kuoh was consumed in his crimson malevolence. He did not have Vali to help contain his wrath that time either.

Issei had killed thousands of mirages, along with hundreds of thousands of innocent humans, within mere minutes. The people he grew up alongside, his friends, his schoolmates. Despite being worse than devastated at what happened to his family, he was so horrified by his actions that the Boosted Gear shut down immediately in response to the regret and guilt. It would always respond to his emotions, positive or negative.