The New Rook

Chapter 45

"Jesus Akeno, you scared the shit out of me." I screamed as I fell back on my butt. Akeno crossed her arms on the edge of the roof and flashed me an evil grin.

"That was my plan after all." She laughed.

"That's not funny." I said.

"Well, it has to be, than otherwise why am I laughing?" She taunted playfully. The evil grin still on her face, a somewhat playful flare was easily noticeable as well.

"How did you even get up here?" I asked. She pulled her hands away from the edge of the roof and shot up into the air. Black wings stretched out from her back like massive scythes slicing the moonlit sky.

"Ooooooh, okay." I said. She landed a couple feet in front of me before walking towards me plopping down to my right. The same spot 'Mira' was sitting in earlier. I tried to ignore the last thing Mira said before walking off the roof, I looked up into the sky and let out a sigh, a little louder than expected.

"Are you nervous?" Akeno asked. I let out a little laugh before saying.

"Oh I'm scared shitless. We are going up against someone who's immortal, my Ex, my Ex best friend, and someone who tried hitting on me." I explained.

"Wow, you seem to be quite the chick magnet." Akeno said as she playfully nudged my arm.

"Yeah, but go back to school and I'm just the looser that sits at the back at the class sleeping all day." I said as I tilted my head back and let out a sigh.

"Well you're a cute loser." Akeno said. She buried her knees into her chest and looked down a little bit.

"Well then maybe we have that in our side," I stated, "Maybe they won't want to mess me up too much."

"Yeah. Like that's going to happen." Akeno joked.

"What. You should have seen the way Shuren acted acted around me." I said.

"You do know that was just acting." Akeno said with a smile. I paused for a minute before the realization struck me.

"Oh shit you're right..." I said, causing Akeno to laugh. We waited in silence for a minute before I felt Akeno's soft hands pick up my right hand.

"Akeno, what are you doing?" I asked fairly loudly as I felt my face heating up. She ran her hands over my hand a little before looking up at me and smiling.

"You can just feel the power," She said, "We might just win this."

"You really think so?" I asked.

"Definitely, we just need to train the shit out of you and Issei." She stated. At that moment, a thought popped into my head. An Idea.

"Hey Akeno." I said.

"Yes?"

"How comfortable are you with electrocuting people?" I asked, "Like with your powers?"

"Why would you ask?" Akeno shouted surprised. I raised my finger to my lip and held my arm out in a spastic movement in attempt to quiet her down.

"I was just wondering."

"What is going on in this little Tsuyoshi brain of yours?" She asked as she driller her finger into my temporal.

"It's something I can teach Issei tomorrow to get him motivated to upgrade his gear more," I stated, "Jeez calm down." Akeno closed her eyes, smiled and cocked her head to the side playfully.

"Good, I just want to make sure you are playing nicely with him, Rias can get kind of carried away with his safety." She said.

"Yeah, she sure cares about him." I said in a way that would make Akeno instantly know what I was actually talking about.

"So I guess you've noticed it too?" She asked.

"Yep, I noticed a while back, before the familiar incident, and I have noticed she seems to be a little more bias towards Issei too." I stated.

"Well, people tend to favour the ones they love," Akeno said, she turned her head towards me, "Don't they?"

"Yeah, I wish that were always true." I said. I leaned my head back and let out a sigh. I opened up and looked up at the stars.

"It truly is beautiful up there." Akeno said, her eyes locked on the deep blue sky, dotted with little milk droplets. We are actually far enough away from civilization to see the giant cloud of glowing gas that stretches all the way across the night sky, the Milkeyway Galaxy.

"It truly is, so peaceful, yet so violent." I said. I noticed at the edge of my vision Akeno looked towards me.

"There is just not helping your negativity is there?" She asked.

"It's true, most things look beautiful from far away, but up close, they aren't nearly as nice as you thought they were. Like take a Black Hole for example, from a far, they look beautiful, nice Vibrant colours of burning matter, the accretion disc, but in its centre lies a black heart, that sucks the life away from anything it touches, no life will ever be found after it passes the Event Horison and passes into oblivion." I explained.

"So, what does Mira have to do with space?" Akeno teased. It took a second for that bad joke to pass through my filter of humour before it clicked.

"Wow Akeno, that is really rude," I said. A flash of fear spread across her face, "That is extremely offensive to any black hole in the entire universe." I said. I noticed the expression on Akeno's face violently change. She let out a couple small giggles, but they quickly turned into explosive laughter. I quickly joined her. We laughed so hard, I thought I Was going to hyperventilate. After a while we eventually calmed down a little.

"But all in all, thanks you for helping me these past few days, your talks have really helped me get over this thing." I thanked. Akeno smiled and snapped her fingers.

"No problem, we are totally going to kick Raisers ass during this Rating Game!" Akeno stated.

"You're damn right." I said.

All in all, I'm very thankful for Akeno's little talks. We've had them every night atop the roof of the lodge. If it wasn't for her talks, and the extreme support and motivation everyone has been giving me. I probably would have fought this Rating Game in pure hated...

And that wouldn't have turned out well for anyone of us...