The Mandate of Khaos: Broken (ch. 14)

Author's Note (talking about the aforementioned new Tiers):

I've opened the other two Tiers, as had been planned. I intend to, in the future, maybe have each Tier provide another chapter (so, Acolyte would be 2 advanced, Adept would be 4, etc.) but for now each Tier is one chapter advanced compared to the last, as most people do.

Personally I don't foresee the creation of any new ones after this, I believe four is a decent number.

In the future I'll run a poll again to decide if I should continue simply updating the previous chapters' Tiers as the weeks go on, or if I should just post four of them each day for each of the Tiers. We'll see.

For now, as always, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and whatever your support, just know that I am incredibly grateful for even if some bits help more than others, it's all put together that leave me hope that I may one day actually do it.

So... yeah. Thanks. To all of you.

Now let's get on with it!

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{Insane brocon or tits obsessed moron… insane brocon or tits obsessed moron… insane brocon or tits obsessed moron…}

Sakura was accustomed to hearing a voice inside her mind. This one, however, was noticeably deeper than the one she was used to, and, for lack of a better term, stronger. Less like a companion and more like a mountain settling into her soul, its sheer mass pressing against her thoughts.

Thanks to Amethyst, it was easier for Sakura than for others to communicate with the being inside the Sacred Gear she had acquired. That, however, was proving to be as much of a demerit as it was a benefit, she was discovering.

Her partner in crime had tried to put in a good word for her to the dragon once it started comparing Sakura to his would-be wielder. Ddraig had opened his mouth, and suddenly, Sakura couldn't hear Amethyst anymore. She was certain the annoying pseudo-Nature Spirit was still alive—otherwise, the kaleidostick would have stopped working—but she certainly could not hear her voice, at least.

It annoyed her, and as she sat in the corner of the Occult Research Club's living room, holding a sign that said, written in her own neat handwriting, 'Please don't speak to me, I'm thinking about my stupid, idiotic actions'—to this moment, she wasn't exactly sure how Rias had made her do so, but Sakura thought it was the look. Disappointed, angry, but also incredibly, irrationally, relieved. Happy that Sakura was safe. It made her feel, for reasons she couldn't quite fathom, deeply ashamed.

Shaking off such unwelcome thoughts, Sakura returned to the problem at hand. Amethyst was uncontactable, and she intended to find out why. After that, she'd have to establish some sort of permanent, secure link, to guarantee such a communication failure never happened again. For all her annoyances, Sakura genuinely enjoyed Amethyst's company.

{Hm, in terms of how detrimental to my reputation the personality is, I suppose its around the same. Still, I'll take an active user over a reactive one, I suppose.}

Sakura tilted her head, not entirely certain what the dragon was referring to.

{Issei Hyoudou, should he have ever managed to awaken me, would likely be my weakest wielder to date. But so was Belzard when he started out, so that point is moot. However, if that boy was to ever reach whatever potential he possessed… he would have needed adversity. Unending, insane, almost impossible amounts of adversity. He needed to be forced to react.}

Sakura could almost hear the Dragon's amusement.

{You, on the other hand, ever since I boosted my Voice to a level that makes that other bloke’s seem muted, have not only thought of how to resolve that problem, but you are actively strategizing on how to prevent it from happening in the future, the best methods to control me, how to best combine my power with yours, and how far you can push it even if I prove to be actively uncooperative.}

Sakura’s gaze dropped to her right hand. The Red Gauntlet materialized there, the sleek crimson metal cool against her skin—the same gauntlet she’d seen ignite on Issei’s arm moments before his world shattered and the Dragon consumed him.

{Sakura Asutaroto is a girl that will never stop striving to gain power, until she is strong enough to safeguard her brother from any and all possible threats that may come to harm him.}

She felt it then—not amusement, but a vast, ancient, and utterly insane battle-lust radiating from the Dragon.

{And our little world, my new partner…} Ddraig's final thought before he went silent echoed with chilling promise {…is just oh so very ripe with danger.}

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“I don’t care if I’ve already heard what happened from Ajuka," Serafall stated, her voice devoid of its usual playful lilt. "I want to hear it from you." Sona frowned, unused to seeing her sister from this perspective. Not unused to seeing her be serious, but certainly unused to seeing her be serious with her. Had she been that worried?

Sona watched as Shinji embraced Sakura… and proceeded to lightly punch the top of her head immediately after, eliciting a cute, almost pained whine from his adopted sister—Sona had been incredibly relieved to learn that little detail (to be fair, they did look like legitimate siblings). He then promptly ignored the purple haired girl’s scowl in favor of continuing to berate her.

Ignored in the same way he was ignoring Rias Gremory, and Sona could already see the ingredients for a disaster stew simmering in the room. For once, the blame couldn’t be placed solely on Rias' impulsiveness and lack of forethought, but either way—

"Sona." The young Sitri Heiress reluctantly tore her gaze away from the brewing powder keg in front of her to return her attention to her sister.

"There's not much to tell," she said, intending to make quick work of this 'report'. "Rias came to me last night, bragging about how Sakura had appealed to her to become part of her Peerage. Of course I was immediately suspicious." As Rias should have been, Sona didn't add. Her best friend was already beating herself up enough as it was. "So, we went, intending to track her down, before sensing huge amounts of magical energy being released. We arrived to find Sakura locked in battle with a dragonified human, and, well, the rest is as you know."

"You came, you saw, you conquered?" Serafall asked, attempting to inject some much-needed levity back into the conversation, likely because of the expression in Sona's face.

How could she not be making such a face though? After the utter shitshow that that 'battle' had been…

"More accurately," Sona corrected, her voice tight, "we came, we were immediately noticed, and we barely escaped annihilation by the skin of our teeth."

Sona still wasn't sure how Sakura had done it, but using the distraction they had unwittingly provided, she stabbed the dragon-looking human with her rod, and then the boy fell into the ground. The transformation did not reverse, but the massive torrent of energy the human had been emitting did abruptly vanish.

Ajuka Beelzebub had appeared barely a minute after, behind Sakura Asutaroto, who shot him an incredibly annoyed glare. He had merely shrugged in response, saying that if she had ever been in any actual danger, he would have been warned, and something about him not actively peeking into their lives being something she had personally requested.

Frankly, Sona had far too much adrenaline coursing through her veins to really give a shit about the rest.

Ten seconds. That’s all it had taken. Ten seconds under the baleful, apathetic gaze of what she came to learn after the fact, was the Red Dragon Emperor under a bastardized Juggernaut Drive. Sona had never felt more fragile, more utterly insignificant, than in that endless, frozen sliver of time.

And it hadn't even been a true Juggernaut Drive.

As she looked on, she saw Shinji get up and turn to face Rias, she had felt the urge to intervene. Tempers were high, and she knew that words would be said that couldn't be unsaid. The Occult Research Club would die before it could even truly live.

Sona forgot something, though. She had, just days ago, thought of how incredibly blessed she was. And she was. Sona Sitri was blessed.

Rias Gremory, however, was bullshit.

Heavy steps echoed down the hallway. Steps Sona recognized. Steps she couldn't help but recognize.

Three sets of steps, but the recognizable ones were the ones leading the charge.

One of them rose—and kicked the door open with enough force to rattle the hinges.

Chewing on a wad of gum, Maki Zenin—more commonly known only as Maki, as the girl hated her origins even more than Akeno Himejima did—strode into the room, trailed by Koneko and Miyu.

Maki’s influence on the person Rias Gremory was today couldn’t be denied. Should she, for any reason, have ended up with a different Knight, a more traditional one whose personality aligned with the typical expectations invoked by the title, it was likely, Sona felt, that Rias would have changed.

Not because said Knight would have actively tried to force that change to happen, but much the contrary. He wouldn't have actively prevented it. Pressured by her family, pressured by her peers, pressured by society in general, Rias Gremory would slowly but surely become less overtly… Rias, and tone down her eccentricities.

Maki had sneered and spat upon such a future, taking it upon herself to ensure that it would never come to pass. Rias Gremory was Maki’s savior. She was Maki's King. She was the person who had sworn to Maki that, under her banner, the girl would want for nothing, have no reason to cry, and be allowed to just be herself, should she wish it.

Of course, the girl didn’t particularly want any of that, but it was the fact that it was offered, the fact that she could feel the truth in Rias’s words, that had initially drawn the broken, torn-down ten-year-old girl to the heiress of the Gremory Clan.

To give Rias Gremory her absolute and undying loyalty, and to swear that in return, she would ensure that Rias too could lead such a life.

Or so Maki had told Sona at least.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"YOU DUMBASS!"

"Betrayal!" Rias wailed, cradling her throbbing head. "Akeno, help me!"

Akeno, of course, feigned deafness. This situation was far too amusing to interrupt.

And Rias had been a bit of a dumbass.

"And you!" Maki said, spinning to point a accusing finger at the newest member of the Gremory peerage. "Are a fucking dumbass too!"

Shinji Asutaroto's eyes narrowed. They took on that unsettlingly focused gleam that she’d seen only once before—when he'd made the snap decision that, if Akeno was holding him in place, he might as well become the beast she was playing him up to be and actually steal her panties.

Except now, he looked far more serious, and far less amused.

Of the four Maous, Lucifer and Leviathan were both openly siscons, Beelzebub, lacking a little sister of his own, seemed to have adopted a siscon and a brocon to compensate. At this point, she wouldn’t be terribly surprised if Asmodeus turned out to be keeping a bunch of little sister types locked in his basement or something.

He was highly suspicious, to take upon the title of the Lustful One, and yet have Sloth be his most glaring trait. Suspicious. Very suspicious.

"Next time," Maki continued, utterly disregarding the look Shinji was sending her, "you should inform us before you decide to do something this stupid. If we can't stop you, then we'll at least join you. That's what family is for, right? You didn't even tell your actual brother, girl! You’ve got to be a bigger dumbass than our King, and that's saying something!"

"Yeah, you know," Shinji chimed in, his glare losing the intensity it was holding as he looked back towards his sister. "She kind of does have a point, Sakura. What the fuck was going through your head?"

"Why is no one refuting the fact that Makimaki just called me a dumbass?! Anyone?!!" Rias demanded, pinpricks of tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

Miyu, ever the kind-hearted one, climbed atop a nearby chair and began gently patting the red-haired girl’s head. "It's alright, Rias. We love you just as you are."

"Betrayed once again!" Rias wailed, flinging herself onto the floor and rolling around dramatically while lamenting her unjustly besmirched intelligence. A swift, expertly delivered chop to the back of her head by her long-suffering Knight brought a swift end to the theatrics.

Akeno turned to Sakura, wondering if she had missed the girl’s response in the chaos, but it seemed that the new addition to the peerage had just been fidgeting ashamedly the whole time, looking like a scolded puppy.

"I… I wanted to surprise you?" Her voice barely registered above a whisper.

Shinji looked at Sakura. Shinji looked at Maki, then back at Rias. "Does that tactic generally work with her?" He asked, pointing towards the heiress of House Gremory, who was currently nursing a rapidly forming bump on her head.

Maki smirked. "More than you'd think."

"Nii-san~!" Sakura moaned, rubbing her own head where Shinji had just hit her.

"I don't think it's working on this one. Recs?"

Akeno, despite herself, felt the tension that had been building up within herself ease, as she saw the softening of Shinji's features while he talked to Maki. She, like Sona, had feared how this entire disaster would ultimately play out. She had only spent a few days with the Asutaroto girl, but as classmates, they had plenty of opportunities to talk, and Akeno had plenty of time to understand how utterly, impossibly broken the purple-haired girl truly was.

What kind of education, what kind of nurture, led to some of the answers the girl had offered to seemingly simple questions? 'What do you do to pass the time?' 'Left any friends behind?' 'Being back to school sucks huh?' Those and more, answered in ways that completely boggled the mind, as if they were the most natural thing in the world.

Akeno knew, then, that Sakura would inevitably become part of Rias’ Peerage. Rias, despite hating the little inside joke their group had, was known as a girl that couldn't help but collect broken things. Had Akeno a penchant for philosophy and psychology, she would ponder on how that could be related to the girl's innate inclination towards Destruction due to the Bael Clan Power, and an innate desire to counteract her natural instincts to destroy by picking up things that clearly needed to be rebuilt.

Akeno wasn’t a girl with such a penchant though, and so Akeno didn’t ponder on that. All that Akeno did was look at Rias, at their peerage, at Sakura, and realize that yes, the girl would fit right in.

Right in with the young nekomata who had been abandoned by her older sister after she’d up and massacred an entire group of Devils and their previous master.

Right in with the younger girl who had lost the only person she cared about and been thrown into a whole, completely different, new world, and the entire shitshow that followed that.

Right in with the girl that had been abandoned by her father and family, thrown to the Church as an offering, and used as a lab rat before being discarded like trash—the only survivor of her test group.

Right in with the half-fallen angel girl, who couldn't help but hate her heritage after her father's enemies had killed her mother when he wasn't there to protect them.

Because, even when put against all that—

Akeno had a strong feeling that Sakura Asutaroto may still be the most broken of them all.