DxD: Fusion-Chapter 59: Singularity

Astaroth’s laughter rang across the blood-soaked battlefield, a sound of pure contempt that cut through the clash of steel and dying screams.

Rias’s Power of Destruction carved a crimson arc toward his chest—enough raw energy to erase a building from existence. The demon lieutenant sidestepped with casual grace, letting the attack obliterate three of his own troops behind him. He didn’t even glance at the casualties.

"Is that really all the Gremory heiress can muster?" Astaroth’s voice dripped with mockery as he examined his claws with affected boredom. "Your brother would be disappointed."

Kiba came in from the left, both swords moving in perfect coordination—a high feint followed by a low thrust aimed at the gap in Astaroth’s ribs. The demon caught both blades between his fingers, stopping them cold despite the demonic enhancement flowing through the weapons.

"Still mourning those dead children?" Astaroth twisted, and Kiba’s swords shattered like glass. "How pathetic."

Lightning struck from above—Akeno’s most concentrated bolt, channeled with enough power to char flesh from bone. Astaroth raised one hand almost lazily, and the electricity simply stopped, crackling against an invisible barrier before dissipating into harmless sparks.

"The Himejima bastard," he said, turning his attention to Akeno. "Tell me, does your Fallen Angel blood sing when you use that lightning?"

Akeno’s face went pale, then flushed with rage. How did he know about her past? She gathered more power, lightning charging around her. The attack streaked toward Astaroth with twice the force of her previous strike.

He yawned.

The lightning splashed against his flame barrier like water against stone, achieving nothing except illuminating the contempt in his eyes.

Rias knew they were outmatched. She’d known it the moment Astaroth had turned his attention toward her peerage, but pride and desperation kept her fighting. They needed to hold him here, keep him from slaughtering the youkai warriors who were already struggling against the demon tide.

She fired another blast of destruction energy, this one aimed not at Astaroth but at the ground beneath his feet. The earth exploded upward in a shower of dirt and stone, creating a momentary blind spot.

Kiba manifested new swords—a dozen of them floating in the air around him, each one enhanced with different elemental properties. They launched simultaneously from multiple angles, creating a net of death that should have been impossible to evade.

Astaroth moved.

One moment he stood in the center of the converging blades. The next, he was behind Kiba, his clawed hand already swinging toward the young devil’s exposed back.

Akeno’s lightning intercepted, forcing Astaroth to dodge instead of strike. But it was a near miss, and they all knew it.

"Oh, you’re actually trying now," Astaroth observed, straightening from his casual stance. "Maybe I should stop holding back as much."

Movement rippled through the battlefield as new figures joined the fray. Sona’s remaining peerage members—Momo Hanakai, Reya Kusaka, Tomoe Meguri, Ruruko Nimura, and Tsubasa Yura—emerged from the chaos of the wider battle, their magic already forming as they converged on Astaroth’s position.

Momo’s hands wove intricate patterns, her specialty in mid-range magic, enhanced by her bishop evil piece. Barriers formed around Rias’s group, layered defenses meant to buy them precious seconds. Tsubasa closed in with hand-to-hand combat, only for her enhanced punch to stop dead against Astaroth’s flesh.

Reya and Ruruko moved in tandem, their complementary magic styles creating a net of binding spells that shot toward the demon lieutenant from multiple angles. Tomoe channeled raw demonic power into enhancement magic, her aura washing over the assembled fighters and boosting their physical capabilities.

Astaroth watched their approach with something approaching interest.

"More lambs for the slaughter," he mused. "How considerate of you to gather in one place."

The combined assault came from eight directions simultaneously. Rias’s destruction energy from above, Akeno’s lightning from the right, and Kiba’s newly manifested blade-wave from the left. Momo’s magic created a cage of binding energy, while Tsubasa constantly used hit-and-run tactics. Reya and Ruruko’s binding spells wrapped around Astaroth’s limbs, and Tomoe’s enhancement magic flowed through every fighter, multiplying their strength.

It should have been overwhelming. Eight experienced fighters, all working in coordination, their combined power enough to level a city block.

Astaroth’s response was to laugh.

He flexed, and every binding spell shattered simultaneously. The barriers Momo had painstakingly created simply ceased to exist, their magic unraveling as if it had never been. The converging attacks—destruction energy, lightning, and blade waves—all struck his barrier and dissipated without effect.

"Is this truly the best the new generation can offer?" Astaroth’s voice carried genuine disappointment. "The Sitri peerage and the Gremory peerage, working together, and you can’t even scratch me?"

He moved with speed that defied tracking. One moment he stood in the center of their formation. The next, he was beside Ruruko, his clawed hand already driving toward her chest.

Momo’s barrier intercepted, three layers of crystalline energy that should have held against anything short of a high-class devil attack. Astaroth’s clawed hand pierced right through it. His hand pierced her stomach like a spear, causing her to fall limply to the ground, curling up in pain.

"One down." The large demon smirked.

Meanwhile, Toshio noticed how much they were struggling. He knew he needed to finish this battle to help them. While exchanging bladed blows, Toshio then noticed the barrier around Serafall turn completely white, likely encased in ice.

Toshio cleared his thoughts of how overwhelming Serafall’s power must be.

"You can afford distractions? I must not be a challenge to you." The massive sword entered Toshio’s peripheral vision. He barely dodged the fatal blow, getting clipped in the left shoulder, his first major injury since the battle began.

He had one thing left to try. But the charge time might take too long. He was out of options. He had to try it.

"Yugo: Runic Shunpo." Using an old trick he used against Ghom, he bounced around the knight, creating a dome of afterimages. Thankfully, the knight’s ridiculous endurance hampered his overall mobility.

"Speed won’t help you, so move all you want." The knight waited patiently, ready to strike as soon as Toshio got close.

Dual casting. Toshio started to form another spell in his free hand. Not only forming, but creating. He was creating something new, but its concepts were similar to what he already knew.

Dense wave motion distortions formed around his hand, though he was moving at such speed that no one could tell what it was.

"Shinjuka, I’ll need your help with this one. While I’m forming this, I need to pull his attention away. In between flash steps, help me fire off some cero slashes."

"Of course, my dear wielder." Toshio heard the loving voice echo in his head. When in Shikai, she was always much more affectionate.

The blood watched and felt the disturbances of air around him as he waited for a moment to counterattack. His eyes narrowed behind his helm, swinging his sword to dissipate a black energy attack, similar to what the human used earlier, only weaker.

"You should realize you are not my match. Come face your death already, pathetic human." The number of black slashes increases, the knight countering each one. This went on for a few more moments, then a much more powerful variant faced him head-on. But he knew what the human was doing, not that it would matter.

The crimson knight swung diagonally toward the sky with enough force to crumble the ground around him, meeting the black energy and countering it completely. His sword continued its arc as he spun to meet the human at his flank. But he was surprised by the gathered magic in the human’s hand. It was new. But he trusted his armor, but flowed more demonic power into it just in case.

"Wave motion singularity." The Blood Knight, expecting the magic to have little effect, was startled by the sound of crinkling armor. Then the pain came.

A small black sphere of utter void manifested in Toshio’s hand, pressing into the demon’s neck as he used Shinjuka to block the incoming sword strike.

Wave motion magic was unique in that the magic used to create it only created the conditions for it to manifest and control it. Once in existence, it operated under the extreme laws of physics, warping reality like the black holes in the depths of deep space. Still being fueled by magic power, or Reiryoku in Toshio’s case, it still behaved like a magic attack.

Toshio had suspected this was the case; however, he never had an opportunity to test it until now. The small gravitation sphere impacted the neck plate, warping and twisting it into oblivion.

Alarmed, the demon knight used as much speed as he could muster to escape, but it was too late. Appearing a short distance away, the knight fell to one knee, a hand gripping the portion of his neck that was just, missing. Blood gurgled out of his mouth and neck.

Toshio didn’t let up and left no time to recover. Toshio appeared next to the downed knight, his shikai blade stabbing through the hole in the knight’s neck.

"Yugo: incomplete cero." A blast of black, crimson energy exploded off the tip of Toshio’s sword. And since the armor was resistant to magic, all of that energy remained contained inside the crimson helmet.

SPLAT!

Liquefied flesh and blood exploded out of every orifice of the helmet.

"Good thing I caught him off guard," Toshio muttered, breathing out a sigh of relief. The knight would have surely dodged had he known the true danger of wave motion creation. Demon arrogance being exploited in just the right moment won Toshio the battle. Especially since the singularity, once placed, couldn’t move, so it was relatively easy to dodge.

But he had no time to celebrate his victory.

He briefly donned his hollow mask, using high-speed regeneration to heal the worst of the damage to his shoulder. Other demons, noticing Toshio currently unoccupied, quickly began attacking him, resulting in their gory deaths.

Noticing the battle with Rias’ group a fair distance away, blue energy began to charge and swirl around his left hand as he carved a path through the demons.

The battle with Astaroth had been brutal for Rias.

Astaroth stood over the fallen bodies of Rias’s peerage and Sona’s remaining members, his breathing barely elevated despite the extended combat. Kiba lay crumpled against a shattered boulder, his swords scattered and broken around him.

Reya and Tomoe had collapsed in a heap, their magic exhausted. Momo clutched her stomach wound, barely conscious. Tsubasa’s enhanced body had kept her alive, but she couldn’t move.

Rias herself knelt in the blood-soaked earth, her crimson hair matted with dirt and gore. She’d pushed her Power of Destruction beyond safe limits, and now her body trembled with the aftershock of overuse.

Beside her, Akeno struggled to stand, lightning still crackling weakly across her fingertips in defiance of her body’s exhaustion.

"Pathetic," Astaroth said, his voice carrying that same contemptuous amusement. "The great Gremory heiress, brought low by a single lieutenant. It’ll be a pleasure seeing the life drain from your eyes."

He raised his foot, positioning it above Akeno’s head. The Queen had collapsed forward, her body refusing to respond to her commands. She could only watch as the massive clawed foot descended toward her skull.

"Let’s start with the bastard," Astaroth mused. "I wonder if Fallen Angel blood tastes different when mixed with—"

His words cut off as his head snapped to the side, instinct screaming danger. His arm came up in a defensive cross-block, demonic energy flooding through his muscles to reinforce them.

"Wave motion beam!"

The beam struck like the fist of an angry god.

Blue-white energy exploded against Astaroth’s hastily erected defense, the force of it driving him backward across the battlefield. His feet carved twin trenches through the earth as he skidded, the beam’s power overwhelming even his considerable strength. The attack lasted three seconds—an eternity in combat—before finally dissipating.

When the light faded, Astaroth stood thirty meters from where he’d started. His arms were scorched black, the flesh bubbling and cracking from the intense heat. Blood dripped from a dozen places where the beam’s power had broken through his defense and seared into his torso, with a single hole in his lower right side where the beam had penetrated through.

He was heavily wounded. But alive.

Toshio appeared beside Rias’s group, Shinjūka still in his hand, wisps of blue energy trailing from the blade. His breathing was labored—the wave motion beam had taken nearly all his remaining reiryoku to charge while carving through the demon horde.

"Can you move?" he asked, not taking his eyes off Astaroth.

"Give me... a moment," Rias gasped, her pride warring with the reality of her exhausted state.

Astaroth looked down at his ruined arms, then at Toshio. The contemptuous amusement had vanished from his expression, replaced by something cold and murderous.

"You," the demon lieutenant said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "You actually wounded me. A PUNY HUMAN?!"

The pressure radiating from Astaroth intensified. Power flooded through his body as he abandoned any pretense of holding back. The scorched flesh on his arms began to regenerate, new skin growing over the burns at visible speed.

"I was going to kill them quickly," Astaroth continued, his claws extending to their full length. "But now? Now I’m going to make you watch as I tear them apart slowly. Starting with the Himejima bitch."

He moved.

Using magic the demon hadn’t revealed yet, red-hot fire descended down upon the group in a wide area, threatening to roast them all, friend and foe alike.

Just before the flames reached the group, a thin barrier flickered into existence. The flames slammed into it, rolling off the edges, incinerating the nearby youkai and demons. The barrier shattered soon after. Tsubasa, kneeling with both hands held up, lost consciousness, falling over, her magic utterly spent.

The demon pressed his advantage.

Toshio’s enhanced perception tracked the motion, but barely. Astaroth was much faster now. The demon closed the thirty-meter gap in less than a second, his clawed hand already swinging toward Toshio’s throat, his claws glowing red from heat.

Shinjūka came up in a desperate parry, the zanpakutō’s edge meeting Astaroth’s claws with a screech of metal on keratin, causing sparks to fly. The impact sent Toshio sliding backward, his feet digging furrows in the earth.

But he’d blocked it. The advantage was immediately apparent—Astaroth didn’t have the Blood Knight’s armor. His flesh, while incredibly durable, could still be cut. Could still be damaged by physical strikes.

Toshio pressed the offensive, his blade moving in a series of strikes aimed at vital points. Astaroth dodged and parried, his claws serving as impromptu weapons. They exchanged blows at speeds that made them blur, each strike carrying enough force to shatter stone.

In between physical attacks, the demon would cast fire magic, either in the form of fireballs or an area-wide attack with him at the epicenter. While nowhere near the power or scale of Serafall, Toshio knew some ice magic.

"Tier 3—Ice wall!" Blocking the latest attempt at fire magic, Toshio burst through the ice and appeared next to the demon, a horizontal slash aimed at Astaroth’s neck. The demon ducked under it, his claws raking toward Toshio’s exposed ribs.

Toshio twisted, taking the strike on his side instead of his vitals. Pain exploded through him as claws carved shallow furrows through his enhanced flesh, but he used the momentum to spin into a reverse slash that forced Astaroth to leap backward.

They separated, both breathing heavily now. Toshio’s side bled freely, but Astaroth bore a long cut across his chest where Shinjūka had connected.

"I cannot believe a human is pushing me this far," Astaroth admitted, touching the wound with one clawed finger. "You’re actually making me work. But you’re still just a human playing with powers you don’t understand!" the demon yelled in rage.

Behind Toshio, he heard movement. Rias had managed to stand, her aura flickering weakly as she gathered what remained of her power. Akeno pushed herself to her knees, lightning crackling with renewed intensity around her hands. Kiba stirred, manifesting a new blade with trembling fingers.

They weren’t done yet, having some time to rest. Because of the flames from Astaroth, no demons could or would get close to attack the downed peerage.

"Together," Rias said, her voice strained but determined. "We take him together."

Astaroth’s eyes narrowed as he assessed the reformed opposition. One human with a strange sword, three exhausted devils who should have been dead, and the remnants of the Sitri peerage trying to recover behind them. Still pathetic, but annoying.

"Fine," the demon said. "Let’s end this properly."

He launched himself forward with explosive speed, his target clearly Toshio. The human was the most dangerous—the one who’d actually wounded him. Remove him, and the rest would fall easily.

Fireballs surrounded Astaroth’s form, all screaming toward the human swordsman.

Toshio met the charge head-on.

"Yugo: Tier 3—ice walls, multiple casting!" Small but dense ice blocks formed and blocked each individual fireball. The two collided.

Shinjūka moved in defensive patterns as Astaroth’s claws became a blur of deadly strikes. Each impact sent shockwaves rippling outward, the force of their clash strong enough to create windstorms that buffeted the nearby fighters.

Then Rias struck.

Her Power of Destruction came from Astaroth’s blind spot while he was too distracted to pay attention to her, a concentrated beam of crimson energy aimed at his back.

The demon sensed it at the last second and twisted, taking the attack on his shoulder instead of his spine. Flesh simply ceased to exist where the destruction energy touched, leaving a crater in Astaroth’s shoulder that exposed bone.

He snarled in pain and fury, spinning to face this new threat. But that left his back exposed to Toshio.

Shinjūka’s blade carved a deep line across Astaroth’s back, the energy from an incomplete cero flooding through the strike and disrupting the demon’s natural regeneration. The demon lieutenant staggered, his coordination faltering for a crucial moment.

Lightning struck from above.

Akeno’s lightning slammed into Astaroth’s wounded shoulder. The demon screamed, a sound of genuine agony, as the energy burned through his flesh.

Kiba appeared at Astaroth’s flank, his newly manifested blade, driving toward the demon’s exposed ribs.

Astaroth caught the blade with his hand, the holy energy burning his palm, but his grip held. He yanked Kiba forward and drove his other set of claws toward the young devil’s chest.

Toshio’s blade intercepted, Shinjūka’s edge catching Astaroth’s claws and forcing them aside. The demon tried to disengage, but Rias’s destruction energy carved another chunk from his leg.

They were overwhelming him now. Not through individual power—Astaroth was still stronger than any of them alone—but through coordination and determination.

Every time he focused on one opponent, another would strike. Every wound he tried to regenerate was immediately reopened by a follow-up attack.

Astaroth’s mind raced, his battle instincts screaming at him. He was losing. These insects had found a rhythm and were working together in a way that negated his superior strength.

Unacceptable.

He gathered power, preparing to unleash a devastating area attack that would obliterate everything within fifty meters.

Noticing the change and increase in power, Toshio yelled.

"Momo! Now!" Sona’s peerage member had been resting all this time and was now ready to unleash her final attack, in the form of a barrier. A cylindrical barrier erected around the demon. Toshio, not knowing what she was going to do, instantly knew how to react.

Using runic shunpo, he flickered to Rias, taking her up to the sky next to Akeno.

"Pour everything you’ve got into the top of that barrier!" They listened and did as commanded.

From Akeno, a pillar of lightning.

From Rias, a huge torrent of PoD.

From Toshio...

"Yugo: Multiple Casting, Tier 5—Plasma bombs."

The attacks collided and mixed, entering into the barrier just as Astaroth was unleashing his own flame-based attack. But his fire was completely overwhelmed by the combined assault.

BOOM!

The demon’s screams echoed through the battlefield, the attack shattering the barrier, leaving a huge crater in the ground. And Astaroth, simply ceased to exist.

Toshio, Akeno, and Rias landed near the other peerage members.

"Thanks, Toshi-kun," Akeno sighed out, clearly exhausted. She leaned on Toshio, who helped hold her up.

"Yeah, I think we might have been done for before you jumped in," Kiba breathed out.

"You’re all my precious friends; I’d never let any of you die," Toshio stated with passion. Momo and Sona’s other peerage members, clearly not used to seeing this side of Toshio, looked at him strangely. Rias noticed their looks.

"When he releases his sword power, he can become, a bit more emotional." Toshio simply shrugged with his left shoulder, which quickly reminded him of his wound, causing him to wince slightly.

"But this isn’t over yet." Kiba said solemnly. The battle still raged. Youkai and demons slaughtering each other. The youkai were able to advance the line, pushing back the demon horde, allowing Toshio and the rest a brief respite.

The Youkai at this point outnumbered the demons, having defeated over 50% of their forces. Although larger and more vicious, most of the demons lacked any military training and were treated as cannon fodder. They were winning!

Kunou ran up to them. "Are you all okay? I saw the fight from a distance." The interim youkai leader was now in the backline, realizing just how out of her depth she was. But she had no qualms about checking up on her new friends.

"Yeah, we’ll be alright; we just need a bit of time to rest," Rias said gently, a slightly pained smile forming on her face.

"Then we drive these demons back once and for all," Kiba said resolutely. Toshio nodded, sitting on the corpse of a large demon.

"As long as Serafall-sama can hold out or defeat their leader, victory should come soon," Momo exclaimed. Hope blossomed in Kunou’s eyes.

But just then, the ground beneath the battlefield trembled.

It started as a subtle vibration, barely noticeable beneath the cacophony of clashing steel and dying screams. Within seconds, the tremor intensified into a violent quake that forced combatants on both sides to stumble and brace themselves.

Then the earth split open.

A massive fissure tore through the edge of the battlefield, running from the cave entrance outward like a jagged wound. From its depths, something emerged—a pillar of pure golden light that pierced through the ground with such force that chunks of earth and stone were hurled skyward.

The pillar climbed, higher and higher, breaking through the cloud layer and continuing into the heavens. Its radiance was almost painful to look at directly, bathing the entire battlefield in harsh illumination that turned shadows into stark relief.

Toshio’s enhanced senses screamed warnings as he recognized the energy signature. Raw and unfiltered leyline energy, pulled directly from the network of spiritual power that ran beneath Kyoto like veins of liquid light.

"No," he breathed, understanding flooding through him with terrible clarity. "They finished it."

The golden pillar began to change.

Black tendrils erupted from within the light, twisting and coiling like serpents made of living shadow. They wrapped around the golden energy, corrupting it, transforming it. The brilliant radiance darkened, shifting through sickly amber into deep crimson until the entire pillar pulsed with malevolent red light.

A sound tore across the battlefield—not quite a scream, not quite a roar. It was the cry of something ancient and powerful being violated, twisted into a mockery of its true nature. The demonic shout echoed off the mountains, reverberating through the air itself with enough force to make Toshio’s bones tremble.

He recognized that voice, though he’d never heard it like this. Yasaka. It reminded him of how the Nine-Tailed Fox in Naruto would scream.

The corrupted pillar exploded outward in a shockwave of crimson energy. But instead of dissipating, the energy coalesced, flowing across the battlefield in visible streams that sought out every demon present.

Red auras erupted around the demon forces like flames igniting on oil. The energy wrapped around them, sinking into their bodies, and the effect was immediate and devastating.

A demon trooper that had been locked in combat with a kitsune warrior suddenly moved with twice its previous speed. Its mace, which moments before had been deflected by spiritual reinforcement, now smashed through the youkai’s defenses like they were brittle glass. The kitsune went down in a spray of blood, shock evident on its dying face.

All across the battlefield, the tide reversed in an instant.

An oni—one of the massive warriors whose strength had been carving through demon ranks with impunity—found his tetsubo blocked by a fallen overseer. The demon, which should have been crushed by the oni’s superior power, now held its ground. Worse, it pushed back, swiping an attack that gravely wounded the oni.

Not only were the demons getting stronger, but the youkai were getting weaker!

"No... the source of the youkai power, the leylines, they’re losing it!" Toshio heard Kunou yell out. "Wait! That means... MOTHER!" Kunou screamed.

Kunou’s bodyguard held her back from charging into the front lines again.

Kiba looked over to Momo. "You just had to say that, huh." Momo had the dignity to at least look sheepish.

Toshio looked toward the pillar of corrupted energy and stood, Shinjūka tight in his grip.

"Come on. This just got a lot more complicated. And they need our help."

"Right!" they all said in response, then made their way back to the front lines.