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Rias Gremory's Home
"So what is it you wanted to talk to me about, Rias?" Sone Sitri asked as she moved a pawn forward. The two Heiresses were old friends and the bespectacled devil liked to think that she knew her crimson-haired contemporary as well as anyone. Rias was barely concentrating on the game, which was irritating as Rias was still doing a pretty good job of beating back her assault.
"Sona…we might be in trouble." The Crimson-Haired Ruin Princess said with a troubled sigh.
This made Sona raise an eyebrow inquisitively. It was then that Rias told her of the ratmen infestation that had snuck into Kuō, right under their noses, and what the likely targets for an attack by them would be.
"Son of a bitch." She swore, quite out of character for the usually cool and in-control genius of the Sitri Family, but realising that someone had been planning on murdering her and her entire Peerage, along with her best friend and her Peerage tended to do that to a girl.
"My sentiments exactly." Rias said with a haunted look in her eyes, "And we'd still be unaware of it if this human hadn't started going after them."
"Yes, Akeno told me about you turning up the heat on them." Sona said dryly.
To give her credit, the other devil blushed in shame and embarrassment.
"I had just started my period, which always makes my bitch-switch go up to eleven." She said in irritation at her body's actions, "I did apologise the third time we met and he accepted it. He was very wooden though."
"Bad acting?" the other devil asked.
"I think so. He was trying to act tough, but came off as a robot." Rias said thoughtfully, "I think he knows me somehow and was afraid I could recognise him by the way he speaks or something."
"Are you even certain he was a he?" Sona asked in a clipped, business-like fashion, "And didn't you say he was wearing some sort of enchanted item that disguised his voice?"
"The way he stood and acted was definitely male." Rias said with certainty, "Plus his body shape was male. Yes, he had some kind of voice disguiser, but it just made him sound monotone and inflectionless, with a bit of decibel altering as well, but it was still definitely male."
"So…what? Are you thinking about possibly recruiting him into your Peerage to help you against Raiser?" Sona asked shrewdly. She had little respect for the Phenex Scion; he was arrogant, rude, lascivious, lazy and sexist. That Rias was forcibly engaged to him left a sour taste in her mouth.
"…I don't know." Rias admitted after a moment, "I need a game changer; something that Raiser doesn't expect and takes him off guard. Just any random person wouldn't be able to help."
Sona frowned at the defeated tone in her usually confident friend's voice. She knew the likelihood of Rias getting out of the marriage with Raiser Phenex to be abyssal at worst and just slightly short of impossible at best, but she had never voiced her lack of confidence like this.
"Members of the Phenex Family have been defeated before, Rias." She said bracingly.
"Usually when the Rating Game isn't about pure power." The Gremory Heiress pointed out, "I may be getting a Rating Game, but it will be skewed in favour of Raiser's superior strength and experience. It won't be a Game where we have to steal something from the opposition or take and hold territory for a certain amount of time; it will be one where I have to defeat Raiser and his Peerage to the last man."
Sona winced. Technically, she only had to defeat Raiser, as when a [King] fell, the Rating Game was lost, but as he had a full Peerage compared to Rias' [Queen], [Knight], [Rook] and unstable [Bishop] in addition to herself, that was unlikely. There was no mistaking it; Rias was being strong-armed into marry Raiser Phenex and even this Rating Game was an illusion designed to give her the semblance of hope before stripping it from her.
Likely it had been her brother, Sirzechs, who had forced the Rating Game portion of the contract in in an attempt to help his sister, but she needed help. Ordinarily, Sona wouldn't consider loaning any other devil members of her Peerage, but Rias had been her friend since they had been in their nappies and she was in serious trouble.
The only things that stopped her were Rias' own pride and subtle threats given to her from Raiser. The Crimson-Haired Ruin Princess was determined to succeed or fail by her own efforts alone, which was making Sona's headache worse. Raiser, as he had known about how close she and Rias were, had blatantly told her that if she interfered, several of her Family's businesses would suffer, in both the Underworld and the Human World.
Ordinarily, she'd just let her older sister turn the arrogant fop into an ice sculpture, but that would probably kick off another civil war, which was not what the devils needed at the moment. Even with thousands of years of taking in humans and converting them using the Evil Piece System, their population was too low to sustain another all-out conflict.
"…do you want me to give you the update you asked for now or wait until later?" she asked, not-so-subtly changing the subject.
"Better hit me with it now." Rias sighed. She had asked Sona to check the students to see if they had any Sacred Gears or supernatural origins or…anything that might be of some use.
Needless to say, she was not holding any hopes.
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