Chapter 4: Betrayal

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The next morning

As the Gusion family are all sitting around eating breakfast Kiba comes into their campsite. "Have any of you seen Sona this morning?" he asks. Serafall replies, "No, but we don't generally see her in the mornings. Is there a problem?" Kiba says, "I am not sure. Ajuka told me that they never came back from patrol last night. I thought they may have come by here and told you something." Serafall says, "Wait my Sona is missing! We have to find her!" She turns to (F/N), "Can you help? We need to find my sister." (F/N) says, "Of course." He then begins to give instructions to his servants to go out in groups and try to find Sona. Ravel, Murayama, Leon, and Mia also send out their familiars to aid in the search.

An hour later.

The Gusion peerage are all still out searching when Serafall returns to the clearings to see if anyone has seen Sona recently. While she is in the Gremory clearing Saji, Sona's pawn stumbles into the clearing badly hurt. Serafall rushes over, "Saji have you seen my sister." Asia says, "Give me a chance to start healing him. He is badly hurt." After Asia starts to heal him and Saji is starting to recover he explains what happened. Saji says, "We were out on patrol like any other night. As usual we were split into groups to look around. I began to hear screams shortly after we started, so I rushed to see what was going on. I was just in time to see Azazel summon a spear of light and drive it through a new recruit's heart. He must have sensed me or something because he looked my way and told me that he was sorry, but it was time for all of us to die. He attacked me and hit me with several spears of light. He must have thought that I was dead, which I should have been, because he started to move on. Sona must have heard what was going on because she and Tusbaki came running into the clearing. I watched as Azazel attacked them both. He succeeded in killing them both while I just lay there watching helpless to do anything. After he was finished he started to walk away. I am not sure where he went." Serafall is infuriated by the story, "Did you just tell me that Azazel killed Sona?" Rias says, "Calm down Lady Leviathan, don't do anything rash." It was too late though, "Serafall was already gone rushing into the forest to hunt down Azazel."

Rias turns to her peerage, "As much as I hate him, I think that contacting the Gusion peerage would be helpful." Kiba says, "I already informed them that Sona was missing and they have been searching all morning. I will see if they have found anything." After getting into contact with the whole Gusion peerage they inform them what has happened. (F/N) tells his peerage, "We need to go find Serafall. Finding her must be our top priority. With her so angry she will fall right into a trap if Azazel has laid one." Rias alerts her brother to the situation while Kiba and Akeno are contacting the Gusion peerage. Sirzechs tells her, "We need to get ready to leave here. My guess is that Azazel has been working for the Khaos Union all along. He wanted us to wait here, so they could lure us into a trap. We need to go soon." Rias says, "As soon as we find Lady Leviathan we will make sure to be on our way."

After spending the better part of the day searching the Gusion family finally returns to their clearing to eat. They are exhausted from being out all day. (F/N) says to his peerage, "I am still worried about Serafall, but I know that she can handle herself. I think it would be best that until we find out what has happened we begin to make preparations to go into the Gusion domain. It will be necessary to leave as soon as it is safe there for everyone to go. I am not sure where else we can send everyone. (F/N) leaves after eating to go and tell Sirzechs the plan. His hope is that Sirzechs will agree with him that the best option is to retreat to the Underworld.

When (F/N) arrives he finds Ajuka and Sirzechs debating the best course of action. (F/N) says, "We can always retreat to my domain. After resupplying we can make a fall foothold in a neighboring domain, so you can all avoid the poison. As long as we lay low, this should work for some time." Sirzechs replies, "It is not a bad plan. However, I don't think that our attack strategy on the Underworld will work. Azazel has probably already made them aware of what we are planning." (F/N) agreeing says, "It is true that the attack plan may not work. However, we need to find somewhere new to hide, quickly and this is our best option." After further discussion it is decided that they will go into the Underworld and move into a small camp near the Gusion territory for the time being.

Meanwhile with Serafall

After searching the whole forest for Azazel, Serafall decided to next look in the city. Her anger has got the better of her as she is pursuing Azazel as far as she can. Finally, she finds him. Without any warning she launches an attack of icicle spears at him. Azazel senses that use of magic and barely dodges the attack. He says, "Oh so you found me. You are really quite predictable." Azazel then dawns his Down Fall Dragon armor and begins to fight Serafall. Despite him being powerful the rage of Serafall makes her attacks very devastating. Back up comes for Azazel in the form of twenty fallen angels. Seeing that she is surrounded, Serafall uses her spell Celsius Cross Trigger which freezes the whole city as well as the fallen angels that were attacking her. Azazel manages to avoid getting frozen as he knew what was coming. Serafall quickly destroys the statues of the fallen angels to ensure they are dead. She then returns to her assault on Azazel. Even with the aid of his Sacred Gear Azazel is slowly taking damage. He rushes in to strike Serafall with his spear on several occasions. However, anytime he gets close Serafall hits him with powerful ice magic that punches holes into his armor. Azazel attempts to use his spears of light to fight back against Serafall's onslaught of attacks. Several of them do find their mark and stab Serafall in one arm and both legs. She ignores the pain from the attack continuing her assault. Azazel says, "It figures that when you are actually trying you are this powerful. I knew you were strong and would attack after I killed Sona, but I was not expecting you to be able to put up this much of a fight." Serafall screams, "YOU WILL PAY!" and begins to pelt him with chucks of ice. She next launches burning hot water at him. Azazel dodges part of it, but gets hit by some of the water. As his armor has cracks all over the water seeps in and burns him.

With the fight continuing to drag on Serafall is beginning to run low on magical energy after casting so many powerful spells one after another. She decides that the best option will be to take out Azazel as quickly as possible. To that end Serafall throws a giant block of ice at Azazel. He dodges it, but doesn't see the next attack coming. Serafall throws needles of ice at Azazel that go through the holes in his armor and into his neck. This does not kill him, however it slows him down enough for Serafall to summon a bubble of water and submerge Azazel's head. He begins to struggle to get out of it, but Serafall uses her ice magic to freeze him in place. With his head trapped in the water Azazel runs out of oxygen and drowns to death.

Following the fight Serafall has exhausted most of her magical power. She sits down to rest for a second and prepares to send a message to (F/N). Before she gets that chance though a being who was coming to meet Azazel sees that Azazel is dead and attacks Serafall from behind while she is distracted, killing her. This being then says, "I thought one of the devil kings would put up more of a fight. Oh well I guess it will be too easy to take them all out after all. I may be able to start Ragnarok sooner than I expected if all the enemies are this weak."

Returning to (F/N)

Once (F/N) has finished his meeting with Sirzechs he tries to contact Serafall again, with no luck. He is starting to get worried about her. He heads into his peerage's clearing to see that it is empty. This worries (F/N) even more. Unsure of where they have gone and fearing the worst he searches the camp from top to bottom. There is no sign that a battle has taken place there. After continuing his search for several more minutes he sees one of the Hellhounds in the service to Murayama and Leon running toward him. It has a letter tied around its neck.

The letter reads,"(F/N), don't worry we are all fine. Shortly after you left to go and talk to Sirzechs one of the familiars spotted Serafall near the city. We have all gone to go and bring her back. As you were busy and we knew that you needed to talk to Sirzechs, we decided to not inform you. We suspect that there could be trouble waiting in the city, however with a devil king there I am sure that we will be fine. Again don't worry, we are going to bring Serafall back. If we come up against anyone that is too strong for us to handle we will retreat.

From,

Leon

After reading the letter (F/N) decides that it would be best that he go and join his peerage. He figures that as a precaution it will help to have more people there. Also he figures that Serafall is more likely to listen to him, than to his peerage members. (F/N) decides to send word to Sirzechs, Ajuka, and Rias informing them of what is going on. He then heads toward the city to go and rescue Serafall.

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