Is it Wrong to Have a Harem in DxD

Akeno was winning.

The scrying display hung in the air between me and the far wall of the villa's common room, a shimmering rectangle of light that showed the dimensional replica of Kuoh Academy in sharp detail. Akeno was in the sky above the main building, her shrine-maiden outfit whipping in the wind of her own power, and she was raining lightning down on Yubelluna with a precision that was terrifying and completely useless against what was coming.

Asia's hand was in mine. She'd been holding it since the Game started. Her grip tightened every time someone took a hit and loosened when they recovered and tightened again. Her other hand was on my arm and her Twilight Healing flickered at her fingertips, a faint green glow pointed at the display.

On the screen, Akeno's lightning hit Yubelluna in the chest. The explosion specialist staggered. Smoke and burned fabric. Akeno pressed the advantage, three more bolts in succession, and each one drove Yubelluna lower. The Bomb Queen's hat was gone, her coat torn, and she was losing altitude. Akeno was stronger. Her output was higher. On raw power, Akeno was winning this fight.

I watched. My jaw was tight. My hands were fists except the one Asia was holding and that one was tight around her fingers.

I knew what was coming.

Yubelluna reached into the pocket of her ruined coat.

A small glass vial. Purple-pink liquid inside. She uncorked it with her teeth and drank it in one motion and the effect was instantaneous. The burns on her body closed. Her torn coat repaired itself. Her altitude stabilized. She was fresh. Fully healed. Full power.

Phenex Tears.

Asia's grip on my hand went vise-tight. "What was that? She's- she was hurt, how is she-"

"Phenex Tears. Healing item. The Phenex family makes them." My voice was flat. "Full restoration in a bottle."

On the screen, Akeno realized what had happened. Her face changed. The elegant composure cracked for a second and underneath it was a girl looking at a fight she'd already won being reset to zero while she was running on empty. Her reserves were spent from the barrage that should have ended this. She'd committed everything to putting Yubelluna down and Yubelluna had drunk a potion and stood back up.

Yubelluna smiled. She raised both hands. The explosion that followed was large enough that the scrying display shook.

Akeno went down.

The lightning stopped. Her body dropped from the sky and hit the rooftop of the school building and bounced once and her shrine-maiden outfit was shredded and smoke was rising from her skin and she tried to stand. Her arms pushed her up from the tiles. One knee under her. She was looking at Yubelluna with her jaw clenched and her violet eyes sharp and she was trying to stand.

A second explosion. Point-blank. Akeno's body dissolved into light particles.

[Rias Gremory-sama's Queen, retired.]

Grayfia's voice. Neutral. Professional.

Asia made a sound next to me. Small. Her hand was crushing mine.

I didn't move. My teeth were together and the muscle in my jaw was cramping and I was watching the screen.

The display shifted. Split view. Yubelluna was descending from the sky, barely winded, scanning the field. Below, in the ruined courtyard, Koneko was still standing. She'd beaten Xuelan. She'd won her fight. She was bleeding from a cut above her left eye and favoring her right leg and her knuckles were raw and she was standing where she'd beaten Xuelan and she didn't see Yubelluna coming from above.

"Koneko." I said it out loud. To a screen. "Move."

She didn't move. She was looking at the gym building where two of Riser's Pawns were emerging from the smoke. She was bracing for them. She didn't look up.

Yubelluna's explosion hit her from behind.

Koneko's small body flew twenty feet and hit a wall and the wall cracked and she slid down it and she was on the ground and she was trying to get up. Her white hair was dark with blood. Her cat-shaped hairclips were gone. One of the Pawns was already on her, pinning her, and Koneko fought, her Rook strength thrashing against the hold, but she was hurt from Xuelan and hurt from the ambush and there were two of them.

She went still. Her body dissolved into light.

[Rias Gremory-sama's Rook, retired.]

My jaw cracked. The sound was audible in the quiet room. Something in my back teeth had given way from the pressure.

"Ise-san-" Asia's voice was shaking. Her hand on my arm was glowing green and the warmth of it was spreading into my skin and she was trying to heal me and she was crying.

Kiba was next. The display followed him through the forest where he'd been advancing on the enemy base. He'd cleared the Pawns earlier, clean and efficient, Sword Birth blades multiplying in his wake. But Yubelluna found him too. One explosion from above to break his advance, then two of Riser's remaining pieces closing in. Kiba fought. He was fast and graceful and he put both of them on the defensive and then a third piece emerged from the treeline and caught him in the side with a fire spell and he staggered and the opening was enough.

Light particles.

[Rias Gremory-sama's Knight, retired.]

Rias was alone.

The display showed her in the center of the academy's main courtyard. Her crimson hair was loose and wild and her school uniform was torn and she was standing in a crater she'd made with her own Destruction. Around her: Riser, Yubelluna, two remaining pieces. Riser's arms were folded. He was smiling.

Rias raised her hands. The Power of Destruction blazed. Crimson-black energy that distorted the air around it, the family power that could erase anything it touched. She fired. The blast hit Riser in the chest and blew a hole through his torso the size of a basketball.

He looked down at it. The hole closed. Flesh regrew, organs rebuilt, the cavity filling with new tissue in seconds. He brushed his jacket off.

"Is that all?" His voice came through the scrying display, amused and bored.

Rias fired again. Both hands. Continuous stream. The Destruction hit Riser and kept hitting him, eating through his body, disintegrating tissue faster than it could regrow. For a second it looked like she was winning. His body was dissolving under the sustained assault.

Then her reserves ran out.

The crimson light guttered. Rias's arms dropped. Her breathing was visible from across the display, her chest heaving, and sweat was running down her face and her eyes were wide. Riser's body rebuilt. The damage from ten seconds of sustained Destruction undone in three seconds of Phenex regeneration.

He walked toward her. She backed up. Fired a smaller blast with her right hand, weaker, the reserves scraping bottom. It hit his shoulder. He brushed it off.

He grabbed her wrist.

She blasted his arm off. The arm from the elbow down disintegrated and fell to the ground and she stumbled backward. Riser looked at the stump. The arm regrew. He flexed the new fingers.

"Rias," he said. "Enough."

She was panting. Her crimson hair was in her face. Her uniform was destroyed. She was bleeding from a cut on her temple and her hands were shaking and her Power of Destruction was flickering at her fingertips, weak, the last dregs.

She looked at the scrying display.

She couldn't see me. The display was one-way. But she was staring at the anchor point, through it, at nobody, and her blue-green eyes were wet and her jaw was set.

"I forfeit."

Her voice was quiet. The words came through the display and landed in the villa's common room and the silence after them was absolute.

[Rias Gremory-sama forfeits. Riser Phenex-sama wins.]

The display went dark.

The room was silent. Asia's hand was in mine and her Twilight Healing was glowing and her tears were on her cheeks and the display was a blank shimmer of fading magic and the game was over.

I stood up.

The chair I'd been sitting in hit the wall behind me. The sound was loud in the empty room. Asia flinched.

The Boosted Gear manifested.

I hadn't called it. I hadn't activated it. The gauntlet formed on my left arm, red and green, the gem blazing bright enough to throw shadows across the room. Dragon energy pulsed through my arm and into my chest and the gem was pulsing in time with my heartbeat and the heartbeat was slow. Steady. The opposite of what it should have been.

I was calm.

That was the problem. I was very calm. The kind of calm where everything goes still and the world gets sharper and the voice in my head goes quiet because something else is running. The thing Rias had seen in the church when I'd pulled Asia off the altar. The thing Ddraig had noticed the first morning when I hadn't screamed.

"Partner."

Ddraig's voice. Low. Ready.

Asia was looking at me from the chair. Her green eyes were wide and her tears were still falling and her Twilight Healing was still glowing and she was looking at the gauntlet on my arm and at my face and at whatever was on my face.

"Where's the wedding?"

Flat. No heat.

Asia swallowed. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She looked at me for a long moment.

"The Underworld," she said. "The engagement reception. Grayfia-san said-"

"When?"

"Tonight. The ceremony is tonight."

I looked at the gem on the back of my gauntlet. Green. Pulsing. Ten seconds of Scale Mail sitting in my reserves, waiting.

"Okay."

Asia stood up. Her hands were shaking. Her Twilight Healing was still glowing, the green light steady, and she looked at me with her green eyes and her wet cheeks and her chin was up.

"I'm coming with you."

"Asia-"

"I'm coming with you, Ise-san."

Her voice didn't shake on the second time. Her chin was up. The determined line.

"Okay."

The Boosted Gear pulsed. The gem was bright. The room was quiet.