DxD : Emiya Shirou

Her grimace turned to an outright scowl, "Rumours," Spitting that word out like a curse, "Which claimed that the reason why she refused a Peerage was because she disapproved of Reincarnated Devils as a whole. 

That she considered them a blight on the purity of Devil-kind."

...

She angry waved her hand before her as if dismissing the idea, "Preposterous, of course, my sister has never cared even the slightest bit about the blood purity of Devil-kind before, but that didn't stop the rumours from spreading anyway. And every year the problem just seemed to keep getting worse.

"It reached the point that the other Maous had tried to intervene and attempted to force her to form a Peerage, even if only in name, but that ended up blowing up in their faces. 

She was steadfast in her refusal to form a Peerage, not even a single member. Even informing her that she would run the risk of losing her position as a Maou if public unrest on the matter continued to grow, failed to persuade her.

"In the end it only made matters worse, as when the public found out how hard she fought against the idea of forming a Peerage, it only helped to feed the flames." She paused her pacing and turned to face Saji as he continued to listen attentively.

"Honestly, Saji, things were getting really bad. You have to understand that one of the biggest issues that plague modern Devil society is the subject of the Reincarnated Devils. 

Remember, we have only been able to reincarnate humans to Devils for the last couple of centuries and, while that may appear as a long period of time for you, for Devils, who can measure their lives in millennia, that was little more than a decade ago at most. Over two-thirds of living Devils still remember a time where the Evil Pieces system didn't exist."

She turned and resumed her pacing. "In recent years tension between Pure Devils and Reincarnated Devils has risen to an all-time high. And with the numbers of Reincarnated Devils steadily increasing compared to how the number of Devils from the 72 Pillars keeps declining no matter what we do with each passing century, the situation didn't seem to be getting better any time soon.

"Despite all that it wasn't an immediate issue. Devils, because of their long lives, take far longer to change socially than humans do. While it is a growing problem, it was not one that had to be dealt with immediately, but it's only a matter of time. A few decades, maybe a century or two, then the issue will become too big to ignore anymore."

"The Maous, still dealing with damages from the Civil War and the remaining threat posed by the remainder of the Three Factions, could not afford to alienate any member of the Devil communicate and thus have decided to remain neutral on the issue."

"So that means-" Saji muttered out as he connected the dots.

"Yes," Sona agreed, "that means that my sister's persistence in rejecting a Peerage was seen as her supporting the Pure Devils agenda. Which meant that as far as the public was concerned, the Maous where no longer considered neutral and have already chosen a side to support."

Releasing a frustrated sigh while adjusting her glasses, Sona continued, "Instead of being something that could be put off for a later time, it quickly became an issue that had to be addressed immediately. 

And just when it reached the point where the Maous had no choice but to leave their neutrality and publicly take a stance on the matter," Sona walked up and stood right in front of Saji before spreading her arms open. 

"The entire issue became pointless as one day out of the blue, my sister pranced into the middle of a press conference that Sirzechs was holding and informed him that she got a new Peerage member and pranced right out without saying another word."

"Ehh~~~~~!" Saji shouted in shock and truthfully she couldn't blame him for his reaction, as that was the same response that every Devil in that room gave at the news, Sirzechs included. Which was unfortunate for him as many of the reporters had cameras.

His surprised face, jaw opened so wide that it reached the middle of his chest and his eyeballs bulging out, made the front page over Serafall's new Peerage member in quite a few of the newspapers. 

The newspaper companies have reported record-breaking sales that day, though whether it was due to Serafall's announcement or Sirzechs picture was debatable.

A smile that was a cross between fondness and exasperation graced Sona's lips as she muttered, "That's just like her."

Shaking her head at the memory, she continued, "Anyway, that occurred a little over six months ago. Not surprisingly, after all the problems that were caused by her refusing to get a peerage for two centuries, only for her to turn around and suddenly get not only a new member but a Queen at that, had the whole supernatural world buzzing."

"Yeah, I remember that," Tsubasa interjected, finally breaking the silence from the rest of the Peerage, "The Underworld's social network was filled for weeks about people messaging and tweeting each other over Serafall's new Queen. Yet at the time all anyone knew about him was his name."

"Emiya Shirou," Sona confirmed, "His name and a picture was the only thing Serafall released to the public. That was however enough to trigger a global-wide search effort for any information they could find about him.

"In the end, he turned out to be someone no one ever heard of before, and I mean no one. Every news network, spy ring and government agency within and between both Heaven and Hell tried to find everything they could on him.

"All for nothing, the collective effort of the entire Supernatural community failed to uncover even a single scrap of information on the Leviathan's new Queen." The edge of Sona's lips lifted slightly, giving her an almost proud look. 

Her sister's ability to drive the entire world crazy with frustration was something that she couldn't but find amusing, especially after experiencing it herself for most of her childhood.

It was nice having the rest of the world finally understand how she felt.

"The only thing they were able to confirm was that he formerly was a human, but that was only because he showed no physical or magical traits of any other race, rather than any success in their search effort."

Walking up to the seat she recently vacated, she sat down and took a sip of her now cool tea before speaking again. "But that brought up another issue. A minor one, sure, especially compared to the ones his appearance solved, but something that needed to be dealt with."

Holding out her now empty cup towards her Queen, who quickly poured her a new one, which she proceeded to drink instead of speaking.

Seeing that his King had no intention of continuing, Saji quickly reached the end of his patience, "And? What's the new problem?"

Lowering her cup and shooting her pawn a mildly disappointed look at his inability to wait and mentally promising herself to correct that weakness, answered. "His rank."

"That's it?" Saji complained, clearly not understanding the problem.

"Think about it, Gen-chan," Momo interjected. "What does a Devil's Peerage represent?"

"Themselves," after taking a moment of thinking on it, he replied. "A Devil's peerage is a representative of the Devil in question."

"Correct," Sona nodded approvingly, "Now taking that into consideration, tell me what should his rank be? Not only was he the Queen of a Maou, but he was also the only member of her Peerage, and since it took my sister so long to find just one member, it appeared that he would remain the only member for the foreseeable future. 

Thus the burden of representing her falls completely on his shoulders."

Taking one final sip of her tea before setting it down, she resumed. 

"Before Shirou's arrival, every appointed Queen of the Maous were either already high ranking Devils before they became Queens or renowned warriors of Ultimate-class fighting abilities. Shirou, on the other hand, was a complete unknown. 

He could have been a weakling for all anyone knew. Absurd had it been anyone else but considering that it was my sister who chose him as her Queen, there was a frightfully realistic possibility of it being true."

Sona repeated her original question. "So, what should his rank be? Too low a rank and it will be an insult to a Maou, a public slap to the face, something that no one involved wanted. 

Yet they could not give an unknown a high rank. Not only would it stink of favouritism, but they couldn't grant a high rank to what was potentially a weak Devil.

"Before it became too big a problem however, my sister gave an outrageous suggestion. Even by her standards, it was considered insane." Her completely grim expression was all that Saji needed to know that even after the fact, Sona still didn't approve of her suggestion.

"What did she say?"

"She wanted to arrange a fight between Sirzechs and Shirou," Sona stated calmly before closing her eyes and leaning away in anticipation of the yell of surprise that would no doubt be coming from the easily excitable teen.

After several seconds had passed and the anticipated yelling had yet to come, Sona slowly cracked open her eyes to see what the matter was, before blinking in surprise. She blinked again, and again, and one more time to be sure. Yet there was no denying what she was seeing.

There, sitting stock-still before her was a completely frozen Saji. Jaw hanging open and eyes wide in shock, his skin having paled by several shades, he remained seated completely motionless before her.

"Ah...Saji?" her voice held a rare tone of uncertainty as she questioned her unmoving pawn. "Are you alright?" When he didn't show even the slightest sign of responding to her comment, she began to worry.

"Gen-chan?" Momo spoke up as well, and when he still didn't respond, the rest of the peerage began to worry.

Ruruko, a twin-ponytailed girl, walked up to her fellow pawn and waved a hand in front of his face. "Hello~~~ is anybody home in there, Saji?"

When he still didn't react, she reached out a hand and gave him a gentle poke on his shoulder.

The moment she made contact, Saji reacted.

"Ehh~~~~~~~~!" Saji ended up screaming so loud that the windows shook in their frames. Every Council member in the room reflexively clamped their ears, while poor Ruruko had almost fallen over as she jumped back in fright.

"SHE DID WHAT? IS SHE INSANE?" He shouted out, skin still pale with shock. "She wanted him to fight Sirzechs, the Super Devil Sirzechs? As in the literal Devil himself? The strongest Devil in recorded history, that Sirzechs?"

"No, we're talking about the other Sirzechs, the one that works as a part-time accountant in the local mall." Tsubasa snarked, before reaching across the table and gently cuffing Saji on the back of the head. 

"Yes, that Sirzechs, and keep it down, you almost busted my eardrums."

"Normally I'd take offence for calling my sister insane, but in this particular case, I'm inclined to agree. What she wanted was completely insane." Pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off the headache that the mere memory of the event brought on. 

"Somehow she was able to convince everyone else to go along with her madness, and before I knew what was happening, Shirou and Sirzechs were already fighting."

"Well, what the hell happened?" He asked before noticing the serious expression his master was sporting and began feeling a little nervous. "He didn't win...did he?"

"No, of course not. He most certainly did lose." Sona assured him with a slow shake of her head, "Then again, no one expected him to win nor was it the purpose of the fight. What everyone wanted to know was how strong he was and well... He proved himself to be most worthy of being my sister's Queen."

Her eyes lost focus as she got lost in her memory "Sirzechs wanted to test Shirou, so he didn't initiate the fight and merely sat back and waited for him to strike the first blow. Instead of simply charging in, Shirou began to chant."

"Chanting?" Reya, a Bishop and thus one of the magic experts of the group, asked. "Like for a spell? But he's a Devil now; doesn't he realize that unlike human mages we don't need chants or circles to cast spells?"

"That's what we all thought too." Sona agreed. "Some of the Elder Devils watching actually started laughing and claiming how it was too soon for the kid to fight if he doesn't even know how to cast a spell properly."

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