DXD: Samsara Finis

Stage. Spotlight. Silence.

The stage was vast and hollow, the air tense with quiet anticipation. Rows of students, teachers, and parents filled the auditorium, but the moment his name was called—"Eishi Lucivar, Class 1-C"—time seemed to freeze.

As Eishi stepped into the circle of the spotlight, the world around him dimmed to a hush. The chatter of students, the shuffling of programs, even the ambient noise of the auditorium's lights seemed to fade into an ethereal void. Only one thing existed now.

The violin in his hand.

He approached the center of the stage. Each step was quiet, deliberate. His heart wasn't racing—it was calm.

Standing beneath the spotlight, he let his eyes scan the crowd. There—his mother, smiling from her seat, mouthing the words "Good luck." A few rows behind, he spotted his friends—Issei waving enthusiastically, Kiba giving a quiet nod, and others cheering silently from their seats.

Then his gaze shifted.

The student council—Sona Sitri, composed and unreadable, and Tsubaki at her side, watched him closely from their seats.

Finally, his eyes moved to the judges' panel.

There sat the principal, his music teacher Takahiro-sensei offering a faint, supportive smile. Beside them: Kazuma Tenjou—his face unreadable, his lips curved into a thin, almost sinister smirk. The final two judges were unfamiliar to Eishi, their expressions neutral, professional.

He closed his eyes briefly.

A breath in. A breath out.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment.

"This is it," he thought.

And in that breath of silence, memories rushed in.

The hours of training. The blisters on his fingers. The long nights spent with only sheet music and quiet resolve. Every note, every failure, every breakthrough—etched into his soul.

Then, the final image surfaced.

A woman beneath a blooming apple tree, sunlight filtering through the leaves. She smiled at him, soft and warm, as if she'd been waiting there all along.

"Elia…" he whispered.

Bach's Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor

His hands moved on instinct.

♪♫♫

Slow. Deep. The first notes of Bach's Chaconne rang through the air like a lament echoing across time.

A single, aching chord rang out from the violin, the opening of Johann Sebastian Bach's Chaconne.

♫♫♪♬♩

The audience didn't know what it was at first. But they felt it. Immediately.

From the first descending line—grief etched in every bar. Eishi's fingers danced along the fingerboard, but his eyes remained closed.

The melody began to shift—theme and variation, repeating, building, breaking, again and again. The structure of a chaconne is relentless… like grief. And Eishi played it like he had known loss intimately.

In the crowd, a girl clutched the sleeves of her uniform, her eyes shimmering with tears. She whispered, voice trembling:

"I don't know why… but hearing this… I feel like crying."

Her friend turned to her with a soft smile, brushing a tear from her cheek.

"You're already crying…"

♫♪♬

On the stage, Eishi continued playing.

To those watching closely, his face was still, composed—but the depth in his eyes told a different story. His brow furrowed gently, and in the flickering spotlight, his expression bore the weight of grief.

Each note didn't just resonate through the hall—it resonated through people.

Issei leaned forward, a rare seriousness overtaking his usual grin. His brows were drawn together, eyes wide.

"This… this is amazing. Eishi… you're really something else."

Kiba, standing beside him, felt his chest tighten. He'd never heard Eishi perform before.

"This is the first time I've ever seen him play…" he muttered, voice low.

His heart raced as he scanned the audience—students, teachers, even strangers—all frozen in awe. Some wiped their eyes. Others simply stared, unmoving, as though the music had rooted them in place.

Kiba smiled faintly, leaning slightly toward the girl beside him.

"It's not just me… he's reaching everyone. You see this, Buchou?" he said, his gaze shifting to his left.

The red-haired girl beside him—Rias Gremory—smiled softly, her eyes still locked on the boy on stage.

"Yes… now I see it too. I agree with you. He's special."

She glanced at Kiba, her smile turning playful.

"You said he beat you before, right?"

Kiba scratched his cheek awkwardly. "Technically… yes."

"Then he deserves more than just being a pawn," she said thoughtfully. "Maybe a Rook…"

Her eyes narrowed as they drifted across the stage toward the judge's table.

"Call Kazuma. Tell him I want to speak with him after the competition ends."

♫♪♬

The music shifted.

From heavy sorrow… to something more distant. A searching melancholy. It was like hearing the sound of someone walking through memories—painful, but beautiful.

Even Tsubaki, ever graceful and composed, had brought a hand to her lips, eyes wide behind her glasses.

And beside her, Sona Sitri sat unmoving.

She knew the piece well. Bach's Chaconne. Written after the death of his beloved wife—a musical elegy that carried centuries of grief inside its variations.

"It's a requiem…" she thought. "A farewell."

♫♪♬

Her heartbeat quickened as she watched the slight tremble in Eishi's bowing arm—not from nerves, but from emotion too strong to contain. He wasn't merely playing.

No, more than that—

He was mourning.

♫♪♬

The music spoke of things unspoken: of loss, of silence that followed goodbyes, of moments never said.

From the judges' table, Takahiro-sensei—his music teacher—sat up straighter. Awe and pride flickered in his eyes.

"I knew it," he whispered. "I always knew he had this inside him."

But beside him, Kazuma Tenjou's sharp eyes narrowed, his jaw tight. His usual composed expression twisted—ugly in its frustration, disbelief, and something else he didn't want to admit.

Awe.

"No… no, this—this shouldn't be possible."

He clenched his fists under the table, knuckles pale. He had dismissed the boy as a fluke.

And yet now, here he was—playing Chaconne with the rawness of someone who had lived grief, suffered loss, and transmuted pain into sound.

"Tch… damn it."

"If this keeps up…" he thought bitterly

The thought churned his stomach.

"No… I won't let it end like this.

♫♪♬

In the front row, his mother sat with both hands covering her mouth, her shoulders trembling. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks—but she was smiling.

"That's my son… that's my boy…i hope you were here to see this Lauvel"

Each note pulled on every memory she carried—of lullabies sung in the quiet of their old apartment, of nights Eishi practiced , of a little boy who once said, "Someday i will play in front of a lot of people mama." 

Now they were hearing him.

All of them.

She wasn't just crying.

She was proud.

♫♪♬

Then came the final variation—soft, fragile, like the sound of someone placing flowers at a forgotten grave.

The last few notes lingered like breath.

A final whisper.

And then—

Silence.

No one moved.

No one breathed.

And in that stillness, the weight of everything Eishi poured into the music hung over the hall like mist.

But he was not done.

Just before the first clap could break the silence, Eishi raised his hand.

Then gently pressed a finger to his lips.

A shushing gesture.

The entire hall froze.

The applause died unborn.The silence returned—now thick with anticipation, confusion, tension.

Then—a light clicked on.

A single spotlight, shifting from the center stage to the piano nestled quietly in the corner.

A murmur spread like ripples across a lake.

"Is that… a piano?"

"Wait… he's not finished?"

"He's gonna play that now?"

"Is this allowed…?"

"There's no rule against it if he stays in the time limit," someone from the event staff confirmed under their breath.

Takahiro-sensei leaned forward, heart thudding.

Kazuma Tenjou's eyes narrowed into slits.

"What is he doing now…?" he muttered.

But Eishi—wasn't doing it for them.

This wasn't for the judges. This wasn't for the points. Not even for revenge anymore.

He had originally planned to play this piece for this competition because he could no longer face the violin—his trauma had taken that from him. But now, having found the strength to play again, he had decide to left this piece behind.

Yet last night changed everything.

And now, this would be his final tribute—to the unknown girl who had somehow helped him complete the final piece of the puzzle within himself.

"Whoever you are… I hope you find happiness with the one you love," he thought.