Chapter 51: Canicular 11
Koneko
"I was about to destroy Rapidly," Xenovia said accusingly towards me with Durandal held at the ready by her hip, not taking her eyes off of the six-winger. "You shouldn't have pulled me away."
I grunted glancing at her in irritation. "You would have died, dumbass." I'd have to hold on to the mind-altering power of Senjutsu for a bit longer in order to stay effective, which did nothing to help my current mood.
"I am prepared to die in service of the Lord." Her reply was steadfast.
"So you would've destroyed Rapidly, just to leave Durandal behind for him instead, and me to fight him one on one?" I retorted, then scoffed. "Great plan, genius."
"..."
She didn't have a counter. She'd just been arguing out of a stubborn sense of duty, despite knowing what the logical outcome was. She was definitely emotionally dumb enough to earnestly and unquestioningly follow through with her stupid beliefs, no matter how smart she actually was. It just took someone else pointing out the flaws for her to recognize the need for other options.
She'd be a perfect exorcist, if it weren't for all the fucked up stuff the church has a reputation of sending exorcists to do. I got the feeling the church was gonna have a rough time keeping a leash on her in the future.
"What am I, chopped liver? Do you kids really think you can afford to ignore me?" Despite the mocking tone and casual, unconcerned stance he took, I could feel the six-winged fallen observing us intently the entire time. His calculating intent washed over us, unconsciously gravitating towards my limbs and Durandal as his main points of focus. He shrugged, then acted as if he was going to reach down with his free hand. "If you're not gonna come and stop me, I guess I'll just take this and leave-"
Danger.
"Don't."
The overly-earnest idiot had just been about to take the bait before I spoke, her calves tensing and her weight shifting in order to dash forwards and start the fight. Whether it was because Xenovia somehow noticed something off on her own, or her gut told her she should trust my lead, she stopped. It was the right choice.
After all, he was waiting for us to make the first move.
His focus invisibly shifted more heavily to me as he straightened back up.
"He wants us to attack first." I informed Xenovia. "Don't play into his hand. Stay alert."
She nodded once. "Right."
I didn't know why he was waiting, and I didn't really care at the moment. The only thing I cared about at this moment was making sure Freed couldn't escape yet again, with retrieving Rapidly being a distant second.
"Smart cookie," he said appraisingly, stepping forward and performatively glancing down at Freed for a second. "What gave me away? I know I'm not as easy to read as this amateur killer. It's almost like he goes out of his way to make sure people cross to the other side of the street when they catch a glimpse of him, the little psycho!"
"Filth like you, who have known the Father and still spurned His Grace, have no place casting stones at men who haven't yet felt salvation, abomination," Xenovia said with a calm distaste. "Freed Sellzen is a monster, but still a man. You are lesser than even him."
His head tilted. "Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, those of my kind who Fall do so because we've experienced Heaven?" Power began radiating from him, tinting the dark street red. His voice became heavy despite the undercurrent amusement in his aura. "'Salvation' ain't all that, kid."
Danger.
He was roughly on the same level of power as me in my base, maybe a tiny bit stronger.
'So what am I missing?'
With Xenovia here and Senjutsu still amping me by a lot, even with my injuries, it was weird that he'd feel this self-assured while facing us, to the point of deliberately giving us openings to attack with full confidence he'd be fine. Either he consistently fought people stronger than him and came out on top by baiting and predicting them, or…
I remembered him releasing his third pair of wings in the attack on the mansion, going from an unremarkable four-winger to six wings in a moment after his squad got wiped.
Or, he was like a challenge runner in a game, restricting himself to a certain tier of strength and relying on skill and experience instead of equipping the most busted gear. So basically the same as the first option, but while holding back even more power in reserve for whatever reason.
"Your lies mean nothing to me, filth," Xenovia simply spat.
Other than the distant sounds of panic and sirens after multiple buildings in the area finished collapsing, the street was silent for a moment.
"Heh-hahahahaha!" He cackled. "How faithful of you. You're right by the way, I was totally lying. Heaven was fantastic. Literally a perfect heaven!" He laughed again.
Danger.
"Tough crowd," he said with amusement after a moment of neither of us joining him. "And neither of you attacked while I was open, either?"
Was he even actually…?
He shrugged. "Oh well, guess I'll have to take the lead, since you-"
I didn't have time to consider further. I swung and fired my claws, just as he formed and shot a dozen Light spears at us. My claws intercepted his spears like precision anti-aircraft fire, clashing with enough force to cause the projectiles' energy to destabilize in purple and red explosions that blocked line of sight between us. The angel burst through the visual cover with his crimson spear lunging, while I had jumped up and to the side. Xenovia was already swinging up with a slash of Durandal, intending to meet his attack head on and come out the victor of the exchange.
My sight was fixated on the unconscious body a dozen meters back, already throwing a set of chakra strings far over the Fallen's shoulder towards Rapidly and Freed with one hand.
Kill him!
I ignored the urge. If we got him to Asia soon, it would still be possible to save and interrogate him with mental magic to find the other Excaliburs, as much as the idea of saving his life made my blood boil. We could always execute him afterwards.
The Fallen kicked off the ground, abandoning his charge while jumping over Durandal's blade and the wave of force it sent out, and flapped all six of his wings to fling himself backwards in the air. Just as my threads connected, the blade of his spear tore through them, severing the chakra constructs before I could affect my targets. With the distance he gained from Xenovia and me still banking to the side, his focus shifted from the much slower human to me, lifting a palm above his head as a massive amount of red Light began gathering rapidly, just like at the mansion.
My fingers flexed in a specific way and I lifted my hand, then swung it down.
"Hahh!" Xenovia let out a sound of exertion in the air as her power surged.
"!" The angel barely dodged in surprise with another flap of his wings, losing a little blood and a few feathers as Xenovia came slicing down from above, right through the bolt of power he'd been charging, and caught the edge of his left uppermost wing. The force from Durandal making contact and his half-formed attack explosively destabilizing sent him spinning away, crashing into the ground to bounce across the street.
Durandal blasted a crater into the street where she landed, busting a pipe and sending water spraying everywhere in a mist.
I sent another round of threads out to grab the unconscious exorcist and the Excalibur fragment, but before I could even come close to snagging them, a massive transparent greatsword the width of a person and length of a building chopped through the air and severed my threads before slamming into the ground long-ways, glowing red with menacing Light.
I turned my head to look where the attack came from out of habit, not that I needed my eyes to track our enemy as I was.
The Fallen had turned his tumble into a roll and was on his feet within a moment of being rag-dolled, looking somewhat worse for wear. His hood had fallen to reveal messy dark brown hair, and the top right corner of his mask had cracked and broken off, leaving a slight nick on his forehead that began dripping red.
Even with his dark blue eyes peering at the misting water through his mask's eye-holes, I felt his attention on both me and Xenovia.
The misting spray revealed nearly invisible lines of chakra, shimmering like a weirdly purple rainbow as they stretched from my fingers to connect to Xenovia's limbs and torso.
"A support technique?" I heard him mutter. "I knew she wasn't fast enough…"
Normally, my control of my chakra wasn't precise enough on a micro scale to get my threads this thin while staying strong enough to use. I almost always end up running too much power through them, making them thick and dense enough that the chakra becomes bright and obvious, even though chakra is– for the most part– usually supposed to be invisible. It's why I always used them like whips and bungie-gum, instead of their original intended purpose.
Xenovia's gut instincts really were top notch, I had to admit. It had been my first time ever trying to use my imitation of the ninja puppet strings technique the way it was meant to be used, and Xenovia went along with it without any planning, hesitation, or resistance. If she'd fought my threads' influence even a little, tensing a muscle against my direction at just the wrong moment, she could have broken the connection and I wouldn't have been able to assist her jump and launch her at our enemy. It didn't hurt things that I could read and predict her better than I could most other people, especially as I was right now, helping me keep us in sync.
Even though I liked my friends inside and out, it had honestly been refreshing working with her, interacting with someone who was the same on the outside as they were on the inside. What you saw was really what you got with her.
"You, youkai girl-" he called out, lifting his arm and rolling his shoulder. "-It's obvious to me that you're not experienced enough to read me as well as you have. I assume that's your kind's famous 'Sage Arts' at work, am I right?"
I didn't answer, only turning to face him while creating a set of claws on my free hand, keeping up my puppeting strings to assist and enhance Xenovia.
"Quiet-type killjoy," The man sighed. "This is taking too long, and you're giving me a surprising amount of trouble dealing with you non-lethally at this level, so I'm going to end our play-time here and knock you out now, 'kay? No hard feelings."
"You say that fighting without intent to kill has made things difficult in one breath, and declare you'll knock us out with another, yet you've achieved nothing this battle but stalling your own defeat." Xenovia lifted Durandal one-handedly to point his way. "Enough of your chattering. Fight, or run to be hunted another day."
A kind of thrumming pressure filled the street, and Xenovia's muscles tensed in surprise, almost breaking my threads connection.
'Uh-oh.'
Power surged from the Fallen's core, pouring out of seemingly nowhere as he released the floodgates of his reserves, perfectly hidden from me up until this moment. His body glowed with a Crimson outline, and his Light streamed from his back like crackling plasma, lighting up the street as the jet of energy stretched out into two hazy shapes sticking out of his upper spine.
The Light began condensing as more and more kept pouring out, the red color growing darker and deeper as its shape smoothed and gained definition. Then, for barely more than an instant, the blood red forms flared with a blinding, pure white Light, before blinking out entirely, leaving feathered limbs in its place.
Within seconds, a pristine pair of newly formed raven wings sat in sequence above the Fallen's other three sets, the pitch-black feathers so glossy they seemed to reflect the very stars in the night sky.
Four sets. An eight-winged Fallen Angel.
"Allow me to officially introduce myself…"
Danger!
His hand reached up his damaged mask and pulled it up off of his face, revealing… a scruffy, middle-aged looking man?
"My name is Gomeisa, co-leader of Lord Kokabiel's Canis Minor squad."
Danger!
Somehow, I expected him to look a lot more evil or intimidating after the dark red transformation sequence. Then again, just standing in front of him was sending my heart racing and fur standing on end. The amount of power I could sense rolling off of him right now was more than enough to do the job, dwarfing my own current power.
My tail was stiff with the fight/flight/freeze response, because unlike people like Rias's dork of a brother– whose power was so far beyond my ability to grasp that it looped back around to feeling like just another part of the natural order of things, like the sky being blue– Gomeisa's power was well within my ability to comprehend; just over four times stronger and still growing rapidly.
Danger!
"And as of my transformation just now, a member of my Lord's honor guard too, though he'll probably punish me for breaking my vow." Gomeisa rolled his shoulders with a chuckle, stretching his wings as he did so. "Father above, it feels good though. You have no idea how long I've been holding back my Ascension, just to be allowed to get into fights. The amount of restrictions the Grigori place on us the higher we go are fucking depressing. Not that that's gonna be a worry anymore pretty soon. Think fast."
Dozens of spears flashed into existence above him, lighting up the area in a bright red glow. I only glanced at them reflexively for a fraction of a fraction of a second, readying myself to react. I only realized my mistake when I saw that none of them were aimed at me, and his dark form blurred out of my sight the moment I took my eyes off him.
D-!
He appeared in front of me. I was already mid swing… but Excalibur Rapidly was in one of his hands.
'When did he-?!'
His other fist buried itself into my gut, with all the force moving at those kinds of speeds carried.
The shockwave rolled through me, crushing my diaphragm and sending spittle flying from my mouth as all the air in my lungs was forced out violently.
My back crashed into a concrete wall, my injured tail shooting agonizing pain up my spine after being smashed between the two like that, before gravity took hold and I fell to the ground on my hands and knees, retching up blood.
It took a second for me to pull myself out of the distant shock enough to realize that I didn't even remember being launched through the air. One moment I was sucker punched, and the next, I hit the building. I had blacked out, just to wake up on impact.
If I was that hurt after one hit–
My head shot up in concern.
'Xenovia!'
Gomeisa was standing behind her barely upright form, Rapidly's blade piercing through her back and sticking out from her torso being the only thing holding her up.
Durandal was held up to the side, paused mid-backswing in an arc that was clearly intended to sweep behind her.
Kill him.
"You know, it's actually impressive how honed your instincts are," Gomeisa said conversationally as he took his free palm off of her elbow, where he'd stopped her attack dead. "Managing to position your sword to shield yourself from the frontal barrage, and twisting just out of the way of a backstab to the heart while making a play for killing me? Quite the feat. If only you weren't so much slower than the youkai girl, you might have had an actual chance at trading with me."
I forced myself to shaky feet. It was an agonizing struggle to breathe, hunched over and stumbling forward. I forced myself onward anyway. 'If I don't, Xenovia will-!'
Kill him!
He pulled Rapidly from her back with a spray of red identical in color to his Light constructs, and Xenovia sagged and fell to her knees while leaking her lifeblood like a faucet, still clutching the slab of gold and blue Holy metal. She struggled to stay upright for a second, choking and gurgling on her blood as she tried to say something full of honest defiance, before tipping over and collapsing on her side with a thud.
A slowly growing puddle of red seeped out beneath her.
Kill him!
Chakra streamed out and solidified into claws without conscious thought, and I was immediately swinging for his head.
Neck.
Torso.
Anywhere that could possibly, conceivably, kill the shit out of the bastard.
Without even a glance, they were batted away with a flex of one of his wings.
Step after step, swing after swing, my thrown claws were smacked aside to pierce through nearby buildings like anti-tank rounds.
That stupidly honest girl was going to-!
"Maybe you'll survive if they get you to that little healer of theirs, maybe you won't. Out of respect for your skill, I'll let fate decide." He shrugged indifferently, before crouching down beside her. "It won't matter by tomorrow anyway. I'll be taking that along with my wayward exorcist. Compensation for taking Transparency and Mimic from us, you understand."
The fucking bastard reached down for Durandal's handle, the handle that even now Xenovia was holding onto for dear life. His eight wings remained spread from his back and curving inward, like some sort of demented spider hovering over its prey.
KILL–
"-SFER]!"
A beam of crackling plasma as wide as I was tall appeared at an angle, passing just over my shoulder and blocking my view of the Fallen while just missing Xenovia.
I snapped out of whatever fugue I'd fallen into when the boom shook through me moments later, my eardrums rupturing. I felt my bones vibrate and blood pool inside my top set of ears as the laser strafed down the length of the street, the roar of continuous thunder that began right next to my head having shocked my senses as it swept away the enemy. Xenovia was left lying alone on the road next to a steaming, bubbling trench of asphalt, her weapon still in hand.
I rushed over immediately and dropped to my knees, ignoring my hurting everything and placing my hands on her back and chest to put pressure on the wound, while flooding her torso with as much chakra as I safely could.
As long as I could stall her condition getting worse for just a little longer, Asia had a better chance of saving her.
I rapidly found the most serious threats to Xenovia's life and did my best to run triage.
Severed aorta-
'I can press it back together, stitch with chakra threads and hope it's enough pressure to keep some blood flowing, stem the loss and buy some time.'
Mostly-severed spine-
'Leave it, can't fix quickly and not an immediate threat.'
Punctured lung-
'Stop more blood from entering the lung, support her breathing. Blood filling chest cavity, pressing on lung wall? siphon away if possible.'
The issue was, I wasn't actually that good at the complicated stuff, unless it was specifically Naruto who I was healing. I was extremely familiar with his body, to the point that I basically became overspecialized in working on him and his chakra network. Heart surgery and spinal work weren't exactly things I could do on my own with any hope of the patient coming out alive, even if that patient was Naruto.
Devil healing magic relies on conceptualizing what "ideal health" looked like for a species and then applying it; the closer your internal concept was to reality, the better it worked.
From what I could tell, Senjutsu healing relies on understanding the ideas of recovery and vitality themselves, and "sharing" those ideas with the patient's body, effectively allowing it to heal itself as best it can using borrowed energy.
I was still mediocre at both, and could only imitate being a high level healer when it came to Naruto, because I understood his body, and his body took to chakra healing like a fish to water. For everything else, my best skills were effectively just setting bones and assisting the body's natural regeneration and healing, which had been what most of my work on Naruto's chakra network amounted to.
"... Sorry I'm late, Koneko-chan." Akeno's voice reached me as though I was underwater, muffled and distant-sounding even though it was coming from right behind me. I'd barely even noticed her arrival, though I guess the electrical plasma beam was a giveaway. My sensory range had shrunk around me to focus on Xenovia, and I only caught a glimpse of Akeno's aura as she slipped by. She was nearly overflowing with more power than usual, electrical Light thrumming wildly just beneath the surface. "I'm here now though. Everything will be alright. I'll make sure of it."
Despite the tenderness in her tone as she spoke to me, there was an undercurrent of cold rage as she walked past me in the direction her attack had gone.
"Koneko-chan!" Another girl's voice called out, and I felt some of the tension drain from my body as I looked up.
There was the sound of flapping wings catching the air, and I saw Kiba swooping down at high speed, his wings out and Asia held in a princess carry. He touched down at an angle, in a skid to bleed off speed, and slid to a stop in a crouch on the other side of Xenovia's pale, prone form. He was already in the process of lowering Asia to her feet, when the former nun gasped.
"Xenovia-san!" She cried out with worry for our temporary teammate, [Twilight Healing]'s rings appearing on her fingers.
"Quick, her heart!" I urged the former sister to hurry.
"Right!" In the next second, a pair of glowing green hands laid themselves over the exorcist as Asia dropped to her knees across from me. I watched with a complex surge of emotions that I had trouble untangling as Xenovia's vital systems began knitting back together under Asia's attentive care, and I almost slumped in relief.
"It seems we made it just in the nick of time," Kiba spoke up, drawing my attention. "Akeno-senpai had been worrying that she'd messed up when you didn't respond over the radio."
I blinked, lifting a hand off of Xenovia's chest now that Asia was handling everything, and pressed a finger to my earpiece. My finger slid straight into my human ear, no earpiece to be found. 'Must've fallen out.'
I grimaced as I accidentally gave myself a wet willy, mixing Xenovia's warm blood with the trickle of my own that was slowly leaking out of my ear canal.
"Even as close as it was though, it seems she made the right call after all," Kiba concluded with a tight but warm smile.
"What?" I focused back on him in confusion when he finished. He'd just turned away to stand guard over the three of us, so I was left looking at the back of his head as he held [Holy Eraser] up in a ready position. "What do you mean?"
Now that I thought about it, was he talking about why he was here instead of with his squad? That he came here with Akeno in order to ferry Asia around with his [Knight] speed?
"Akeno-senpai told us she had a bad feeling coming from your direction and made a quick detour to our team, maybe a minute off course since we were making our way through the area already. She wanted to return that sword to Irina while she had the chance, to make sure it was kept safe and couldn't cause issues while she tried to help you," Kiba explained without turning, an undercurrent of controlled animosity in his voice when he referenced Mimic. "With you not responding over radio, she decided it would be better to have us all come with her instead of going by herself. She had Issei-kun begin Boosting a bit before we got here, so he could use [Transfer] on her just in case."
'So that's why…'
I stared past the [Knight, watching Akeno walk down the melted street with both sets of her wings out, towards the end of the steaming trench that the Fallen Angel Gomeisa was rising out of.
I didn't know whether I felt like laughing or crying.
Based on the timing of the Fallen arriving and Issei beginning to stack Boosts for a Transfer, the 'bad feeling' she got earlier was probably her sensing when I unconsciously began drawing on natural energy, and immediately started to lose control of myself.
She didn't get here in time to stop him from stabbing Xenovia, because of me.
But.
She also got here with enough power and backup to save Xenovia and fight him on equal footing because of me.
Maybe she could have taken him out before he transformed if she got here earlier, or maybe he would have transformed anyway and we'd be screwed. Whether I looked at it optimistically or pessimistically, my failure to control Senjutsu properly caused her delay.
'No more hesitating.'
No more taking it slow. After this crisis was over, I would learn how to control- no, master this power as fast as possible. No more excuses.
The last wisps of my failed Sage Mode slipped away from my body, and this time I did slump over in fatigue.
I forced myself up to my feet a moment later though, because there were still things that needed to be done. I still had a role to fill.
"Here, keep this safe for me. I'll want it back."
I reached down my shirt and pulled the red-stained cutting of my tail out, getting a horrified gasp from Asia and dropping the limp appendage beside her. "Koneko-chan, your tail?!"
Right, I forgot she didn't see that happen. 'Whoops.'
"I'll be back in a moment." I didn't elaborate, walking off to the side while keeping an eye on the confrontation between Akeno and Gomeisa. Other than a few superficial burns and ruffled feathers, he seemed mostly fine, and was actually grinning. With how furious Akeno obviously was, I could only guess the only reason she hadn't attacked again yet was for a similar reason as me; she sensed something about him that told her it would be a mistake to attack.
He was on a mission just like we were; as much fun as he might have fighting her, he'd probably try aiming for Xenovia and Asia or something if he felt he needed to. Whoever made the first move would be at a disadvantage, forced to react to the reaction, but neither of them could afford to wait and they both knew it, based on how–
A thin line of golden light seemingly split the world, intersecting with the Holy Sword fragment in Gomeisa's hand and stretching into the distance at a slight angle.
Wind visibly kicked up around the light's path with the booming shockwave of the sound barrier being broken as Excalibur Rapidly shattered into pieces, followed by the distinct crack of a cannon going off in the distance.
I traced the path the light took in disbelief.
Far in the distance– barely a speck even to my eyes– with Tsubaki holding her steady in the air and Issei's [Boosted Gear] touching the barrel, was Shidou Irina with a fucking shining-gold anti-tank rifle.
Even with my ears still damaged as they were, and having no particular skill at lip-reading, when I turned back to look at the Fallen standing there with the Excalibur shards littering the ground at his feet, the exasperated words leaving his mouth were clear as day;
"Well, shit."
Chapter 52: Canicular 12
Naruto
(Kuoh Academy)
After escaping the Gremory mansion with Norika and eliminating all the other possible options in my head, I brought her to the safest place she could be at the moment; her own home. We were attacked with Rias and her [Rook] present, in their home base, so it was clear that subtlety wasn't a huge concern for the Fallen Angels. Anonymity and irrelevance was the name of the game as far as Norika's safety was concerned. The only reason she had even been in danger was sheer bad timing and association with me, and the only enemy that even knew she existed and was involved was already dead.
That, and the fact that she really was just a mostly normal civilian girl. She didn't break down or anything, but she was shaken up enough by tonight's events that I felt like she would be better off spending the night in her family's home with her parents around, rather than being stashed away in the shitty safehouse I'd been neglecting to maintain for the past few months.
Now, a couple hours later, I was navigating silently through the underbrush, making my way deeper into the forest behind the old school building and towards a familiar clearing, where I could barely make out a pair of voices talking over the sound of the nightlife. It was dark as hell, and really hard to watch where I was stepping, so I was moving slowly and carefully to not make a sound.
The woods weren't quite pitch-black, what with the tree canopy not being super dense and the moon still being mostly full on a cloudless sky, but it was still dark enough that I was in a near-constant squint while watching my surroundings. Aside from the voices ahead, it was also much more noisy than when Koneko and I came here to train after school on some days, which made sense because most forest life was nocturnal.
I might have been able to travel by tree running, but again, the forest wasn't very dense, and a lot of the branches weren't strong enough to hold my weight without creaking.
A stocky raccoon-dog trundled across my path, pausing for a moment to turn its head my way, before continuing off to the side at a calm and unhurried pace when it didn't see anything.
Even the people up ahead making noise wasn't enough to scare everything off, though nature's sounds were getting quieter the closer I approached, the animals being more skittish and on edge nearer to the humans.
"-don't see how this diversion is worth our time," the voice of a young man spoke doubtfully. "We have much more important objectives we were tasked with."
"I concur," a second young man spoke with slight annoyance. "The Shinra hasn't provided reason enough to justify my delay. While I do prefer field work, I have a standing duty and obligation to the barrier team, and the original mission pulling me away from that is already pushing it."
"Patience," a third, older male's voice replied smoothly, if a bit warningly. "If Agent Shinra believes this is important enough to delay the mission, I will trust my junior's judgement."
I slipped into Koneko and I's training ground, taking in the four people present in the open area under the moonlight. The two young men looked to be in their early twenties at most, while the third man seemed to be in his mid-thirties or so.
The first of them looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't remember if or where I had ever seen him before. The slicked-back silver-hair combover was tickling something in my brain though. The second young man had short and straight blond hair that was parted near his temple and messily swept to the left. The third and final man looked like a stereotypical Japanese businessman in a well-fitting black suit and tie with neatly combed black hair– complete with briefcase– except for the fact he was also wearing reflective sunglasses at night and had a wire running from a mic on his collar up to an earpiece in his ear. He even had the same little unchanging downturn to his mouth that gave him a perpetual frowning serious expression.
In comparison, both the younger men wore traditional and billowing hakama pants and kosode robes, and looked different degrees of apathetic-but-irritated.
"And you aren't the only one able to fulfill that duty of yours, Nakiri-san." The obviously-a-government-agent turned slightly dismissive. "I've read your file; you're one of the stronger exorcists currently stationed in Kuoh, while any half-decent ritual specialist can do your job. The Himejima have assured the NPA that there are plenty on-staff in Kuoh who can take your place in a pinch if necessary."
"That's not- tch." The blond cut himself off with a click of his teeth. "Forgive me for not explaining in detail, but you don't understand the nuances of why-"
"It's not my job to understand," the suited man interrupted uncaringly. "You'll learn in life that as far as the government's concerned, your petty clan politics mean little when time-sensitive issues are dropped into our lap. When it's time for work, you do the work you're given. Everything else gets put to the side if you don't want the scary agents to start snooping into your business."
"Who do we have to fear?" The silver haired guy snorted. "We are the ones Nihon calls on when threats exceed the government's ability to handle."
A pair of circular moons reflected off of the lenses as the agent adjusted his black shades ominously, causing the other two men's expressions to turn wary.
"The Revenue Agents."
A pause.
"Haah?" The silver-haired man blinked owlishly, thoroughly thrown off. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Every organization has leaders willing to cut corners for personal gain." The agent said simply.
"I see…" In comparison, the blond seemed to give a slow, contemplative nod. "Even the storied clans such as ours require funds to continue functioning. Using the economic levers of our government-sponsored contracts and threat of tax audits on our leadership's personal finances, the power of tradition pales in the face of overwhelming financial might. Those who control the money, largely control the clans' actions by proxy."
The agent coolly adjusted his glasses again. "Precisely."
"He's coming."
The feminine voice that cut into the conversation quieted the group, and both the younger men looked around the clearing in sudden alertness, while Shinra Himitsu dropped down from the tree branch she'd been lounging on to land in a crouch beside the suited man, her head turned in my direction. She was wearing the same outfit from earlier, but this time had a cloth mask just like Kakashi-sensei's covering the lower half of her face.
Her eyes were blank, barely showing even a hint of her mental exhaustion.
I grimaced, remembering the forced calm in her words and tone when she told me about the warehouse massacre hours ago.
'I hope she'll be fine…' I thought while walking closer. I wouldn't insult her by recommending that she go home and rest, though. She seemed the type to want to see justice through personally.
"I haven't sensed a human's footsteps approaching," the Nakiri commented with a frown.
"You wouldn't. Not even with your family's technique, not unless you held the name Nakiri Ouryuu," Government Agent-san said with a small shake of his head, before turning his head to follow Himitsu's gaze. I couldn't see his eyes behind his shades, but the direction he was facing was off by a couple feet. "Show yourself, Uzumaki Naruto-san."
"Huh." I watched the agent compensate in order to face my voice properly while the younger guys' heads snapped in my direction. "Nakiri is earth, right?"
I stopped walking and Transparency partially turned off without even a conscious thought from me, simply acting on my intent and letting me appear just a few steps away from the man while leaving the sword itself hidden from the world. "What, they got some kind of ground-sonar or vibration sensing technique? Either way, you don't seem very surprised I got this close undetected by him, even though invisibility doesn't counter that sort of thing."
"Wait, that kid's the guy we're waiting for?!" Silver comb-over guy pulled back a half step with a snarl, presenting just his profile as if he expected a fight. "He consorts with devils!"
"At least I pay my taxes," I shot back, which seemed to catch him flatfooted. "... I think."
I shrugged.
The Nakiri glanced at me with a tense and suspicious posture, but otherwise followed the two government agents' cues and didn't react like his other comrade.
"Even if my protégé hadn't briefed me about your encounters, I was already familiar with your file, Uzumaki-san." He ignored the outburst from Combover, who I realized I vaguely recognized as the same arrogant flower guy from when Koneko and I visited the warehouse. From the Kuchibashi clan I think, or whatever the wood element clan was called. "Your case has become somewhat infamous among my colleagues at the Assimilation Bureau as an exercise in irritation management."
"I don't really get what you're talking about," I said with a bit of confusion, scratching my cheek. "But that's not really important right now. I don't know how much she's told you guys about the stuff from before-" I nodded at Himitsu. "-but after we killed the Fallen responsible for the murders at the warehouse, a bunch of his allies tracked me down and assaulted the Gremory mansion."
"Special Agent Tarou. The young men with me are Nakiri Ken and Kushihashi Hanabirama." He introduced himself and the others with a small bow before straightening. "As Agent Shinra's senior supervisor, I'm aware of the earlier details regarding the warehouse." The adult tilted his head. "This latest attack itself isn't news to us, but Sona Sitri prioritized the coordination of a response and plan of action when she contacted the clans and my higher-ups, so we don't have much to go off of for the details or motive behind the attacks." He gestured my way. "Shall I assume you know more?"
"The Excaliburs," I said with a nod. "They didn't just steal Transparency, they stole three of the Excaliburs and baited the church into sending exorcists with two more. My friends texted me on my way here, those exorcists got ambushed by a big group and had theirs stolen a couple hours ago. Transparency was hidden in the warehouse for over a week, and they only went to grab it just before then. Whatever the Fallen's goal is, it has to do with the things themselves; they're gathering them in Kuoh and want to have access to them all at the same time, while trying to make everyone else too busy fighting each other to gang up on the real problem."
"It's to fuel a ritual, most likely."
"Probably trying to fuse them for something."
Ken and Himitsu spoke up at the same time, getting the rest of us to look at them looking at each other in surprise.
"To 'fuse' them?" The Nakiri sorcerer questioned. "Are they even capable of something like that? I'm no expert in the affairs of the west, but the church hasn't remade the original since it broke. The method has to have been lost."
Himitsu shook her head. "A relative of mine is an exorcist of the Vatican, and we keep in contact. Holy swords break more often than they tell the public, they just use alchemy to repair and strengthen them all the time so it never seems like it," she explained. "One of the original seven fragments was lost shortly after being re-forged and before they developed a method to track them, so if they tried to repair the original with just six pieces, it would be weaker than a sword that was already broken once. They just decided it was better to have more above-average Holy Swords to give out than just one more really strong but flawed one."
"Hm. I stand corrected then."
This time it was Tarou who shook his head. "Not entirely. It's still perfectly possible for your initial assumption to be correct, regardless of which path they choose. Whether the hostile Fallen faction gains a powerful weapon for nefarious use, or they are retaining the Excaliburs as fragments, both options can be useful for a mass ritual and both are unacceptable to leave alone."
He kneeled down, placing his briefcase down and clicking it open to reveal… a stack of papers, a couple jars of ink, an ink well, and a dip-style pen.
"Our new priority is locating the potential ritual-site or gathering point for the Excaliburs," Tarou announced while pulling the items out, showing a clipboard at the bottom. The other guys and I watched him in confusion as he efficiently shuffled through what looked like dossiers on dozens of people with pictures paperclipped on. There was a file for everyone here right now too, including me and himself, which he flipped past until he reached Himitsu's, separating it from the others and attaching it to the clipboard.
"... Is no one going to ask why we're watching him pull out a bunch of paper?" The Kushihashi asked in a dull tone that just sounded done with everything.
"One moment," Tarou brushed off the question. He then spoke to the only girl here, holding his hand out to her without turning his head. "Junior Agent Shinra, if you would."
She wordlessly pulled a vial of dark liquid out of a tactical pouch strapped to her thigh and handed it over.
"As a member of the Shinra clan who is skilled in the use of their phase, Himitsu-kun can mark objects that resonate with the metal element, and sense them in relation to her," Tarou explained while pouring the vial and a portion of one ink jar into an empty well.
I snapped my fingers. "Aha! So I was right, she was using some sort of trick to track me through my equipment when I tried losing her a while back.
Tarou nodded. "Indeed. Uzumaki-san, would you mind allowing Agent Shinra to touch the blade of your hidden Excalibur?"
I shrugged, holding it out horizontally for her without turning off its invisibility. "The edge is facing you," I warned.
"I'm aware." She nodded, and reached for it unhindered by the lack of sight.
Tarou dipped his pen into the well, the dark ink beginning to glow a faint blue.
"To answer your question Kushihashi-san…"
The pen rose and he pressed the dimly glowing tip to paper.
"I am updating her file."
Each word he wrote lit up brightly before fading to black a second after he wrote it, and after a few moments of the sound of a pen scribbling, he set the clipboard down, wiped off his pen with a small cloth he produced from a pocket on his suit, and began putting his supplies away.
"Although I'm no novice, my talents do not lie in personal combat, but instead in paperwork. Dossiers, financial records, logistics, scheduling, resumés, even payroll and taxes…" Special Agent Tarou suddenly sniffled as if he was holding back tears. "I love paperwork! Paperwork makes society function! Paperwork records what has been done and informs us what still needs to be done! It decides who gets what and what goes where, and my personal technique reflects this!" He exclaimed with pride.
Me and the other two guys glanced at each other awkwardly, finding common ground in being weirded out by the outburst.
The moment Tarou clicked his briefcase shut with one hand while wetly blowing his nose into a handkerchief with the other, Himitsu's head snapped to the side, facing the city.
"There are four more Excaliburs currently in town," Himitsu announced matter-of-factly. "Two of them in that direction-" She gestured vaguely northeast from here. "-a third over there-" She pointed directly north.
"-while the last one is in that direction." She pointed in the north-northwest direction.
"Huh," I uttered.
Considering we were in the south side of town, that only narrowed things down from 'literally anywhere' to 'literally anywhere other than the immediate area and the far edge of the residential district.' It was still useful though, because the closer we got the more we could narrow it down. Plus, we knew two of them were in roughly the same direction at least.
"Intriguing…" Ken muttered. "What exactly did you do?" He asked the salaryman curiously.
"When a Shinra marks a valid object, the stronger that object resonates with the metal element, the clearer their sense is and the easier it is for them to maintain the connection," the agent explained. "It's how Himitsu-kun knew Uzumaki-san was here just moments ago, bypassing his skill in stealth and the effect of his Excalibur. One could say the number of objects in the world with greater resonance than an Excalibur could be counted on two hands. As a reforged fragment of the most famous holy sword, she can maintain her connection to it across the city with ease, possibly even through her sleep."
He stood, briefcase in hand. "I updated Agent Shinra's file, noting that she had marked 'Excalibur.' Not an Excalibur, but Excalibur itself. This rebalanced her ability to connect to and allow her to sense the other fragments, though because her mark is on this specific fragment, it must act as a medium for her to sense the others through. This effect will last until the ink runs out of power. When I next open my briefcase after that has occurred, if the changes I made are divergent enough to be considered 'fraudulent' instead of a simple 'mistake' or misunderstanding, we may suffer a 'fine' equal to the deception."
"Impressive." Ken eyed Tarou with interest. "I may be interested in acquiring your services in the future."
"Talk about that stuff after the mission, dirt boy," Flower Guy admonished.
"Of course." Ken rolled his eyes. "I'll also commission you later to assist my mother with her garden, so you don't feel left out."
"Tch." Flower Guy looked like he wanted to growl, but clicked his teeth instead.
"Ahem," The Special Agent cleared his throat. "The current mission is thus: We will head in the direction of the two Excaliburs, assuming they are being stored relatively close together. Upon pinpointing their locations, we shall take advantage of Transparency's ability in order to assess the viability of a solo stealth retrieval, or an assault and retrieval with our team alone."
"While we go after these two," I interjected, "should I send my friends a text and get searching for the other two? Make it a two or three-pronged assault?"
He shook his head. "Several other teams have noted in their light skirmishes this past week that some of their opponents, regardless of faction, seemed to have been particularly prepared for their team's composition or patrol pattern. Whether it's all due to coincidence, a leak, or lax security, we must treat it as though the most common communication channels such as cell networks are compromised, and being fed to the enemy. On top of that, we will be heading directly towards the first location, whereas a search would be highly visible and put the other two on high alert."
"Got it." I nodded, before turning to face the direction Himitsu had gestured and twisting my hips to limber up. "Are we ready to go then? How fast can you guys move?"
"While I am sure Himitsu-kun may be able to keep up with you while maintaining cover, that is less true for the rest of us," Agent Tarou noted, stopping me short. He slipped a hand into a suit pocket. "Two robed figures and a business man doing parkour is hardly inconspicuous, we'd be discovered within minutes of entering the city proper."
His hand came out holding a sleek pair of car keys, getting me and the guys to glance at each other.
"Five young adults of various backgrounds and ages, taking a midnight joyride in their successful friend's car in the early days of summer break, however?" The Agent gave an almost imperceptible smirk. "Simply another Tuesday."
Engine? Rumbling.
Volume? Maxed.
Windows? Rolled down.
Gas pedal? On the floor.
I don't know enough about cars to know what's fast or slow, high end or low end, expensive or cheap, but what I did know was that this one was sleek and fast.
I don't think all four tires stayed on the road for longer than ten seconds at a time.
"Woooo!" I yelled into the air while leaning halfway out the window as we flew up a steep road, my hair being blasted back by the wind. "Hit the gas, ahahahahah!" The engine roared and we sped up, racing to the top-
-and then past it, all four wheels lifting up as we crested the hill and leaving us with a feeling of weightlessness.
"Brace for impact!" Special Agent Tarou called calmly over the bass thumping music.
We slammed back into the ground a second later, tires spinning with a squeal to regain traction as we continued speeding down the road.
"Right at this next intersection, then take the fourth left!" Himitsu spoke just as calmly with a raised voice, still barely audible as she had her head in her phone to read a map of the city streets.
"What the fuck is wrong with you three!?" Flower Guy cried out from the middle seat as we skidded wide around the corner at highway speeds to the punchy beat of some American rap song I could picture Koneko listening to. The sorcerer was holding onto his seatbelt like a lifeline. "Why is an adult like you driving like a street racer! You work for law enforcement! And turn this barbaric crap off, I can't hear for shit!"
"I refuse!" Tarou instantly denied. "Feel the way the 808's vibrate through your bones, don't you feel alive?!
I barely understood any of the lyrics with my working grasp of English, but the whole car vibrating with the bass while speeding through the dimly lit night streets was definitely a blood-pumping experience.
"No!" It seemed Flower Guy disagreed with me.
Or maybe he technically agreed, but just in a negative way.
"You get used to it!" Himitsu called back from the front passenger seat without lifting her head.
"T-Tarou-san! Are you sure this is the best way to travel?!" Even the originally cool-as-a-cucumber Nakiri Ken was clutching at his door handle tightly, pale-faced and sweating.
"Of course!" The agent confirmed. "As I said, this is just a regular Tuesday for me!" He attempted to twist the volume dial up more, but it was already maxed out.
I laughed. This guy looked like a boring as hell salaryman, but it turned out he was the most wild one of us all.
"I gotta say, you're pretty cool for a stuffy old suit!" I called with a grin as I slid back into my seat. We were entering the more densely built up part of the red-light district, so there was actually some traffic beginning to show up. Our speed was getting lower and the turns tighter, and it was starting to get worrying how close I was getting to clipping parked cars.
"I'm twenty three you brat, don't call me old!" He snapped back as we hooked left, just barely missing a honking taxi that he flipped off. "I work two full-time jobs; an eighty-hour work week with overtime and occasional hazard pay. I aim to work twice as hard as anyone and party four times as hard, experiencing as much as I can during the peak of my vitality! Then I'll retire early at forty with a savings account twice as large as my peers and live the rest of my life in calm, peaceful bliss, living easy off of my hard work and smart investments. I still have my entire life ahead of me!"
"Wait, you're younger than me!?" Flower Guy exclaimed incredulously. "Ahhh, Nakiri! Take charge as the senior here and talk some sense into this crazy kid!"
Ken lifted a hand, eyes still fixated on the road ahead out of paranoia. "Actually, I'm twenty two. You're both older than me."
"You too?! Am I really the oldest adult in this situation?! I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility!"
I grinned, jabbing the silver-haired man in the side with my elbow. "Careful Flower Guy, you don't want stress to make you go gray early– Oops, too late! Sorry old man!"
"Shut up! And you forgot my name, didn't you!?"
I scratched my cheek and looked away with a laugh, but didn't deny the accusation.
"We're close," Himitsu said. "Just a couple blocks away."
The windows had been rolled up and volume turned down to a dull roar, just enough so that we could all hear each other without yelling. Instead of speeding through town, we now were slowly cruising past nightclubs and bars and strip clubs. I was holding transparency forward so that it slid between the front passenger seat and the doors, for Himitsu to touch whenever she needed to check what direction she was taking us in.
Unfortunately, one of the lone Excaliburs had apparently been speeding to the same place as us during the ride and had gotten there ahead of us, before taking off with one of the two other fragments that had been there. We were already on this side of town, and whoever it was that had grabbed the second sword was moving way faster than a car could keep up with through city streets, so we stuck to the plan of hitting this location.
Based on how fast Himitsu said the person was moving– a lot faster than the Fallen we'd killed– I figured that whoever it was, they probably had Rapidly, the most straightforward of the stolen holy swords to deal with. It was literally just speed, after all.
"I'll pull over to let you all out, then find a place to park," Tarou said. "Himitsu-kun, take Uzumaki-san to the location, the three of us will wait for you two in the bar just up ahead, the one on the corner of this street."
"Hai."
I opened my door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, followed by Flower Guy sliding out behind me.
"Kami above, I need a drink after that," he grumbled.
After the four of us got out, the senior Special Agent sped away with a squeal of the tires that had a handful of people on the sidewalks looking our way.
Luckily, Tarou had a bunch of spare uniforms in his trunk and had the other two men change into them before we left the academy parking lot, because they would have attracted a lot of unwanted attention in their robes. Attention that might have made its way to any Fallen lookouts in the area. Instead, our group looked like a pair of young, newly-minted salarymen, a young woman in ninja-punk cosplay, and a high schooler. Still notable, but in a mundane sort of way that barely got a second glance around these parts of town.
Himitsu and I split off from the other clansmen at the bar, continuing onward around the corner while they went inside.
We pretended to walk hand-in-hand, our hands both wrapped around Transparency's handle since it was the least suspicious way to let her keep hold of it to pinpoint the nearby sword. If anyone saw us, all they'd see is two young adults holding hands in the red-light district.
We walked for about ten minutes in relative quiet, crossing the street twice and turning multiple corners, before she spoke up.
"That brick building a block back, the wide gray one with the sign in the window listing it for sale."
"Four stories, right?" I clarified.
"Mhm," She confirmed. "About ten meters down, near the back right corner. They seem to have a deep basement."
'Wouldn't be the first time,' I thought, remembering the abandoned church. "Alright, let me-"
I took a step towards an alley to let us go full invisible out of sight, but almost lost my balance when Himitsu didn't follow, instead pulling me along after her as she kept walking.
"Hey!"
"Don't be such a brute," she said with a drawn out sigh. "If a guy and a girl go into an alley together at this time of night, and only one or neither come out within a few minutes, a crime or something else suspicious probably happened. That draws attention."
"Okay." I accepted her wisdom easily. That sort of thing wouldn't draw any real attention back in the Elemental Nations, people were just too used to ninjas. I guess it was different here though. "Where to then?"
"The one place that won't get people asking questions if we aren't seen coming back out for a few hours." She glanced back with a single-eyed, half-lidded glare. "Don't get any weird ideas."
I blinked, confused by the interaction, then glanced up at the sign on the building that she began tugging me towards.
''Good Time Leisure Hotel'? Huh?' I rolled the strange wording around in my head, before shrugging it off.
A late check in at a hotel sounded like a good enough cover.