May 4th, 2012, Kokabiel's Bastion, Evening.
The war room of Kokabiel's mountain fortress was a cathedral of shadows and old violence. Maps of the Three Factions' territories covered the walls, marked with pins and coded notations that would take a dedicated analyst months to decode.
Intelligence reports littered the massive obsidian table at the room's center, their pages rustling occasionally in drafts that whispered through cracks in the ancient stone.
Kokabiel held one such report in his pale hands, his blood-red eyes scanning its contents with predatory focus. The stolen documents—spirited from Grigori headquarters by agents who had not survived to report their success—detailed Azazel's summoning of the Slash/Dog team.
"Outcasts of Yomi, is it?" he snorted, the sound echoing off the stone walls. He tossed the papers back onto the pile with contemptuous disdain. "So this is what Azazel deemed worthy of recalling his pet human exterminators? Meddling in the affairs of some useless Shintoists?"
He rose from his ornate armchair, the carved serpents on its arms seeming to writhe in the candlelight. His obsidian coat whispered against the stone floor as he crossed to the narrow window, staring out at the jagged peaks of the Fallen Angel borderlands, purple and black under the fading light of the artificial sun.
"Age has finally claimed your mind, Azazel," he murmured, his voice a silken blade. "You were once a formidable warrior—the terror of heaven's legions, the strategist who outmaneuvered archangels. And now? Now you fret over a cult of mortal fanatics while the Great War's embers cool to ash."
He pressed his palm against the cold stone, feeling the ancient fortress's heartbeat through his fingertips. "I will wake you from this feverish slumber you've fallen into, old friend. Whether you thank me or curse me matters not."
Turning back to the table, he sorted through the remaining dossiers with practiced efficiency. These were different—older files, more personal. They detailed the holders of the Excalibur fragments that had eluded his grasp.
The ones he couldn't steal. Yet
May 4th, 2012, Rome, Evening.
The Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport had settled into the peculiar stillness of evening, when departures thinned and the constant flow of humanity slowed to a trickle. Most gates sat empty, their seating rows abandoned. Most, but not all.
Xenovia Quarta stood apart from the handful of other travelers as though she belonged to a different species entirely—which, in a way, she did.
The white robe that cloaked her from shoulders to ankles should have helped her blend with the mundane crowd, but her posture defeated any attempt at anonymity. She stood like a soldier awaiting orders, her weight balanced, her senses cataloging every entrance and exit, every potential threat and escape route.
The weight on her shoulders was not merely metaphorical. Excalibur Destruction rested against her back, its fragment of holy power concealed beneath the white fabric but no less real for its hiding.
"Xenovia."
The voice was firm yet warm—a mother's tone wrapped in a commander's authority. Sister Griselda strode across the near-empty waiting area, her habit swaying with each purposeful step.
She reached Xenovia and, with a swift motion, tugged the hood down, revealing sharp blue eyes and the faint, stubborn pout that had settled on the young exorcist's lips.
"You are an exorcist, Xenovia, not an assassin," Griselda chided gently. "Must you always look as though you are about to storm a fortress? This cloak of yours does not hide you—it marks you as someone trying very hard to hide."
Xenovia crossed her arms, her blue hair bouncing with the motion. The pout deepened. "I can take care of myself, Sister Griselda! This is my first solo mission, and I am not going to fail."
Griselda sighed—a sound she had perfected over years of shepherding the Church's most promising, most stubborn warriors. She placed a hand on Xenovia's shoulder, her touch firm but warm. When she spoke again, her tone had softened, though her gaze remained stern with the weight of genuine concern.
"As your legal guardian, it is my duty to worry. Perhaps if you would simply ask, the Holy See might see fit to send additional reinforcements."
"I do not need reinforcements." Xenovia's voice rose, the protest sharp and immediate. "I am ready for this mission. I have trained for this. I have earned this."
Griselda's lips tightened, but she did not argue further. Years of experience had taught her when debate was futile. Instead, she straightened, her posture shifting from guardian to mission coordinator.
"Listen carefully, then. Upon arrival in Tokyo, you will meet representatives from the Anglican and Coptic branches. The three of you will then proceed to Kuoh Town—a city that falls under the jurisdiction of the Sitri and Gremory devil clans."
Xenovia's nose wrinkled with undisguised distaste. "Devils. Why must we cooperate with devils? They are not even our target. They are devils."
"Because," Griselda replied, her patience thinning by measurable degrees, "Kuoh Town is one of the suspected locations where the stolen Excalibur fragments may be. Additionally, the agents we dispatched previously have not returned. We require local intelligence, and the devils control the territory."
"The devils could have taken them! They could be working with the Fallen Angels!"
"There is no evidence of that. Jumping to conclusions will only complicate an already delicate situation." Griselda shook her head firmly. "Your mission is to investigate and, if possible, retrieve the missing Excalibur fragments. Your mission is not to start a war with the local devil population. Am I clear?"
Xenovia opened her mouth, a fresh protest forming, but Griselda raised a hand with the finality of a papal decree.
"Enough. You are capable, Xenovia—extraordinarily so. But you are also impulsive. Remember this: the mission is not solely about strength. It requires strategy. And patience." She let the words hang in the air between them. "Patience, Xenovia."
Xenovia's shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly. She nodded, the motion reluctant but genuine. "Fine. I will... play nicely with the devils. But if they are hiding something, if they obstruct the mission, I will not hold back."
"Acceptable," Griselda allowed herself a small nod of approval. "The Anglican representative is Irina Shidou. You have worked with her previously, I believe?"
Xenovia nodded, though her expression flickered—a brief shadow crossing her features. "Yes. Romania. Two years ago."
She did not elaborate on the memories that surfaced. She dismissed the thoughts with practiced efficiency, filing them away in the compartment of her mind reserved for things not to be examined too closely.
"The Coptic representative is Elijah Bouchard. He will handle diplomatic communications with the devils upon your arrival in Kuoh Town. He has prior experience negotiating with young devil heiresses and understands the nuances of inter-faction protocol."
"A French name?" Xenovia's surprise was evident. "Working for the Coptic See?"
"His family has served the See of Alexandria since the Napoleonic Era. The Bonaparte occupation of Egypt created strange alliances and stranger loyalties."
Xenovia absorbed this information with a nod, then turned toward the boarding gate. The plane waited on the tarmac, its engines humming.
She did not look back.
May 4th, 2012, London, Evening.
Heathrow Airport at evening was a different beast entirely from Rome's quiet departure lounge. Families clustered around gates, business travelers tapped at laptops, and the constant thrum of announcements in multiple languages created a white noise of human activity.
Through this cheerful chaos bounced Irina Shidou, her twintails bobbing with each energetic step. Her suitcase rolled behind her like an eager puppy, and her smile could have powered the terminal's lighting system.
"Don't forget to say hello to the Hyoudou family for me, Irina!" her father called from the security boundary, waving with both arms as though signaling a ship at sea. He was a tall man, kind-faced, radiating the peculiar warmth of a clergyman who had never quite outgrown his enthusiasm for the world. "And tell Issei I said hello!"
Irina spun, her cheeks dimpling as her grin widened impossibly further. "I will, Dad! Bye-bye!" She waved with both hands, a gesture of pure, unfiltered joy, before disappearing into the flow of passengers heading toward her gate.
Once aboard the plane, she claimed her window seat with the satisfaction of a cat finding the perfect sunbeam. The plane rumbled to life, vibrating through her bones, and she pressed her face to the window as London's iconic skyline shrank into a patchwork of lights against the growing dark.
"I cannot wait to see you, Issei," she murmured, her voice lost beneath the engine's hum. Her fingers tapped against the armrest in a rhythm only she could hear, a nervous energy bubbling beneath her serene exterior. "I just hope those mean devils have not done anything terrible to you..."
Her right hand drifted to her left wrist, fingers tracing the bracelet that circled it. To any observer, it was a simple piece of jewelry—braided cord with a small silver charm, the kind sold in a thousand airport gift shops.
In reality, it was Excalibur Mimic, the fragment's power rendering it indistinguishable from mundane accessories.
A yawn caught her by surprise, stretching her jaw. The flight would take many hours—a journey across continents and time zones, from London's evening to Tokyo's tomorrow.
She settled deeper into her seat, closed her eyes, and let the plane's vibrations lull her toward sleep.
In the darkness behind her eyelids, she was already home.
May 4th, 2012, Alexandria, Evening.
The streets of Alexandria at dusk were a sensory overload in the best possible way. The Mediterranean breeze carried salt and spices and the distant calls of merchants packing their wares. Children chased stray cats through alleys barely wide enough for a single adult.
Through this beautiful chaos sprinted Elijah Bouchard, his sandaled feet kicking up puffs of sand with each desperate stride.
'I should have left earlier. I should have left hours earlier. I am going to miss this flight and Sister Griselda is going to flay me alive and use my skin for parchment—'
He dodged a vegetable cart with inches to spare, earning a colorful curse in that he mentally filed away for future use. He vaulted over a crate of squawking chickens, his linen tunic billowing behind him. A group of children pointed and laughed; he grinned at them without slowing, a flash of white teeth in his sun-bronzed face.
At seventeen, Elijah Bouchard cut a striking figure through the evening crowd. Lean but wiry, with the kind of muscle built through labor rather than gyms, he moved with the unconscious grace of someone raised climbing ruins and scrambling across rooftops.
His black hair was an uncombed disaster, tousled by the sea breeze into something that would have made his mother despair. His face, sharp and angular, was softened by youth and the perpetual half-smile that seemed permanently etched into his features.
Warm brown eyes scanned the path ahead, calculating angles, dodging obstacles, seeking the fastest route to the port.
Behind him, Alexandria's harbor spread in all its ancient glory. Cargo ships and cruise vessels crowded the docks, their hulls painted in the colors of a dozen nations. Dockworkers shouted and strained, unloading containers under the fading light.
The Citadel of Qaitbay loomed at the harbor's edge, a medieval fortress that had guarded this coast for centuries, its stones warmed by the setting sun.
Elijah's attire marked him as no ordinary teenager. His faded linen tunic, embroidered at the collar with traditional patterns, was cinched at the waist by a sash that held a coiled whip and a dagger. The dagger's hilt was carved in the shape of a lion—a symbol of Saint Mark, founder of the Coptic Church and patron of this ancient see.
An iron cross pendant bounced against his chest with each stride, and a leather bracer wrapped his left forearm, scarred and scuffed from years of training.
Strapped diagonally across his lower back, concealed beneath the tunic's folds, was a cloth-wrapped short sword. Even through the fabric, a faint golden glow seeped—Excalibur Blessing, the fragment entrusted to his care, humming with holy power that no amount of cloth could fully conceal.
Elijah's heritage was written in every line of him. Born into a lineage of Coptic scholars that stretched back centuries, he had been destined for a life of quiet study, of manuscripts and prayers and the slow accumulation of wisdom.
But destiny, as it often does, had other plans.
At birth, the Church had declared him the reincarnation of Saint Mark—a vessel of ancient fire, they said, a soul destined for greater things.
By ten, he could recite scripture in Coptic, Greek, and Arabic from memory. By twelve, he was dueling desert djinn—lesser spirits from Arabic pre-Islamic mythology—with a training sword while his mentors watched from the shadows, nodding approval.
By fifteen, his Sacred Gear had manifested: Marcus Nemea, a powerful relic derived from the more famous Longinus, Regulus Nemea. This Sacred Gear, tied to one of the Nemean lions defeated by Yahweh Himself, had been passed down through his lineage since Saint Mark first wielded it against the demons of Alexandria.
The Heaven System recognized his ancestry, his worthiness, and granted him its power.
Yet Elijah Bouchard was, by any reasonable measure, a terrible saint.
He stole dates from market stalls when the vendors weren't looking. He traded jokes with fishermen twice his age and won their laughter. He lingered far too long at Fatima's house, savoring the electric risk of their friendship, the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled, the secret they shared that could destroy them both.
Fatima Stolas. Overseer of Damietta. Heiress of the Stolas devil clan.
If their superiors ever discovered the depth of their dear friendship, the consequences would be biblical in the worst possible way.
Now, sprinting through Alexandria's ancient streets, he cursed his own terrible timing. He had stayed too long. Again. Fatima had made tea, and she had looked at him a certain way, and the hours had simply... vanished.
'Yalla, yalla, move, move—'
He skidded into a hidden alley, the kind that existed in the spaces between buildings, known only to those who grew up in these streets. With a fluid motion born of desperate practice, he unsheathed his dagger and carved a glowing Coptic sigil into the weathered stone wall.
The air shimmered. The sigil flared with golden light—a makeshift teleportation circle, risky and rudimentary, the magical equivalent of building a bridge from matchsticks and hope. But it would work. It had to work.
As the magic engulfed him, his cross pendant flared in sympathetic resonance. The alley vanished, replaced by the rushing sensation of dimensional transit, and Elijah Bouchard disappeared from Alexandria.
He materialized at the airport with seconds to spare. The plane sat on the tarmac, fuel hoses still connected, ground crew moving with the leisurely pace of those not yet aware a passenger was missing.
Elijah slumped against a support pillar, chest heaving, and offered a silent prayer of thanks to whatever saint happened to be listening.
As the sole passenger on this particular flight, they would have waited. Probably. Hopefully.