Chapter 4: When Camping Goes Wrong
Kusanagi Godou was absolutely certain that if someone had told him he would be in this situation half a year ago he would have asked them if they what they were smoking in their spare time.
On his right side was Erica, a girl who could be regarded as an epitome of western beauty. Blonde, busty and beautiful she was what many boys envisioned when they dreamed of European girls. Right now she firmly clamped onto his arm and was sinking it into her impressive cleavage.
On his left side was Yuri, the eastern counterpoint to Erica's western appearance. She was a near perfect example of the Yamato Nadeshiko ideal that was held in high esteem by the Japanese people. Right now she was holding onto Godou's left hand and trying to pull him away from Erica with a look of flustered disapproval on her face.
And in front of him was Liliana, the latest addition to the girls in his life. Another western beauty her loveliness was more fairy like than Erica's lushness. Her silver hair, white skin and slim figure made for a third type of beauty. Right now she was glaring at him with one hand on the hilt of her sword disapproval even clearer in her eyes than in Yuri's.
This was not how he had planned to spend his vacation. He'd originally thought about going to Italy, but then Erica had mentioned that she was thinking of the same thing. He'd halted his own plans in hopes of spending a couple of weeks without having to worry about the troublesome blonde, only to find out too late that she had done likewise.
It wasn't that he disliked the witch knight, in fact the level of trust he had in her was such that he had entrusted his life to her on more than one occasion. He found her attractive, engaging and quite sexy. There were only two problems, firstly he found that simply being around her tended to drag him deeper into the troublesome world of the gods and mystics. Secondly he just couldn't understand why someone like her was interested in a normal guy like him. She was beautiful, talented, intelligent and smart, why was she wasting her time chasing a pretty much ordinary guy like him. He knew her feelings were genuine, not motivated by political gain with the circles of the magical societies, but he just couldn't understand her reasoning in chasing him so fervently.
(Yes my dear readers, Kusanagi Godou is indeed a typical action/harem protagonist, put him up against an invincible foe and he'll pull off something brilliant, ask him to understand a girls feelings and the guy is thick as two sort planks of wood and just about as insightful.)
Well whatever the case he had tried to arrange to take a week out camping in the mountains. Unfortunately Erica had somehow anticipated him despite his attempts at secrecy, when he'd gotten off the bus that had taken him to his stop he had found all three girls waiting for him. Apparently the blonde had mentioned her plans to the Hime-Miko who had insisted on coming along to ensure that nothing inappropriate took place. Liliana had also caught wind of it and decided to accompany them in her new capacity as Godou's newly sworn knight. She'd been blushing and stuttering as she explained her reasoning and Erica had mentioned someone called Karen which had caused the silver haired to blush even further and degenerate into a near stuttering wreck, much to Erica's amusement.
The four of them had all been ready with camping gear, and the three girls had steadfastly followed him despite his attempts to get away on his own. In the end he had surrendered to the seemingly inevitable and consented to setting up a joint campsite. That had led to a few hijinks as Yuri proved to have no experience with camping whatsoever. After watching her attempt at a tent collapse for the second time Godou had shown pity and move to help her.
The only problem was that Erica, whose tent had shown no signs of instability, had then found herself plagued by problems of her own and had asked the Campione to help her. Not to be outdone by her rival Liliana had also developed an inability to set up a tent meaning that Godou had to help her as well. Then to top it off when he finally got round to preparing his own tent he found that a number of essential pegs and pins had gone missing, meaning that erecting his tent was impossible.
The perfect image of shocked surprise Erica had happily volunteered to allow Godou to sleep in her tent. The young Kusanagi had at first been grateful, right up until he realized that the blonde knight had no intention of vacating the tent while he was in it. Idly he wondered if she had any idea what had happened to his missing parts, might they have 'accidentally' found their way into her bag? Probably not, she was too smart to leave such incriminating evidence where it could be found.
Which led to his current position, Erica trying to drag him off, Yuri protesting at the indecency of the suggestion and Liliana looking half ready to run away and half ready to draw her sword.
"Oh don't be so mean Godou," said Erica pushing herself in even closer to the beleaguered teen, "It's been so long since we slept in the same bed or even the same room. Do you really intend to spurn my feeling so?"
"Th-the same bed?" Yuri dropped his hand in favour of bringing both of her own hands up to cover her mouth in shock. "Godou-san, did you really . . . ? Am I . . . ? Will you . . . ?" Her delicate features suddenly suffused with a deep blush.
Godou's own face had become rather red, but for some reason his words of protest were sticking in his throat.
"Or maybe you could just push me down to the ground and get on top of me with that passionate look on your face." With a smile on her face that could only be described as playfully wicked Erica continued to pour more fuel onto the fire.
" . . . " It would appear that the imagery of that last sentence had been sufficient to rob Yuri of the power of speech. Indeed if her blush did not subside soon then there was a good chance it would also rob her of consciousness as an unhealthy amount of blood would be diverted from where it would otherwise be needed.
Liliana on the other hand was fighting her own blush and now held the hilt of her undrawn sword in a white knuckled grip.
The silver haired girl was not unintelligent, but she did have an unfortunate tendency to be a bit on the gullible side, especially when it came to Erica and her games. This was why the blonde's words were getting to her more than they should have. Liliana had come along on this trip because her maid had pointed out that it was an excellent chance for her to get closer to the young Campione. Ever since the Red Devil knight had secured herself the position of Kusanagi Godou's first lover the influence of the Copper-Black Cross had risen in influence to eclipse their traditional rivals the Bronze-Black Cross, Lillian's own order.
Originally her grandfather had hoped to equal this achievement by ordering his granddaughter to become the personal knight of the eldest of the Campione, Sasha Dejanstahl Voban. However, both to her relief and humiliation, Voban had not even seen her as a potential lover, only as a potentially useful lackey.
Eventually she had broken her allegiance to the self named marquis, due to a combination of her own morals and Erica's blackmail, and instead sided with Godou and his companions. However that had left her in a somewhat unstable position with her own order, one that had been stabilised by her following Karen's suggestion that she swear her services to the seventh Campione.
Which was why she had ended up following Erica and Yuri here. She still had yet to make her 'official' pledge to Godou and she wanted to get to know him a bit better before she went through with it. The problem was that so far he was proving to be utterly perplexing.
Her first impressions of him had been quite good ones. He was a man with a will iron enough to stand up to the oldest of the Campione despite the enormous gap in their age and experience. He had proven himself loyal by standing by Yuri's side even when it seemed that all hope of victory had faded. Even the fact that he had won Erica's love spoke in his favour, because while she and the red knight might clash in almost all major aspects of their personality it didn't change the respect they felt for each other.
However since then she had just not known what to make of him. He was one of the king of kings and yet he seemed bound and determined to remain a normal Japanese schoolboy. In his normal life the seemingly unending will and tenacity that he had shown in combat seemed to just disappear.
And then there were the other girls. First he'd captured Erica's heart, then he seemed to have ensnared Yuri's interest as well, and if Karen's information was to be believed he even had taken the highest ranked witch on earth, Lucretia Zola, as a mistress. How could she reconcile this apparent determination to build a lechers dream harem with the boy her own age she had been observing?
Of course right now her belief that Kusanagi Godou was an insatiable womanizer was receiving some strong reinforcement.
"DON'T SAY MISLEADING THINGS ERICA!"
As his cry of woe echoed through the small clearing the seventh Campione wondered just why he had to have his live disrupted this way.
-()-
Emiya Shirou gritted his teeth as he struggled to hold control over the curse he was creating.
In all truth he had rather mixed feelings about using Curses without End in this fashion. In some ways it was the most . . . eager of his Authorities to respond to his will. The powers he had gained from Perseus had a feel that put him in mind of a warhorse made of living steel, steadfast, implacable, and oddly professional. Rule of the Underworld made him think of a willing but grumpy dragon, one that would give up its treasure but would always make you work for it.
Curses without End was different, it was like a puppy that had spent its entire life in the care of a cruel and neglectful master. It was beaten, starved and scarred and yet it had continued to look for affection and kindness. Now in service to Shirou it had found such a master, and as such if there was even the slightest hint that its master wanted to use it then the puppy was practically jumping up and down while frantically wagging its tail, all eager to be of service.
If that had been all there was to it then Shirou would have been happy to use the Authority as often as he could, regardless of its costs. After all it was pretty much the same as saving someone, and with only a few notable exceptions there was nothing else in the world that he liked more than that. The problem was that while that battered little puppy seemed to love its new master Shirou was pretty much the only thing in creation that it did love.
Ever since he had begun to experiment with the power the youngest Campione had been shocked by the ease with which the hurt little puppy could turn into a rabid wolf that reeked of bloodlust in only the blink of an eye. As soon as he turned his Authorities focus outward Curses without End quickly proved to be more than deserving of its name. No matter what the target was, be it a god, a conman, a beetle on the road or even a piece of furniture, the Authority wanted to curse it into oblivion. Through fear, through misfortune, through destruction, through misery, it didn't care how it just wanted to heap on the curses until the targets very being was crushed out of existence by the weight of the curses upon it.
Perhaps the only exception to its unrelenting malice was Illya, Shirou had somehow been able to imprint it with the fact that the white haired girl was precious to him and was not to be harmed. As a result the foaming mad wolf would probably only snap at her half heartedly rather than going for her throat the moment it saw her.
The other factor that left the young Emiya more than a bit reluctant to use the Authority was the disquieting sensation that it evoked on his magic circuits when he did use it. When he had fought Perseus he had been so focussed on the battle that he had completely ignored it, it had been like pain, an utterly superfluous sensation. The closest he could describe it was as being like operating a powerful machine using controls that were at the bottom of a bucket of raw sewage that smelt of too sweet honey. It didn't matter that the filth didn't have the overpowering scent that was the signal of its rankness. Just its texture was loathsome and your mind was aware that it was everything that your body rejected as poisonous waste or useless excess. The only difference was that rather than flowing over his skin the sensation was running through his circuits.
Needless to say the first time he had experienced the use of the Authority with a clear head he'd immediately thrown up everything in his stomach.
The problem was that Curses without End was arguably his most powerful Authority.
Rule of the Underworld might be mind boggling in its usefulness and the Dragon Slaying Hero might be vastly compatible with him. However the Authority taken from Angra Mainyu had a potency that all the others lacked, a quality that had allowed him to slay a powerful hero god even though he hadn't known what he was doing.
Right now he did know what he was doing though.
Experimentation had taught him that Curses without End could be manifested in three forms. The first was as an enchantment. This was the method he had used to fight and defeat Perseus. The curses were loaded into his weapons, or any other convenient vessel, and the released directly into the target on contact. This way had the advantage of being highly compatible with his fighting style as well as enhancing those same weapons into something resembling cursed Noble Phantasms. Certainly nothing on the scale of Gae Bolg, but maybe one day, when his skills with both tracing and this new power were far more advanced.
The second way was as a spell. These curses could be released along a line of sight, along the sound of someone's voice or action, or through a part of the target, such as a strand of hair or a drop of blood. His experiment using a feather from a pigeon he had captured had been . . . messy, but had proved this ability to work even across a distance of miles. Naturally he hadn't had the chance to use this version on a god yet, but his intuitive grasp of the power told him that this version of the Authority would be of little use against a deity. Their divinity, their godly aura would naturally reduce the curses effects to less than a tenth of their original power.
However it was the third method that he was using right now. It was also the method that he felt to be the most dangerous out of the three, true incarnation.
In mythology Angra Mainyu had created monsters in his attempts to do evil to the world. One such example had been a snake of darkness, a monster that had met its end at the hands of Mithra. Shirou had found that he could likewise incarnate his curses into living beings. What made this method so dangerous was that while the resulting beings were bound to his will he always had the feeling that that control was constantly being tested. Not overtly or even strongly, just a slight pressure that hinted at the chance of his losing control if he was careless enough. Certainly he could easily will such a rebellious creation out of existence if such ever came to pass, even out of his control they were still dependant upon his Authority for their continued existence. But he shuddered at the though of how much damage they could do if they were to go out of his control without him being aware of it.
So he had made it a personal rule never to have more than eight such incarnated curses in existence at a time. And right now he was in the process of creating the last of those eight.
The curse he was using as its essence was WEAKNESS. The curse was taking form as something that could best be described as a demonic cross of a leech, a slug and a monkey, all made from a deep red mist. The creature was not that much bigger than a large housecat, and its misty consistency made one think that a strong breeze would be enough to brush it from existence. However both its size and appearance were deceptive.
Since it was a part of his Authority Shirou could feel the information on its attributes simply appearing in his mind, a useful ability to say the least. This being wasn't what could be regarded as a frontline fighter; instead it would attach itself unnoticed to a victim and begin to drain their vitality. After the energy drain had weakened them to the point of incapacitation then it would detach and seek out a new victim, only now it would be strong from the life-force it had drained. Its next victim would fall faster and strengthen it more, as would the next and so on. If left unchecked it would use the drained energy to fully incarnate, and its physical form would possess a power comparable to that of a minor dragon.
Gazing down at the small monstrosity in his hands Shirou carefully focussed his will upon it.
-Sleep, - he commanded, -Sleep here until I call for you.-
The creature of crimson mist seemed to curl up in his arms, folding itself into a ball about as large as a big melon. Satisfied that the curse creature had obeyed his order Shirou lifted it up and placed it inside a large ceramic jar whose inside had been lined with cushions. Once he was happy that the small monster was sleeping comfortably he placed the lid back on the jar and taped a seal over it.
The seal was actually a decoy, the impressive looking symbols on it nothing more than ominous looking gibberish. Their function was to give the impression, the true impression really, that something dangerous was sealed inside.
Tracing a knife the eighth Campione scratched one word into the side of the jar.
WEAKNESS
This was the eighth such jar he had prepared. In this small room that was one of the many basements in his new house there were seven other such jars, each of them containing a sleeping monster. As he picked the jar up and set it on its readied plinth he took a moment to glance at the other seven jars.
MISFORTUNE
FORGETFULNESS
TREACHERY
HUNGER
SLOTHE
FEAR
RAGE
These eight sleeping monster represented a force that if left unchecked could cast the entire city of Tokyo into chaos and ruin in a matter of days. When he had first conceived of this idea he had been horrified at the prospect, however the more that he had thought about it the more he had seen its advantages. As long as he kept control of the beings they would threaten no-one save for his enemies, and if they did escape his leash he could easily put them down. As long as he ensured that none escaped his observation then there would be no problem.
The monsters that slept here represented his last line of defence in the eventuality of a hostile force invading his mansion. The last and potentially deadliest.
The first defence was a collection of bonded fields that Illya had spent several days setting up. Normally inactive, once powered up they would make it very difficult for a hostile force to force their way in through brute force. The second line was also the work of Illya, a field of magical mines that were essentially little more than overpowered flash/bangs. Though unlikely to hurt anyone, except maybe for a couple of ruptured eardrums in the worse cases, it would leave them as easier prey for the third line of defence should they not elect to retreat.
The third defence was what Shirou had spent the last week working on. Having a very fat bank account as well as access to the internet had given him an idea, a ruthless but useful idea. He'd set about doing a great deal of internet shopping, buying items related to dead warriors. Bits of medieval armour, roman arrowheads, Zulu spears, Viking helms, old samurai swords, it didn't matter too much as long as they were authentic and could be delivered quickly.
In less than a week he had amassed a collection suitable for a small museum, but it wasn't their historical significance that was of importance to him. Using Ruler of the Underworld he had tested each purchase to see if they possessed a strong enough link to bring someone back from the afterlife. Only one in three possessed such a connection, but given the sheer number that he had bought that was still a great many.
To each warrior that answered his call he asked the same question. If his manor came under attack could he summon them up as zombie warriors, not full incarnations like Yusuke but as skeletal soldiers similar to those Hades had called up? In truth he didn't like the idea of bringing anyone back in such a state, but doing so was far less taxing on him. The amount of energy needed to support Yusuke would have been enough to sustain more than twenty skeletal minions.
To his surprise the greater majority of the warriors he asked were more than happy to make the agreement. No matter what afterlife they were in, be it good or bad, almost all of them would welcome some sort of change and so would have no problem with being summoned in such a manner.
And that was the third line of defence, a small army of one hundred and fifty undead warriors from more that a dozen different cultures. Certainly none of them were on par with a Servant, in fact he'd rate them as only slightly better combatants than Casters dragon tooth soldiers, but they were skilled and very hard to put down. He could personally attest to that. When combined with Illya's field of flash/bangs which would have hopefully left any attackers disorganized the sight of an undead army would be more than enough to break their moral and send them packing.
However should they break through then the release of one or more of the sleeping curse monsters was to be the last line of defence before Shirou would be forced to take to the field himself. Which curse creature he would release would depend upon the nature of his attackers. Some of the monsters were non-lethal by nature, such as the Weakness creature he had just created. Others such as Rage or Treachery were almost guaranteed to leave nothing in their wake but corpses.
Now, with the completion of his final safety measure, Shirou could honestly say that he was as ready as he was ever going to be. Tomorrow he would begin the task of trying to find the local mystical authorities and make contact with them.
The question was just how could he go about that? The simplest and most obvious way was to cause a clearly magical disturbance and then simply wait foe whoever showed up to deal with it. The downside to that was that it wasn't likely to paint him in a good first light to those he wished to contact. His next thought was to go to some remote location on his pegasus then flare his magic up as high as he could. That should get the attention of anybody with even the most rudimentary mystic senses. The problem with that was that he might end up attracting attention that he would rather have avoided. The last thing he wanted to have to deal with was another god trying to kill him.
That left the safer but more time consuming option of investigation and deductive reasoning. He'd have to go to several different places that he suspected of having some connection to the supernatural and see what he could work out from there. He already had made some basic searches using the internet and had a few starting points that he could work with. A fortune teller with a surprisingly good record for success, a shrine that genuinely seemed able to dispel ill fortune, an antiques store with a rather dark reputation of cursing would be thieves. All sounded like they might be the real McCoy rather that simple fraudsters. With any luck one of them might be able to point him towards the path that he was looking for.
Okay, now for the hard part.
Sitting down on a rug that he had spread in a corner earlier he pulled on a bell pull to alert Illya that he was finishing. That done he released the power he had been holding and sent the puppy back to sleep.
His body slumped backwards as muscle control largely abandoned him. He could still breathe and move his eyes, and thankfully for his dignity bladder control remained his. Aside from that though he couldn't have moved even if a herd of bulls were bearing down on him.
Well that wasn't quite true, he knew that if he drew on the power of Curses without End again then his paralysis would vanish, but doing so only invoke a heavier toll at a later point.
And right now the toll he was paying was considerable. Pain wracked him, as though red hot needles were being forced through his every vein. This was the price of using the power of Angra Mainyu's power, pain enough to drive a normal man insane.
However Shirou was not a normal man, even before he became a god-slaying devil king he was different from others. What was pain to him? Pain, despair and hell on earth were his earliest memories. He'd experience the pain of his own deepest nature turning against him and trying to destroy him. Heated needles in his blood? He'd felt himself being impale from the inside out by a limitless number of swords, he'd felt his memories die and his senses fade into nothing but steel.
Simply put Emiya Shirou was not an existence that could be broken by mere pain, not this level of it anyway.
So he endured. He lay on the rug and waited for Illya to arrive and use her string golems to carry him to his bed where he could recover. In all truth this wasn't as bad as what he had needed to endure after his battle with Perseus. That time the pain had been so great that he hadn't been able to remain conscious. This time though he hadn't needed to use multiple curses strong enough to affect a god.
-()-
It was the dead of night in Naples. Not midnight, there was still plenty going on most nights at that time. This was about three o'clock in the morning, the time when the late night revellers were finally stumbling into their bed in the hopes of catching a few hours of sleep before they had to face the day again.
However there was one man walking the streets. In truth though he was no man, he was a god, a figure of legend and a being of power beyond most mortal's comprehension. For centuries now he had been content to rest within his myth, however recently he had felt something on the mortal plain tug at him. It was something that was connected to his Authority, and yet it was something that he had never encountered before despite all his famed legends.
So he had descended to the mortal plane, but he had done so with great care and stealth. When most of his brethren rebelled against their myth and manifested upon the mortal plain they did so in so violent a fashion that their very presence was enough to trigger natural disasters. Of course manifesting in such a manner was more than likely to draw the attention of any Campione in the area, and that was something he sought to avoid.
To be sure he was no coward, his legend was filled with mentions of his bravery and fortitude, however it also held many examples of his cunning and caution. Where others had thought only to use brute strength he had employed guile, where others had been reckless he had shown prudence, and where they had died he had thrived.
Perhaps it was because it was not boredom or frustration that drove him from his legend, but rather it was curiosity. Whatever the case may be, he had succeeded in arriving on the mortal plane without stirring up so much as an angry gust of wind. And now he had finally made his way to the source of the strange tugging.
This was a part of the city that was under reconstruction, a long swathe of it had been levelled to the ground several weeks ago. He could feel the residual energies that still lingered in the wake of the destruction. One power as hateful and vile as could be conceived of, the other force was one that he could only describe as 'the promise of glory'. Both remnants seemed to be cancelling each other out so that the mortals working on the area were unaffected by either influence.
This was the site of where a god had fallen and a Campione had risen.
Still that was of little interest to him. What had drawn him was . . . here, right at the tip of the swathe of repairing ruin.
His eyes narrowed in concentration as he focussed on the . . . hole? Tear? Doorway? It was none of those and yet at the same time it was. It was map and sea and guiding star. He could also tell that it was incomplete; a remnant of a remnant, but it was SOMETHING.
He had many aspects that were famed, trickster, adventurer, king, however perhaps his most pronounced aspect was that he was a traveller. His voyages were the stuff of legends, perhaps even the most famed of their kind. Throughout his immortal live he had travelled to every point in the world, before Christopher Columbus was even born he had already mapped the entirety of what would come to be called America in his mind.
But eventually there had literally been nothing left to journey to, he had seen it all. So he had retreated into his myth, willing to wait there until the world changed so much that it would create a new world for him to travel.
Yes, he knew why this broken fragment of power had called to him so. It represented a way out of this world, it showed him possibilities. It was like a man who had been trapped in a pitch black room for most of his life finding a fragment of a key that glowed. With that glow he could finally see the door which was a way out, and the fragment gave him an idea as to the shape of the key. All he needed were the rest of the fragments and then he could remake the key.
And then . . . Freedom! Journeys without limit. Adventures without end. Could there be any sweeter prize?
Reaching out with his power he enfolded the shard of power in a covering of his power, and then carefully drew it into himself. He could feel it attaching to his own nature, altering so as to seamlessly blend into his being. It was still incomplete; it was a start, one that he could build upon.
-()-
She glared down at the small camp below her and contemplated her next action.
The dark haired boy below was not the Campione that she sought; she knew that her target was a red haired youth. When she had cast a scrying spell to point her towards the Campione that she sought the signs she received had pointed her in this direction.
This was both irritating and worrying, irritating in that she had found the wrong target, worrying in that her spell had failed. She had used that same enchantment many times over the millennia, and it had always served her well. That it would her now suggested that the object of her search was somehow veiled from her.
Certainly there existed Authorities that could have accomplished such a fete, there were even some long lost human castings that could have done it. However both those options were indications of an unpleasant development. Either the boy had acquired even more Authorities in the time since he had escaped her sight or he was allied to a sage of vast power and skill. And both options would mean only trouble for her.
Still this accident did present her with a potential opportunity. Below her was the seventh Campione, the same devil king who had defeated Athena even when she had reclaimed her lost power. Right now he was unguarded, vulnerable. If she were to strike now then might she be able to slay him? Or perhaps even wound him enough that he would be unable to interfere in her plans?
No, the Divine Ancestor shook her head to herself. She had not survived for so long and regained so much of what she had lost by being reckless. Hers was a nature that was prone to tempestuous rages and peeks of arrogance, but over the long centuries she had learnt the control and self discipline that had eluded her as a full divinity. She had learnt the value of caution; she had learnt the value of patience. As attractive as the thought of an all out battle was she knew that her carefully rebuilt power was not on the level of a true god. This was a Campione, no matter how young or foolish he might seem she had to remember the fact that he had killed a Heretic God in the full height of their power and had claimed their Authorities for himself. To fight what could be called the peak of mortal power in her weakened state was foolishness plain and simple.
But that didn't mean that she didn't have other options available to her, while an all out fight was out of the question that didn't mean that she couldn't conduct a little reconnaissance on the boy's abilities. Athena had been reluctant to share many details on the method by which she had been defeated. If she could watch him in battle it would expand her own knowledge of his strengths and weaknesses considerably.
Her mind made up she brought her left hand up to her mouth and bit down on the flesh between the thumb and forefinger hard enough to draw blood. As droplets of scarlet fell to the bracken beneath her feet she muttered an incantation under her breath in a language long forgotten to the modern world. As the incantation ended she ran her healed hand through her blue/red hair and pulled out a few stray strands. Dropping them onto the now softly glowing droplets of blood she watched as the liquid and the hair merged into a fleshy mass that began to grow at an astonishing rate.
In less than half a minute the mass that had started as no larger than a caterpillar had swollen to be as big as a large bull. The creature was centaurian, except that instead of the lower body of a horse this goliath was a gigantic scorpion from the waist down. From the waist up the monster was a man who seemed to be clad in great overlapping plates of organic black armour that matched the hue of his insectile half. In one hand he held an organic serrated edge sword while the other ended in a vicious scorpion's pincer. The monster was an awesome sight, one able to strike fear into the hearts of any mortal that crossed its path.
Looking upon it the former earth goddess could only feel disgust and shame. Once she had been able spawn such terrors that even gods had recoiled from them in battle, now this was the best she could do, a monster barely a match for the diluted creations of the younger gods. Still for this purpose it should serve well enough. With one had she gestured towards the camp below.
"Slay the boy, scatter the girls, after that your freedom is yours."
It was cruel in a way; to bring this child into existence and then send it against a foe she knew it had no chance of defeating. Still what was the point of being a divinity, no matter how reduced, if every now and then you couldn't play god?
-()-
It says a great deal about your life that you are actually happy to see a monster out of a madman's nightmares come charging into your camp. The mere fact that imminent mortal combat is preferable to further interaction with ones companions should generally be taken as a bad sign.
Kusanagi Godou was not most people though.
Right now he was lying in his sleeping bag next to the small camp fire and thanking his luck stars that the weather was good. In the end in order to both preserve his own modesty, as well as convince Liliana and Yuri that he did not in fact plan to ravage them in their sleep, he had elected to sleep outside rather than share a tent with any of the girls. As a result he was cold and uncomfortable, but at least his image as some insatiable sexual predator would not be further fed.
Still despite his neutral positioning he could have sworn that he was been keenly watched by eyes that could only be described as predatory themselves.
The instincts of a Campione were sharp indeed; the problem was that he was not only detecting the gaze of the Divine Ancestor who was watching him, but also the stares of all three of his camp companions.
Erica had been watching him for signs that he would fall asleep. She knew from personal experience that once Godou nodded off then he would sleep like the dead. As of yet she hadn't made up her mind as to whether she would slip into his sleeping bag or whether she would try to use a spell to spirit him into hers. She'd elected to wait and see how things progressed rather than making any plans.
Yuri on the other hand was keeping an eye on Godou out of both a sense of obligation as well as a certain sense of jealousy that she was doing her best to ignore. The seventh Campione was both someone she admired and someone she cared for. He'd fought the eldest and most experienced of the God-slaying kings for her sake, he had faced the tyrant that had haunted her dreams for years and he had driven him off. The young Hime-Miko felt it was her duty to ensure that her friend and saviour did not stray onto a path of debauchery and impropriety.
And if a side effect of that was that she kept other girls from paying attention of an intimate nature to him, well that was just coincidence.
Really.
Liliana, on the other hand, was finding herself a bit unsure of exactly where she stood in regards to her own feelings. On the one hand she was pleased that despite her earlier worries it seemed as though there would be no threats to her virtue from the Campione that she had allied herself to. On the other hand there was a certain element of pride and rivalry thrown into the mix. Was she less worthy than Erica? She knew her figure was the less lush of the two of them, by a fair margin if she was being honest, but she knew that in her own way she was as beautiful as her rival. So why had the seventh Campione made no move to add her to his harem?
The fact that the situation bore a rather worrying resemblance to the content of the latest chapters of the novel that she wrote in her spare time was rather worrying in and of itself.
Under so many different intense gazes it was understandable why Godou's instincts had ended up missing the more hostile presence that had been added to the already volatile mix.
What he did not miss was an eight foot tall scorpion centaur creature charging into the camp while trampling Erica's tent.
Exactly how something like that managed to get the drop on the magical knight he had no idea. Normally the blonde was far more aware of her surroundings. He had a brief moment where concern for her flooded his thoughts as he saw the spear like points of the creatures leg stab into the crumpled material of the collapsed tent as the monster charged over it. It was all too easy to imagine those points stabbing into Erica's white flesh. Then the moment was passed as the creature was upon him.
The huge organic sword stabbed through the blue sleeping bag and into the earth below, however no blood was spilt because Godou was no longer there. Clad in a sweatshirt, his underwear and pyjama bottoms the seventh Campione rolled to his feet as he recovered from the dive that had gotten him out of his sleeping gear just in time. Twigs and stones pricked at his bare feet, but he ignored them.
Words came to his lips, instinctual words that accompanied the activation of one of the ten Authorities that he possessed.
"For I am strongest amongst the strong. Truly, I am one that holds each and every victory. I care not whom challenges me, whether man or devil; I may face all my foes and all my enemies. Regardless, I shall crush all those who wouldst stand in my way!"
The strength of the Bull surged through his form, raw power that always was enough to defeat the foes that stood against him.
Of course that didn't mean he was invincible of course. Strong he might be, but invulnerable he was not. That sword could still cut his flesh, that pincer could still crush his bones. With that in mind the black haired teen did the most logical thing, he acquired a weapon.
The boulder had been on the edge of the camp and was roughly the size of the average armchair. How much it weighed was anyone's guess, but it was the kind of stone that normally needed industrial machinery to move. With the divine power running through his limbs Godou had no trouble picking it up and throwing it at his attacker as though it were nothing more than an oversized beach ball.
Of course his enemy was no simple mortal either. The black armoured monster simply swung its sword and sliced the oncoming boulder in two with almost contemptuous ease. Both halves went flying to either side of it to go crashing into the brush with a thunderous cracking of branches.
However Godou had not expected such a simple attack to be enough to take down this foe. Such an outcome would have been nice, but the Japanese student was familiar enough with supernatural foes to know that such a possibility was unlikely to say the least. That was why he had taken the small window his attack had offered to prepare a more hefty weapon.
Wood snapped with a sound like a small explosion as an Authority enhanced kick smashed through the trunk of a tree and sent it toppling. But before it could complete its fall Godou wrapped his arms around the trunk and heaved.
It was absurd, in total defiance of all natural laws of leverage and centres of gravity, but that was the power of a gods Authority. To defy the common sense of the world and simply do as they pleased. And since that power became a Campione's with their victory that meant that that was Godou's power as well.