"… I see. So you two as well?" I turned slowly to face Sona and Tsubaki, to see them flinch slightly at the possible expression that was on my face. Hardly a surprise, when one finds out that some of their closest relations were devils who preyed on human souls.
"Kusaka-san and Tomoe-san?" Sona closed her eyes as she nodded slowly, clearly pained at giving me an answer.
...
I decided that such matters would be dealt with later and settled for the more immediate issue. "What are you going to do to him?" I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and asked Rias again. "Because right now, I am half-tempted to blow your asses to kingdom-come, and I will not stand by if you are planning to make him hurt people."
"Ah, that you do not need to worry." Rias stepped forward confidently with Akeno following and keeping an eye on me. "Right now, he is currently healing using my Evil Pieces. He should be healed soon, and I'm not planning to make him hurt anyone. That will be my word as a Gremory."
"Is there really no way to save him, apart from these 'evil pieces'?" I glanced at Issei again and quickly used Structural Analysis on his body. It was faint, but I could detect at least eight objects in his body that was emitting the same feeling as the woman in front of me.
"Afraid not, he was already half-dead by the time we came, and we did answer his call to be saved." She pointed to the pieces of paper with the occult circles. "The only way to save his life and pay off his debt was to become a servant of my Peerage."
I closed my eyes to think through of the information I have just heard. This was really getting out of hand, but that's what I get after relaxing for a few months. My life would always get back to the battlefield in the most outrageous manner.
"Now what are we to do with you?" Rias tapped her chin thoughtfully. "You know about us, and we have seen a sample of what you can do. I dare say that we are very interested in your lifestyle." I ignored her as I checked my surroundings. This was a little problematic for me, and the biggest question was whether I could get Issei to safety and reverse whatever they did to him.
"I won't do that if I were you." Rias said as though she guessed my thoughts "I will say this. You can't interrupt the process now, otherwise he would die. At the least, he can be alive, just not a human anymore."
I looked again at Issei while keeping a close watch on those four girls. Issei was still having a hard time breathing due to the massive wound in his chest, and though he was healing quickly, it still was a slow process to me. Wordlessly, I drew in the air a rune above Issei before muttering "Helbrede". Almost immediately, his breathing became lighter and his wound started to heal faster. I was still a little uncertain of the situation but for the time being, the boy was safe. And as much as I hate to leave this in uncertain territory, I will have to trust her words.
"Fine, I will leave the boy to you." I levelled my blade at them. "But I am expecting some answers soon, and I want you to promise that you do nothing that could jeopardize his humanity further, got that?" After seeing their nods, I slowly walked away from them, before taking a peek at the feathers on the floor. I went to pick up the ones left by the winged harpy, and after taking a quick slice at the dismembered flesh, I placed them both in a glass flask that I conjured up and store them in the dimensional pocket, all the while keeping close attention to the four. On their part, they seemed curious as to my actions but made no comment on it.
"Well, I'll be leaving now." I stepped backwards as I silently drew a sign behind my back to cast an invisibility spell. I might as well leave an impression on them. "See you in school later, and make sure Issei is safe." With that, I completely blended into the shadows and took off running, making sure to make tight corners to throw any familiars after me.
This was going to be a long week.
...
"Well, that went well." Tsubaki remarked as they watched Shirou disappear into the night.
"Hah~ this is a lot to take in." Sona rubbed her temple as she recalled what had transpired. It was one thing for Shirou to be a wizard, but it was another thing entirely for him to be physically capable of taking on two Fallen Angels at the same time and decimate one of them completely. What was also puzzling was the type of magic Shirou was using; she could not fathom what spells involved conjuring swords out of thin air, and yet she knew it could not be a Sacred Gear because of the mere feeling exuded from them. There were no other gears that could exude such a feeling of grandeur besides the supposed Longinus, but she had made sure that Shirou had no Sacred Gear on him.
"What I want to know is why there were two Fallen Angels in the area, and why they attacked him?" Tsubaki motioned to Issei. Sona grimaced as she thought of the amount of paperwork involved for this incident. It was a very delicate situation; considering that the Fallen Angels were in their jurisdiction wreaking havoc, there was going to be a lot of questions needing answers as to why they were doing so under their noses.
The worst thing to her now was to somehow explain to the others that Shirou was a wizard who had found out about them, and may now be an enemy. She could not bear to think about Reya's and Tomoe's reactions. That expression on his face tore at her soul more deeply than she had anticipated, and she did not want them to experience the same thing.
"Hmm... this is a very interesting development." Rias remarked as she tended to Issei. "The boy here seems to have a power that took up all of my Pawn pieces, while Shirou is a wizard who could take on Fallen Angels with ease." Rias surveyed the fight zone with an analytic eye and a glint in her eye. "He has great battle experience and a magic that we do not know of. Good speed and reactions as well, hmm…"
Sona could tell at a glance what Rias was thinking and decided to head her off.
"Before you even go there, need I remind you that Shirou has a bit of trust issues towards us considering that we have been watching the fight without helping him out in terms of protecting that boy? Also, he seems to have had the same idea as us in terms of surveillance on unknown factors, so he is already wary of us. We should not do anything else that could worsen the situation."
"Oh Sona, I know that." Rias pouted before giving a devious smile. "Then again, you were also thinking the same thing as me, weren't you?" Sona turned her head to face the devastation to prevent Rias seeing her discomfort. She would not deny that Shirou possessed an unusual ability and great physical prowess that allowed him to handle fights easily. So if coupled with either a Knight or Bishop Piece, he could easily overwhelm anyone in the Rating Game.
But that was if he agreed to be in a Peerage in the first place.
...
You know, I believe Archer was to blame for this predicament. For all I know, he could be abusing his higher authority as a Counter guardian to send trouble my way, and just sit back to watch me burn in agony. All while having that ever-sickening smirk of his.
My few months of relative peace and relaxation were put to an abrupt stop when Kuoh Academy's number one pervert got speared to death by his date who was not a human, and I ended up fighting her and killing her comrade. Then under my nose, he got revived by one of the most seductive creatures I have seen to date to be her minion of sorts, and thus I introduced myself to four of the creatures of the town who apparently called themselves Devils.
Yup, just me, my regular supernatural encounters and my usual E-rank luck.
After that encounter, I had spent the first few hours of the night tracking down that Raynare girl in hopes of taking her down on the spot. But she had a head-start getting away from me, and for whatever reason, I could no longer detect her scent as earlier. That would mean she had hidden herself behind some ward, and I was not willing to spend the remainder of the night finding her and be unprepared for whatever she had planned. So I had no choice but to head back home, increase the number of protection spells, before hunkering in for a few hours of sleep, then head off to school.
Honestly, being a teenager again sucks when you had to meet a monthly quota of attendance.
In any case, now that I have been exposed to devils and vice versa, that meant they would need to decide on the methods to approach me. In my line of experience, this boiled down into two options.
The first option was one I had too much experience with, mainly the opponents attacking me head on or ambushing me in an attempt to kill me. This offers the most amount of success and ensures the target does not become a liability in the future. But considering what I have seen so far, I would say the second option was more preferable; sending in a representative to make contact and possibly recruit me.
That only begged the question of whom will be sent to seek me out. Considering I have met most of the Student Council and I knew Sona's watchfulness over them, it was clear she would not let them meet me so soon. That left Rias's group whom I have yet to meet in person. And considering the reactions I kept getting from her and her pony-tailed partner, that would have left the other unknown members. So that would mean they would probably use the honey-trap approach with the other girls, considering all I have seen were beautiful women in both groups.
"KYAA! Kiba-kun!" "Kiba-sama!"
… Or they would use the pretty boy approach.
...
Hey guys I really need you to throw some power Stones ;)
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to my p atreon :
p atreon.com/Aerle