FILFY teacher

by Vimesenthusiast

A Harry Potter who has tried to take control of his destiny from second year on finds himself in need of a fresh start due to his marital status changing abruptly. Armed with some abilities beyond the norm, a Mastery of Defense and a muggle-style teacher's license, Harry takes his daughter Lily Luna and takes a job offer at Kuoh Academy. Pairings undecided save Harry/Rias/many?

4. Chapter 4

Can't draw and I ain't named Rowling.

Alright, it's the end of the month, and it is time to update the winner of my small story poll, and my Pat R on only SW poll. Horse for the Force will be up late tonight - have it back from the beta reader, just need to go over it.

And needless to say, this story won big the small story poll. For those interested, Semblance of Hope came in third at 822. Even if I added in my own votes of 200 since it hasn't been updated in a while it still wouldn't have won, though it would have taken second. But since I had to spend so much time getting GDWHOM up, there isn't a second small story this month.

Anything Goes Game Changer brought in a total of 934.

Yet for once the patrons and casual readers spoke with one voice. FILFy Teacher brought in a total 1,232 votes with 447 votes here on fanfic, dwarfing the other choices.

The next poll will be up soon, check my profile for it.

On an unrelated yet important note: I will be trying to get ATP updated in May. Mordreek has contacted me a few times, and I think we can do it. If not, I will still post large snippets, and maybe the SW/HP omakes I have over on Pat R on here to make up for it.

In other news, one thing I've been amused by is that no one has mentioned my using the name football for soccer before this. Guess that's a good sign, if an amusing one.

I would like to thank Nad Destroyer for giving this a light read over for me. He helped get some of the more serious discussions that occur within right. Now on with the show!

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Chapter 4: Emotional Chaos, CHAOS Having a Bad Day

Despite reallynot wanting to and not really seeing where she was going so busy with her thoughts, Kalawarner was able to get back to the church where she and the others had made their hiding place. Fallen always chose places like this if given the choice: consecrated areas that had been abandoned for one reason or another. It was a way to rub their very existence in the face of their former fellows.

Entering she didn't even look around heading towards the back where there rooms were on wobbly legs. That was pretty much the way she had been walking ever since Harry had left, , her mind and, to Kalawarner's shock, her emotions all over the place.

On the one hand, she was utterly infuriated. How could a man any man talk to her, Kalawarner, the Fallen seductress with a one hundred percent success rate like that? She was also confused. How had Harry developed the ability to block out her influence in the first place? She would have understood if he'd had such an ability right off the bat. She would have spotted it, and known not to use her spiritual influence. But for someone to develop that resistance between one meeting and another, without any sign of being turned into a Devil, that was beyond strange.

On top of her anger and confusion on how it had occurred at all, Kalawarner was also feeling guilty and saddened how it had turned out. She was redoing the conversation before her attempt to influence Harry through her head, and was coming up with a simple, inescapable, conclusion. I had him, I had him! He was asking, offering to be more than fuckbuddies, he wanted to actually date me! And what did I do? Screw it up!

Coupled with this were memories of the dates they had been on. Astonishing to Kalawarner was that the memories of dancing, talking and simply walking around with Harry were just as prominent in her thoughts as the times they had made out. The heat of those moments warmed her against the cold of a further realization: That Harry had been attempting to do that all along, to be something more than fuckbuddies. She hadn't realized it at the time, or even envisioned there could be something more.

And the fact that, after all Kalawarner's effort, after all the interest he had paid to her, she had been shut down? That hurt. I guess the old saw is right, you never know what you have until it's gone.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in. And you don't look as if you got laid, rather you get screwed. And not in the fun way," Raynare said from where she had been lounging on a pew as Kalawarner made her way through the vestibule toward the back of the church. "What, Potter turn out to be gay? Or are your seduction techniques not all they're cracked up to be?" The younger-seeming Fallen sneered.

Kalawarner turned in her direction, her confused emotions congealing into fury in an instant. She lashed out, hurling a light spear at her comrade that embedded itself right next to Raynare's head. "I am not in the mood for your shit right now Raynare."

"You want to go bitch?!" Raynare roared, snapping Kalawarner's light spear with one hand while surging to her feet, conjuring up her own light spear from her other hand. "Not all of us get by on our looks you know!"

"Now, now" said Dohnaseek, pushing up his fedora and sitting up from where he had been laying out on one of the pews. He had returned early that evening to discuss a few of the exorcists he been able to gather for their operation. Their skills were extremely high, but one of them in particular was a bit of a head case, and he wanted to ask the others if they thought the man, Freed, would be worth the aggravation of dealing with him. The three of them had voted, and decided to bring Freed in anyway. He was head and shoulders above the rest in terms of skill and that was all that mattered.

"You can't just lash out at a comrade like that Kalawarner," he went on holding up one hand towards her before looking over at Raynare. "And Raynare, you can't just throw barbs at someone else and expect them to take it all the time." Dohnaseek felt rather odd being the peacemaker, but as the only guy of the four of them, it had often fallen (no pun intended) upon him to rein in the ladies' natural bitchiness towards one another, whenever he was around anyway. The fact he wasn't around most of the time was a God send in his opinion.

Mittelt stood up as well coming out from the back of the church to lay a hand on Kalawarner's forearm. That this was as high as she could reach was irritating, but Mittelt wasn't going to bring that up here.

Raynare calmed down somewhat at Dohnaseek's words before waving him off and glaring at Kalawarner. "What happened?" she demanded.

Sighing Kalawarner told them. Mittelt looked astonished that someone would be able to throw off Kalawarner's aura, or as the Fallen called it, her Spirit, like that. She was after all known as one of the best when it came to seduction, and her ability to influence other people like that was one of the reasons why. Conscious control of their Spirit like tht was a skill few Fallen ever bothered to pursue, since it wasn't really a physical power.

Everyone had an aura, even weak humans. Angels, Devils, Youkai, gods, Fallen, they all had a spiritual presence. The Fallen's Spirits had started out pure like the angel's, but when they fell became corrupted, tainted by the sin of their fall, much like their minds and personalities. It took a strong intellect to know that was happening and fight the effect, though most Fallen didn't bother using their Spirit consciously.

Devils on the other hand had a more generic aura, though Mittelt didn't know anything more than that. Whether it was similar to a Fallen's or not was beyond her. What she did know was that there were only maybe five other Fallen better than Kalawarner at manipulating people through her Spirit and three of them were men.

"And he didn't have even a hint of that ability before?" She asked intently.

"He had a lot of willpower, and he was able to fight off my seduction sills, but I know I was affecting him before this, making him more susceptible over time," Kalawarner said despondently. "I had not actually purposefully pushed like this before." That Harry had been reacting to her body and her other more physical techniques the entire time rather than just losing control thanks to his aura was a bitter consolation to Kalawarner at this point.

"And you just let him go!?" Raynare asked, astonished. "You should have ended him right there! Wasn't it you who said you could do that, stab him when he was least expecting it!?"

"No, I said I might be able to hit him! We know he's a werewolf. Holy weapons might hurt him, but I'd have to get in a killing blow to actually put Harry down. And he was on his guard at that moment."

"We might have to invest in some silver weapons," Dohnaseek said shaking his head. "Unlike the rest of you, I've actually talked to people who fought werewolves rather than rely on hearsay. Yes, light weapons can hurt them, but they're not like devils, with a weakness to light weapons. It would hurt just like a spear, but unless you take out their brain or heart a werewolf can heal from practically anything."

"Fine, we'll invest in silver weapons. But we need to neutralize him. I watched Potter around the school, and I know that if we attack one of the two students with Sacred Gears, if he is in the area he'll come for us along with the Devils. If he can somehow see through our illusions techniques or god forbid the barrier dimensions,and mages are supposed to be able to, we'll have three different enemies to deal with.

"One of those would be a single enemy, but I take your point," Dohnaseek said with a nod. "I'll look into the silver weapons when I leave to continue to gather exorcists."

"Attacking on a Sunday is probably the best bet then," Kalawarner said, her voice still more of a drone than normal showing her continued shock at what had happened. "It's the day he always spends with his daughter so he'll be busy with her and unwilling to leave Lily to respond to a crisis someplace else."

With dull eyes she glared around at her fellows. "Now if you'll excuse me, I want to put my head down for a bit."

"What?" Raynare said unable to let it go at that, a sneer on her otherwise perfect face once more. It was quite at home there. "The great seducer has been seduced in turn?"

Kalawarner slowly turned from where she had been walking to glare at Raynare, her voice like a scalpel now. "At least I know I'm able to get my rocks off without bathing in blood. When was the last time you had sex except at spear point? Not everyone gets off on causing pain Raynare."

With that she turned, ignoring Raynare's ongoing glare or the other two chuckling as they felt that Kalawarner had scored a point. Moments later, she lay down on her bed, staring up at the ceiling as a little voice inside of her head continually told her she had fucked up. You fucked up, you wouldn't open up. He was offering, offering to be more and you turned it down. You always turn it down!

"What else is there?" Raynare responded. "Men only want one thing. They only want the body, they never want the mind, they never want to soul! Never, not once since I have Fallen has any man ever not just taken without giving anything in return."

Is that it, the voice asked softly is that really what you think? Or do you just offer it up to quickly for them to see if there's anything else there?

Groaning, Kalawarner turned on her side and reached for the dresser to one side of her bed, opening it up and pulling out a large bottle of gin. "Shut up shut up shut up I don't need to listen to you! It's Potters fault not mine! He shouldn't have turned me down like that. He should just be responding to my demands."

Like a toy instead of a man you mean? The now snide internal voice said, before Kalawarner ripped off the bottle's top and began to pour the gin down her throat. The fact the bottle had been a gift Potter had bought her on one of their outings made the burn of it worse.

Kalawarner never noticed Mittelt watching her from the doorway to her room or the frown on the youngest Fallen's face. She and Kalawarner fought like cats and dogs at times, but that didn't mean they weren't friendly, and they were at least a darn site friendlier towards one another than either were towards Raynare or Dohnaseek. The male Fallen was more of an unknown, either of them having worked with them before, but both didn't like Raynare in the slightest.

Of course, her thoughts weren't just for her friend's tenuous grasp on sanity, but her own situation. Shit, if Kalawarner retreats into herself like this, it'll only be my voice against Raynare and Dohnaseek's when they come up with their mad schemes! Not good, not good at all!

OOOOOOO

At the same time that Kalawarner had gone home, Harry had a decided he wanted to have at least a few incredibly strong drinks to remove the taste of this evening from his mouth. He was unhappy that Kalawarner had proven to be attempting to manipulate him, yet at the same time also unhappy that nothing had happened between them, a confusing feeling. While he hadn't forged as much of a purely emotional connection with Kalawarner as he had towards Rias or even Akeno, she had interested in him a lot, and there had been sparks there.

Or am I just deluding myself? he thought morbidly as he walked into a bar on the outskirts of Kuoh. Was it simple physical attraction, was I just seeing too much there? Walking in, he knew noticed the bar was rather crowded, the low drone of music playing in the background. It certainly wasn't the quiet drinking establishment he had hoped for from the exterior. Still, he wasn't willing to put in the effort to find someplace else.

With that in mind he made his way towards the bar only to pause for a second as he noticed a gorgeous looking woman sitting at the far was a busty woman around Rias's size if Harry had to guess with long, wavy purple hair that fell down her back, equally purple eyes visible in the mirror set behind the bar despite some of her hair falling forward over her right eye and chest. She wore a blue top with gold accents and a plunging neckline, matching a long paler sort of blue skirt with open sides, letting her thigh-high stockings and garter-belts visible to those around her.

Harry had seen her in passing a few times before when he was out with Kalawarner. She was always with a young man around Harry's age possibly or a little older who looks like a stereotypical gangster more than anything else. Now however she was sitting alone, staring unseeing at a martini glass set on the bar in front of her.

There was something about the woman, something that niggled at Harry's senses like when he was around Rias, Kalawarner or the others like them. On a whim he called up his aura reading ability, and stared. The woman did have a strong aura, stronger than any of the others except for Sona and Rias. But it was also guttering, under control but guttering with different emotions. Most of those he had seen before, thought the swirl was really confusing. Mostly he saw the color of regret and some dark, sickly looking purple color he had no words for.

The most interesting thing however was that her aura wasn't affecting anyone around her. It wasn't even visibly spreading beyond her body like it did with the others.

Interesting, he thought. So is that and Kala's earlier attempt a sign that they can learn how to control it or is it a personal skill, like having the ability to become an animagus? As a werewolf of course Harry couldn't be an animagus but Ron had spent about two hours ranting about how he had been hoping to become one, but the test McGonagall had given them in their Sixth year proved that he couldn't. It wasn't just a skill you could learn, you had to have an inherent trait in order to do it.

Setting that aside Harry moved over, ordered a drink from the bartender and then leaned over the woman slightly, clinking his glass against hers. "Here's to the brokenhearted," he said, sliding into the empty seat next to her.

The woman looked up, her full lips quirking into a sardonic smirk that held little actual humor as she folded one hand under her chin, a finger snaking up to tap her cheek in thought. "Mah, that's rather presumptuous of you. Can't a woman have a drink in peace without it having to do with her love life?"

Yubelluna of course recognized Harry as the source of the interesting energy she had investigated a little over a month ago. She had also seen him around the city since too when Riser came here to take advantage of various human women or just for some exhibitionist play. Sometimes he'd had her assume the character of Rias a few times, complete with dying her hair which had just about been the most humiliating thing he'd come up with in long while.

"Tell me I'm wrong then," Harry said in reply, pulling his drink away from hers and sipping at it while looking at her all the while.

"Are you brokenhearted or do you just hate the fact that you're back to the land of blue balls?" she asked coolly, not acknowledging the hit.

"That was rather crude for a lady," Harry said pulling his drink away from his lips to frown at her a little.

At the word 'lady' Harry saw a flash of loathing and self-hate cross the woman's face as well as anger before she turned back to her own martini. She gulped it down in one large sip, then set it down with a click audible even over the background noise to Harry thanks to his werewolf senses. "I'm no lady."

"All women can be ladies, it's just if they choose to be or not. And I think you're a lady whatever you say." Harry replied, bowing from the waist and ignoring the crowd around them. In turn most of those people were too busy with their own affairs to notice this little conversation.

Yubelluna stared at Harry for a moment, then slowly nodded, seeing the sincerity there in those striking emerald eyes. "Thank you for that." Turning away she gestured to the bartender to refill her glass before changing the subject to the man's own woes rather than hers. "So what happened with you and your woman?"

"She was never mine. Kala was always her own, and I'm afraid that was part of the problem. She didn't want to commit, and I wouldn't give her what she wanted without commitment." Harry said with a self-deprecating smile.

"Reeaally?" Yubelluna drawled, her lips shifting into an actual smile for a moment as she detected both truth and lies in that statement. "That might make you very well unique among all mankind."

"No. There are a lot of bloody wankers out there I'll admit, but there are a lot of good men too if you look. And good women…" Harry said, before taking a sip from his drink. It was a Dubonnet Cocktail, which Bill had introduced him to in London at one point.

Yubelluna barely hid a shudder, a thrill going through her from her ears down to her nether regions as Harry's British accent made itself known. Something about that had just pushed a button she didn't know she had. Must be all those Roger Moore Bond flicks I've watched over the decades. Then she shook her head, her smile turning sad. "You would think so wouldn't you?"

"If he hurts you, why don't you just leave him? Is he threatening you?" Harry asked, his saving people thing coming to the fore and making him far blunter about such topics than was really advisable most of the time. "Do you need help?"

"Ha, no, it's nothing like that. He never hurts me physically," Yubelluna said. That was actually true, S&M wasn't one of the kinks Riser had Kalawarner play out. He used his Rooks, Isabela and Xuelan, for that kind of play. They sometimes seemed to enjoy it, which was…good… Yubelluna supposed. "It's just that sometimes words and other kinds of actions, or demands, hurt just as much or more than fists."

"And you don't want to leave him anyway?"

"Let us just say there are familial obligations," Yubelluna said, shaking her head with a slightly larger smile at the concern she heard in this near stranger's voice, that and the British accent getting under her skin a little. He seemed a genuinely nice man, and she wondered if he understood how rare it was for people with power like he had or like Riser did or any of the devils, to be that nice without some ulterior motive.

"There was a time when he was different," she said aloud, taking a sip from her drink which the bartender had refilled. She stared into its depths as she held it in front of her face, the light passing through it and giving her face a sort of greenish tint. "There was a time when he was very different, a decent man. Not a great one, he always had an ego, but at least it was offset by other things."

"Ego can be the downfall of the best of us," Harry replied with a sigh.

"Oh yes, oh yes it can. He could've been great," Yubelluna muttered, in terms of self-loathing. "He could have been great if someone had stopped him before his ego had gotten too big. Now, now it's too damn late."

Her phone went off at that point, and she reached into her purse, pulling it out and looking at it for a moment before standing up. "I have to go." She slid some cash underneath her drink, and nodded at Harry. "I'd say thank you for the talk but…"

Harry shrugged. "I tried to help, and really listening's all I could do given the fact that you didn't tell me anything about your situation. But can at least have your name?"

"Yubelluna," she said then asked the next question before she could stop herself. "And yours?"

"Harry, Harry Potter," Harry said, taking her hand and shaking it, making no attempt to kiss or bow over it. This certainly wasn't the time for that kind of thing.

Nevertheless Yubelluna smiled at the courtesy, as well as Harry's earlier comment about her still being a lady. "Well Harry Potter, if I ever do decide to leave my… familial obligations… behind, I might try to look you up." She was nowhere near the point where she would run away from Riser. Even the way he treated her and the others was better than being on the run with no financial aid and with people hunting you. Riser certainly would never let her go. But the idea was there in her mind nevertheless.

Harry nodded, and said that would be fine by him before watching the older woman move towards the door to the bar, shaking his head. There was a lot of undercurrent in that conversation that I didn't quite follow, but I hoped she at least found had found some solace in knowing there was someone out there who commiserated with her.

For his part, Harry head downed his drink without even noticing, and decided that that was it for the night. Drinking won't solve my problems or even make me feel better, it'll just make me more maudlin. And if I'm going to do that, I'd rather do it without a bunch of strangers around.

He set the drink down and after paying walked out the door heading home, alone as always. As he walked, he continued to think about the auras he could no detect around these people. They certainly weren't totally human, he could tell that now, but what they were, he didn't know yet. I know I've never run into anything like them, but that leaves a lot of territory to cover. But they certainly aren't Onmyouji either. Hmm… need to think about that further.

In particular, Harry thought about Rias and Akeno. Yes, Shitori and Shinra also had powerful auras, but Harry theorized there needed to be a chink in the armor of the individual in question for the aura to truly influence him or her. And it was a simple fact that Sona and her friend's bodies were not his type. Both of them looked like Ginny: smaller breasts and a more explosive looking, athletic frame. They were also short, which Harry decided he didn't like.

Not that Rias and Aquino weren't athletic, but they didn't look that part as much is so the Student Council twosome did. That, and Sona's entire attitude reminds me too much of Hermione at her worst. Obsessive-compulsive rule regulating, he thought was at a flash of amusement. I suppose as a teacher I should like that, but I think you can really take it too far.

Of his thoughts/feelings about the two so-called great ladies, Akeno was the easiest. He had not forged the same depth of connection with her that he had with Rias. Akeno was still primarily a student rather than a friend, admittedly one with a very unusual and physical sort of humor. He delighted in that humor at times and she had both a wicked tongue on her and an interestingly slanted way of looking at the world when she let her Yamato Nadeshiko mask fall. She was also mature in a way beyond her peers, just like Rias and seemed to be just as good with Lily at times. So, there was room there for that to change, but it hadn't yet.

And it wouldn't until they opened up to one another further. Harry surprisingly felt he was ready to do that, but Akeno's self-defense was much like Kalawarner's: flirt or tease until the other person lost interest in pressing for more.

Rias was principally a friend now, a delightful woman in his eyes. She was not just a student or mystery, but someone who he could see himself flirting with or even dating eventually. With the mystery of her aura and his self-control now solid, that actually became more obvious, not less.

But the question is, am I really happy with the idea of Rias and I becoming more than we are already? I know that given her age it's legal but given my position, it is still a major abuse of power isn't it? But then again, who really has the power here? If she was a normal girl, yes it would be reprehensible, but she isn't. Rias's aura is the strongest of the four, not by a significant margin next to Shitori's but it's there. And Like Akeno she is very mature for her age in a lot of ways, not just physically. Oh, she is also childish, but those parts of her are just as attractive as the rest. Her obsession with anime and how she has to hide it at school is just darn cute.

Shaking that thought aside, he decided to put that topic to the side for now. After all, I might be seeing too much into it. Rias might not think of me like that, or she might be interested in me simply because of the mystery of figuring out what I am, or just physical attraction. Which admittedly after our last talk is more likely. Still best to remember young Harry, you made rushed into things with Ginny. And look how that ended up? I can't do that again, not when I have Lily to look out for.

With that thought, his resolve to take it slow with whatever was going on between him and Rias solidified. Maybe if we still feel this attraction between us when she is going on to college I can act on it then both in good conscience and with the knowledge that I'll know her a lot better than I did Ginny before we married. That's a good idea. Let's go with that.

Another part of Harry's mind responded to that however with, Oh really, you're going to go that long without some companionship? HAH. Even if you set that aside it might be a great plan, but you know but plans and when they meet the enemy. Rias might not be the enemy here, but she certainly has a vote on what happens…

Harry forcefully ignored that voice, which sounded far too much like an unholy mix of Hermione and Sirius for his sense of sanity. Instead he concentrated on something else he was interested in as he entered his home.

As the flare of the wards welcomed him in, Harry thought, I want to see if those auras are why so many of the students act out so oddly at times. It could be that the Three perverts are just incredibly weak willed and the auras convince them to act upon their base desires in a way they wouldn't otherwise. That could even be why the students have formed such cliques around 'the two Great Ladies, and around of Sona and her vice president come to think of it. There's even Kiba's large band of fangirls…

Entering his kitchen, Harry flopped down on a chair with a mug of beer in his hands, continuing on this train of thought rather than letting his mind shift back to beguiling redheads, flirtatious Yamato Nadeshikos or frustrating blue haired women for at least a few minutes. Yes, that makes far too much sense for me to ignore. I'll have to ask them about that on Monday if Rias hasn't thought of it already.

OOOOOOO

Actually at that moment, Rias was indeed thinking about her aura and Harry Potter as well as her Queen, though not entirely in the same manner as Harry had been.

That night Rias wasn't sharing a bed with Akeno or Koneko having wanted to make a late night of it. At the time Harry arrived home Rias was sitting at her desk, typing up some notes on her keyboard with one hand as she pushed the glasses she wore while doing paperwork up her nose with the other.

Hours after the fact Rias was still rather shocked and dismayed by what Harry's revelation could mean. He had alleviated her concerns about his relationship with her and her peerage, but if he was being effected by it, didn't it stand to reason that others were as well? We need to figure out if that's why the Perverted Trio acts out so much, even the fangirls and the other students. It would explain so much! But I wonder…

No, she shook her head as a thought came to her. No, I know my parents knew about these things. And I bet they wanted us to discover it for ourselves. That's exactly the kind of thing they'd do. Even Onii-sama would do that. She laughed then, speaking aloud. "But if we can learn to control it then at least Sona will be happier than she has been these past few weeks."

Just because the Perverted Trio hadn't been caught red-handed by the teachers or any of the students didn't mean they weren't still causing issues. They were just a lot more subtle about it, which actually made it a little worse. Rias had heard about some stains in the girl's locker room that shouldn't be there, as well as rumors of perverted giggling sometimes being audible in the art room or music room. And they were still bringing in porn magazines to read occasionally too.

Not that some of the girls were any better. Like Harry, Rias had overheard more than a few girls plotting to see if they could grab some of Kiba's underwear for themselves. Rias had also heard others wondering if she, Akeno or Sona would be willing to become their 'Onee-samas', with a connotation to it straight from some of the semi-Yuri anime comedies Rias had watched occasionally.

Still, if all of that is caused by our spiritual presence then controlling that will solve the issue. How to do it will be tough given we have no real starting point. For now I need to set that aside and concentrate on other things.

And not Harry Potter! As she thought about their recent meeting, Rias felt a flush of desire going through her, and had to stop her hands from moving away from the keyboard towards her own body. Not just yet thank you very much.

Rias was used to being around powerful men or even attractive ones. She had gone to numerous political functions, with her parents and while their actions were often reprehensible, nearly every noble devil could be called handsome or beautiful depending on their gender. Harry was handsome, no doubt, though he was like her cousin Sairaorg in that his handsomeness was more a byproduct of genetics and training than maintenance, which was too often the case among the 32 pillars.

So what she felt for Harry wasn't just a physical attraction. No, it was a simple fact that Harry had impacted her life quite a bit, far more than the mystery about him or even their budding friendship. No, it had been the advice Harry had given her a time or two, as well as the discussions they'd had. Specifically discussions on tactics, which is what I need to be thinking about right now, not his eyes or that smile or… Gah, enough!

Rias growled to herself, looking at the computer where several notes about how her peerage's cross training was going were listed in a word file. Concentrate Rias Gremory! With that internal shout Rias did so, reading through her latest notes.

First on the list was a negative. While Rias, Akeno, and Kiba were making progress in becoming fist fighters, none of them had shown any aptitude towards the sword from Kiba's perspective. He was still teaching them sword techniques however. Even if you couldn't wield a sword, knowing what to expect could serve an individual in good stead. But Rias had begun to research other weapons to bring in to see if they could be useful even if only in terms of training.

On the other hand, Akeno and Rias's endurance training was going very well, making them about as durable as Koneko was when she called upon her full Rook powers. Their speed was going up too, if far slower.

Kiba's training in toughness wasn't going so well, but astonishingly he had made up for this in Akeno and Rias's magic classes. He and shown a distinct aptitude towards small attack and defense spells using his swords as mediums for casting, whereas before he had only been able to use a few spells, like the teleportation array, and those spells inherent in whatever sword he conjured. Most devils could use some magic, but it was another story using it in combat. The speed with which he could call upon Sword Birth had also gone up.

I wonder if that is because of the nature of the Knight piece. Could the piece be inhibiting him somehow from using the magic he has as a Devil in a manner similar to another piece? It would make sense, given how Koneko is having trouble using magic. I need to see if there's a way around that issue if so. Koneko's speed had gone up too, but that Rias was willing to put down to her being a nekomata, a naturally fast species.

Some of the other notes in the word document were not as encouraging. First were a few that mentioned the need to bring in actual martial arts trainers. Kiba had quite a lot of training when it came to swords thanks to his unfortunate past and one of her Onii-sama's peerage having taught him for several years. And Koneko had been taught by a few of her father's peerages, though in their case they hadn't bothered to teach her true styles, just working on her base abilities.

"And given her small stature, their attempts to teach her in the manner of a normal Rook was wrong from the get-go," Rias acknowledged aloud. She didn't regret making Koneko her Rook of course. Beyond the fact it had given her another family member it had heightened the girl's durability, and Koneko was something of a blunt object in terms of personality, which was the reason then-chibi-Rias had done that. But Koneko needed to have a personal style that took advantage of her mobility and natural flexibility.

What that would be Rias didn't have a clue. What she knew about martial arts style came from her family's peerages and her own anime obsession both of which was not enough. Perhaps Chinese Wing Chun mixed with Capoeira?

Typing those names into the doc, Rias also put in a few money signs to make certain she remembered to ask about the price of such training. After reflection she also typed in "Check to see if the family has contracts with anyone who could step in as trainer," before going on to another topic.

For her part, Rias's own training in her Power of Destruction had yielded some interesting results. She could now condense the beam making it even more powerful than before and call up multiple beams at one time. Her latest achievement was actually controlling the beam, bending it slightly this way and that. More control of that nature would come in time she knew.

I still need to speed up the incantation time, the time it takes me to pull up and projects my power. But, it's a good start. Still, I need to think of other things 'outside the box' and most importantly think about how to aid the rest of my peerage even as they aid me. I know thanks to the peerage system they take from my power, but is there any to somehow store some of my Power of Destruction so they could use it? Is that even possible?

Rias thought about her Onii-sama's power, which was lauded as beyond even the original Lucifer, as well as his peerage. He had never hinted at the possibility, but that didn't mean anything given the fact his peerage hardly needed the help. They were known as the Strongest Peerage in existence for a reason after all. Hmm, I also need to think about how to use the connections between us. The peerage pieces bind them to my power, so it stands to reason if I can control my power I can endow them with more at need.

After making some quick notes on that topic about books to research and types of material that could be used to store such energy, Rias leaned back in her chair, kneading her nose right below her glasses before putting them back on and switching to another document, marked tactical notes.

Here Harry's touch was much more prevalent. Where before it had only been Harry's initial injunction against chess which had propelled her forward, here they had actually had numerous truly fascinating discussions pertaining to strategy and tactics. For strategy Harry used examples from World War 2 and World War 1 of course, the penultimate events in human history since the fall of Babylon. Despite that, Rias had never looked at it closely, but Harry had studied the battles of that war quite a lot. She felt he could've been a history teacher too, but he seemed happy teaching English.

But what were really interesting were the discussions about tactics, which again had tied into Harry's dislike of chess. Harry used anecdotes, small unit tactics from World War 2 as well as what Rias knew was his own history. In return, Rias had told him some about her brother's old fights during their people's civil war, so it had evened out somewhat in terms of information shared. But the discussions had been very informative, making Rias understand the importance of things she had neglected to think of.

First among them was the importance of terrain. Knowing the terrain when your enemy didn't was a game changer. The advantages of height, movement, chokepoints, natural barriers, and knowing where your objectives were and what your enemy was going to try to target. All of that could be a major force multiplier. This was why she and her peerage had been spending an hour each day on a rotation just moving around the city unseen. They had already fully mapped out the school, now they were doing it to the rest of the city. Not that any of the terrain in a city is actually enough to stop a Devil's movement, but it can be used to hide us from our enemies.

Communication was another aspect that Harry had harped on about. A small unit with a decent communication grid could fight like a much larger one, but you also had to make certain that you are keeping your communications a secret. The fact that the Allies had been reading the Nazi's mail for so long was used as an example of that, though he also used a more personal one, selling it as something a friend had passed on to him.

While in a Rating Game communication devices were provided for both teams, that was both in a Rating Game, not real life. Further Rias was worried about the second aspect: someone able to listen to their communications. While this was supposed to not be allowed, there was no doubt that someone, like Riser-aho, could bribe the referees to let him have access to his opponent's communications. Thus she had begun to think of ways to communicate both through magical and technological means.

Rias made a few more notes under the heading of using the terrain she'd thought of that day walking around school, then another about air power. None of her peerage could fight as well as in the air as they could on foot and that was something she'd need to address. Either train me or Akeno to do so, Akeno for preference. I'm more of our family's magical artillery, even if I don't want to be so immobile as one of those things.

On that topic Rias made another note, "Equivalent of bombs? One shot? Link possibly to crystals and containing Power of Destruction."

After that, she spent a few moments going through what they had discovered about risers peerage, making specific plans for most of them. Their experience and Rating Games was a concern, but Rias felt that they could be overcome by adaptability, constant movement, and never allowing themselves to be pinned down in one place. Taking out his queen will be necessary, she thought, A few well-placed bombs from Yubelluna could turn the tide, but is there any way to turn that to our advantage?

Writing that thought down, as well as a few more notes about teamwork and defending from specific types of magical assault Rias finished for the night, staring at the three pages worth of notes she'd written out on just the idea of condensing her Power of Destruction abilities.

The rest were mere outlines in comparison that would need to be filled out further. But Rias had at least four or five days' worth of experiments to run just from her notes on her Power of Destruction now. That's good enough for a Saturday evening she thought cheerfully powering her computer down and standing up from her desk. Peeling out of her clothing and heading towards her bed, she allowed her thoughts once more to drift to Harry Potter, feeling the flush of desire going through her at the last memory of him again, before once more setting it aside to think about her Queen, Akeno.

It's probably not obvious to anyone but me, but I think she truly has begun to have feelings towards Harry though I'm uncertain of the depth of it. And I'm equally uncertain what I think about that since my own feelings about Harry are chaotic at best, She thought as she slid under the covers feeling the satin sliding against her naked skin. I really do care for Harry, maybe even admire him. His friendship has become an important cornerstone of my life over the past month. But there is a large gap between that and love. It could become love so Maou damned easily though, she thought, remembering his smile as they talked about how she had saved her peerage member, his admiration for that and his admissions that he too had a 'people saving thing'. So being with him was definitely an attractive prospect, but sharing him? Beyond sharing him with Lily anyway? That, she had mixed feelings about.

Among Devils, harems were considered an everyday fact of life. It had been brought about by the sheer number of Devils which had died in the war against God and the Fallen, most of whom had been male since there were female Devils to begin with. After that, it had been seen as a way to bring their numbers back up to an acceptable level while also making certain that the Devils with the strongest inherent powers, like the Gremory's Power of Destruction, was passed on. Later it had become even more important as concerns about pure-blooded Devils being bred out of existence grew.

Many of the couples Rias knew were in fact harems. Her father's peerage was his harem, while he also had married her mother and loved her. Many of their friends had similar arrangements. Indeed, her Onii-sama was seen as rather unusual, perhaps even perverse, for only having a single wife and no harem. Then again, those who thought that way were very careful not to speak too loudly about it where would could get back to the woman in question. Grayfia was the second strongest woman in Hell after all.

Rias had known all that her entire life. While she personally thought that her Onii-sama and Grayfia seemed a far more stable relationship she had never really seen a problem with her father and mother's arrangements. So long as Rias herself was allowed to marry for love, which was part of the reason why she loathed the arrangement her parents had come up with for her, she could see being part of a harem. So long, that was, as everyone in it loved one another and she was treated as an individual rather than an object.

Rias knew she had loved Akeno for a long time now, and despite her constant teasing and over the top sadism if Rias had to share with anyone, she'd rather share with her best friend than anyone else she could name. And it wasn't as if Harry would ever treat either of them like Riser treated his peerage, nor would he ever take advantage of Koneko. It was very obvious he saw her as, if not a second daughter, then at least someone like his own daughter: very much off-limits. So there was that. The question then became, would Rias herself become jealous of Harry's affections if it came down to it?

So easily, she thought to herself shivering a little as again her thoughts went back to the discussion they'd had that day. It could become love so easily, but not yet. Especially with my upcoming so-called marriage to Riser. Gah, I hate him so much!

Rias didn't just hate Riser because of his attitude or the fact it had taken her chance of love away from her. She had also researched how Riser treated his peerage and it flew in the face of everything she had ever been taught, not just as a Gremory but as a proud woman. Riser liked to dominate his lovers and ordered his peerage around like they were things rather than people. There were even rumors of how he had degraded some of them for the benefit of some of his friends, trading their 'affections' for other things he wanted, or just to show his friends what his friendship was worth.

Shuddering at thought off her she forced her thoughts to move backwards, back to Harry and what might be there if she dealt with Riser as she hoped to. Which was to put him six feet under somehow, but that was probably asking too much.

I wonder what kind of lover would Harry be? …He would be solicitous yet also somewhat demanding that his partner be fully into it, she thought, letting her mind go there now, her hands slowly going down her body. He would explore… she shuddered, her fingers finding her nipple and would like to probably be explored at the same time. Most definitely a slow burn sort of person I think… though he could probably also go for quickies if he was of a mind. But the first time, no the first time it will be slow and sensual and…

OOOOOOO

Harry woke up the next day after sleeping in for once before he had a proper English breakfast along with a sip of anti-hangover medicine and coffee blacker than Riddle's heart as he thought about the previous evening. Needless to say that not only had his drinking continued when he'd gotten home the evening before, Harry hadn't been able to move past last night's events for very long.

Dammit Kalawarner, why'd you have to go and do that? Was your pride so important? Or did you really just lead me on all this time?

Shaking his head Harry downed half the coffee in one go, Harry blanched at the taste, but the impact of the caffeine did its work, knocking his mind out of the rut it had been when he fell asleep. Still, I can't do anything about it. I'm not about to go back to her and say all is forgiven, that's up to Kala. I will not be manipulated! But that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it in fact, I'm bloody well crushed.

And that other woman, Yubelluna, Harry thought, pausing as he looked out the windows of his kitchen. I hope she finds some way of getting out of her relationship. It's obvious she isn't happy with it.

Little did Harry know, but on the other side of town Kalawarner was also despondent about last night's events. But instead of trying to push on with her life as Harry was this morning, she had decided that the best way to silence the little voices in her head was to get as drunk as possible. That was hard for Fallen to do given their beyond human metabolism unless they had access to certain plans that the Grigori planted which they could stir into their drinks. Since she didn't, the only solution was to drink enough to float one of the human's supercarriers and hope that was enough.

Harry left after breakfast to pick up Lily since Sundays were always the day he spent with his daughter. He found her and her friends awake and chattering excitedly to one another as they were picked up one after another from the host family's house. He spent a few minutes talking to the parents, before lifting his daughter up in his arms. "And did you have fun?"

"Yep," Lily said with a chirp in her voice. Then she looked down at herself and her tummy. "But it was more of a sit-down kind of fun than a rush around kind of fun. Can we go on a run? I have a lot of sugar type energy to burn off."

"That sounds like an excellent idea love." Harry replied. He in no way wanted to deal with Lily while she was on a sugar-high for the rest of the day. With that in mind, the two of them spent a few hours just running through the city. After that they had a small lunch out before returning home.

Once there the two of them entered the backyard where, screened from the rest of the world through the numerous wards around the place, Harry stood across from where Lily sat, bowing grandly as if to an audience. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages please put your hands together for the amazing, the all-powerful the extraordinary Harry Potter's magic show!"

Lily laughed and clapped, pulling out her dad's cell phone and powering up the sound of a crowd cheering.

"Thank you thank you," he said grandly. "This show will astonish, this show will amaze, but it will also make certain that you understand one thing above all else: Magic can be dangerous, but it can also be very fun, and it is always amazing."

This was something Harry had begun a year before. Ginny and those born into the magical world, indeed many muggle-born, seemed to treat magic as an everyday thing, to lose their wonder of it. Harry didn't want that for his daughter: he wanted her to always retain the joy and wonder in magic that Harry had when he first interacted with the magical world. Some of that had worn off in his case admittedly, but he still retained a lot of the love of magic that had driven him since he had taken control of his life. So every other week Harry would put on a show like this for Lily so that she never took magic for granted.

Harry gestured to either side, not even needing to speak the word at this point as he conjured up two water elementals. Then he began to conjure other things in the air, which swooped and flew around Lily. "Now, can I have someone volunteer from the audience?"

OOOOOOO

While this was going on, Rias had woken up as usual on Sundays and headed down to breakfast with Akeno, Koneko and Kiba. Since it was the weekend, Akeno would be preparing the meal. Despite that, Rias was not looking forward to this conversation one bit.

When told about how their auras had influenced Harry, Akeno was just as shocked and appalled as Rias had feared she would be. It was both a blow to her pride and her sense of morals. But Rias quickly hastened to tell her that it hadn't caused that large of an issue thanks to Harry's self-control. Akeno wasn't certain she believed that, but seemed to calm down from her initial horror. Rias figured she could work with that until Akeno had gathered enough courage to talk to Harry on her own.

Kiba too was rather appalled by the implications in terms of what this meant in terms of the way the girls reacted to him.

"Are we going to pass this on to Sitri-sama?" Koneko asked. Of all of them she was the least surprised about the spiritual presence thing, and the one who cared least. She knew her own presence hadn't been influencing Harry in that manner and she didn't think it was doing anything to Lily either.

"Yes we will. In fact, I sent her an e-mail to meet us at the clubhouse this afternoon. I'd like Sona's help with some experiments." Rias smirked. "And I seriously want to see her face when she realizes that some of the trouble we have with the student body as a whole might be down to our spiritual presence rather than their perversions."

"…I would not put much stock in that at least not when it comes to the Perverted Trio," Kiba said hesitantly. "I have talked to a few students who went to the same middle school as those three. They were all certain that the three of them always acted the way they are doing. Now, they could be feeding off one another's perversions, but that's not the same thing as those perversions being given power by our auras."

"We'll see tomorrow. Whatever the case is with those three, I think we all need to figure out a way to control this." Rias replied.

"I'm certain that's part of why your parents were fine with you moving up here full-time, Rias-sama," Akeno said, her voice somewhat dull as she stared off into the distance. Despite Rias's assurances to the contrary, Akeno was now very worried that the few glimpses of attraction she had seen in Harry came from her spiritual presence impacting his self-control rather than any actual attraction, physical or otherwise. That hurt, that hurt a lot. And Akeno resolved to talk to him about that tomorrow.

"What sort of experiments do you want their help with?" Kiba went on.

"Nothing dangerous don't worry," Rias said, smiling somewhat lopsidedly at 'the Prince'. Akeno came back to herself at that too, sending her wicked little smirk at Kiba. Kiba's attraction towards Tsubaki Shinra was well-known among the rest of his peerage, as was her interest in him. It remained to be seen if either would be willing to make anything from that.

"So what do you to have planned for today?" Rias asked Kiba and Koneko. "Training?"

Both of them nodded. As the more physical fighters, they spent longer training themselves per day than their King or her queen though that wasn't to say that Rias or Akeno took it easy. "Yes, we'll be using the training room for the afternoon. Then we'll start working on our magic for the evening."

Koneko pouted at that. She had shown no aptitude whatsoever for magic, even having issues with a few familiar related spells. Rias wasn't certain if that was because of her nekomata nature, or because the nature of a Rook fought against using magic for anything but heightening the Rook's chosen durability even more than a Knight's nature fought against anything not speed related.

"Don't worry Koneko-chan," Rias said, rubbing her Rook's head and smiling as she always did as the younger girl leaned up into it purring happily. "You'll get there eventually."

"I Know, still irritates," Koneko murmured.

"Well if you do well, I'll take you to that cupcake place that opened up downtown recently. Amazing cupcakes or something like that?" Rias asked, looking around at the others.

"Fantastic cupcakes," Akeno said with a smile while Koneko perked up noticeably. "You don't have to perform a perfect spell, but I'd like to see some effort tonight okay?"

Koneko nodded rapidly at that, and the quartet broke up. Akeno and Rias headed up to shower and change before leaving, while Kiba and Koneko entered the training area.

They were met at the front gate of the school by Sona and Tsubaki. "Your email you had some information to pass on and a proposal?" Sona said without preamble. While she was fine with being at the academy on Sunday she would not be happy I she had been called out like this because Rias was being overdramatic.

"Yes I do, and my prize will be your help with the few magical experiments today if you're free." Rias asked as the quartet fell into step with one another heading towards the occult research clubs building. "I think I might have discovered out a way to power up our peerages even more than with the peerage system in the first place."

Sona pushed her glasses up her nose cocking one eyebrow behind them that her friend. "It sounds interesting. And you want my help to analyze what's going on I presume?" Sona was even better at analyzing and figuring magic than Akeno was. "But while I might learn something of benefit there, you will have to pony up this information before we get to your proposal."

"Potter sensei passed on some upsetting information to me yesterday." Rias began, opening the door to the ORC's clubroom. Akeno immediately made for the teakettle, making all of them some soothing tea.

"Really, he shared something?" Sona asked, nodding thanks to Akeno.

"He shared something about us that he found out," Rias said grimly, before going on to explain what Harry had told her. "If it's true, then if we can figure out a way to control it ourselves to pull those auras back inside us as it were, maybe some of the issues the students will go away."

Sona's eyes gleamed eagerly at that. The Perverted Trio was not the only headaches she had to deal with just the most prominent ones. Anything that could alleviate that was a good idea. "Yes, that information is more than worth the crystals you requested. Tsubaki?"

At a nod from her president Tsubaki quickly peeled off, heading towards the school building and the student Council room. There she came back with several trays worth of different elements after having teleported down to hell and the Sitri estate.

The four of them worked on the project throughout the rest of the day, and did make some headway. It turned out that some magically treated crystals with hint of iron to their construction could contain spells. Once defensive and absorbing spells were placed on them anyway, which was very different from their normal modus operandi. Unlike Wizards, devils could only really branch out so much from their specialties. As a Sitri, Sona's was water magic and warding, while Rias, as a Gremory, specialized in the Power of Destruction and teleportation arrays. Tsubaki was a magnificent magical and emotional sensor, and could use attack magic if needed, while both Tsubaki and Sona had come up with ways to duplicate or fill in paperwork via magic. Akeno was a lightning specialist with a bit of warding and teleportation magic, enough to set up arrays just like Rias.

So whether or not Rias was right in that the Power of Destruction could be contained would take a long time to figure out, the work of weeks at the least. But they had a strong start, and both Sona and Rias knew that they could continue this. Indeed, Sona's power of water might be easier to contain than the Gremory's traditional power.

"Riser won't know what hit him," Sona said thoughtfully, while staring around at the damage they had done to the ward arrays of Rias's magical laboratory.

"I know isn't it a lovely thought?" Rias said, not showing any sign of the rest of her thinking. Especially if I demand that we make in an actual fight instead of a Rating Game!

"You're going to make your peerage a far tougher proposition. And your cross-training?" Sona didn't even bother prevaricating with that question, after all if she was cross training some of her peerage It was obvious that Rias, with her smaller yet more specialized group would do the same after Potter sensei's little diatribe against chess.

"Oh yes. Yes indeed I have been doing that too. We won't ever be swords-people like Kiba but we can at least act like martial artists if need be. And Kiba and Koneko's cross-training has had some surprising results."

"But these," Rias gestured towards the vast array of crystals all around them these represent an attempt "Take a distinct strength further. Play to your strengths, but if you can make your weaknesses traps for the unwary," she said aloud.

"That sounded like a quote," Sona asked interestedly.

"Potter sensei said that to me once when we were talking about tactics."

"I might have to join those discussions of yours. And here I thought the two of you simply flirted with one another constantly." Sona said, her smile becoming rather thin.

"Not even one twentieth of the time," Rias said happily.

Sona nodded looking at her friend thoughtfully. "I wonder if Rias realizes that her face lights up when she talks about him. She didn't say anything about that, it wasn't her place to. While the two of them were close friends, they had never really gone into the whole sharing romantic aspirations thing that girls often did.

Moments later Sona and Tsubaki left, leaving the Rias and Akeno to clean up a bit before heading out themselves in silence.

Akeno broached the subject first. The one that had been hovering in the air over them the entire day. "Ano, Rias-sama"

"Rias," Rias interjected, turning to her friend, her face serious. "For this discussion I think it best we leave aside any formalities."

Her lips twitching at that Akeno pressed herself up against Rias's side in a way that would no doubt have made the three perverts die of blood loss. Rias on the other hand simply rolled her eyes, waiting for the real blow to fall as she put an arm round Akeno in turn.

It wasn't long in coming. "Rias I want to talk about Harry Potter. I want him. What do you think about him?" Akeno asked her tone serious and her eyes attempting to bore into Rias's.

Despite a flush at the blunt way Akeno had spoken Rias responded. "I think that I could seriously fall for him, but that I'm not going to rush to it. I also think pushing beyond a certain point will not work either. I, I don't think your method's working Akeno. Rather, it feels the more you try to get his attention physically, the more he sees your attempts at flirtation as either a personality quirk or a game. If you really want a chance at him, I think you're going to have to really open up to him."

Akeno paused, pulling away and still staring at Rias intently. "And, and if I can?" Akeno wasn't certain she could, but she felt it might be worth the price. "If I can, what about you?"

"Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Rias said. She then laughed. "Besides, as I've already told myself, I'd have to share him already with Lily, so sharing with my best friend isn't going to be that much of a hardship. So long as we don't let jealousy come between us."

"That makes sense I suppose. After all, I'm not certain of my own feelings beyond my wanting to be with Harry-san in a relationship. So putting off on a deiccsion on this makes sense for now." She paused, then went on more slowly. "But your friendship means more to me than my hopes in that direction Rias. I want you to know that."

"I know. And I feel the same. Whatever happens, I want us to remain friends," Rias replied, nodding her head sharply.

"Agreed." With that Akeno continued to pull away, walking side by side with her friend and king now, the serious discussion over with. For now.

OOOOOOO

To the chagrin of student and teacher alike Monday rolled around once more, though there were of course people who were looking forward to it for various reasons. Harry wanted to see what Rias and the others had come up with in terms of their spiritual presence. He was also interested in following up a few of the local tests for the local equivalent of wizards. The next few would allow him to legally install a fully warded area where he could practice a lot of the more destructive spells. He still didn't think that the local's actual attack spells were all that much, but some of the effects of their rituals could be, and their longer incantations were things he really wanted to try out. They wouldn't be worth much in a one on one battle, but if Harry could stand back and bring the pain from a distance, they could be devastating.

There was one irritating bit of work coming from that direction. The date for when the notes about how he had dealt with his werewolf curse he had promised to share was coming up that Wednesday. He'd been working on it off and on whenever he had the time, but that had been very rarely. It had taken second fiddle to his ongoing education and his actual job. That meant Harry would have to rush through it in the next few days.

He didn't see any of the Devils that morning, the student council was in a meeting and he didn't want to interrupt them and Rias and her group hadn't arrived before homeroom rang. So the first time he saw them all was in class, and he had to bite back a smile as he noticed Rias staring down at her hands rather than paying attention, obviously concentrating on something else entirely.

Akeno was much the same, though her face wasn't simply intense like Rias's. She looked almost angry, showing the kind of self-loathing that Harry had seen during that one bad day she'd had a few weeks ago.

Ah, no need to question how Akeno took the news then, Harry mused, activating his aura sight for a moment as he was at the back of the room in one of the other students was reading. Just as he thought the two of them were attempting to pull in their auras, but neither of them were succeeding very well.

He could see Rias trying to pull it in, see her spiritual influence fluctuate a little shrink slightly becoming less diffuse around the area, but it was pretty obvious that any real control was going to take a while. Akeno was even worse, her aura almost seeming to actively fight itself as she tried to bring it under control.

I suppose it's just like any other kind of muscle he thought, cancelling the spell. He then moved through the classroom, lightly tapping Rias on the shoulder and flashing her a surreptitious thumbs-up then a wait sign as he moved to the front of the classroom before calling on the next student.

After class thankfully the seniors had lunch as always on Mondays so Rias was able to stay in the classroom for a few moments while the rest of the class exited, moving through the classroom to stand by Harry's desk. With a glance to the open door Rias said surreptitiously, "That piece of information you passed on to me on Saturday has been disseminated to the interested parties, Sensei."

Harry nodded at that, standing up and pulling out his lunch box. "And how did everyone take it."

"Hard," Akeno said quickly, breaking in the four Rias could apply. "We're not happy about it. On many levels," she said looking at him. She seemed to fidget, her legs moving this way and that, crossing her arms under her chest and pressing said chest outwards in a uncomfortable parody of her normal flirtations. "I am not happy about this information or its implications."

"Don't blame yourselves," Harry said with a sigh. "You had no control over it, heck you didn't even know you had aura like that at all. That is an oversight from your parents I think. I've seen an adult who had full control of that power."

"While I'm tempted to ask you where you saw said adult, I'm afraid you're only half right there. It was not an oversight but a deliberate lack of education in my parents mind, or at least we think so. We think they wanted us to figure it out on her own," Rias supplied.

"Some kind of rite of passage thing I suppose?" Harry mused. "Can't say I approve, but maybe it makes sense in your culture."

"It does," Rias replied with a sigh. "However, that's not the main reason I wanted to talk to you, or rather it is, but not on that subject, rather I wish to offer a trade. Sona and I would like you to use whatever ability you have that allows you to actually see these auras of hours, and see if they affect the rest of the student populace."

"I've had thoughts along that line as well, but what's in it for me?" Harry asked semi-jokingly. He would have volunteered to do this of course, seeing it as part of his job as a teacher to watch over his students. However, Rias had made the mistake of offering another trade. And while Harry still didn't really understand women despite having been married for a number of years, one thing he did know about women was that they rather liked the whole give-and-take.

Akeno cut in before Rias reply. "Why what ever would you like in trade sensei?" she asked, smirking as she ran one hand through her hair flirtatiously.

Grateful that the desk was between the two of them Harry shook his head. "Nothing like that I'm afraid."

"Sona and I are willing to take the grading for that last mandatory test you ran for the sophomore and freshman classes," Rias replied simply. She shrugged her shoulders as Harry looked at her in surprise. "I know that's a lot of work, but what we're asking for is important to us." Rias didn't say anything about Sona's special anti-paperwork spell, since she knew that would impact the worth of what she was offering. I might be nice and he might be a friend, but I am still a Devil after all.

"And in all honesty," she confided looking at the doorway again. "I am not going to be taking my day-to-day classes seriously any longer. It's time for me to be serious about… college."

The pause there was significant, and Harry read into it the words 'and other things'. What those other things were he didn't know, but he surprised himself by feeling a certain amount of thrill at the idea that maybe their acquaintance was one of those things, whatever he wanted to call this relationship between them. It isn't like we're going out, but we're certainly edging just slightly friends at this point. Is there a word to describe that kind of transitive state between the two?

"Understood," he said aloud, no sign of those thoughts appearing on his face. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Perhaps after our scheduled sit down yes," Rias said with a smile as the three of them moved towards the doorway.

Akeno exited first, making certain to look over her shoulder as she did at Harry and swish her hips just a little more than was natural.

At the sight Harry groaned and looked away, shaking his head at her antics.

"I'll talk to her," Rias said, frowning after her friend. "This incident hit her worst in her pride I think. And she might go out of her way to make you react for a few days because of that." Darn it Akeno, this is not what I meant when I said you should talk to him.

"She's a beautiful woman, though she certainly isn't the only one here that could be said about," Harry said obliquely now that they were out in the hallway. There were no other students around at the moment, but it never hurt to cover his bases. "She shouldn't let it bother her so much as I said. It was entirely out of your control."

Rias flushed at the gentle compliment, Harry's words meaning more to her for some reason than most such she'd heard before. The two of them then walked down the hallway in silence following Akeno before the trio broke up moving in different directions at an intersection in the hallway.

The rest of the day passed simply after that. There were no issues with Harry's classes now. By this point all of the students knew what to expect from Harry and also knew that on Mondays he was particularly stern when it came to issues which might interrupt class time. Even the Perverted Trio had learned that after a single comment praising a girl's breasts had earned them a week-long detention helping Harry clean the gym and pools.

On the other side of the spectrum, Harry's continued use of his aura reading powers began to hurt his eyes, but didn't show anything conclusive about the impact Rias and the others were having on the local population. There did seem to be some tendency towards noticing those with larger auras, but it did not seem to impact anyone's personalities beyond making them a little obsessive. The more diffuse the aura in the area, the less it impacted people, and that impact never lasted longer than it took for Rias and the others to leave. There didn't seem to be any long term impact. Essentially, what this meant was that the Devils might have themselves to blame for how many fangirl they had, but not the actual actions of any one individual.

One thing Harry did note was about the Three Perverts during lunch. He sought them out during that period since their activities were the ones he was most concerned about being influenced.

When he saw the Trio, they were pouring over a porn mag behind a math book. Since several of the Student Council were around the area along with Rias, Koneko and Akeno, Harry knew they were within the area impacted by their conjoined influence. Yet he didn't see any sign of that influence within them.

From this, Harry concluded that somehow their perversions, diffuse and without specific direction, somehow protected them. Matsuda had the weakest aura of the trio, with Motohama the strongest. All three perverts had stronger than average auras for some odd reason. Or I could say that their aura only influences people in proportion to the amount of interest the people already have? Ugh, this is so confusing. Not to mention Issei's aura…

On the surface there was nothing unusual about Issei's aura. It fell somewhere between his two friends, which while stronger than most of the other students weren't all that strong in comparison to Sona and Rias's groups. Yet there was something… off about it. That was the only way harry could describe it. at one point as Harry looked at them he saw his aura pulse, or perhaps the better word was ripple? It was as if Issei's aura was a pond, and something had just disturbed the water.

It wasn't there for longer than a millisecond and it didn't repeat, but it made Harry uneasy slightly for some reason he couldn't define. Probably best to keep that to myself for now until I know what's going on there. Definitely going to read more of the book on souls and such tonight, hopefully I'll find something there that can explain that.

Besides the bit about Issei Harry shared everything else he had seen with Rias and Sona in the Student Council room after school. Both of them were pleased with the fact that what both called a lack of control wasn't the reason behind how so many people acted, though the fact some of their popularity stemmed from their auras wasn't as welcome.

Harry decided to alleviate some of that concern with humor as he finished. "So while you have only yourselves to blame for the number of fangirls you have, what those fangirls and boys do is entirely up to them. Congratulations, we have no successfully proven that hundreds of teenage girls and dozens of teenage boys are capable of perverted thoughts and actions. I will hereby go and alert the media."

"That is actually scant comfort." Sona replied, though she did allow her lips to form a small smile at the same time. "I had known that bringing in boys this year would lead to more issues, but I hadn't anticipated so many. Nor that we would see such actions from the women. Did you know there was a bit of a catfight yesterday in the art club? One of the girls actually tried to talk the boyfriend of another girl into posing for nudes."

"They are young teens, with all the issues that entails," Harry said, his own lips twitching in humor. "I'd wager there was more going on in the years before Kuoh became coed than you realized, simply because without men around women can be a lot more subtle than otherwise."

"Perhaps," Sona replied, looking over at Rias. "That doesn't mean that we are going to stop trying to control our spiritual presence however. Thank you for your help on this Sensei." She paused then, looking at Rias for a brief instant before going on. "On another topic, I understand that Gremory-san and you often discuss other strategy and tactics games beyond chess? I am interested in such things as well, and was wondering if you would mind my joining such discussions."

Hmm, now that's another clue to their race I suppose: that they are interested in combat, fighting and such things. Do they fight among one another then, or someone else? It must be more in the form of set piece battles if two women as intelligent as Sitri and Rias hadn't thought beyond studying chess before this. Or perhaps combat competitions?

Shaking those thoughts off Harry replied easily. "Certainly, though those conversations tend to occur randomly rather than at a set time. For now however, I believe it is time for you two to see to the payment for my aid."

With that Harry dropped the stack of weekend essays and national style tests from the sophomores and freshmen. Then he pulled out the answer key for the tests, and a list of words and rules to follow for grading the essays. "And with that ladies I'll bid you adieu. I have my own ongoing education I need to see to tonight."

Rias and Sona said nothing as Harry lef, then Sona leaned over to her friend. "I take it he has no idea about the paperwork spell?"

"Not a one," Rias replied cheerfully, pulling the essays toward her, splitting the bundle in half. "Mind you, your spell won't help with these essays, so we are still paying something for his aid."

"True." Sona waved a hand over the remaining stack, her other hand hovering over the answer key, a green pen set on top of the paper. A tiny sphere of magic traveled through her body from that hand to her other hand where it hovered over the paperwork. An instant later the spell was done, and the tests had been graded. "But I think Potter-sensei would still be irritated we had to put forth so little effort to repay his own."

"He's mentioned a time or two that he liked pranks when he was younger, sad something about a 'serious influence in his life', whatever that means." Rias said, reading through an essay from a sophomore who had taken on the Tolkien series for their weekend reading and was halfway through the Hobbit. It made for a fascinating if rather disjointed essay. "We could just say this was our pranking him. He'll let it go with that."

"I bow to your superior knowledge of the man in question." Sona replied.

There was a tone to her voice that made Rias look at her friend sharply, but Sona wasn't looking at her, instead she had pulled out the first essay on her portion of the pile. Frowning, Rias decided to let that rest for now, turning back to her own work, eagerly wondering what would happen next.

Outside the main school building, Harry met with Kiba as he exited the school heading towards the gym. "I think it's time sensei," Kiba said seriously, though his lips were twitching briefly. "I think we need to enact Operation Anti-Stalk."

Harry chuckled, and nodded at the other young man before following him back towards the gym. My own work can wait for a little while longer I suppose.

OOOOOOO

The week passed uneventfully after that, with only a few interesting occurrences here and there. The first of which was indeed Kiba and Harry's plot to switch his underwear with that of one of the perverts:

Harry and Kiba stood alone in the men's changing area, though this time it wasn't because they had one of their spars after everyone else had gone home. Instead it was because they were in here during the morning, a time when very few were at the school at all, let alone in the changing rooms.

Walking down the aisle, Kiba frowned as he looked on the names on the lockers. While the girls had far too many people to be assigned a specific locker, there were so few boys in the school that they had room to spare. As such they all had assigned lockers here just like every student did in the entryway for shoes and other things. "Are you certain we'll find what we're looking for?"

"Yep. Call it a study of the individual my young friend. Motohama and Hyoudou at the very least will have left either their shirts or some other garment behind, it matches the type of people they are." Harry said on the other side of the benches, looking down the row of lockers as he did.

"This is rather disturbing on many levels you know." Kiba said, halting. "Ah, here's Matsuda's. What about Motohama?"

"He strikes me as more of the brains behind the perversion, and rather meticulous at that. Couple that with the fact he's not as athletic as the other two and while I have no doubt we could find something in his shoe locker, we won't find anything out here." Moving over to Kiba Harry pulled the locker open. The fact said locker didn't have a lock on it, much like all the others in the room, was somewhat strange to him, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Inside behind three porn mags of the voyeuristic variety was a shirt and even a pair of underwear. "Oh my, we've found a treasure here," Harry said snarkily. "Now, where's your locker?"

"Remind me to fumigate my locker later," Kiba muttered, as he moved over to open his locker, whereupon the two of them Motohama's clothing inside, removing the clothing within, which Kiba stuffed into another, unmarked locker far away from the one he'd been assigned "Now let's get out of here."

Later during Sophomore PE, Matsuda got in trouble for not having a change of clothes. Calling it an honest mistake, Harry let him off for the period, letting him watch instead of participate in the day's calisthenics and upper body exercises. He also pretended not to notice two girls leaving the class ten minutes before it was time to actually dismiss them back to class.

Inside the men's changing room the two girls were looking around in something approaching horror. "Guh, how do the boys live like this?!" The room actually wasn't that bad, but there was a lot of clothing and towels strewn everywhere, so maybe that was a reason for their horror. There was also the smell, which even Kiba would have labelled as fragrant.

"Here it is, let's just get some of Yuuto-sama's clothes and get out of here!" One of the girls quickly opened the locker, pulling out the shirt and "Oh look, he's left a pair of underwear!"

"Hot damn, you have any idea what some of the others would pay for that?" said the second one, taking the shirt her compatriot passed to her. Sniffing the shirt she expected to smell… well she wasn't certain what to expect, aftershave, cologne, some manly deodorant no doubt, like Old Spice.

What she smelled instead was an overwhelming musk of some kind. It wasn't unpleasant, but it certainly wasn't clean-smelling either. Odd, but the girl put that to the side for now.

Her friend had also paused, looking down at the underwear thoughtfully. "You know, I never expected Yuuto-sama to be a tightey-whitey's man. Or to have such a small waist." That was saying nothing about the fact the underwear was kind of… crusty.

Just then the two of them began to hear noises outside and with one startled glance toward one another they raced away, slamming the door to Kiba's locker closed. They barely got out of the boy's room and into the girl's before the gym doors opened and the rest of their grade walked in.

At first despite their misgivings everything went well. Then later that day, the two girls overheard a conversation that they really wished they hadn't. "I still don't know what happened to my shirt or my underwear darn it. I had at least three more days wear on those before they were due to be washed." Matsuda mused.

"Maybe some hot chick took them to fuel their jilling fantasies," Issei mused, then shared a look with Motohama. "NAAAH!" they said as one, causing Motohama, who had been the first speaker to roar at them angrily.

None of them noticed the two girls nearby who looked as if they were going to be sick and had also swallowed a lemon each. They looked at one another a brief instant than scream as one before rushing into the gym heading into the girls locker room. "Unclean!"

"How long until they think to blame me for this, do you think?" Kiba asked as he and Harry exchanged salutes from where they were eating lunch under a tree near the gym. Two other boys were nearby in what had quickly become the non-perverted boys eating spot. That it was within hearing range of this little play was a mere bonus.

"Honestly, I doubt they'll ever do so. I'd bet they'll blame one of the perverts, maybe even think their scheme was overheard and turned on its head by one of them," Harry replied. "No way would they ever think their precious Prince would be so cruel."

"Perhaps I should disabuse them of that particular notion," Kiba mused. "While I believe in treating women in a chivalrous manner there is a difference between that and being some kind of fantasy prince for them all.

"You'd have to act a complete cock I think to do that," Harry replied bluntly, causing Kiba to cough on his next bit of food. "Not that it isn't tempting to see the chaos that would result…"

"Let's not then," Kiba said as he cleared his throat. "And you did that on purpose!"

Harry also began to get to know some of the student Council during this week as individuals rather than simple extensions of the council president. This began by seeing two students arguing in the hallway at the end of the same day Harry and Kiba's little trap had taken its first victims.

Both of the arguers were girls, sophomores Harry recognized from his classes quickly. They seemed to be arguing about a science project, gesticulating angrily to one another as they tried to place blame or something, Harry was too far away to hear them over the tumult of hundreds of teens eagerly leaving school. As he watched from over everyone's heads, one of them pushed the other suddenly, and Harry began to make his way through the crowd of students in the hallways towards them.

However before he could get to them, another student had intervened grabbing the girl who had pushed the other by the shoulder and pulling her back in while waving a finger at the other one. "All right that's enough! Just because it's the end of the day doesn't mean you can act out like this on school property. Now come on Narukami-chan, what started this?"

"Well, Yura-san here said that…"

The girl who had intervened was named Tomoe Meguri, a name that Harry knew he had seen once before, much like Himejima, Akeno's family name. She was a cheerful girl with reddish-brown hair that was normally rather unkempt in comparison to most and normal looking brown eyes. She was a sophomore from 2-D, the worst class from that grade, though her grasp of English placed her pretty much in the middle of the grade. She wore a band of black on her upper arm, marked with the kanji for Disciplinary Committee, which was a rotating job the student council saw to, each of them taking a week before moving on to other jobs.

Now that the crowd had begun to disperse, Harry became aware of perverted giggling from one side of the entryway. Turning slightly he saw Matsuda and Issei staring out from an abandoned classroom right behind where Tomoe was standing dealing with the two arguers.

Issei looked around at that point and spotted Harry staring back at them narrow-eyed. While what they were doing wasn't exactly perverted or against the school rules, Issei was still liable to flee before trying to argue that point with the man who had become the Perverted Trio's personal nemesis. The fact Matsuda had just pulled out a phone and was about to take a picture of Tomoe's skirt clad rear as she walked in front of the two troublemakers had him pulling his friend back inside the classroom. "Abort!" he said in a harsh whisper. "Potter alert!"

By the time Harry had gotten through the still dispersing crowd around the previous, the two boys had hightailed it opening a window and hopping out of the first floor window out to the ground beyond. Huffing in irritation, Harry turned to back to the trio of girls still talking.

By this point Tomoe had listened to both the arguers points of view and as Harry started to watch again she nodded slowly. "Okay, this sounds more like a real lack of communication than anyone trying to really skive off work. You've still got time to get this right before the due date for that project, I know since my own teammate and I haven't finished with our own yet. So get together and actually talk, without shouting or anything else."

The two arguing girls nodded reluctantly, though both looked as if they'd rather not continue working with one another after this. The Tomoe didn't let them say anything however, going on quickly. "But you both have to be disciplined for having it out in public like this. Narukami, you pushed Yura first, so that'll be a full detention for you. Yura, you'll come by the Student council room at lunch to right lines for shouting and using curse words in public. This is a school ladies, not a street corner."

Harry watched as Tomoe dealt with the twosome, then walked up to her nodding respectfully. "That was evenhanded and very well done," he complemented.

Tomoe looked over at him and blushed a little, poking her fingers together. "T, thank you sensei." she said, looking away towards where the two students said just exited the school after their fellows. "Um, it was my first time actually having to do anything as a Disciplinary committee member."

"Then you did very well. I do have a small a suggestion though," Harry said, praising the girl before offering some advice. "Have a word with the science teacher and tell him about this, so that he knows not to pair those two up in the future. And next time, instead of lines find something a little humiliating. Not detention, but something in public perhaps? Helping the janitor sweep the entryway, or replacing the students on duty to clean her homeroom?"

"Hmm, that could work, and we could even use it instead of detentions." Tomoe then grinned at Harry, her cheerfulness almost infectious. "Is there a reason you're so quick to come up with unusual punishments Potter-sensei? Personal experience perhaps?"

"I'm afraid I cannot answer on fear of perjuring myself," Harry relied drolly, making the girl laugh. "Now, do you want me to speak to the science teacher, or will you? And can you tell me why the Disciplinary Committee is called a committee when there's only ever two people on it?"

The other time he got to know them was in the freshman gym class on Wednesday. This was easily the most pleasant for Harry in many ways. He didn't have the disciplinary issues he had with the sophomores, often made him wonder why all of his trouble children were in the same grade. Nor did he have the distraction of Rias, or Akeno and her ongoing attempts to get a rise out of him. The freshmen were also extremely competitive one and all. And it had to be said the freshman boys had done a much better job in integrating into their grade than the majority of the male students who had tested in rather than simply be transferred on from the local middle schools.

Harry realized with a start as the class broke up into two different teams for a football game that he once more had four students who were of the same group as Rias and the others. Two of them were sophomores who had missed out on PE the day before due to having worked with the Student council on cleaning up a major mess in the library. Three students had fallen ill with stomach issues. One had thrown up, and then the others had done the same in sympathetic reaction.

It had amused and impressed Harry that such a massive mess hadn't been left to the janitors but the Student Council. They had been helped by Narukami, Motohama and a few other students who had detention that day. Their names were Tsubasa Yura and Reya Kasaka.

One of the captains, Tsubasa was a polite, outdoorsy type of girl who, while a little taller than Sona, was built along the same liens, though perhaps with even less up top than her president. She often volunteered for DC member duties, and seemed the most physically active of Sona's group. She had taken the position of striker, the player in the middle of the field.

With her as goalie was Reya. She was a shorter girl, but also a bustier one, something that was obvious in their gym uniforms despite Harry's unwillingness to acknowledge it.. Indeed, Reya was a little bustier than Tsubaki, who in turn was larger than Sona. Reya was a cheerful, soft-spoken girl, with her brown hair done in long braids who had immediately taken the position as goalie.

Koneko too had chosen to play as goalie, and she stood stolidly in the goalie box, her hands clenched at her side as she crouched down, a look of eagerness on her face. Reya in contrast was pacing anxiously, but there was a distinct gleam in her eyes as she glared down the field towards her opponents.

The captain of Koneko's team was the only freshman member of the Student Council, a baby-faced emotive girl name Ruruko Nimura. She had brown hair like Reya's but hers was done in longer ponytails and while she was the same size height wise as Reya, she had little to no curves to speak of. Something that seemed to anger both her and Koneko if the glares they were sending Reya's way past the rest of her team was anything to go by.

On a whim, Harry activated his aura reading once more and watched for a moment. It looked as if there was a distinct difference in power level between these four students and the older ones. Which made sense since he knew that Rias and Sona were the stronger us by a wide margin. So is it age or something else?

Beyond that, the only surprise among the quartet of young girls was Koneko's aura. The others were simpler, their emotions easy to discern, understand and read. But Koneko was a lot more complex than he would have expected from the nekomata. Koneko had corrected his thoughts on that point one morning, though Harry was still uncertain what physical difference there was between a nekomata and a were-cat beyond the two-tails thing.

That was unimportant right now of course. What was important was Koneko's aura. Her aura showed the color of old grief - purple to his senses- though it was fading, and perhaps something else, something he had also seen in Akeno's aura, a mix of red and barely perceptible yellow.

Setting that aside, Harry refereed the football game, though began to notice that perhaps the quartet were taking their competitiveness a little too far. This was first shown by Tsubasa sliding in the grass to nearly take out Ruruko's legs out from under her as she swiped the ball. The fact Ruruko performed a perfect, near Olympic level spin in the air to land on her feet just compounded matters seeing as Tsubasa had run from one side of the field to the other faster than any of the other freshmen could keep up with.

The next instant Tsubasa had launched a strike towards the opponent's goal that most professional football players would have envied. That Koneko somehow got in front of it anyway and blocked it showed that the little nekomata also had some skill.

The next instant however, Koneko nearly flattened the ball with a spike that sent it zooming over the heads of everyone, nearly into Team Tsubasa's goal from her own. Ruruko was there, and she swiftly kicked it in, nearly getting a goal right there.

However an instant later, the ball suddenly stopped in midair following a brief flash of magic. Huh so it isn't just Rias and Sona who can use magic hmmm? That revelation however paled next to the fact that Reya had just used magic in front of a lot of people. Luckily not all her common sense seemed to have left her as the ball continued moving after that brief second, making the rest of the freshman class wonder if it was a trick of their collective imagination. Even better, Reya had hit the ball in a much more normal way, deflecting it out of bounds.

As Ruruko lined up her shot to kick the ball back inbounds and the rest of the teams got ready, Harry gestured Tsubasa over to him in a loud voice. "Before that, Yura-san come over here. I've warned you before about being too competitive in these games. Don't you have something to say to Nimura-san?"

As the two girls stood in front of one another Harry spoke quietly. "All right, I'm not going to say that you can't compete like… that… in your own time, but I don't think your seniors would appreciate you standing out so much like that in public that, would they?"

Both captains looked sheepish, understanding the seriousness of what he was saying. He ruffled their hair one after another then looked around at the rest of the class, whispering the first sentence before shouting the last. "Pass that on two your goalies first thing and remember keep your powers in check. If you can I'll bring in some ice cream to share tomorrow with your grade all right?"

Both captains cheered up immensely at that while the rest of the freshmen. If there was one thing that most young girls -regardless of species- could agree on, it was that sweets were life.

Later after the class ended, Koneko paused a moment looking at Harry as the others moved off toward the changing rooms. "Cheater."

Harry shrugged understanding what she meant easily. "I prefer to see it as using my superior knowledge of how to motivate my students to good advantage. Besides, are you complaining?"

At that Koneko raced off without reply, and Harry laughed, moving to the center of the football field to grab up the ball.

Later that same day, Sona stopped by the teacher's lounge and joined a discussion Harry, Rias and the History teacher were having about World War 2. The fact the history professor was losing an argument against Harry was not lost on her and she smoothly joined the discussion.

Eventually the other teacher left in a huff, and Harry shook his head, turning to Sona and Rias with a smile. "Some people don't like their nation's mistakes rubbed in their faces." His smile turned wry as a twinkle entered his eyes. "I can't fatho why. After all my countrymen have our mistakes rubbed in our faces every time we see a map of the world or study history at all. Now, what were we talking about before that argument began Gremory-san? Oh yes, you were wondering about…"

The conversation went on from there. During that talk Sona realized the same thing that Rias had: that whatever he was or wherever he came from, Harry had been a soldier, and one who had led people before too. That meant he was a treasure trove of real life experiences and Sona became even more interested in continuing talking to him. She couldn't let her friend/rival get too far ahead of her after all.

On Friday however, there was a break in the routine that wasn't nearly as pleasant as those instances. Harry was preparing to leave for the day, having no plans to meet up with Kiba that day and wanting to have a nice night in with his daughter without any homework looming over their heads. He was stopped however by a gentle cough from one side of him as he exited the building. "Potter sensei, can I walk with you for a bit?"

Harry paused, looking at Akeno thoughtfully. She had not come to talk to him before this, seemingly shying away from being alone with him, despite his attempt to make her understand that she was not at fault for her what her spiritual presence did, instead just continuing her flirtations. Though thankfully she had never taken it too far as she had that one day she had been depressed. Despite that, Harry had hoped that his words to her on Monday would've also had some impact but it hadn't. Instead Akeno had used her flirtations to keep him at arm's length once more, protecting her real self even as she tried to soothe her wounded feminine pride.

"Certainly Himejima-san," he said, gesturing her to join him. He walked out of the building and the school slowly, with Akeno beside him asking a few questions about the homework assignment he had given them that weekend. Like the other grades, the senior grade's homework and in-class work was designed to make learning fun and create an immersive experience as Harry could contrive. It was a marked contrast to how they had been taught before, and it wasn't unusual for one of the seniors to talk to him about it after school or during the lunch period. The other grades didn't have as long to get used to a single way of learning and had adapted more quickly, with the freshmen once more adapting the fastest.

But Harry knew that was not what Akeno wanted to talk to about. Still, I have to applaud her use of subterfuge.

The moment they exited the school, Akeno began. "Why not me?" She asked brought bluntly.

Harry looked at her, frowning and not understanding the question. Realizing that, Akeno elaborated. "I understand our spiritual presence now and how it was effecting you. I understand your initial unwillingness to get involved us on many levels. But you have to and you reacted to Rias, use allowed Rias close. You haven't discouraged her getting close to as you have me. Why?" she asked.

Her voice would've sounded plaintive, but it sounded more hurt than demanding, and Harry sighed. "You are far more open with your body than your emotions," Harry began slowly. "You flirt constantly with me whenever we're close but you've never actually tried to simply strike up a conversation with me on topics other than school related things. You've volunteered to watch Lily, but never without flirting with me first. You aren't letting me get close Hime… Akeno-san, nor have you shown in any way that you were interested in me more than physically."

"But that's not all. You come on a little too strongly. A part of me likes it, a part of me likes a lot," Harry said, winking at the girl and causing her to chuckle a little despite the serious nature of the discussion. "But that part doesn't control the rest of me."

He sighed, shaking his head and holding up a hand to halt Akeno from speaking. "I am not the sort of man who would be willing to enter into a purely physical relationship Akeno. I've had this discussion recently, though I'll admit that the fact I wasn't has caused me some issues of late too. I'm willing to start a relationship on the basis of physical attraction, but I'm not going to continue it. And I'm certainly not going to even do that with students."

"So you're saying you won't touch Rias?" Akeno asked, going off on a tangent for a second, her face disbelieving. "You've flirted with her occasionally and I know it."

"Are you asking out of jealousy?" Harry asked. He couldn't deny Akeno's words after all, but he wanted to know where this new line of questioning was coming from.

"No, it's not jealousy." Akeno said quickly and easily. "I love Rias-sama. She's my best friend, she, she saved me years ago, gave me a home, gave me a family! I could not in good conscience try to get between you and her. I'm just wondering how far you would take that statement."

"I am still unhappy with the idea of being attracted to a student at all. If, and it is still a big if, If Rias and I get together, we will take it very slowly. I know what trouble rushing into things can cause far too well for anything else." Harry said, shaking his head. The fact he could even acknowledge the possibility of being in a relationship with Rias sent a thrill down Harry's spine and created a lump in his stomach at the idea of being involved with a student.

"I see…" Akeno said, biting her lip to keep from laughing aloud. As if Rias would allow that!

Whatever else might be going on, Akeno had watched Rias's heretofore nonexistent libido begin to come alive after Harry's arrival. The very idea that Rias, a young woman and a Devil who was eager to explore these new feelings, would be willing to wait was absurd. Still, let the poor man keep his delusions for now.

Instead Akeno focused on something else, going back to the real meat of their discussion. "So what you are saying is that I have to be willing to open up to you emotionally just as much physically. I can understand that." She stopped then, pulling Harry into a small alleyway between two buildings. Before Harry could even protect, she was pressed up against him, her breasts pressing into his chest so much they flattened as she stared up at him. Akeno was a few inches shorter than Rias, who in turn was a few inches shorter than Harry.

While the feeling was incredible, even without any accompanying impact on his emotional control, what Harry saw in Akeno's face made Harry stop any attempt to move away he might have tried. He saw lingering hurt there, as well as longing and something else, something beyond appreciation or interest. It was the same thing he'd seen in Rias, not love, but something that could easily become that if given the chance to grow. "But does that mean that there could be room for me within your heart if I do open up?"

Licking suddenly dry lips, Harry was forced to nod. "Yes, Akeno. Rias and I aren't written in stone after all. We might not get together at all. And while I have to say again I'm not happy with the idea of being attracted to my students, I am honest enough to admit that the attraction is there in both your cases."

"Good," Akeno murmured, fighting an urge to lean up and kiss Harry that very moment. But she knew that would go too far right now. Nor did she wish to talk about the idea of her and Rias possibly sharing him. That was still a very raw idea after all, and something that was far in the future anyway. Even though they did love one another like sisters, sharing a man was a step beyond what they were truly comfortable with, though it beat the alternative of possibly losing their friendship over him in any number of ways.

Instead she pushed away, still looking at Harry through her eyelashes. "In that case Sensei, I will be seeing more of you around from now on." With that she walked out of the alleyway, smiling happily.

OOOOOOO

Raynare was getting angry, but she kept a lid on her anger for now. Prideful as she was in her own abilities, Raynare knew that there were some who stood above her in the Grigori in terms of power, skill and authority, and the individual on the other side of the phone was one of them. "I realize that you keep saying that Hyoudou's Sacred Gear is the more important one, but it's taking so long for to activate I'm uncertain if it's worth the effort of sticking around for another few months waiting for it to become powerful enough for me to confirm that!"

She bit down hard on her lip, going on in a most controlled tone quickly. "If you could tell me how you knew that in the first place, I'd be much more willing to stick my neck and those of my team out on a limb here. The Devils in this area might be young but as much as I hate to admit it they are still a threat, and they're very active. That doesn't even mention the other issue that's been added to the deck."

"Werewolves die if you chop off her head just like anyone else," the voice on the other line said. It sounded almost bored, but it was also an intense sort of voice, it's tone carrying a darker undercurrent that caused a shiver down Raynare's body composed of part pleasure, part fear. "As for how I know, the boy had a blood sample taken a few years ago. One of our agents in the hospitals of Kuoh passed it on as interesting."

Some of the more powerful Sacred Gears left a mark on the bodies of their users even before they gathered enough power from the world around them to activate fully. It often showed up in bloodwork and took the form of being physically stronger, tougher, etc. Raynare supposed it could explain the way Hyoudou seemed so durable at times. The kendo club girls had, despite injunctions to the contrary, taken it on themselves to punish the Perverted Trio for their activities.

At any rate, Raynare knew the Fallen, the Devils and even the Church kept an eye on such things like blood samples and unusual occurrences in the news or other things of that nature that might lead them to sacred your users. They weren't very good at it, since the discovery that Sacred Gears could leave clues in an individual's blood was a recent discovery by Azazel himself. Raynare was also surprised that they even had an agent in a hospital that was in a Devil's territory.

She said so loud, and the voice on the other line chuckled evilly. "How naïve you are my dear," he said, as if he was speaking to a small child. "It is because that is Devil territory that we have agents there in the first place."

Raynare's eyes widened at the implications of that, and she leaned forward unconsciously her voice an eager hiss. "Does that mean that were ready to act openly?"

"We are slowly moving in that direction," the voice on the other side confirmed. "While the Devils and the Angels have benefited somewhat more from this peace than we Grigori, we needed it too though I hate to admit it. But we are organized once more, and we are prepared. The Devils, thanks to their peace-loving Maou and the civil war that occurred among them, are not. We might not be able to attack the gates of Heaven, but the Devils on earth are much more susceptible then the Vatican or other seats of power that Heaven has."

"Do not jumped the gun the voice warned," it's tone even more commanding than before. "But be prepared. That Devils Sacred Gear is important Raynare, whatever you might think."

With that the man on the other end of the call hung up, but Raynare was too happy about the news to care about that bit of rudeness. The war restarting was just what she wanted, a chance to prove that she was better than most people thought she was, then her two wings implied.

Hearing the sounds of footsteps Raynare looked over to see Kalawarner walking out the door, shaking her head with a sneer for the other Fallen. And maybe, the war will make something of that bitch too. Then she sobered, glaring angrily at the wall. "But dammit, that means I have to keep up this act for another few months! FUCK, I am getting sick and tired of this schoolgirl shit!"

But he did say that I couldn't go after the other one first, Raynare mused. If we can figure out a way to convince him to join us… or maybe make it seem as if he just moved away with his family… something to think about. I'll talk to Mittelt about that this weekend.

Kalawarner didn't even acknowledge Raynare's presence, simply continuing her walk out the door. She'd tried all week to drown her issues, but without the special spices that would allow the beer and other drinks she'd drunk to actually have an impact, she'd had no luck whatsoever doing so. She walked through the town almost blindly, thinking about what had happened and trying to understand why the hell it was affecting her so much.

Even now a week later Kalawarner's mind was still in turmoil about what had happened. Gone was her shock that Harry had been able to block her influence: that at least she could deal with. What she couldn't deal with was the ongoing battle between her sin-filled ego and the sudden grief-stricken realization that Harry, despite never allowing the two of them to consummate their relationship, had become someone important to her. The fact she couldn't describe what she felt for him better than that also bothered her. So on the one hand she was dealing with the rage of having been talked to as Harry had, of being rejected. And on the other, these unusual emotions and thoughts which refused to let her sleep.

Doesn't it remind you of what you felt when you found Antonious with another woman? Said the same snide voice that had been bothering her all week. When you realized you had Fallen for a false promise? When you realized you had made a life-altering mistake?

Antonious had been a Greek man who among others had provided the Angels with information on the terrain they had been fighting in at the time. He had been injured by a Devilic incursion, after which Kalawarner had been assigned to help look after him for a time while he healed. The Greek man had been very handsome, with swarthy skin, dark curly hair, and had seemed utterly enamored with Kalawarner. His attentions had been so raw, his courtship so blunt and overpowering in its fervor that Kalawarner had no defense.

But Angels could not engage in sexual intercourse with one another, let alone with a human, without being married first in the eyes of God. So Kalawarner fell, and had to escape from the Angel's camp with her lover. For a few years they hid away from the conflict, Kalawarner being unwilling to join the other Fallen in their uprising. They had built a small olive farm together, and worked the land like Adam and Eve for years, although Antonious and Kalawarner were much more active at night than those prudes.

Then one day she made Antonious lunch and brought it out to the field. There she found him rutting in the dirt with a slave girl from a nearby plantation. Seeing that, hearing Antonious' words to the girl, so like the ones he had said to her, had shown Kalawarner that what she thought of as love hadn't been, it had been mere lust.

Since killing both of them Kalawarner had embraced the power of lust, delving into causing and being the object of lust for others. There was no going back for her after falling of course, so like all the Fallen before and since Kalawarner had decided to revel in her Sin. She sneered at emotions beyond that of friendship, neither interested in or looking for more for a time. And never, not once since Kalawarner had fallen had she met any man, Fallen or human, who was interested in in her beyond her body. She used that against them, strung them along with her body, took and gave her pleasure before manipulating or ending them as needed. She'd come to revel in completely breaking a man, of seeing him so consumed with lust for her that he forsook everything else.

And with every new conquest, her disdain for humanity grew, just as the hole in her life did. From this came her hobby of reading romance novels and making corrections. She knew something was missing from her life, but had lost the ability to understand what that might be.

Coming out of her reluctant introspection Kalawarner shook her head as she finally understood what was wrong with her: she could now understand what her life had been missing. And now the one time I meet a man who might be willing to accept me for more than my body, what do I do? I push him away.

Coming out of her thoughts, Kalawarner found herself standing on top of the tallest building in the town. Laying back on the hard concrete of the rooftop she stared up into the darkened sky. Father help me, what do I do?

That was the first time she'd ever done that since Fallen. While saying the word God didn't hurt Fallen Angels as it did Devils, they were still rather 'religious' about not using the term, or the more familiar Father which all Angels had used often when He was leading them. For many it tied into how they felt towards their former allies, contempt and disdain for their narrow minded view of the world, as well as a sort of sense of guilt for having Fallen in the first place.

It certainly was that way for Kalawarner. But the impact of having been turned aside by someone she had invested so much time in, and though she had not consciously realized it at the time, so much of her motions, had broken something inside her. Now with no one to talk to, no one she could trust, Kalawarner turned to the one thing that she had never tried before. Father, what should I do? How do I, should I apologize? Where do I go from here?

Alas the stars didn't hold any answers for her, and Kalawarner sighed, standing up and heading back to the church. It looked as if this was one issue she'd have to figure out on her own.

OOOOOOO

That weekend marked the end of the first month into their new training regime and Rias had set that date as the time for a real-life test. To that end she and her peerage took a short daytrip out of Kuoh on Sunday. Since it was a daytrip and it was her peerage doing it rather than her club (a scholastic definition of nothing else), Rias had no obligation to tell Harry about it, though she actually had to stop herself from asking if he and Lily would like to come along so important had the two of them become to both Rias's life and that of her peerage. She didn't though because of the nature of the trip: Rias had decided to be proactive about getting her peerage some more real life experience.

Oddly, the decision had come strangely hard to her. Rias had to actually force herself to think about leaving Kuoh like this, something which bothered her for a few moments after she overcame the feeling, but then the worries disappeared from her mind and she planned out the trip without any further hesitation. There had been reports of a serial killer on the loose somewhere in a town a little ways away from Kuoh and both Sona and Rias had looked over the reports on the individual and decided it might be a rogue from one of the Three Factions. The nature of the killing, the fact no bodies had been found, and the fact there was no pattern of the individuals killed, all pointed to that.

Rias personally thought it was a Rogue Devil. There weren't many Fallen who weren't part of the Grigori, and those there were she had heard about were peaceful, war weary individuals who had no truck with any of the factions and just wanted to be left alone. Angels of course didn't have rogues, though the church did. But their rogue exorcists tended to be very splashy in how they killed people, wanting to make certain other 'sinners' learned to repent of their sins. And there were very few Christians for them to either prey upon or hide among in Japan anyway.

Rogue Devils on the other hand? They had a single pattern regardless of strength, type or mental stability: all of them ate their victims, growing stronger through ingesting human bodies like old time Devils from before the Great War did. Hence why there would be no bodies. And while Japan was open to all three of the factions and even had its own Yokai Association, there were vast segments of it which were not explicitly claimed as territory by the association of one of the three factions. Indeed, that could be said for all of Asia.

Using their familiars to spy out the area Rias and Akeno took over a local library's community room to use as the control room for their search for the rogue. Koneko and Kiba used their own feet to do the same, searching throughout the day for clues or a trail. There was no way a Rogue Devil would operate in the open, so there was little chance they would be spotted.

It came as no surprise to Rias that it was Koneko who found something. "Found an odd scent." She reported, speaking into the little runic array around her wrist that allowed them all to communicate. "Leads into an old overgrown park. Looks wrong too."

The others quickly converged on Koneko's position, and soon all of them stood on a nearby roof examining the area. "There is indeed a repulsion field over the place, not that it needs it. This place looks like the kind of run down park where homeless people and drug dealers make their home," Akeno reported, her pretty nose wrinkled in distaste.

"True enough." Rias murmured, staring at the small park. It wasn't a large area, just a basketball court, tennis court and a central large building that was no doubt the park's public restrooms, the area separated by overgrown bushes and walls from the rest of the town. All of it looked overgrown in fact, and every surface she could see was covered with graffiti, with seemingly no attempt to clean them having ever been made.

"Right… Akeno set up an repulsion field around the entire area. After I make certain there's no one in the buildings around the park, we'll move in. Koneko first, then myself. Kiba, you'll bring up the rear, and then cut to either side as we enter the park to try and flank the Rogue Devil. There's only one place he or she can be hiding, in those restroom. So we'll make for that. Akeno, you'll be our over-watch."

Everyone nodded, though Kiba looked somewhat constipated at the idea of letting Rias go into danger first. Still her tactics made sense. "And when we actually engage Buchou?"

"You and Koneko will take it out, then myself if need be. Beyond that, Akeno and I will try to box it in if need be for the two of you to take out." Rias replied.

A moment later both Akeno and Rias had finished their work. There were no witnesses, and now with the field up there wouldn't be in the future. Furthermore, any damage done to the area would instead be done on the simulacrum rather than in the real world. Not that I think anyone would notice or care if we wrecked this place, indeed we might be doing the town council a favor if we did. Shaking that thought off, Rias nodded to her peerage. "Now!"

Wordlessly Koneko leaped from the roof, landing on the wall separating the basketball and tennis courts, racing along it towards the central building. Already there was movement inside, visible through the shattered windows.

"Showoff!" Rias shouted, racing after her nekomata rook with some difficulty along the wall. Kiba hadn't bothered, leaping down onto the tennis court and moving along a diagonal to one side of the bathroom while Akeno had leaped into the air, her wings pushing out of her back and allowing her to hover there.

There was a crash from the building they were racing toward as the Rogue Devil within burst out the side of it. It was grotesque, as Rias had known it would be, since eating human flesh distorted the bodies of the devil who sunk to that level. That had been true even in ancient times.

This example of the breed was male, or rather had the upper body of a man at least. His legs were gone, replaced by a long, massive body that looked like that of a centipede perhaps. Each leg clattered won with the ringing of something like metal on concrete. It had six arms, only two sets of which looked human, though very long with multiple elbows in them. And the devil's head had twisted into something that looked like a horrible cross between an ape's and a bug.

His tone when he spoke made it clear his mouth was no longer of a shape to allow proper words. "You young fools, you've come to your deaths!" With that shout it charged toward Koneko with its upper body while it's lower body flashed to the side like it was a tail aimed at Kiba.

Instead of allowing that to happen, Rias gestured, with one hand and shot out a bolt of Power of Destruction. The lurid red beam, powered down dramatically from what she could have thrown slammed into the Rogue Devil's body, right behind where it had twisted toward Kiba. Instead of deleting the Rogue Devil's entire body from existence the beam cut through it, disintegrating only a small portion of his body. The portion aimed at Kiba fell to the concrete twitching.

At the same time, Koneko had sped up ducking below and through the thing's arm, grabbing at its lower arms and holding the Rogue Devil still by grabbing it right behind the shoulders. As the Rogue Devil screamed in pain from Rias's attack Koneko twisted, throwing the thing's still massive body to the side like it was a tree trunk. "Going down."

Waiting for the thing below was Kiba, who had dashed around the still flailing tail. Before the rogue could recover from the fall, his blade caught the Rogue Devil straight through the forehead, cutting his head in half like a hot knife through butter. Kiba was even able to step back from the blow so as to avoid getting any blood on himself, using a minor protective spell to make certain.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Akeno said, a pout on her lips as she landed beside Rias. But then both of them noticed that the devil's lower body was still twitching, and seemed to be growing, almost regenerating, shifting to look like a smaller copy of the Rogue Devil. The upper half was also continuing to twitch as if it was trying to do the same. "Oh goodie, it looks like I'll have some fun after all~."

So saying Akeno began to rain lightning down on the lower body with a smile that was made of pure sadism. Her face flushed as she watched the still transforming thing writhe and twitch in agony, her eyes becoming half lidded as she stared at her handiwork.

Koneko shook her head and looked away while Kiba chuckled nervously, taking a sharp step away from the sight of the group's queen having her fun. Rias didn't even bother looking, instead lashing out at the upper body with her Power of Destruction, erasing it from existence with a single blast of perfectly controlled power.

A few minutes later Akeno had finally decided to put the thing out of its misery and reiterated her earlier statement. "This was a good idea in some ways Rias-sama, but in terms of getting us real experience it was a bust. We need to find an opponent to push ourselves." She said sadly.

"Agreed. While our tactics seem to work very well, we need to continue planning as a team," Kiba said. "We did well here, but it was against a single, and quite weak, opponent."

"Koneko?" Rias asked, wanting to make certain all her peerage had a chance to speak.

"Agree we need someone stronger," Koneko said, speaking in her normal tone just as she had done during the short battle. "But liked fighting in someplace new. Need to work on using terrain more."

"I agree with all your points. We're going to have to look into modifying the area simulacrum spell in the training room so we can work with your suggestion Koneko. As for stronger opponents, I suppose we could set up some cross training with Sona's peerage," Rias mused as she made certain there was no evidence of the devil's. "Akeno, when we get back I'll want you to take over researching Riser's peerage. We'll want to know as much as possible about them for the future. At the same time, I'll talk to Sona about the cross training idea."

"Bring in Potter-san too?" Koneko asked, omitting the -sensei as she habitually did outside of class, though she didn't call him Harry like Rias or the others had occasionally. "Could be interesting."

"The moment he and I sit down and decide to share our mutual secrets I intend to ask him for help in that manner at the very least," Rias replied, shaking her head with rueful chuckle. "I'll admit that I had stopped thinking about getting him to join our peerage a few weeks back. That man would be no one's follower, and I honestly doubt my remaining evil pieces would be enough to turn him into a devil anyway."

But there are other ways he could help me… Rias thought. And the idea of one such, while still somewhat repugnant in some ways, was very alluring in others.

"We could use Lily against him," Kiba said. His tone and body language both made it clear he thought the idea repugnant, but knowing what his king was facing in the future, he felt it had to be said, even though he knew there was no chance of Rias going for that idea. "If it was a difference between us holding her hostage or worse, then he would join."

Koneko's eyes flashed while Akeno scowled, lightning crackling from her hand, but both stilled as Rias held up her hand. She glared at Kiba regally, her blue eyes hard as stone, infuriated by the question to an extent that went beyond even her other friend's response. But of them all, Kiba had the hardest life, and while he acted the knight in many ways, he also was more willing to do anything he could to defend his friends.

When she spoke however her tone made it clear that this topic would not be brought up ever again. "I realize it had to be said my knight and I know you did not mean it. But I will not condone any attempt to coerce Harry, or use Lily against him." She did not ask if Kiba understood, he was already nodding and her glare would have made the words redundant in any event.

With that Rias gestured them all around her and she created a teleportation array around them. The array connected to the permanent one hidden in the ORC's room, and they appeared there a bare second after they disappeared from the sight of their small, unsatisfying battle. All of them were still quiet, anger radiating off the three women while Kiba simply looked saddened, but almost grateful to have gotten that nasty concept out and rebuffed so quickly.

In an effort to break the awkward silence, Rias asked. "In any event, does anyone else have an idea of how to make our peerage more powerful? I've already thought about bringing in martial arts trainers and various weapons to see if any of us take to them. Has anyone noticed anything among the student population or from anyone else?"

After a few moment's thinking Koneko raised her hand. "Last time dealt with perverts, smelled something around Issei. Something strong. Could be a Sacred Gear, maybe?" Koneko had taken on the job of guarding the other freshman girls at times, and once or twice had come close to actually nailing the Perverted Trio, almost catching them in the act enough to count as a strike against them.

Rias scowled at that. While she had little body modesty to speak of, that didn't mean she liked being leered at and the Three Perverts seemed to have no other way of looking at an attractive woman. There is a difference between having a man look at me in such a way that I know he finds me attractive and being looked at like I am simply a slab of beef to sate their lusts! Before meeting Harry she might not have been able to make that distinction, but now she did and while she liked the first, at least coming from one particular man, she didn't like the second at all. Still, if the pervert has a Sacred Gear that could be a game changer…

"Would bringing in Issei be worth wrecking our team dynamic?" Kiba asked eager to move with the change of subject after the earlier unpleasantness.

"And is it better to approach him now, figure out his Sacred Gear and start training him, or wait to see if his Sacred Gear makes having to put up with his antics worth it?" Akeno asked. While she found the perverts and their out of control hormones a source of amusement she knew Koneko didn't and Rias too didn't seem to like them either. Having the peerage all get along was just as important in her mind as adding to their overall strength.

"That's a good point. If it's just gotten to the point where we can tell he has a Sacred Gear at all, it's obvious that Issei doesn't have much in the way of magical potential, which would of course be helping the awakening process along. I'll need to think about that for the future." Rias thought for a moment then nodded slowly. "We have four more months at the least to work with. We'll observe Issei for a month, then make the decision to approach him or not based on what we're able to tell of what he might be holding. I'll also talk to Sona about him, and anyone else among the students who might have a Sacred Gear. We'll see how that goes."

The next day Rias once more came into school early. She had no reason to do so since Sona was always busy in the morning, she just did it out of habit and the fact that Akeno had woken up early enough to help make their boxed lunches for the day. The two of them walked through the school, saying hello to the other early arrivals and discussing in low tones any further ideas the two of them could come up with for training themselves and the others. Until they were able to find some enemies that could really push them however, they were at a standstill.

When they passed the teacher's lounge they were surprised to see Harry there through the open doorway. "Potter-sensei? What are you doing here so early?" Rias asked.

Harry looked up, smiling that little quirky smile of his that made both Akeno and Rias smile in turn. It was a sign, just as the way his eyes softened as he looked at them, that he, like Rias had thought about the day before, realized and appreciated the fact they were beautiful, but that he saw more than that too.

He was the only one in the lounge at the moment, the other teachers already on campus busy in their various classrooms. "I could say the same to you two. Lily wanted to head to school to help set up for a school event, one of the older grades are putting on a play and one of her friends is involved in it. That left me with time to kill, and I decided to come here rather than go back home. I suppose I'm just used to getting up by this point given all our early morning meetings."

While Rias flushed at that, feeling inordinately pleased by his words Akeno laughed happily. "In that case, sensei, I'll make us all up a pot of tea."

"And I think I might have just the thing to kill some time with sensei," Rias said, smiling and pulling out a copy of the strategy game Go. "I believe I mentioned to you once that this game was a much better example of what real warfare could be like? I had wanted to see what you thought about it, so what better time than now?"

Harry smiled too, waving Rias into a chair. "We'll just have to see, won't we?"

OOOOOOO

The next week was incredibly busy for Harry, giving him little time to concern himself with much of anything beyond his own education in the local magical school and his work as a teacher. He had three different tests that week as part of said ongoing education, making him wonder why the locals liked giving out so many damned tests. Beyond that, he had gotten back a report on how the notes he had written on his lycanthropy had gone over, made corrections on Sunday, and send it out again on Monday.

He didn't even have time to spend with Lily let alone his students. Thankfully, when he asked for help Koneko was almost eager to pick up the slack with Lily. She earned herself more than one head rub during that week, and this also resulted in the first real heart to heart between the two of them after Koneko became the first Devil to actually be in the Potter's house a few days into the week.

Before that, she would pick up Lily and bring her to school where they would meet with Rias. Rias would spend an hour or so supervising the two younger girls' homework. This in turn let Harry use that extra time to get rid of any teacher related work he had to do that day. Today however instead of letting the club members watch her for him at the club, Harry offered to pay Koneko to come over to watch Lily at their home since he had no teacher-type work to do.

Entering the Potter's house Koneko was rather jumpy, looking around her, her hairs on end by the feel of the wards around her. While they lacked the raw power of the wards she had seen in her time as Rias's Rook down in Hell, they were somehow more reactive too. She couldn't explain how, her new studies in magic were not going well, but the wards somehow knew she wasn't part of the family that lived here. They therefore saw her as a threat.

Beyond that Koneko was somewhat bemused by how normal the house was. There was no sign of magic being used anywhere in sight, though Koneko could still feel the wards watching all around her. When Lily pulled her through to the backyard before dinner she saw that it was well-stocked with toys and as if it was used pretty constantly, but there was no sign on the trees or anything else of there being a werewolf living here. There also didn't seem to be any sign of a room for Harry to spend his full moon time in, which Koneko had thought was a must for any werewolf.

But then again, she had also thought that werewolves and nekomata were natural enemies. Maybe Rias-sama was right, it really does depend on the individual. Though why she kept on mentioning the names Felicia and Jon Talbain, or what an OTP is, I have no idea.

Going back inside Koneko found herself in the living room. There was an ultramodern TV and assorted gadgets there along with some very nice, fluffy and durable looking furniture. This was a house made to be lived in, Koneko reflected, not looked at.

The kitchen doubled as the dining area and the amount of good cheer this place had seen practically radiated to her, with dozens of little pictures, art projects and other things there. The only oddity that stuck out in the kitchen was a single large tin up on top of the fridge. Marked 'cookies' the tin had immediately grabbed her attention during dinner. But when Koneko attempted to get at it after Harry went up to his office, her hands just seemed to slide off.

"Hehe, that's the magic tin. I get a cookie from that if I score higher than 90 on a test." Lily confided. She gestured to a chair from the small table set into the center of the kitchen. "I've tried to get into it too, but daddy did something to it so only he can touch it. You want to try again? Maybe you can get past whatever it is from on high?"

Koneko looked at the younger girl her eyes narrowed. "No. TV or play around?"

"MM!" Lily said, hoping up and grabbing Koneko's hand, pulling the unresisting nekomata behind her. "C'mon, we can do both."

Later that night Koneko discovered that even Lily's room was normal, sort of. There wasn't a lot of pink as Koneko had thought there would be given Lily's age, but then again her room hadn't had much pink in it when she was that age either. There was a large princess-style bed, but the sheets on it were from Princess Mononoke, an anime Koneko recognized from having watched it with Rias numerous times. Her alarm clock was an old beat up thing made entirely of wood, but seemed to work. There were also numerous pictures around, mostly of Harry and Lily, but with several other people too.

Looking at them Koneko recognized most of the people from Lily's description of her friends and family. She paused though as she noticed that while there were a lot of pictures with Harry in them, there were only a few of the ginger-haired woman Koneko knew to be Lily's mother. None of the Devils had heard anything about the woman other than her name and the fact that Harry was divorced, and those few pictures interested Koneko, given how rarely even Lily talked about the woman.

As if sensing her looking around Lily smiled and pointed at the pictures. "That's my Mother there with Daddy and I on a trip to the beach." The woman's bathing suit wasn't precisely conservative, but she didn't look comfortable in it. "Heheheh, we found out that Mother and I burn easily. Not fun afterward, though Daddy and I got into a competition with Teddy and Auntie Nym as to who could build the largest sandcastle."

From there Lily went around the room, pointing at different pictures and explaining what they were about. She only mentioned her mother about five more times, while she mentioned her father with almost every picture. There was no sadness or melancholy in her tone as she spoke about her mother, it was just a simple fact that she hadn't been as close to the woman as she was to her father.

Koneko asked at one point why that was. Lily's answer was a little more blunt and far more insightful about the matter than most children her age would have managed. "Mother wanted to have a child with Daddy, but she really didn't want to be a mommy. She didn't want to become her own mum I think. She wanted to live her life, and was close-minded to a lot of the things Daddy and I thought was fun. That was her choice." Lily shrugged. "I have some happy memories with her, but not many with just her. I hope she's happy, but I'm not going to let it bother me as long as I have Daddy."

Letting her face form an actual smile for once, Koneko hugged the little girl tightly. "Smart. Very smart."

"Heheheh," Lily said, self-consciously while hugging the taller girl back. "Mmm, you know you're a really good friend Koneko. Almost like a big sister."

Koneko stiffened at that, then a tender look came over her face for a second before disappearing behind her normal unresponsive face again. Without warning she lifted the tiny girl up, getting a squawk of indignation before she hurled Lily onto the bed. "Bedtime for little puppies now."

"Grrr." Lily growled, getting her legs under her on the mattress and then hurling herself forward. Koneko however caught her easily, plopping her back in bed.

After several more minutes of rough and tumble Lily began to grow tired, and Koneko finally got her under the covers. When she tried to pull away however, Lily's hands locked on her sleeve. "Story?"

Koneko cocked her head making an inquisitive sound and Lily let go with one hand to point to a book on the nightstand. It was a local children's book about Momotaro. Nodding her head Koneko picked up the book, and began to read. At first it was in the same monotone she spoke in, but Lily continually poked her side until Koneko gave in and began to read like she would in Harry's classes when he offered sweets.

This was the scene Harry saw when he poked his head in several minutes later. Lily had fallen asleep, and Koneko kept on reading for a time until she finished the page she was on. She then extricated herself from the bed and moved over to the doorway, where Harry smiled at her before gesturing her past him as he turned off the lights. "You really care for her, don't you Koneko?"

"Hmm," Koneko said, looking a little lost in thought now that the puppy had been put to bed. She followed Harry down the stairs and then into the kitchen rather than to the front door where she watched in surprise as he reached up to the untouchable tin and pulled out a large cookie the size of Koneko's face.

Harry winked at her as he handed it over, before pulling out his wallet and handing over some money too for the evening. "Don't tell Lily, yeah? But I figure you earned this."

Koneko took the cookie and money, putting the money away in one of her pockets before looking at the cookie thoughtfully. "Sensei, Lily called me a big sister."

Looking at the young girl thoughtfully Harry nodded slowly. It looks as if Rias was right when she said that Koneko too had a tough life. What was the phrase she used, leave her past behind? "And that bothers you?"

Koneko waved her hand this way and that, indicating she was uncertain. "Always been the small girl, the little sister. It's…nice to be the bigger person." She bit into the cookie as Harry chuckled at that. Licking the crumbs on her face away she went on. "But my own big sister… she left me. Like…"

"Like Ginny decided to leave Lily and I?" When Koneko seemed to be struggling with how to reply Harry went on, sighing faintly. "I don't know what she's said about that, but it wasn't nearly as simple as that.". Then he reached out and began to rub Koneko's head. "But I've no doubt that Lily sometimes asks the same questions you do if she thinks about it: was it something I did that made her go away? It wasn't anything Lily did that made Ginny and I divorce, nor was it anything you did that made your sister leave."

Koneko had heard for years about her sister Kuroka's crime. Kuroka had gone mad through use of Senjutsu, taking in chakra from the world around them, which was tainted by the violence and hate the world had seen since its creation. She had killed her king and several of his peerage before running away, and hadn't been caught since. But while that had made Koneko leery of trying to use her abilities as a nekosha, a sub-variant of nekomata which could use senjutsu, it hadn't really made Kuroka leaving Koneko behind hurt any less. She didn't have very memories of Kuroka's king, who had taken them in, so his death at Kuroka's hands barely mattered to her, though it was the reason why every other nekomata in Hell at the time had been executed.

That incident, though Koneko barely cared about it, was also why the Youkai Association had nearly cut off all ties to the Devils. It was only because Serafall Leviathan, as Foreign Minister had quickly moved to have Hell pay reparations and had even pushed to hand over the Devils who had instigated that pogrom that they hadn't finished the process. But relations between the Devils and the Youkai were still very strained.

"Mm… Know what she did was wrong. Know she ran rather than pay for it. Still hurt she left me." Koneko said in her normal stilted mode of speech.

That didn't really tell Harry much at all about what had occurred, but looking at how tense Koneko was even under his petting her head Harry knew not to push. Instead he simply replied to what she said as best he could. "A person is only ever really in charge of his or her own actions Koneko." That wasn't quite true of course, but Harry felt the bit of oversimplification was necessary at this point. "Whatever your sister's actions, they do not reflect on you. Whatever she did, it wasn't caused by you. Her leaving does not reflect on you, just like what happened to Akeno's mother doesn't reflect on her being of mixed heritage."

Koneko blinked at that, unaware that Harry knew even that much of Akeno's background. Indeed, that was a bit more than Koneko had heard. All she and Kiba knew was that Akeno had been banished by the Himejima clan. Still, now that Potter-sensei said it, she could see there were some parallels in her thoughts to what Akeno might have been feeling.

Seeing Koneko thinking about what he said, Harry went on to give a bit more advice. "I can also say that I have some experience with horrible relatives. But because of them, I learned a secret or two to life. Would you like to hear one?"

When Koneko nodded minutely under his hand Harry went on. "Relatives are chosen for us by chance. Family members, we choose ourselves. They are anything from friends to loved ones and everything in between. All that matters is that they are always there for you and vice versa, that your life is better for them being a part of it. That is what makes a family."

Koneko nodded slowly again then abruptly hugged Harry around the middle, pressing her head into his stomach. "Do you see me like that, like the puppy does?"

Harry laughed gently, hugging the girl back. "I would love to have another daughter, and I would be proud to have one like you Koneko-chan. But I think you already have a family of your own, don't you?"

At that Koneko only could nod once more, although a part of her wondered if someday soon the Potter's family would merge with her own. They remained silent from then on while Koneko finished her cookie and Harry walked her to the door, offering to walk her home. She shook her head at that, hugged him one last time then left, with Harry watching her go.

Once she reached home, Koneko found Rias and Akeno pouring over some notes about their ongoing magical experiments. Both girls looked up with smiles on their faces as Koneko entered. "Welcome home Koneko-chan. Did you and Lily have fun?"

"Mm…" Koneko said walking into the room before she lunged forward, pulling both older girls into a hug that would have cracked a normal human's ribs. For once she didn't feel jealous as their chests pressed into the top of her head, she just reveled in their closeness.

Rias immediately returned the hug, followed a bare instant later by Akeno. "And what brought this on Koneko-chan?" Rias asked gently.

"Nothing bad. Just… just remembering. I'm very glad to be part of your family, Rias-sama." Koneko said, her voice carrying a lot of emotion despite coming out in her habitual monotone.

Akeno and Rias exchanged a startled glance. Then Rias smiled tenderly down at her youngest friend, continuing to hug her back just as tightly. "And I'm happy to have you be a part of my family Koneko-chan, never doubt it."

OOOOOOO

Yet despite the other demands on his time, Harry did have some time in the morning and during the lunch period to spend with his other students. Kiba and he spent time together during lunchtime, their growing friendship a source of interest for many among the student body, while he sometimes met Rias and Akeno at school for some tea before classes began. One day during such a meeting Akeno dropped a small bombshell. "Did you know you've earned yourself a title among the students Potter-sensei?"

"What?" Harry and Rias asked as one which caused Akeno to giggle. After exchanging a bemused look with Rias, Harry went on. "What do you mean a title?"

"Ara, I thought it was self-explanatory," Akeno replied, her eyes twinkling merrily. Luckily both the nature of her face was such that even though her eyes twinkled Harry had no Dumbledore flashbacks for the moment. That would have ruined his appetitive and her day in that order. "Like Rias-sama and I are known as the Two Great Ladies, or Shitori-san is known as the Ultimate Kaichou. Or Kiba the Prince, or Reya and Koneko the …"

"Yes, thank you, you've made your point," Harry cut in, while Rias began to giggle smiling at her friend.

She had been rather territorial at first when Akeno started to accompany her in the mornings to these semi-impromptu meetings. Indeed, Akeno had worried that their attempt to share an interest in Harry would falter at this first hurdle. But seeing her friend once more acting normal, and of course the amusement Rias could get from watching Akeno try to get up early, was enough to compensate for Akeno butting in on the time she liked to spend with Harry. Though she was still uncertain about the idea of sharing him, she was also just as certain she didn't want her friendship with Akeno to weaken because of her slowly shifting relationship with Harry.

"So what's my title then come on, spit it out," Harry said as apathetically as he could.

"You are known as the Emerald-eyed Emperor among the girls while among the boys, the Dark Beast. Tales of your dealing with the Perverted Trio have spread after all." Akeno said, pinching her thigh to keep from giggling, though the pain of course just made her teasing more pleasurable.

"Oh, joy. Do you see the joy I feel about this in my face. Do you?" Harry asked, his eyes and faces as dull as he could make them.

"Ara, but I would have thought many a man would love~ to be in your position. Even other teachers would like to have the… following that you have, s~en~sei" Akeno said teasingly.

"Following? You don't mean…" Harry's eyes widened and he stared at Akeno in horror while Rias cracked up to one side.

"Yes Sensei, you, you Emerald-eyed Beast, now have fangirls. And even a few fanboys." Harry's groan upon hearing her words was everything Akeno could ask for.

OOOOOOO

Thankfully for Harry, the week from hell came to an end, and he had even been able to schedule an appropriate reward: he and Lily were heading on a weekend trip to Kyoto. They were ostensibly doing so to look for accommodations for a similar Occult Research Club trip in a few weeks, but they were really going because Lily was fascinated by the history of the place on the magical side. It was the head of the Youkai Association, a community of intelligent nonhuman locals, like centaurs and mermaids. Only here they had Tengu, horse demons, Kitsune, intelligent monkeys, kappa, and of course, werewolves and nekomata like Koneko. This, coupled with the number of other things there made Kyoto doubly fascinating to Lily.

Though I doubt Koneko is associated with her own people any longer, Harry thought as he and his daughter bordered the train which would take them to Kyoto. The plan was to spend the night in a hotel in Kyoko, and begin their tours the early the next day.

I wonder though which came first, her association with Rias, or her being away from the rest of her race. Not, come to think of it, that there are that many nekomata in the first place. One of the textbooks Harry had read had mentioned the Youkai Association races, and the nekomata, while highly thought of were also one of the races which had severe population issues.

For his part, Harry was just as interest to see the non-magical side of things as Lily. There were numerous temples and religious sites that he was interested in, as well as something called the Philosopher's Walk, which the book on mediation and auras mentioned as a perfect place to perfect one's inner peace. On the other side of things there was also the Inari shrine, which was supposed to be a sight to see.

Thus early on Saturday Harry roused his daughter, and their exploration began. They went to several of the local temples, including the famous Inari shrine, and the Silver and Gold temples. They walked the Philosophers' Walk, went to the Nara Deer Park, which Lily enjoyed, thought the deer did not. They then took a class in how to make local sweets, and spent several hours in the Manga museum, which Harry knew would be a major reason why Rias was interested in Kyoto. The Monkey Park on the other hand showed that monkeys didn't care what either Potter smelled like, and Lily had a lot of fun with the mischievous critters.

"Well, were done on this side of things I think," Harry said, while standing still, allowing a park guide peel away the last monkey from his back. "Shall we go on to the other side of the tracks tomorrow?"

"I want to meet some others like Koneko. They're soft and fluffy," Lily said authoritatively.

Harry laughed, and the two of them walked back to their hotel for the evening. The next day Harry followed directions he had been given from one of his examiners. They slipped through a few alleyways and eventually found themselves near the edge of the oldest portions of Kyoto, outside a historical inn.

Entering the two of them were greeted by two of the locals instead of being greeted by a bartender as Harry had been told they. More than that, once the door closed behind them both Potters could from the smell that the two people facing them were not altogether human.

One of them in fact smelled like another werewolf. He was a tall, broad shouldered young man, possibly a little younger than Harry or maybe the same age. He had with oddly gray hair, heavy shoulders, and a sort of punk rocker outfit along with a bandanna around his head with yellow eyes completing the image.

His eyes also said that he recognized what Harry and Lily were two. He locked eyes with Harry, who stepped forward slightly, pushing Lily a little bit behind him as he stared at the other young man. The two of them remained that way with tension crackling between them, and then the other a werewolf bowed his head in submission. "Alpha."

Harry simply nodded in acknowledgment. With that both of them turned away as if nothing had happened, and Harry examined the second person there to greet them.

This one wasn't getting off as much of a sent as the younger man, but Harry could still smell something like a cow. A demon cow? Demon cows were a mythological demon from Japan, which were basically the Japanese equivalent of minotaurs. Except in Japan their birthrates leaned heavily towards girls rather than men as had been the case in Greece.

That was certainly the case here. The woman was short. If you discounted her horns, the top of her head only came up to Harry's chest, making her quite a bit shorter than Rias or even Akeno, but she was also almost as busty as Akeno was,. But whereas Akeno's breasts were almost superhumanly perky given their size, this woman's chest was much fuller, almost drooping under its own weight. This woman's chest was exactly the kind most men thought of it if they heard the terms milkmaid or wet-nurse.

To go with her amazing chest the woman had long well cared for black hair, and doe-like brown eyes. She had stood beside the other man making no move to talk until the confrontation between the two men were finished and when she stepped forward to speak, a smile appeared on her face. Even her voice was gentle, matching the look in her eyes. "Harry Potter? Lily Potter? My name is Alexa and myself and Loup here were sent to welcome you to the Youkai Association."

Harry nodded at her, his eyes flicking back over to the man who again nodded his head. "Loup Garou," he said, his voice a deep rumble.

Harry smiled, reaching forward and clasping forearms with the other man, squeezing briefly. "Harry, or Mr. Potter if you are feeling formal. After all, while I might be an alpha you're not part of my pack, and I've never really gone into the whole werewolf society bollocks."

Nodding his head at that, Loup's eyes flicked to Lily. Instead of dealing with meeting a werewolf as calmly as Harry had who glared back at him, baring her teeth in an automatic reaction until he nodded at her. At that she calmed down immediately.

Hmm, I think it's time soon to sit with Lily down and talk about how she needs to start controlling her instincts. Maybe teacher some mental exercises too, then move on to defending her soul. That way, when it comes time she can build from her foundation up rather than building from the top down. Harry wasn't looking forward to that, but it was better that Lily have some modicum of control over her budding instincts.

"Thank you for your welcome," Harry said aloud, smiling as he turned back to the woman correctly interpreting that the other werewolf wasn't a very talkative person and that she was actually the head of the duo. "But what have we done to deserve a formal welcome like this?"

"Your notes about who to deal with your lycanthropic curse have already made the rounds among some of our subspecies," Alexa said delicately, her eyes flicking over to Loup for a moment, then down her own chest. Doing so Alexa wiggled in a manner that if she had at all been Harry's type might've caused him to have issues in the trouser department. But she wasn't, and Harry kept his eyes firmly above the neckline.

"Both of my brothers and all of my sisters have had issues with their more animalistic instincts. Your books helped immensely. Instead of trying to seal their instincts off, they work with them, accept them now, and are more controlled, more human for it. So if you'll follow us we'll give you a brief tour of the area."

Nodding Harry followed the other two as they began to talk about the Youkai Association. Or rather Alexa talked, Loup simply walked beside them. "The Youkai Association came into being legally, that is we were legally accepted as a separate organization, by the Onmyodo Government directly following World War 2. Not many know this, but we actually started organizing before the Great War. It was only the heroics of individual heroes during the magical side of WW2 that we gained recognition as true people."

By this point they had passed through the inn out into the streets beyond which were hidden, Alexa explained, under a series of illusions that worked much the same as wards would in hiding the area. Walking around they saw numerous people with non-human features. One man walked by with a horse's head. Another was an elephant that was walking on two feet. He wore clothing that Harry thought looked like something Padma or Parvati would wear, so Harry decided the being was a woman, though he wasn't certain about that.

"For a long while the various youkai fought against one another just as they did humans for territory or resources. But about the time of the Great War, a clan of kitsune, Fox Youkai, discovered a method to connect directly to the ley lines below Kyoto as ancient Inari herself had. With that magic they started to gather other groups of Youkai who wished for peace, protecting them. Even today the leader of the Association is a kitsune: the great Yasaka-sama."

A sound from one side caused Harry's eyes to flick to Loup, who seemed to be flushing a little, looking straight ahead. When he saw Harry's eyes on him, he looked away quickly, causing Harry to smirk.

"The area around Kyoto quickly became the center of a growing peace movement, which welcomed numerous examples of many non-human species from Japan, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, even as far away as India. By the time World War 2 rolled around, the association was a powerful force. We helped patrol the areas around Kyoto, and worked to come to an agreement with the more pacifistic groups among the Japanese Onmyouji to help defend Japan against invasion."

By this point Alexa's voice had fallen into the kind of drone that told Harry she worked as a tour guide. Luckily for Harry, Lily seemed fascinated by the dozens of different nonhuman species they could see all around them. There's no equivalent of this place anywhere in Europe, that's for certain.

"Of course we never worked with the mundanes," Alexa went on blithely, ignoring the fact she had lost one of her two listeners. "After all given what the army was doing in its wars of conquest that would have put a severe strain on our community. And when MACUSA attempted to invade as part of its mission to wipe out all Asiatic magic, we helped defend against them most effectively. No magical or physical assault launched by MACUSA was able to gain any headway once they attempted to move inland. Since they had already wiped out most of the more belligerent groups, MACUSA was willing to go along with the mundanes when peace was declared.

"That is why the Onmyouji agreed to give us our independence, and to protect our rights against the ICW. Many countries who have gone along with that body have laws which prohibit seeing our species as intelligent after all." Alexa finished her cheerful drone turning a little pointed.

"Don't look at me when you say that," Harry said rolling his eyes. "I tried to get those laws changed numerous times back in England, believe me. Money might talk, but not if someone else is willing to stuff just as much money into people's ears to stop them hearing your message."

Alexa smiled politely at that then changed the subject. "One thing that we had to agree to with the Onmyodo was to relocate the majority of our people here to the forests around Kyoto. There are small packets of Youkai elsewhere, primarily around religious sights, but our numbers are concentrated here to a far greater degree. We still have agreements with the Onmyouji, we hide their presence from other nonhuman groups and they hide ours from the ICW."

"Other nonhuman groups?" Harry asked his voice casual even as his eyes sharpened.

"You know, those Johnny-come-lately Catholic groups, the Devils, Fallen and Angels and so forth," Alexa said, waving her hand airily. "I'm no historian but there was some kind of conflict between you Onmyouji and them right after their own war ended. No idea what happened but those Factions prefer not to admit you all exist, and the Onmyouji return the feeling as much as possible. It's a way to keep the peace I suppose, though it's not like we're get along with any of those Factions."

"Ah, those," Harry replied, his voice still calm even as his mind worked. It was apparent that while Alexa knew Harry was a foreigner she didn't understand the significance of that in terms of his basic understanding. That and she was a bit of an airhead in Harry's estimation.

However that bit of info she'd just let drop was interesting to say the least. What did Hermione say? Something about local histories near Rome and Israel looking like someone was trying to cover something up? That gives me a starting point to learn more about what Rias and the others are rather than just what they can do and what kind of people they are.

Not being religious at all Harry couldn't care less if the girls were Fallen or Devils (he discounted their being angels given Akeno's Akeno-ness and Rias's intermittent moments of flirtation). He knew what kind of people they were beyond those labels. That was enough for Harry despite the issues their auras had caused him.

At this point in the tour, they had passed through most of the city and began to see more and more actual forest. Forest which, Harry realized with a start, came a lot closer to the city of Kyoto here than he would have expected.

Alexa's next words explained why that was. "This forest is ostensibly a part of a national park. But the entire expanded park is watched over by Youkai and the vast majority of it is hidden under a number of illusions, some subtle, some not. Loup here," Alexa said, gesturing to the younger man. "Is going to college as a botanist and Park manager, and he's not the only one. Only Youkai or those we allow in can enter. Given your status as an Onmyouji, and the help your notes on your method to combat our turned instincts gave some of our more volatile members, you are allowed to enter if you wish."

"Would you like to explore?" Harry looks down at Lily, who was hopping around excitedly.

"MMM Can't wait!" Lily replied staring out into the forest beyond where the city merged with it. Yesterday had been fun, but there was only so much touristy stuff a girl her age and energy could take.

"Lily?" At her daddy's look Lily shook her head, still staring out avidly into the forest.

Harry looked over at Loup, cocking an eyebrow at him as he gestured to the forest. But Loup thought for a moment then shook her head his head, gesturing back the way they came. "I've got a job to do," he grunted.

"Our leaders would like to talk to you later on," Alexa said, looking up from an old type of pager.

Why she wasn't using a cellphone was something Harry questioned, but didn't think that big a deal. Electronics hadn't worked at Hogwarts after all, so it wasn't that large a stretch that the warded areas of Kyoto would have the same issue. Although, I doubt the epicenter is anywhere near the actual city, or it would be noticeable beyond the illusions.

He came back to the here and now when Alexa went on. "Would a dinner meeting be all right for you?"

"Certainly," Harry said, looking around at the ancient seeming city. "But first tell me, how did you protect this area or the other allied territories from bombardment during the war?" He knew that Diagon Alley had taken numerous hits during the Blitz. Kyoto, while a religious site, had been bombarded late in the war once the Sea of Japan was under allied control.

Alexa smiled wanly. "With great difficulty. We used mammoth illusions and active redirection rituals. From what we're taught, we had to have mixed groups of Onmyouji and Youkai on hand 24/7 to direct and power the ritual. And even then bombs still got through, though enough didn't hit the city to make a lot of the mundanes believe in divine intervention."

Clapped her hands as she finished answering Harry's question, Alex winked at Lily. "Now, if you'll follow me I can lead you to one of the entrances to the forest. I also need to tell you what kind of markers to look out for while moving through the forest. While most Youkai have learned to get along with others, many are territorial, and werewolves, such as you Potter-san, would not be welcome in their territories."

Nodding at that Harry asked, "How many werewolves beyond Garou-kun are there around here?"

"None, hence your lack of welcome from various groups. Were-creatures tend to stay to their own enclaves save for herd-based creatures such as my own race, and werewolves are not common in Japan at all." Alexa replied while Loup twitched at the -kun designation but didn't argue with it. Alexa didn't notice this little byplay, simply going on to describe the red and white marks to look for to make certain they didn't enter any area they shouldn't.

By the time that was done Loup had broken off to head back the way they came and the three remaining stood underneath the awning of the forest. Even the nearest association buildings were blocked out by the surrounding trees, only a few of their roofs visible through the canopy of branches above them.

Both Lily and Harry were staring around them now, and Harry's nose was actually twitching slightly. They hadn't been able to head out into the wilds like this since their arrival here in Japan. Parks like the ones they could get to from their house for a few hours or so just were not the same as a nature preserve like this, they were too ordered, too touched by human hands. Nothing at all like the forests they could get to in England or the rest of Europe which were hidden under the Notice-Me-Not wards of the wizarding world. Here, while it was evident the forest saw a lot of activity it was also a wild forest, showing few signs of that save for the trails here and there.

"From here if you climb one of the trees you would be able to see Yasaka-sama's mansion. I will call ahead, and tell them to expect you around 7:30-ish?" Alexa asked.

Harry nodded. "How far away is it?"

"About six or seven kilometers away I think," Alexa said. "I'm a city girl, so I just use the local teleportation array."

"We can do that easy," Lily said, now literally hopping up and down eagerly like a spring as she looked around.

"That we can," Harry chuckled, laying a calming hand on her head, but he too was interested in exploring. As werewolves, they really did have to feed their wild side occasionally.

Even so, he noted the idea of a teleportation array. That was one of the local examples of the Onmyodo version of runic arrays which he hadn't read about just yet. He wondered if they were like the Floo network, or if they felt more like portkeys. Regardless, you've got an antsy seven year old girl to wear out Harry old boy, best you get to that now.

Using his phoenix bracelet, he hung a Tempus spell on his arm set to go off at around 5. Since it was barely pushing mid-morning at this point, they had quite a bit of time before they would have to head towards this Yasaka's mansion. "Okay lovey we're good. Race you!" With that Lily and Harry bolted off, running easily through the woods.

How long they raced through the words, chasing one another through and around trees, streams and hidden gullies, Harry didn't know. Eventually however his Tempus spell went off and he started to steer them back onto one of the paths through the area, heading towards the distant mansion.

They walked hand-in-hand now, Lily chattering excitedly about the number of animals they had seen, or a particularly pretty butterfly which had incidentally been the size of her head that she had followed around the woods for a time. The fat the butterfly seemed to be enjoying the chase just as much as she was had made it even more interesting. Harry smiled throughout it all, having had quite a bit of fun and making a mental note to continue to try to associate further with the Youkai Association. This forest was just too much fun not to come back to.

Their idyllic time in the woods ended around the time Harry began to see signs for the mansion. Abruptly the noise of the forest gave way to a loud noise in the distance, audible only to the two of them thanks to their enhanced senses. It sounded like a series of loud crashes and banging sounds followed by a distant rumble like thunder. As they moved forward cautiously Harry quickly used a local spell from the Onmyodo school of Earth, or body, school to further enhance his hearing.

With that he was able to make out the sound of actual gunfire, along with other sounds of combat somewhere in the distance. That sounds as if it's coming from the mansion we were supposed to be heading towards. What's going on, and does it have anything to do with our being here? With the life Harry had led this wasn't actually an egotistical statement, rather it was a question showing a remarkable understanding of how fate seemed to work.

Harry pulled Lily to a stop, holding one finger up to his mouth as the Elder Wand slid from its hidden holster on his forearm. He felt the now familiar rush of power, of connection the wand always gave him, but ignored it for now. "I think something's going on Lily, so we're going to disappear for a bit."

Lily nodded, and stood still while Harry cast a few spells over her and himself with the Elder wand. Nor did he return the want to his hidden holster up his sleeve. He kept it in his hand, and even worked out his other hand, whose wrist held the Phoenix bracelet that was his local focus. While he had mastered a lot of the combat spells he had learned before coming to Japan to the point where he didn't need a focus for them, he couldn't use any of the local spells yet without them, and they were worth using two foci for.

The sounds became clearer as they continued now, stalking through the woods rather than hiking. New smells came to them through the forest, of burning wood and other things. Harry began to think he should just send Lily directly home despite the upset stomach using a portkey for that far a port would give her. He was just about to do so, reaching forward to touch Lily on the shoulder, when a new sent reached his nose. A new sound reached both their ears as well. The noise was the pattering of small feet, and the smell that of a fox, a very afraid fox whose scent was coming towards them.

Harry pulled Lily to a halt, staring out into the woods as he tried to orient on the sound and smell. A second later he did so, and saw a little blonde-haired girl around Lily's age dressed in a priestess outfit racing through the woods. She had foxlike ears sticking up from her head, and a tail poking out behind her that matched the ears and her scent. Her face from what he could see in the shadows of the trees looked frightened. Very frightened.

Harry's heart went out to her immediately, and he took a few steps to the side to put himself almost in front of her only to pause. Through the woods behind the little girl came two men, their scents almost drowned out by the scent of the fearful girl. One wore a long red cloak and held a staff which must have been slowing his progress through the woods. He used it to fire the local equivalent of stunning spells at the girl, who dodged this way and that.

The second man was an older man who looked human except for the black wings popping out of their backs and a long, bulbous nose. Behind him came two more, younger men of the same race but with smaller wings. None of them were using those wings though, just running after the girl, laughing and shouting, having a grand old time.

The sight of that reminded Harry of young, inexperienced Death Eaters on their first raids and he scowled. Those must be Tengu. Is this some kind of coup maybe? With outside help if that mage is a local. He doesn't look it though, and the locals certainly don't use staffs except for… what were they called? Some kind of monks from Shikoku.

Setting that mystery aside for now, Harry cast cutting spells with both the Elder Wand and his other hand. The spells flew over the girl's head, bisecting both of the first two men at the waist, hurling them backwards in crimson torrents. Two Reductos followed, splattering the astonished faces of the young Tengu into paste while hurling their bodies backward.

At the same time the little girl had run into Lily, who had moved with her father putting herself directly in the girl's path while Harry dealt with her pursuers. Both girls had tumbled to the forest floor but Harry quickly knelt, pulling them both to their feet and smiling gently at the girl, the spells that had been concealing the two of them fading as he did. "Hello little one, can you tell me what's going on?"

"Who… who…" the little girl stuttered, before sniffing the air. "You smell like a wolf," she said slowly calming down.

"Yes and you smell like Fox," Lily said, smiling at the girl encouragingly and taking her hands in hers. Then she leaned into the other girl's neck, sniffing deeply while she hugged the other girl.

"Remember what I said to you the other day Lily," Harry said admonishingly, hoping that his amused tone would help calm the girl down. "It's not polite to smell other people like that in public."

It worked too as the girl giggled wetly at the little interplay, calming down immediately as her arms went around Lily. Seeing this Harry went on, still speaking gently even as his enhanced hearing heard the noise of other people charging through the woods towards them. "What's your name little one?"

"K, Kunou." The girl answered, looking up at the tall man who had just saved her. The two of them smelled so alike that they had to be daddy and daughter in her mind, which coupled, with how they were acting toward her, helped calm Kunou down further.

"Kunou-chan hmm? That's a nice name. Well Kunou-chan my name is Harry, and this little red-headed bag of mischief is called Lily. So, can you tell me what's going on?"" Harry asked, ruffling Kunou's hair.

Lily just kept on hugging the other girl, glaring around them into the woods. This wasn't the first time Lily had come close to violence, and she knew both to keep calm, and that her daddy would handle it. He always did.

"I, I don't know. All I know is one of my guards suddenly collapsed, the door banged open, and those people were there trying to grab me. I leaped out the window, saw two others there get knocked down by Loup-san and I heard fighting everywhere!" Kunou whimpered. "One of them shouted 'that's her, we need her alive', I guess it was a kidnapping attempt? Momma always warned me about strangers because of that kind of thing, but I never thought it would happen in our very home!"

"I see. And your mother is?" Harry asked though he felt he could guess.

"Momma's name is Yasaka! She's the head of the Youkai Association, and the only living Kyuubi no kitsune!" the blonde girl said proudly, before wilting a little, turning in Lily's arms to look back the way she came. "I hope she's okay…."

"I'm sure if you're mom is the leader of the Association she can look after herself. But also think I should go and check on that." Harry said, making that decision right there. "Lily, I think it's time for you to take our new friend here back home."

Kunou blinked as that, and then started to back away but Lily kept a firm hold of her.

"Don't worry," Harry said softly, "I'll tell your mother where you've gone, you'll be safe there while I make sure your mother is safe too."

The certainty in Harry's Place and the caring tone worked its magic, and the girl calmed down.

Just then other people, around thirty of them burst through the tree around them shouting, "There she is, get her!"

Most of them were of the same appearance as the earlier Tengu, but four of them were different beyond the fact they looked human. Two of them were wielding bows and arrows made of blue light for one, and green for the other. They looked enough alike to be twins. They were sallow faced, dark eyes deep-set with lank black hair falling in greasy-looking curls to their shoulders. Another man with them wore the same red robes as the magic users but didn't have a staff. Instead he seemed to have some kind of continual fire spell working all around his arms and legs.

But it was the last one who was the most striking in appearance. He was huge for one thing, taller than Harry by at least four inches, making him at least seven feet tall, and he was so broad in the shoulders he could have made two of Harry. He had on a modern reconstruction of the armor old Roman Legionnaires wore, with a dark blue cloth undershirt and pants to go with long silver-blue hair and a lightly tanned skin.

Quickly conjuring a Protego shield between them and the oncoming fire, Harry spoke to his daughter, not looking away from the oncoming would-be kidnappers. "Lily, your daddy has to go to work now. I'll see you home okay? You know what to do."

Lily nodded and still hugging the kitsune girl while whispering the words, "Potter Home!" At that phrase the emergency portkey Lily wore as a necklace whenever she was out of their house activated, tugging both of them through time and space to Harry and Lily's home.

At the same instant the children disappeared Harry turned back to the Elder Wand waving to one side languidly as he conjured up several wood and water golems using the lock spell. They hurled forward to one side, while he used his free hand to conjure several illusion spells. One of them was of the two girls racing off past him through the woods at the same time the originals disappeared.

Almost instantly all his illusion dissipated, impacting a spell already on the area, but the two of the girls shimmered then came back, looking even more real than they had a moment before. Harry didn't have time to ponder what that was about as his Protego came down under the impact of the kidnapper's spells and the man in armor raced forwards. "Get after those two I'll handle this would-be hero! I'm going to show you why getting in the way of real heroes is a bad idea!"

"Hai Heracles-sama!" shouted one of the two energy bow wielders, moving with the others in an attempt to get around Harry.

"I don't see a hero, I see a simple kidnapper," Harry said coldly, his green eyes glimmering. Then he was suddenly moving, dashing not toward the other man who had called him out, but to the side. He lashed out at the ground with a Bombarda, which shattered the ground for several yards. A quick conjuration spell caught the shrapnel, changing it into spears. Several of the men died then, impaled by the spears. More than a dozen were now occupied with Harry's wood and water golems, trading swords or spear blows with them.

Harry then apparated back to where he had been standing when the attackers first showed up as the man called Heracles leaped forward faster than Harry would have thought anyone could move, his fist smashing into a tree right behind where Harry had been standing. The tree exploded, the entire tree going up like it had been stuffed full of TNT. "You're not the only one who can make things explode you bastard!"

Smiling grimly, Harry lashed out with a cutting spell at the armored behemoth as he turned and charged, only to watch the spell not penetrate the man's skin. A local spell targeted at the tree behind him made it come alive for a moment, grabbing at the man and letting Harry duck away from several magic bolts shaped like arrows. He then had to conjure up a Protego to block a blast of fire as wide as his body which went through the area where he had been standing, shot towards him by the magic user who had been wielding the continual fire spell.

That opened up the fire wielder however to a Reducto which caught him in the center of his chest. The fire wielder tried to use his flame powers to defend himself, but the Reducto, an air based spell, went right through his attempted shield like it wasn't even there, smashing into and through his chest.

But then Harry's Protego shield vanished as Heracles punched it. Again the entire shield exploded, blowing Harry back into a tree with enough force to give any normal man a concussion. With Harry it just made him shake his head. The bigger problem was the sheer hail of blue and green magic arrows coming toward him. He was still able to dodge most of them, but two impacted his side.

Harry hissed, but kept moving, his wounds already healing. At the same time most of the remaining

Time to up the ante. With his free hand he conjured more Mizu (water) attacks, which he began to direct, setting them to attacking all of his opponents like massive dragon heads. At the same time, Harry reached into himself and began to pull on that portion of his soul that was his inner werewolf.

Between one moment and the next two things happened. Heracles charged through the explosion caused from the destruction of Harry's Protego, lashing out with a punch that connected with Harry's chest. And Harry changed even as he was blasted away by Heracles's blow. "Hah, feel the power of the great Heracles's Variant Detonation!"

"Ow." Harry deadpanned, pushing himself up from the rubble of a tree he'd smashed through. While he was still obscured by the dust and debris he used another Onmyodo spell on the ground around them. From both the ground and the trees around him sprang numerous spikes, slaying several of the Tengu. Then he lashed out with the Elder Wand, sending a rain of cutting spells towards Heracles, including one Sectumsempra, the cutting spell Severus Snape had created which had been labelled dark, and even the Entrails Expelling curse.

Blinking, Heracles just took all the spells, only noticing the Sectumsempra as it cut through his clothing to make a few small cuts on his body. "What the hells? So you're not even human, you're one of those werewolf freaks?"

Then he blinked again as Harry cast a spell he had learned from trying to copy some of the Weasley twins product. In this case, it was the Peruvian Darkness Powder. In spell form the spell was "Perilamvánei skotádi (Encompassing Dark)!" It wasn't quite as impenetrable as the powder, but it still blinded everyone in the area as if deep night had fallen.

Under cover of that darkness, Harry closed with the Tengu. Where before they had been facing a somewhat tall foreign magic user with a decent but not altogether unusual build they were now facing a werewolf in a darkness like it was midnight on a cloudy night. And even if some of them might have faced were-creatures before, Harry's form was very different.

While his become larger, both in height and the width was understandable, what wasn't was the fact he still looked relatively human in many ways. He stood upright on his legs, he hadn't become hunchbacked or gone down on all fours. Harry's fur was short and curly rather than lanky and uncontrolled. His muzzle wasn't nearly as pronounced, more a mix of a human and a wolf's than a pure wolfs. But he still had claws, speed and immense strength.

One crow-demon found this out to his cost as a punch from Harry ripped his head off his shoulders. Another died with his throat torn out, and a third was sent reeling by a kick. In one moment the remaining Tengu had lost more than half their number. Panic set in among the survivors, blind and now hunted by a werewolf, as he had wanted. A scared enemy is an enemy which has already partly lost.

With that in mind Harry made their day-turned night worse by doing something which, coupled with his willingness to kill, had caused a lot of people back in England to worry about him going dark. He used one of the Unforgivables, in this case Imperio.

Hermione and Harry had a 'discussion' at one point about the methods Harry was willing to use when combating the Death Eaters and anyone else who threatened his friends. Hermione felt that it was the fact they wouldn't stoop to the methods of the Death Eaters that allowed them to retain the moral high ground. That to stay to the Light they needed to fight their enemies without killing them. That in fact taking the power of life and death on their own hands would make them no better than their enemies.

Harry argued that it was the cause they fought for that allowed them to say they were on the side of the angels. "To believe that a soldier who killed in defense of the innocent was the same as a terrorist who would kill for his cause is the height of stupidity!"

While he would never use the AK, after all destroying a soul like that was one of the most evil things someone could do and he still had nightmares of what had happened to his mother when she was killed by Riddle, Harry felt there was a time and a place for the other Unforgivables. Using Imperio just made good tactical sense at times, since it could turn an enemy into a momentary ally and there was a lot of things you could do in a battle with that.

Even the Crucio could cause panic among a group of enemies, though Harry had only rarely used it. While Harry could kill about as dispassionately as any man, he lacked the urge to cause pain that one had to have to use Crucio. Most of the time anyway, there had been a few Death Eaters he had despised enough to use it on.

Hermione had looked at him and sighed, shaking her head. "I suppose I can understand your point Harry. I don't like it, but I can understand it. But you have to realize how disconcerting it is. You say that kind of thing, but soldiers Harry have to go through training to allow them to kill so dispassionately. You've never been trained. You just are willing to consider it so easily. That bothers me a lot."

"I understand, and it should Hermione, you're a much better person than I am in many ways." Hermione made to protest, but Harry went on before she could speak. "But society needs people like me Hermione, barbarians to defend it from those who would tear it down."

Looking at him, Hermione had sighed again, then began to giggle. "Or better, to keep using your earlier analogy. 'Though I might be on the side of angels, never assume that I am one of them.'"

Harry had looked at her askance his eyes narrow slits. "That sounded like a quote. Was I supposed to recognize it or something?"

"Ugh, well at least I know what we're going to binge watch when this is all over. I will introduce you to the wonderful world of Sherlock Holmes, Harry…"

The Imperio was nearly invisible and flew from Harry's offhand to impact the would-be kidnapper using the bow made of blue energy as he came around a tree, the light allowing him to see around him, but blinding him to anything beyond its glow. Astonishing Harry somewhat the man didn't seem to have any defense, it was like he had just used the spell on someone without any magical protection or willpower.

The next moment after a whispered order two more Tengu died to arrows from one of their comrades, bright flashes of green in the darkness. This proved too much for them, and they broke, scattering through the darkness.

"Where the fuck are you!?" Heracles bellowed lashing out and exploding anything he hit, shattering trees and stones and even the ground in an effort to see what was going on.

"Damn it Euclian, what the fuck's going on with you?" shouted the blue energy bow user, ducking away from a bright green arrow which smacked into a tree right next to him. the arrow shattered some of the tree, but that was all.

Harry would have finished them right then, he still had a few seconds before his darkness spell faded, but just then there was a bass roar of fury and rage in the distance. Through the darkness and the forest foliage Harry caught a glimpse of something massive bursting out of the distant mansion. Hopping up through the forest he paused as his head broke out of the canopy.

The thing which had burst out of the mansion was a massive fox, a kitsune he supposed. It stood at least twenty stories tall, and had nine fox tails flowing from its rear like a massive cresting wave of white, red and gold. As Harry watched the fox shot out attacks all around it. Lightning came from two tails, fire from several more.

But what Harry was seeing with his eyes paled into insignificance in comparison to what he was feeling with his magical senses. The ley line under Kyoto was alive now, pouring its power into someone in that mansion, most likely the fox. Or so Harry thought at first. As he watched however, ignoring the fact the darkness spell was dissipating, he realized whoever the ley line was powering was also moving now, coming towards them. Oh that can't be good. Thank goodness Sirius and Tonks helped me to get used to speaking in this form!

Deciding to nip a possible problem in the bud, Harry cast Sonorous on himself and shouted at the top of his lungs. Getting the words out of his maw, which was half wolf, half man, was a little difficult, but nowhere near a difficult as it had been when he'd been bitten. "Attention Lady Yasaka, this is Harry Potter! Your daughter and mine are safe, I transported them away from here and will go and get them the moment this battle is over. Please don't attack me, I'm have busy enough day as it is."

"Fuck you mean that little bitch is gone!?" Heracles bellowed from just below Harry's perch. He had just a second leap away before the tree he'd been on exploded.

"Damn it Hera-kun, without that brat we've got no leverage!" Shouted another voice, its owner invisible through the trees and given the fact Harry was in no position to look around at the moment. All he could tell about it was that it sounded young, vindictive yet also cutesy, and female.

Thanks to his werewolf durability the explosion barely registered, but the impact hurled him through the air to land awkwardly on a small rocky outcropping on the lip of a little river. He stood up swiftly shaking his head but met Heracles's charge by using a Glacius on the ground between them. If he has some kind of magical resistance, then I just have to attack him indirectly. He idly threw a a tickling charm at them an to see if that relatively benign spell would get through, but nothing happened. "Glacius, Glacius, Mizu, Glacius." He intoned, trapping Heracles on a hundred feet of ice for just a moment, which gave him time to think about trying to find a non-direct method to kill Heracles.

He's got immense magical resistance, and since he doesn't even look singed from those explosions he causes, he's got immense durability too. Maybe another mental assault then? Just to make sure, a series of Confringos lashed out from both of Harry's hands one impacting the ground underneath Heracles, the other smashing into his chest. While the first made Heracles lose his footing, the other didn't do anything simply rocking him slightly.

"Kinzoku (Metal)," Harry said next, using the Elder Wand once more to cast a local spell ignoring as he had throughout the battle its siren song of power. The wand enjoyed battles like this, which made it very different from his Phoenix Wand, which always seemed more resigned if Harry had to describe the feeling.

A long, wide spear of Metal appeared and Harry sent it forward as fast as his imagination could carry it. Even so while it penetrated Heracles's armor as the man pushed himself to his feet, it didn't penetrate his skin. Why the heck was a Sectumsempra able to cause some scratches, but that wasn't able to pierce his skin?

Heracles growled, grabbing at the metal but Harry was still in control of it, and he quickly gestured, wrapping the metal around the man's wrists.

"Hah!" Heracles bellowed, and from his wrists came still more explosions, ripping apart Harry's conjured metal.

This hadn't actually broken Harry's control of said metal however, and the bits flew into Heracles's face, blinding him for a moment from another spell, this time an Incendio. The flamethrower like attack hit, but again simply dissipated. Damn it, it won't even light his clothing on fire? And given whatever happened to my illusions before, I can't say I could even use them to try and lead him off. Maybe some spells aimed to rattle his brain box?

Just then Harry turned as a sound behind him took his attention away from his current problem. Before he could finish his turn a blade stabbed into his side, going deep into his kidney and out his front.

The wielder of that blade was a very good young looking woman around Harry's own age if Harry had to guess with blonde hair, blue eyes and a trim, athletic figure. Her face was marred however by the sneer on her face, and she seemed to be limping somewhat from wounds to her legs from some earlier battle. She wore red enameled plate armor of some kind over her chest, with the same kind of shirt underneath it in the same dark blue as Heracles.

She had snuck up on him through the woods, her scent covered by the blood and viscera already in the air. "You might've ruined our plans but don't think you're going to get away monster! My Sacred Blacksmith holy sword will end you, you freak!"

Ignoring the pain as his wound instantly began to heal Harry reached out with the hand not wielding the Elder Wand and grabbed the woman by the head. She tried to dodge but Harry's reflexes were way too fast for her to move away. "I don't think your sword's doing nearly as much as you seem to think it should," he said dryly. The woman barely had a chance to gasp before a point blank Confringo blew her head into paste.

Grimacing Harry pulled out the sword, watching as it disintegrated while his body continued to heal. So they can break through my durability, but unless they get an immediately fatal blow in, holy weapons don't do much. And the magical endurance issue was only a problem with Herakles.

"Jeanne! You mother fucker! I will kill you, I will kill you and rape your corpse!" Heracles bellowed, surging to his feet. A dark orange glow began to emanate from his body and he gestured forward. The glow went as he directed it, acting like an attack spell and soaring toward Harry, who dodged at the last second.

At the same time Heracles was bellowing his rage, the last two enemies Harry could see, the two energy bow wielders who were dueling each other through the woods, were dealt with in no uncertain terms. One was suddenly impaled by the horn of a unicorn which had just transformed from a rock of all things.

The second lasted an instant longer just long enough to stare at the body of his former comrade before a bird alighted on a branch right above him. Between one moment and the next, it had transformed into a medium-sized blonde woman of indeterminate age with an impressive bust line pushing out her priestess outfit and wide hips to match. She had the same foxlike ears as Kunou, though a little larger, and no tail in sight possibly because she had more control of her human form than Kunou. This was all secondary however to the large claws that were her hands currently. Before the man below her could even realize she was there, those claws had ripped his head off his shoulders.

She landed, her gorgeous features twisted into a snarl, her eyes a glowing golden yellow as she stared at Heracles and Harry. Heracles had just a moment to gape at her before a massive plume of fire slammed into him, hurling him away.

She then turned stalking up to Harry, who was forced to admit that those eyes glaring at him was somewhat unnerving. But he didn't quail, simply holding his hands up in front of him, returning the Elder Wand to its holster for now. "Milady Yasaka? As I said earlier, my daughter and yours are both safe. I…"

Both Harry and Yasaka turned as Heracles roared again, pushing himself out of the debris caused by his impromptu flight. "You bitch! I know we were going to do this the easy way, but now I'm going to…"

"Do nothing." Another voice interrupted as a hand grabbed Heracles's shoulder from behind. From around a tree behind where Heracles had landed another man appeared, helping along a second, wounded, man in the red cloaks of a magician.

The speaker was a tallish man coming about an inch or so from matching Harry's height in his human body with wider shoulders and a stern, unyielding expression. He had light blue hair, which matched the school uniform he wore for some reason underneath a folded cloak falling from his waist, its colors white, cold and black. The design of it was something Harry had never seen before, though it looked something like what he had seen in anime set in ancient China. His clothing was singed in places, and he was bleeding from a cut on the arm propping up the mage but that was all in terms of visible damage.

In his free hand he held a spear. It seemed a simple enough design, though it's spear tip was crooked and there was some kind of barbed wire around the shaft directly below the tip, but by the way Yasaka's eyes immediately latched onto it Harry could tell that it was much more than what it appeared. It also sang to his magical senses somehow, but on a 'frequency' as it were he hadn't felt before. It feels sort of like that holy sword that girl stabbed me with, but I'd wager its strong enough to make that thing look like a pebble to its mountain.

The two sides stared at one another, with Harry following Yasaka's lead on being wary to start anything with that spear pointing towards them. Heracles meanwhile tried to break out of the other man's grip still raging. But a sharp rap with the spear butt to the back of his knee brought the massive man down.

"The plan has failed Herakles, and we have lost too many people already. We were supposed to have the girl in our possession from the first rush, that failed and everything has gone to hell since. A good strategist knows when to cut his losses, and we should have cut ours the instant the girl was able to escape into the woods. As you would know if you had actually been listening to my orders via the magic link. Now we are leaving. We can avenge Jeanne and the others another day."

"What makes you think we'll let you go?" Harry asked, genuinely curious. While the spear was worrying him a hell of a lot, he felt he could apparate away before the man could use it, whatever shape that use came in.

"Because of this," The man replied, a small, condescending smile crossing his face as he hefted his spear. "You really don't know what this is, do you? Well, treasure that ignorance for now. Further while your illusions might have taken out most of our Tengu allies kitsune, there are still more out there who did not join us in this attack on you but still aided our passage beneath your wards. If you hurry, you might find some of those pathetic crows still alive enough to question about who else aided us. And third… we're already gone."

With that last word the mage gestured and the three men vanished in a flare of light purple light. When the flare died out, all three men were gone leaving behind Yasaka, Harry and a shattered forest filled with the smell of the dead and the crackling of fires.

Scowling at that, Harry shook his head, turning to the still-furious looking blonde woman as he slowly canceled his transformation. "So, does this happen around here often or is it just my normal Potter Luck acting up that it happened right now?"

End Chapter

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Hope everyone liked the battle at the end. I mean to have Harry's personal style showcased slowly, but the gist of it is: transfiguration, conjuration illusion for distraction and dealing with the small fry, direct assault spells against the major threats. Constant movement both magically if he knows the area well enough and physically. When needed he transforms into his werewolf form, which makes him faster, stronger and far more durable. Holy and Devilic magic/items can get past that durability, but the wounds they cause will heal just as quickly as any other, which is to say incredibly fast depending on the wound. he is also stronger than most rooks in that form, though not up to say a high level Rook like those in Sirzechs's peerage.

The illusions not working - While these are part of Harry's normal combat style, he was trying to wield them in the area of a Kyuubi no kitsune. No illusions going to last longer than an instant there without her say-so.

Heracles cursing, and overall character: Heracles believes himself to be the heir to Hercules as is obvious. But Hercules wasn't the nice guy portrayed by… something Sorbo I think? Can't remember. Anyway, the original was an asshole a lot of the time, and part of that is a willingness to curse at the drop of a hat. He also did a lot of things we would term dishonorable, which again matches Heracles. There's a reason neither of the Pendragons were part of this mission after all.

I may or may not show Yasaka's side of that fight, depending on interest shown via reviews.

From now on the plot is going to pick up quickly. Harry now has all the clues he needs to know what Rias and co are, the characters have all gotten to know one another and it is coming on time for Ddraig to start actually showing enough for people to realize it's there and what it might be.

Anyways, as always please leave a review, and I hope you enjoyed reading the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.