Good evening All!
Not much action in this chapter, mainly Sasuke's perspective on recent events and filling in some details. That being said, definitely a crucial chapter to have as it will cement a lot of things before we move forward with major events, plus give a peek into what Sasuke's thought processes have been on recent events.
Hope you enjoy, do please drop me a line if you see something you like or have a (civilly worded) suggestion/something you would like to see.
As always, do please enjoy yourself and ignore any spelling/grammatical errors you will undoubtedly come across.
Sasuke took a deep breath as he began stretching out across from his current "students". Issei's protection agreement was still in place, as was Sasuke's promise to train him until he could protect himself sufficiently. Honestly, he had come a long way in the months since his regiment had begun. Issei's body had become a rippling mass of lean muscle from his days of patrolling the town with the Yakuza and his evenings spent in hellish training well past dusk. Though Sasuke would never tell the hormonal teen, he could probably pick up more than a few less discerning female admirers if he were to lose his shirt more at school during hot days in PE class.
Still though, Issei's greatest limitation thus far had been his standard human body. With Asia healing his more grievous injuries and chronic fatigue, Issei was able to absorb years of training in a much smaller (pain filled) timetable. Whereas a typical training regiment was taken far slower to ensure the safety of the student, Sasuke was able to give Issei the next best thing to true battle experience since Asia was anxiously standing by at all times to restore Issei from any injury he may sustain. Even after all the experience Sasuke had pounded into him, Issei was doomed to be crushed like an ant in a supernatural fight without an outside catalyst or the awakening of the Dragon.
Until Sasuke received the one of a kind chess set from Beelzebub.
Though he would have preferred to find a different method than relying on the workmanship of a devil he did not fully trust, Sasuke believed that it would suffice to solve Issei's dilemma. Once Issei had been enhanced to a level equal or greater than the devils, Sasuke could start training him in earnest. At his current level, chakra enhanced blows that mimicked the strength of an attacking devil would send Issei flying. Once he was enhanced, this would no longer be the case.
When deciding which piece to grant Issei, Sasuke had decided on the Rook piece.
Issei would be wasted as a mere Pawn, anyone with half a brain could see that. Bishop would also be wasteful, considering Issei had no leanings towards magical powers. Knight didn't fit either; Issei's lack of grace during his movements would make speed a poor enhancement. Sasuke had briefly toyed with the Queen piece, but decided to save it for now. Ultimately, the Queen would be the most powerful piece in his set and a second in command for his human "peerage"; Sasuke just didn't see Issei as worthy of that position. He was a good kid for all his sass, but he was not much of a leader and was not particularly loyal to Sasuke outside their arrangement of protection. Thus his choice of the rook piece; it would give Issei increased power and durability, both excellent tools to increase your survival chances.
Right beside Issei, a sweating Kiba was already going through his forms in a blur, the constant training increasing his already impressive speed. After the bizarre meeting with Xenovia where Kiba had glared at her the entire time, he had approached Sasuke soon after for more lessons with the sword. Sasuke had readily agreed, considering the likelihood that he and Kiba would be working together for a while if things with Rias worked out. More importantly, Kiba had a knack for the sword that could lead him to being Sasuke's equal with the blade one day, though he still had quite a ways to go. His technical skill was quite good, but his battle instincts would need a good bit of work before he was ready to engage more seasoned opponents.
Asia was smiling in reassurance as she healed up one of the Yakuza lieutenants Sasuke was grooming to become his literal future pawns. Things with Asia had been going well since their little talk; she had backed off completely in his interactions with other women, and in turn Sasuke had accompanied her on multiple outings to the local eateries and movie theaters on the weekend. Thus far, their time together had reinforced his initial suspicions regarding his feelings towards her. Frankly, she was too kind and innocent for him and his blood soaked ways. More importantly, it was that very kindness and innocence that he did not want to ever taint or change in her, it was such a rare commodity. He was reminded yet again of Naruto's wife Hinata; a kind and soft spoken woman that thrived on being with a vibrant, bright partner such as Naruto. A reserved type such as Asia (or himself frankly) typically needed someone a bit more outgoing in his experience. After all, Sakura had certainly never had a problem with speaking her mind or expressing herself, whereas Sasuke had often been famous around the village in his younger days for what was dubbed his "grunticommunication".
More importantly, Sasuke heavily suspected that much of Asia's infatuation sprung from her lack of experience with other boys and seeing him in a "gold halo" of unrealistic expectation. As time went on and their dates had continued, he had noticed someone taking a very subtle interest in her as they walked off towards their dates; he planned to encourage this interest as much as possible going forward. Not because he was heartlessly trying to give Asia the boot, but more because he believed that the two of them would actually be well suited for each other. Whoever Asia ended up with, the most reassuring thing about her was her transparency and absolute loyalty to him (even if it was a bit unsettling at times). He had no doubt that she would be a part of his life in one form or fashion as long as he lived in this world, given her absolute devotion to him thus far.
Depending on how things went with his test cases (aka the Yakuza pawns and Issei), Sasuke planned to grant Asia a bishop piece to enhance her sacred gear and fledgling magic. This would allow for her magical power to grow, as well as enhance her physically to the point that she would not be nearly as vulnerable to mundane threats as she was now.
Sasuke blinked as his gaze moved to his main batch of test subjects for his new "peerage".
Out of the thousands of rather lackluster Yakuza toughs, Sasuke had spent months combing through personnel files and interacting with the teams until he found six young men that were noticeably more intelligent and ambitious than their counterparts. Most importantly, they were good at keeping their mouth shut and were all known to be extremely loyal to their local bosses in the past. With this in mind, Sasuke had initially approached them one by one and recruited them into a new structure he was forming for the Yakuza under his control. Essentially, he had initially planned to groom them into highly trained individuals completely loyal to himself that would seamlessly run the local Yakuza branches for him once the old bosses had been disposed of. Luckily, the current Yakuza heads were rather poor personnel managers and had never bothered even meeting most of their troops, much less building a base of loyalty with them. Thus, it was not hard to convince the ambitious young men to eventually take power from the current estranged leaders and answer only to him.
While he despised the devils use of contracts in tricking and enslaving humans, Sasuke did admit that magical contracts were very useful. He had Sona draw up a very straightforward magical contract between himself and the six young Yakuza members. In order to prevent any abuses, he had taken the time to review the contract with the young men and field their questions; there had been very few considering the generous terms. In exchange for a massive increase in power and money, the young men swore complete loyalty to Sasuke and his interests. As an added loophole, Sasuke allowed them to leave his service with a month's notice and the oath to never reveal anything regarding the contract, the supernatural or any of their dealings. Along with the natural obeisance that would soon come about from their being pawns in his peerage, Sasuke felt their loyalty second only to Asia's and entrusted them with many small responsibilities.
At times, the group of six would split up and provide security detail on both Issei and Asia if Sasuke had other things to attend to. Most importantly, they already handled most of his day to day business in the Yakuza group with such efficiency that the Tokyo main branch had recently given them raises and commendations for their efforts. Sasuke had high hopes for all of them going forward, both as foot soldiers in his "peerage" and as managers of his main source of revenue.
Sasuke watched as the six Yakuza members paired off and began their hand to hand training, rotating Issei in sporadically even as Kiba continued his forms in silence.
Finishing his stretching, Sasuke used chakra to enhance his muscles as he began running laps around the massive field in a blur of motion, his mind churning with recent events even as he sprinted tirelessly.
He had surprised himself with his brief speech to Rias regarding the future possibilities of their political marriage. In truth, he had thought Rias to be a spoiled brat when he first met her, and his interactions following their first meeting had reinforced that. As the months went by though, he could already see a growing maturity in her, along with some of her better qualities that surfaced at times. Her obvious care towards her peerage was tempered by the resolve he had seen in her battle against Riser; she was no wilting violet that needed rescue at every turn. Even if things never turned romantic between them, he could see them having a mutually beneficial partnership for years to come as she handled the devil side of things and he the human.
The whole Lord Andromalius nonsense was getting a bit more complex than he had originally anticipated. The original plan was for him to impersonate one of the Pillar Lords, not actually resurrect one of the Old Pillars by becoming a Lord himself! In truth though, Sasuke wasn't too put out considering the power he gained from the exchange, especially since it didn't override his humanity in the process.
The arena match was going to be a pain though, considering he would be restricted to using the Andromalius powers if he wanted to win the crowd over. He planned to walk in initially using his human form before transforming into a Devil Lord, just to raise the shock and awe value a bit. If these devils wanted a show, he would certainly give them one right before reducing their champion to ash.
Sasuke planned to practice his new form exhaustively the next few months after Issei finished his training in the evening. Asia would rest while he trained, then heal his exhaustion before they both walked to school in the morning. It would be good training for both himself and Asia, though he would monitor her carefully to make sure that the constant stamina restoration wasn't too much of a strain on her considering she was already doing so for both Issei and the Yakuza lieutenants.
As Sasuke moved from his internal musings and was about to begin a spar with Kiba, A magical circle appeared at the edge of the field. Sasuke's eyebrows lowered in suspicion; he wasn't expecting anyone to come by today. Sasuke's grip on his katana loosened as he saw a familiar wave of red hair emerge from the circle as Rias stepped forward towards Sasuke, two cloaked figures in her wake.
"Sasuke-san, do you have a minute? These representatives from the church would like to speak with you as soon as possible."
Sasuke grimaced as he nodded and made a motion to his students to continue training as he walked towards the trio at the edge of the field. As the hoods were thrown back, Sasuke raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Xenovia; can't say I was expecting to see you again any time soon. Who's your companion?"
"Pleased to meet you Sasuke-san; my name is Irina Shidou, please take care of me."
Sasuke nodded his head to her.
"Xenovia, why is it that you were requesting to see me?"
Xenovia scowled even as she received a warning look from Irina.
"Unfortunately, we are in need of thou's assistance in recovering some stolen items."
Sasuke frowned.
"I'm not in the business of charity, nor am I an investigator of any sort. Why is it you have come to me for something so trivial?"
Irina talked over the obviously irate Xenovia.
"Simply put Sasuke-san, you are the most powerful person we know of locally that might be willing to assist us. Obviously we were not going to seek help from the devil faction unless things were truly dire, and rumor has it that you are still fully human despite your dealings with them."
Sasuke nodded.
"The question most pressing in my mind is why you need someone powerful for what should be a simple retrieval mission. I take it there have been complications?"
Irina grimaced and held up the stump of her hand.
"Along with my hand, Xenovia received a nearly mortal wound that will prevent her from fighting for months. It is only due to her stubbornness that she is still standing, much less still on this assignment with me."
Sasuke appeared lost in thought for a minute as the two church maidens shifted in place; Rias was focused on Sasuke as she saw the wheels turning in his head, an idea obviously coming to fruition.
"I find it very curious that the church does not have powerful members of their own to retrieve something that is causing such contention, which leads me to two conclusions. One, this is a treasure hunt designed to draw me closer to the church so that they can begin exerting influence on me, or two there is so much corruption within the ranks of the church that an outside mercenary must be contacted to assist. How close am I?"
The two church maidens had gone very still as they stared at Sasuke; Rias let out an obvious smirk at his apparent bulls eye.
Seeing that no answer was forthcoming, Sasuke continued.
"Either way, my question remains the same; what do you have to offer if I agree to assist you in this endeavor? I will tell you now, money is useless to me as I already have quite the income and need no supplement at this time."
Xenovia rolled her eyes and muttered "mercenary" loud enough for everyone to hear as Irina gave her a scathing glare.
"Sasuke-san, in exchange for your assistance in retrieving the missing items, the church has agreed to match the items in value towards any payment you desire. This includes money, land, artifacts, valuables, favors or requests deemed to be of equal worth."
Rias finally spoke up from the back.
"What are the items though? Without knowledge of the items' nature and true value, how can Sasuke-san come up with a fair price for his services?"
Xenovia and Irina shared a glance as they both came to an instant, silent agreement. Things must be dire indeed for them to throw out the missions secrecy at this stage, Sasuke mused.
"Six of the Excalibur fragments have been stolen from the churches, and we have solid intel suggesting they will be used to reignite the war between the factions."
"As you suspected Sasuke-san, the church is in a difficult position considering the ease at which the fragments were stolen. Only an extensive inside job by traitors in the church could have led to such precious artifacts all being successfully stolen. Many teams have been dispatched to locate the fragments; myself and Xenovia are one of the few teams still alive. We have located the fragments, but our injuries can tell you clearly how the battle went. We don't have time to contact the church, we must move within the hour if we hope to catch the thieves before they disappear."
Sasuke turned to Rias.
"I take it that these six fragments are quite valuable?"
Rias nodded.
"Indeed, the fragments of Excalibur are some of the most precious objects in the church treasury. Precious enough that their return would be equal in value to one or more of the Devil artifacts captured during the Great war."
At Sasuke's raised eyebrow, Rias continued.
"Trust me Sasuke-san, if you were to return one of the Legendary Devil artifacts it would instantly raise your fame among my people."
Irina spoke up.
"Would the Helm of Perdition do in exchange for the fragments safe return?"
Sasuke noticed a quick widening of Rias' eyes before her negotiation mask was in place. Turning to Sasuke in question, he wordlessly acquiesced with a nod to her bargaining on his behalf in this instance.
Rias and Irina began a fierce battle of negotiation as Sasuke and Xenovia looked on in awe.
It was finally agreed that in return for Sasuke's assistance and the return of the six fragments, the church would turn over both the Helm of Perdition along with the Breastplate of Woe.
As they finished wording and signing the magical contract (luckily Irina came prepared), Sasuke waved Asia over from the training to heal Irina and Xenovia.
"Rias, if you would keep an eye on Issei for me while i'm gone I would appreciate it. Asia-chan, inform the Yakuza lieutenants that they will all be assigned to protect you in my absence and will follow your word as if it were my own."
Resting his hand on his katana hilt, Sasuke let a savage grin split his face.
"It's time to go on a little treasure hunt."