By the time training has finished I've calmed down enough to not go through with my first impulse. Which was to kick in the door of the ORC room, telekinetically launch Akeno out the nearest window, and grab Rias and shake some sense into her. It would be satisfying, and I'm pretty sure I could get away with it, I'd just have to leave immediately afterwards to avoid Lucifer. As satisfying as it would be though, I'm not sure it's actually the best way to get what I want, which is help for Shirone.

So instead I calmly venture onto school grounds to find the Occult Research Club room. According to the show, it's one room in an old, and otherwise unused, school building that still stands on the school's grounds. Finding it isn't hard. It's located at the far end of the grounds hidden from the rest of the school by large stands of trees. An open space in front of the main entrance shows the signs of Kiba, at least, using it for training.

What really throws me is that there's no barrier around the building. Nothing to redirect attention, or keep people away aside from perfectly the mundane camouflage of a mostly abandoned building. So I have no trouble just... walking in. The ORC room isn't hard to find either. Even if I couldn't just follow the feel of devil mana, it's the only door in the place that doesn't look like it needs replacing.

I pause briefly outside the door to take another deep breath and center myself enough to keep my temper contained. I'm not sure I'll be able to hide how pissed I am in general, and honestly I'm not too interested in trying. I'm furious and, unlike Shirone, they deserve at least some of it.

I knock once before letting myself in, drawing surprised looks from Rias and Akeno. The king behind her desk, and the queen preparing tea at a service that looks a lot like the one in the student council room. In fact, once I took a glance around the room, I find it looks nearly identical to the student council room. Just fewer windows.

"Ah! Ericka-ch-san!" Rias almost squeaks as I wander forward and take a seat on the low table so I can face her directly, "How was the first training session?"

I eye her for a moment, "It went well, mostly. Kiba needs work but he knows that and is making progress." Which is true, mostly. The most egregious flourishes have been removed, but it's clear that he still doesn't understand what his priorities should be in a fight, or what's superfluous and what isn't. I'm beginning to believe that the only way I'm going to be able to get through to him about this, is to spar with him and just hit him every time he does something dumb. "My other student has bigger problems though." My voice starts trying to add tones and turn dissonant but I manage to keep it under control.

"What's wrong with Kitten?" Rias asks, concerned.

I grit my teeth, "Well, there's that for one thing." The two devils look at me blankly, "You think of her as a pet."

Rias reared back as though slapped, "I do not! How dare..."

"Then why do I hear you say 'kitten' every time you refer to her?" I have to take another deep breath to get my voice back under control, "Proper names don't translate in Allspeak. I'll let you work through what that means in your own time, because it's honestly the least of Shirone's problems."

"Who?" Rias is looking a little shell shocked, but I don't really care about that. Except for how it means she's actually listening to me.

"Shirone. The real name of the little girl you took in and decided to make a pet out of." If I didn't have regeneration I'd be worried about my dentistry bills from how hard I'm gritting my teeth, "At the very least she's suffering from severe depression. Very long term at that, or did you think that it's normal for a little girl to act like a robot?"

Rias lets out a breath of what sounds like relief, which confuses me until she opens her mouth and then I'm nearly back to violence, "Oh. Okay, that shouldn't be too hard to deal with. I'll get the peerage together and we'll reassure her that we love her and..."

I cut her off, surging to my feet, "Shut up. Depression isn't something you can fix with a pep talk." The derision in my voice on the words 'pep talk' is almost a physical thing, "She's ill. Probably traumatized too. That's just as serious, if not more so, for the mind than it is for the body." At my sudden movement Rias rocks back in her chair slightly and Akeno steps forward, little bits of lightning dancing around her fingers. Outwardly I ignore her, my mental bowstring is pulled back as far as I possibly can though. If I let go of it like this we'll probably have to collect Akeno from the street in front of the school, "You took in a little girl who had just been abandoned, watched everybody she knew die or abandon her, and was nearly executed herself, and your solution was to take away her name. The fact you lived with her for several years and never noticed that she was in nearly constant agony honestly blows my mind. Especially since you go on so much about how well you take care of your peerage, 'like family'. It makes me wonder what else you've been ignoring, since you obviously are incapable of noticing even the most obvious mental health issues. Which Shirone's qualify as, since I managed to figure out that there's something wrong within thirty seconds of seeing her for the first time. So here's what's going to happen. You are going to reach into that vast Gremory network of contacts, and find a therapist in the know to help her, or I will." I give a moment for them to respond, but the girls seemed stunned, so I continued on, "As for her fighting I'm starting her over from scratch. I don't know who thought it would be a good idea for the thirty foot fire giant to teach the four foot Nekoshu how to fight, but they should be taken out back and shot."

I pause a moment to see if they would recover to bring anything else up, but apparently I'd managed to bulldoze my way through the conversation fast enough that they hadn't caught up yet. I nod once, and head for the door. Reaching it I pull it open and pause, "I can't wait to hear from Shirone what you've done to help her the next time I see her." I close the door behind me and head home. Unfortunately the day's not over yet, I need information. Fortunately I have a font of it that hasn't paid rent this month at home.

###

Mia isn't home when I arrive, which doesn't surprise me. She's got nothing like a regular schedule, and whatever she's doing for Yasaka on a regular basis keeps her pretty busy. I make use of the time to start making dinner. I never thought of myself as a cook, but I've had to take over the chore almost in self defense. What a crow demon thinks of as fine dining isn't really fit for human consumption. On the other hand, it means that I never have to clean up which is great for several reasons. First, I don't have to do it, which is obvious but important. The second is that Mia washing the dishes is great entertainment. For somebody who's so physically gifted otherwise she turns into a complete klutz with the addition of hot water. So inevitably there's a lot of squawking and hilarious noises that end with her being soaked from head to toe.

Every time.

Her excuse? "I'm not a swimmy bird." with a pout. Dinner and a show, it's great.

Tonight though is pretty simple pasta so there won't be that much for her to clean up. Which means not as great of a show. But it works.

By the time Mia comes in the front door, which she's never asked for a key to and I've never given to her, I've had the food ready for almost an hour and have already eaten myself. She looks tired but not enough to repress her seemingly infinite energy. I wait for her to shed her coat, and take a seat to start eating before I start trying to get answers out of her.

I take a seat at the kitchen table across from her where we normally eat, and wait until she notices. It takes only a few moments before she glances up from the bowl of pasta to look at me. I watch with some amusement as she takes in my posture and expression, before her eyes dart around the room in what I recognize as an attempt to find an escape route. After several seconds she sighs and gives it up as a bad job, "All right, what do you want." She grumbles.

"Information. I got a crash course on the recent history of Nekoshu in the underworld. From a first person perspective no less. I want to know what actually happened, and given that Nekoshu are Yokai, I bet you know."

Mia stares at me for a long moment before putting down her fork, "Okay, what's all this about?"

I sigh and hesitate for a moment before continuing on, "You know the little Nekoshu that climbed into my lap when the devils invaded the house?" I wait for Mia to nod before I continue, "Well as it turns out her big sister set the whole thing off. She was probably the first Nekoshu captured and I'm wondering how accurate her account is."

Mia sighs and sits back in her chair toying with her food, "That's a harder question than you might assume. The basics, as I understand them, are that Kuroka joined a peerage run by a king that fancied himself the second coming of Beelzebub. He did a lot of experimentation on his peerage, which was something that Kuroka was willing to put up with until he started talking about experimenting on her sister. Your new student apparently. So she killed her king and ran hoping, according to her, to take the heat with her. We all know how that worked out."

I frown, listening, "You sound like you've spoken to her."

Mia shrugs, "If you were a Yokai on the run where's the first place you would go? She didn't stick around for long, but she gave us a rundown on what happened, at least the basics of it. Just in case the devils decided to do something stupid." She sighs again and slouches, "Which they did. The aftermath is harder to be certain of, though not for the reasons you likely suspect. We know that a lot of Nekoshu were killed, but how many and what that did to their population nobody's really sure. Nekoshu have always been rather secretive, and really good at hiding thanks to their senjutsu expertise. So nobody that I've ever spoken to knows how many there were to begin with, or how many died vs how many escaped. And we can't just do a census now because most Nekoshu have vanished off the face of the earth. We're pretty sure they're not extinct, but proving it is the next best thing to impossible. There were rumors of a sort of cat Yokai underground railroad to somewhere further east, but again not something that's ever been proven."

"So basically nobody knows anything?" I ask with a frustrated sigh. Even as I watch Mia nod and shrug, all I can wonder is if this cat underground railroad that ran east has anything to do with Cait, who has been living on the west coast of the US for the last several decades. Something else to ask her about when I see her next, until then though, "Is there a report of any sort outlining this? One you could get your hands on?"

"Why...?" Mia asks slowly.

"Because if anybody deserves to know what actually happened it's Shirone." I tell her looking down at the table, and my finger scratching at it, "

"Yeah. I think I can manage that." She answers softly.

We're quiet for a long moment before I break the rather somber silence to ask something that's been bugging me, "How does expertise with senjutsu equal hard to find?"

Mia shrugs, "As it turns out it's hard to spot somebody who can literally become one with their surroundings."

"Huh. I need to learn how to do that." I murmur. My Tuatha based invisibility is as close to perfect as anything I've ever heard of, but it's a power hog and requires quite a lot of active concentration. Something that could passively hide my aura could be very useful. If that's how it worked.

Mia frowns at me for a moment, then looks like she just remembered something, "That's right. You practice senjutsu too, if a really weird kind of it. Who's teaching you that anyway? It's not one of us, and you don't really practice like a cultivator would."

"Oh..." Had we really not talked about this? "Ku'uakii Ke'Kua'Okolani is teaching me."

Mia chokes, "What? How? First the Lady of the Lake and now him? What's next? Did his sister teach you magic or something?"

"Ah... actually..."

Mia drops her chopsticks and throws her hands up in the air, "How do you meet these people?!"

###

I stab another piece of PVC piping into the ground, and set a light bulb screw down into it. Finally done setting up, I look around the field where Mia and I go to practice and where we first met Kiba. Liberally scattered around the open area are more PVC pipes and light bulbs, all set up around a clear space in the center of the field. I nod once to myself, head to the center of my arrangement and get ready to practice.

One of the neat things I discovered pretty quickly once I started singing lessons, is that with a Siren's voice box my range is stupid. I can hit any note from the bottom of bass to the top of soprano and further still in both directions. I can actually hit notes both above and below a human's range of hearing. It's lucky that I upgraded my hearing as much as I have, otherwise I wouldn't be able to hear something like half my own range.

My vocal coach discovered my inhuman vocal talents on my first day of lessons when she told me to sing the lowest note I could, and then sing the smoothest scale I could manage to the highest note I could hit. At that point I had no idea what my voice could actually do, aside from break things, so I blew any cover I might have ever had pretty much immediately. Fortunately my coach was so giddy about what my voice could do, that she decided almost immediately that she didn't care that what I was doing should have been humanly impossible. Instead she just devoted herself to trying to help me get the most out of my voice as I possibly could. Though I think my refusal to perform drove her to drink more than once.

My first lessons were on projection and control, which while not too directly applicable to the more supernatural aspects of my voice, are exactly what I needed. Which is why I'm out here now. The goal of the exercise, and the setup, is to only break the light bulbs that I intend to. Which I doubt I'll manage, but if I can only break the ones in front of me, instead of all of them and the trees, I'd count it as a win.

Sitting on the ground next to me inside of a Script circle designed to protect what's inside the circle from my voice, are a huge number of light bulbs. I figure I'm going to be going through a lot of them today.

I start with all the vocal warmup exercises that my coach adjusted for my range. I'm not sure how much they help given how my voice box has changed, but they can't hurt. Once done with my warmups, I make sure that the Script around the spare light bulbs is still functioning then get to work.

I start with trying for a single note, sung pure and clear. I fail, my voice wobbling up and down in a fashion that makes me cringe. I may have the most spectacular voice of any human being on the planet, but that doesn't mean I know how to use it. Still, I don't need vocal perfection for what I'm doing.

Everything in front of me trembles, but nothing else. Slowly I try to maintain the note while slowly increasing the amount of mana rushing into my throat. Performing both tasks at the same time turns out to be fairly difficult. In order to keep a smooth note, I also have to keep the flow of mana smooth.

Which is something I do okay at for several minutes, but eventually my mana control fails me and a thick rush of mana barrels through my network to my throat. The lump of mana hits my voice box making me almost cough, if one coughed with a sung note. A shock wave rushes out from me, rolling like a wave across the field causing light bulbs to burst like soap bubbles and the PVC to bend and sway. The shock wave continues until it reaches the tree line, where it strikes the trees, and disperses in a shower of falling leaves.

I blink several times. That... isn't at all what I was trying for... but it's a neat trick anyway. And something I've actually accomplished, and I'm pretty sure I can do again. Maybe I'll play with that for a while. I glance around me and my smile gets a little wider, the only broken light bulbs are in front of me. Granted the arc of destruction is about a quarter of everything I set up, but that's still more focused than anything I've managed before.

...Still means I have to replace a quarter of my light bulbs.

###

A thump has me looking up from my work. I'm in the kitchen working on my Script projects, trying to figure out how to get some gap stuff to experiment with. My two projects are large enough that they can take up almost any amount of space that I'm willing to give them. The desk in my workroom has been completely taken over, so I moved into the kitchen for at least a little while. Now though a new file folder has been dropped in the middle of the table.

I look up from the new mass of paper to where Mia is standing across the table from me, raising an eyebrow in question, "It's the file you wanted." Mia tells me heading over to the refrigerator, "The one on the Nekoshu incident." I look back at the folder that I feel like has somehow changed into something poisonous.

"Huh." Is all I manage to get out.

"Huh indeed." Mia's muffled voice comes back from where she's stuffed her entire top half into the refrigerator, "I got permission for you to read that, and for you to show it to Shirone. Nobody else is allowed access though."

Carefully I pull the file closer to me with the eraser of my pencil, then use the same instrument to push the folder open and start to read.

Almost an hour later I sit back with a sigh, having finished the file. There's a lot of information in there, but it's basically a more detailed version of what Mia has already told me. Basically, that Kuroka is guilty of everything they say she is, though she didn't act for the reasons that everybody assumes she had. There are some more entries about places she's been spotted since the incident. Something that I make an additional note of, as she's been spotted in some places with some regularity. Who knows when being able to find one of the most infamous criminals in devil history could come in handy?

Now though, I'm faced with a brand new problem, what am I going to do with this information? I glance up at the clock to check the time, before packing up my Script work and putting it away. I put Sclamhaire in her case, grab the folder then head out the door. Mia looks at me curiously but doesn't actually ask anything, so I felt no real need to speak. Really it should be obvious, with even a moment's thought, where I'm going.

###

Kuoh Academy, when school is letting out, is a very different place than long after it lets out or far before it starts. Students swirl and mingle, the number of them significant enough that the patterns of their massed movement have begun to resemble a flowing liquid. I can hear Issei and his friends crowing about breasts and various girls' measurements somewhere in the crowd.

I ignore them as best I can, and push through the crowds towards the ORC building. The sound of clacking rattan on rattan makes me pause for a moment though, outside the school gym. My glance inside shows me that I've found where the kendo team practices. The girls are wearing their protective gear, sans helmets, watching Kiba trounce another girl.

I watch my student, wincing slightly. It's not as bad as the first time I saw him, but still, "Kiba!" I call out from where I stand by the door to the gym.

The girls all turn to look at me with various expressions of displeasure, which turn to confusion when Kiba faces me and bows, "Ericka-sensei!"

That actually gets a smile out of me, and I walk further into the gym so I'm not shouting across it, "I'm glad you're working to reduce the extras in your swordsmanship, but you're going too far in the other direction. You're stiffening up, I'd much rather you start something, and then check yourself, than make certain of your choice, and move too late." I pause, "Not to mention that you're exhausting yourself faster than you need to, keeping your muscles tense like that. Just remember everything works better when you're relaxed."

Kiba visibly thinks over my instructions for a moment then nods, "Yes Sensei."

My smile widens a bit, "Go again. I want to make sure we understand each other."

The knight nods again, and turns back to his sparring partner, picking up where they left off. I watch for a bit as Kiba tries to find a middle ground between constant flourishes, and trying not to tense up. It'll come with practice as long as he keeps trying.

One of the kendo girls sidles up to me as I watch Kiba, and after standing there for several moments finally speaks up, "Ano... You're Yuuto-san's teacher?" I look down at the girl and blink, then nod, "In Kendo?"

I manage to not snort, "No. In sword fighting." From the look of confusion on her face she's not really sure how that's different from Kendo. After a moment I decide to answer the unspoken question, and turn my gaze back to Kiba, "Fiore Furlano was one of the last sword masters to teach the sword to people actually expected to use them in war. One of my favorite sayings of his is, 'when in doubt, punch them in the throat'. That's the difference. What I do has nothing to do with scoring points, it's all about being the last one standing as quickly as possible." I look back down at the girl, "I'd do terribly in competition, and nothing I do should be used by anybody in a contest. It looks like Kiba has the right idea now, I should get back to what I was doing." I nod to the girl and continue to the ORC building.

###

The ORC room is exactly as I'd left it a few days ago. Right down to where people are, Akeno's making tea, Rias' is sitting behind her desk doing... whatever it is she does with her time. The only difference is that Shirone is sitting on one of the couches, her homework spread across the low table. The way she has to bend over the low table from the couch looks uncomfortable as hell.

"Ericka-san!" There was barely a hitch in the suffix that time, maybe Rias is getting a hint? "To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit." That's a lot more polite than I was expecting from her after my reading her the riot act on my last visit.

I don't respond to Rias directly, and instead turn to Shirone. The little white haired girl is looking up at me with an actual smile, small but there from nothing more than my presence. I smile back at her and take a seat while putting the file down in front of the cat girl, "I brought that for you. After you told me your story the other day I did some digging." The other two devils are staring at me in shock but I ignore them, "Apparently your sister," Shirone flinches just slightly at the mention of her only living relative, "after what happened ran to the Yokai as her first port of call. That is the file on her interview, and what the Yokai know about the aftermath. If you're interested I got permission to let you read that, so you can know what actually happened, and why Kuroka," another flinch, "did what she did. It's your choice, if I were you though I'd want to know."

With that I stand and give her some space, moving to the windows and looking out of them. I don't visibly pay any attention to what Shirone does, not wanting to pressure the girl. My ears though paint me a good enough picture of what goes on behind me though. She stares at the folder for a long several minutes before opening it up, and beginning to read.

I let out a sigh and continue to wait, only to feel a new presence next to me. I glance to the side and discover a head of red hair looking out the windows next to me. Rias and I stand in silence for several minutes before she turns to look at me, "Do you really know a skilled supernaturally aware therapist?" My only response is to nod, "How do you know they're trustworthy?"

"Well... I don't really have an answer that would satisfy you, but I know them because they're who I go to." I shrug, "So that should tell you how much I trust them at least."

Another few minutes of silence, "Could I meet them?"

"I could probably talk them into coming out here for a visit." I answer after a few moments of thought.

"Why couldn't I go to where they are?" Rias frowns.

I shrug, "I suppose we could do that, but I figured that you'd want to avoid Hawaii like the rest of the biblical factions."

The way Rias suddenly pales at the idea of visiting the islands is something that I strangely find viscerally satisfying.

###

It's taken Shirone a couple of hours to get through the entire file, and several more before she stops crying. Apparently knowing that her sister hasn't gone insane, but instead acted to protect her, and furthermore hadn't just abandoned Shirone, but had tried to take the heat with her, makes a huge difference to the girl. That Kuroka utterly failed to take all that heat with her when she left, means very little in contrast.

By the time that Shirone has finally run out of tears, almost half an hour after she's cried herself to sleep, and can be pried off of me, the sun has begun to set. As much as I kind of want to take Shirone home with me, I really can't. So I leave her with Rias, no matter how much I don't want to.

I take my leave then, making sure to take Mia's file before either of the other two can get a look at it, and head back towards the front entrance of the school, enjoying the way the low sun bathes everything around me in an orange glow. What I don't expect is to find another devil waiting for me in the school courtyard.

Sona is dressed in the school uniform, her normal severe expression enhanced by her glasses. Behind her mask though, I can see a hint of nerves, and possibly a faint dusting of rose in her cheeks. The color could just be a product of the sunset though.

I stop walking at an easy conversational distance, and give her a crooked smile, "Miss Sitri, fancy meeting you here. Is there anything I can do for you?"

The color in her cheeks increases slightly, her frown more dramatically, "Yes. I had thought your intention was to make me and my peerage your primary contacts."

I blink, what? "I do...?"

"You have been spending a great deal of time with the Gremory peerage if that is the case." Sona tells me flatly. Is... is she jealous?

...

I don't really know how to respond to that, aside from letting my smile become more natural, "I agreed to teach Kiba how to actually use a sword properly, and Shirone how to fight at all."

"I thought that Yuuto-san is quite good at handling a sword." Sona frowns, "And who is Shirone?"

I sigh, "Yes, Kiba is quite good at handling a sword, somewhat less good at fighting with one. We're fixing that though. Shirone is Koneko's actual name."

Sona blinks several times in shock, before shaking herself and refocusing, "I see. Still I insist that we work on our rapport if we are to liaise with each other."

"I... Oookaaaaay..." I stare at the girl for a moment, then shrug. It's not like I have anything better to do than go home, beat my head against Script, or listen to Mia mock performers on the singing shows she likes. She's a fantastic mimic, perhaps unsurprisingly, but watching her MST3K reality TV is something I can only take for so long, "Sure, what do you want to do then?"

Her stern visage falters for a moment, "Right now?" I raise an eyebrow at her and she rallies, "Well..."

Which is how five minutes later I find myself playing another game of chess with Sona Sitri. I've taken up my previous strategy almost immediately, and already Sona is frowning at the board like she's just discovered that it has been lying to her, "What are you doing?" She finally demands after tentatively moving a pawn.

I consider not telling her for a moment, what I'm doing would be much harder if she knew what to look for. On the other hand, this is a game and not even one I'm particularly interested in, "I know losing this is inevitable. This is literally the second game of chess I've ever played, and you're you." Sona smiles at the compliment blushing slightly, "So instead I'm trying to keep you from winning. I won't pull that off either, but this way I can make you work for your win."

"I knew it." Sona mutters quietly enough that I'm sure I'm not supposed to hear it.

I raise an eyebrow and play along, "What?"

Sona jolts, and coughs once, "I wanted to thank you for warning me that my sister was coming."

I shrug, hiding a smirk at the topic change, and move a rook, "Your sister was... interesting to say the least. She didn't seem like the sort of person that could really be handled without proper bracing. She certainly ran all over me in that conversation." I pause for a moment then continue with a tone of voice appropriate for the statement, "At one point she checked out of the conversation to braid my hair. It's... I don't even..." I shake my head to communicate the shear what the fuck of the situation.

Sona lets her face fall into her hands, "My sister, greatest diplomat in the underworld. Taking a break from negotiations to braid the other party's hair. Just... Why Serafall, why?"

I can't help but smile at her, laughing slightly to herself, "I hardly think that was the most embarrassing thing she did during that meeting."

"I don't want to know, do I?" I just shrug at her and make my move on the board. After several minutes of silence, where we actually focus on the game, Sona finally caves, "Fine tell me."

"Well it would depend on what you find embarrassing." I temporize.

"So for my sister, nothing." Sona mutters.

I shoot her a grin and keep going, "But it would be a toss up between the magical girl intro pose she did on my front door step," I ignore Sona's quite groan of agony, "and her begging me to guest star on her TV show."

Sona slumps into her seat with a sigh, "The doorstep thing is the worst definitely, but the TV show is a close second."

I shrug, "I don't know, I was sort of tempted. I'd be a lot more tempted if it wouldn't involve literally going to hell and being dependent on somebody else for transportation out again."

"I... can see how that would be unappealing for a human." Sona says slowly. She falls silent again as we refocus on the game for several more minutes, before she sighs, "They do film on location in the human world quite frequently. You could probably do the show up here without ever having to go to the underworld."

I blink, "Really?" Sona nods, "Well, that is interesting. Maybe I'll take her up on that after..." I'm interrupted by the sound of my phone going off. Grumbling I pull it out of my pocket, and check to see what it wants. Slowly though my expression shifts to a smile.

On my phone is a text with an attached file from Lucifer, the file is simply titled 'Roanoke'.