Well, I finally move my lazy butt off and finish this chapter. Ever since after that Christmas chapter, my real life has to take full attention from writing and my motivation to write this was at an all-time low. Between my college (and I am in my final year now), Covid-19, and juggling with my life, it's hard to get any motivation.
Vergil be disappointed.
In the meantime when I am not working on this, I was busy working on my original story and another fic of mine, DotHack Remnant. If you are interested, you can check it out. While at the same time, I got distracted with Genshin, Vtuber, and other short single-player games that I had put off far too long.
At least now I decide to get this done before I put this on the lower end of the importance list that I have, otherwise, you guys will have to wait for who knows how long to get an update.
I do not own the franchises/series. Highschool DXD and Kamen Rider belong to Ichiei Ishibumi, Miyama- Zero, Fujimi Shobo, Funimation Channel, AT-X, TNK TOEI, and Shotaro Ishinomori. Please support the official release.
Irina and Xenovia sat quietly in the interrogation room that they were brought into, looking down at the table without saying a world within the white walls.
The police had confiscated their swords and now they are waiting for the inevitable punishment that they will get (they were carrying weapons after all).
"We fail that one, didn't we?" Xenovia muttered, still feeling sad that they did not successfully catch or defeat the spider woman.
Irina couldn't respond to Xenovia. They know they screw up and there is nothing that they can do but hope they get a lighter sentence. That and they have no idea how they are gonna get away from talking about the supernatural things (they are not magicians and even then they don't know any mind alteration spells).
They both continue to sit in total silence for a few more minutes until the door opens. They saw a man in a blue police uniform right beside the door, holding it.
"Our chief inspector said that he wants to see you." said the police officer. A man in his late 20s with a stoic face walked into the room while the police officer closed the door again. The chief inspector took a seat across them and pulled out a notepad.
"Illegal possessions of weapons," He started as he looked at the notes. "Property destruction and disturbance of neighborhood."
He looked up from the notepad and stared back at them. "Now, the last one is not the biggest problem, but all three together definitely do put you two behind the bar."
Both of them immediately look back down on the table in shame. Not even a week and they are now going to be placed behind the bar, and in a foreign country too.
"...If I do not know who you girls are and why you both are you here." That made both girls look up at him and become wary of him. Does he mean that he knows about the supernatural?
He saw their wariness and sighs. "Calm down, Quarta-san, Shidou-san. Your guardian told me about why you are here, doesn't stop Griselda-san to grumble about the whole situation."
The chief saw how the two girls visibly sigh and relaxed from his words, though they then wonder in their heads just who this person is.
"Erm, how are Issei and the girl with him?" Irina timidly asked the policeman.
"Oh, the kid? I let go of him too since he was the one that testifies what happened tonight, the girlfriend of his just backs up his claim." He said before he sighed and chuckled a little. "Can't believe this is the first time he comes to this station not because he punched some delinquent outside of his school."
Irina blinked and frowned at the statement, wondering why did the brown-haired boy fight delinquents. Regardless, she will ask him later.
The chief inspector stood up from his seat and began to walk towards the door and opened it for the both of them to exit.
"Well, I don't want to hold both of you here for too long. It's getting late now and your guardian should be at the front door of the station with the rest of you, so I'll see you both out."
The two of them followed the chief's action and began to walk out of the room and continue their journey to the entrance of the police station. Right at the entrance, Issei is talking to his mother while Akeno is sitting quietly behind the two of them. Though they are not Xenovai and Irina's biggest concern right now; because right beside the Hyoudou matriarch, a blonde nun in her late 20s looks at them with a smile, one that does nothing to relieve their fear of the woman but amplifies it.
"Miss Griselda." The chief inspector called her.
"Ah, officer Souji. I assume that you have finished interrogating Xenovia and Irina?" The woman called Griselda asked the chief inspector.
He shook his head and then looked at the two girls, "No, they did nothing wrong to begin with. They were just people who got caught up in an unavoidable situation, just like the other two kids that were involved."
He points at both Issei and Akeno, to which the mentioned teenagers walked towards them (along with Issei's mother who just finished talking with Issei).
"You can thank this kid for providing the testimony tonight. Otherwise, they might be in deeper trouble."
Griselda looked at Issei for a second and smiled at him. "I see… a thank you is in order then. Those two always got themselves into trouble more times than I wish they don't."
He waved at her nervously and gave her a strained smile. "Erm… there is no need for that, I am just doing what I can."
"Ufufu, polite too, no wonder Irina talked so highly of you." Griselda said.
Issei blinked when he heard that and Irina immediately blushed at the comment. He looked at Irina and wondered why a girl that he is not familiar with spoke about him. Though she looks very familiar...
Behind him, Akeno narrowed her eyes, wondering why the elder nun mentioned such detail to Issei. From what she can see, it seems like the girl known as Irina had some history with Issei.
Issei's mother stares at Irina for a few seconds before she exclaims, realizing that Issei did not pick up. "Irina-chan? Is that you?"
Irina shrank herself, trying to make herself look smaller on the spot, and nervously chuckled when Ms. Hyoudou mentioned her name. "Ehehe… H-hi, Auntie."
"Wait…" A sudden thought flows into the Red Dragon Emperor's mind. "The only person outside of my cousins who call mom 'auntie' was-"
"Iri-kun?" Issei asked.
The reaction was immediate, Xenovia's partner let out a sharp eep when Issei said that word, practically confirming the identity of the girl in front of him. Her eyes darted left and right, seemingly trying not to meet his eyes while finding anyone who can help her get her out of the situation.
Fortunately, her plea was answered, as Griselda decided to intervene in the conversation. "I would like to continue this conversation too, but it's very late right now."
They all agreed to meet each other during the weekend at a restaurant, for them all to discuss what happened during that night and -in Issei's and Irina's case- hopefully also catch up on things that they missed over the years.
As they walk their separate ways, chief inspector Souji stares at Issei as he walks in the direction of his home along with his mother and Akeno and makes a small smile.
"This is going to be far stranger than we all think huh, Mr. dimension hopper." He muttered as he went back into his office.
The weekend can never come faster than Issei wished. When the day comes, Issei went ahead and picked up Akeno at the school's dorm before they go to the restaurant where they agree to meet up with Irina and her friend.
"Ahhh…. This is so good~" Irina moaned a little while eating the bowl of curry udon that she ordered, stuffing the noodle into her mouth like a person who had not eaten for days. "Oh man, I thought this place was gone considering how many years since I last ate at this place, but it tastes just like how I remembered!"
Issei chuckled nervously looking at his childhood friend devouring her food with all the staff and customers looking at her.
Trying to distract himself from the staring crowd, Issei decided to start a conversation. "So… it has been a while, hasn't it?"
Irina stopped her rampage against the food and looked up at her friend. She chuckled sheepishly and looked at Issei. "Been a while? More like a decade long! So, how have you been doing?"
He shrugged. "Nothing much, it has been very peaceful here honestly. It's not Tokyo or Fuuto, so there is nothing too big happening here."
Xenovia coughed to get their attention. "Let us not forget what we are supposed to do. We don't have time for idle chit-chat right now."
Irina huffed and muttered "spoilsport" before she shifted to a more serious expression.
"Alright, I'll ask you both first then." Akeno spoke up "Why are two exorcists from the European region coming to Kuoh?"
"We have no obligation to tell you, Fallen Angel." Xenovia's reply caused Akeno to stiffen before she recovered from the shock. Irina smacked Xenovia's arm and glared at her.
"Well, we were here to actually find and capture someone." Irina decided to inform them about their purpose since Xenovia was too stubborn to answer any questions. She then pulled out a file inside her robe and placed it on the table. "More specifically, this person in the file."
Issei took the file and opened it, letting Akeno look into the content of the file.
Their eyes widen, recognizing the person in the mugshot as a certain psychotic man that the Red Dragon Emperor encountered a few days ago.
"Freed Sellzen?"
"Oh, you know him?" Xenovia asked.
He nodded at the blue-haired girl. "Quite the story actually."
He then began to explain to the exorcists about how he encountered the man a few nights ago, how he almost die from the two encounters he had with Freed, how he awakened his Sacred Gear -and his subsequent transformation during the second day- and both his and Akeno's discovery about his fallen angel accomplices.
"So that's what happened to the other exorcist…" Xenovia muttered. "So, you have that belt with you?"
"Well, it's at my house actually, do you want to come to retrieve it later? Besides, my mother wanted me to invite Iri-kun over too." Issei replied.
Xenovia huffed and nodded. "I suppose that will do."
"What is that belt supposed to be though? From what I see, it looks like a transformation device." Issei asked.
"Well, you are correct about that." Xenovia said. "One of the things that we were asked to find was the IXA belt, that transformation device you just said.
Around a week ago, the organization that asked us to find it, Wonder Blue Sky Organization, sent out a request to the church that this device was stolen by fallen angels apparently."
"Then what takes you all so long?" Akeno asked with a subtle edge to her voice.
Whether the other girls picked up the subtle edge behind Akeno's voice or not, they do not react to it. "The priest did send out numerous exorcists before us actually, but all of them had been radio silent for a long while now. The last update we got was last week."
Thinking for a little bit, Issei began to wonder if those blood that Freed had on his clothes were the aforementioned missing exorcist. He decides to tell everyone about it and hopes that they will at least get something out of that information.
Sadly, even the two church girls didn't know if that is the case. "I think we should also think about the spider devil that we fought yesterday, who knows how long that devil has been in this city."
In the end, they conclude that they have hit a roadblock right now. So the four teenagers decide to walk back to the Hyoudou residence first to retrieve the IXA Belt.
"Here, it's in this bag."
Issei handed the bag that contained the belt to Xenovia, which she graciously accepted while Irina was busy conversing with Hitomi, talking about many things from Irina's life after she moved to Italy.
"By the way, I placed the gun and the lightsaber thing in the bag too."
She just nodded at his extra statement. Xenovia opened the bag to make sure all the contents of the belt were inside before she closed it back. Instead of a satisfying expression, Issei saw that Xenovia frowned from what she saw inside the bag.
"Say, did you come across some whistles when you retrieved the belt?" Xenovia asked.
Issei mulled over what she said, and tried to recall if he ever found flutes around that time. Sadly he could not remember seeing those wind instruments in the park and can only shook his head.
"I see… looks like our job is not done here yet." Xenovia muttered before she walked towards Irina and tapped her shoulder. She leaned down to her ears and whispered to her about the information that she got before Irina nodded to her friend.
"Erm, sorry auntie. I have a call that I need to make right now, it's an emergency." She got up and fetched out her phone. "Erm… in the meantime, why not talk with Xenovia for a bit?"
"Eh? Hold on, what are you saying?"
Deciding to leave Xenovia to her own fate, Irina nudged Issei to leave her alone and brought him to the side. Akeno, who was in the kitchen preparing tea for the guest, decided to stand by Issei's side, interested in the topic that Irina might say.
"So there is still something missing is it?" Issei asked.
"Yeah," Irina nodded. "This specific IXA belt actually came with 3 whistles called Fluestles which functioned as their extra weaponories; Wonder Blue Sky Organization called them Knuckle, Calibur and Powered Fluestle."
Akeno hummed after hearing the information, realizing that the Fluestle was the thing that those Fallen Angels were talking about back then. "Then we have to find it soon, who knows what they will use those Fluestle for."
"Don't worry too much, you guys actually lucked out the fact that this one is Version VII of the IXA belt, so they can only use one of the three Fluestle even if they got their hands on any newer version of IXA belt."
"You meant to tell me that these belts have different variants and somehow some weaponories from the previous version are not compatible with any newer variants?" Issei frowned.
"Try running a Windows 3.1 program on a modern pc without a virtual machine, it's the same principle."
Well, guess that is the answer that he was going to get right now. Irina decided to make a call to her guardian afterward and Akeno wants to join Hitomi to talk with the blue-haired exorcist, whose face became red from embarrassment it seems.
Issei heard a knock on the door and walked towards it, wondering who was in front of his house. He opened the door and was taken by surprise as to who was at the front.
"Argento-san?"
Lo and behold, a blonde nun was standing in front of his house nervously.
"G-good evening." Asia said in rather broken English. Seemingly heard that Asia is at the front door, Akeno walked out there in surprise, before she began to talk to her in Italian.
"Let's bring her in first and then we can ask her what happened and why is she here."
Akeno nodded and invited her into the Hyoudou residence. Issei sighed as he closed the door, a headache formed in his head.
How did his house turn into a gathering place for Christians?