Once again, it seems as if this took me longer than usual to post. Sorry about that; had an exam to study for and an essay to do. I also have a presentation to work on very soon in addition to doing two more essays, hence the delay. Didn't help either when my laptop somehow downloaded something from a random site that gave it two malwares and a crapton of adwares. Took me a whole weekend just to get it fully fixed before also having to replace the battery.

Anyways, my inane plights aside, for this chapter, don't expect to be seeing/hearing much of the council as they're relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. After all, you guys are here for the action, not for the council to talking on and on about stuff.

And random side note, the most recent chapters of Tokyo Ghoul Re were just… wow. Won't spoil anything for those of you who don't read it, but just wow. My heart is just bleeding for these characters again.

Now here we go.

Chapter 18

In a remote facility a ways away from Beacon Academy, Ozpin sat at a large table, with Naruto, Miki, Hanako, Ryuichi, and Mari seated to his left in that same order. Stuck in a relatively dark room, the six of them were currently waiting for the people that were supposed to have already been here.

"How typical…" Naruto muttered in growing annoyance. "These councilmen and women brats get on our case about things and call for a conference face to face and here we are waiting for them instead…"

Miki simply placed a gentle hand on her husband's shoulder, trying to placate him, but she too was feeling a little miffed about this. "I don't get why they want us here too. We really should be at Beacon in case anything happens."

"Yeah," Mari said, agreeing with her longtime friend. "With everything going on nowadays, it feels really off to be away like this."

"But what else can we do?" Ozpin now spoke, lightly thumping his cane against the ground. Much like his magi friends, he too wasn't too pleased with this meeting especially since he could easily guess why the council would so staunchly want to meet with not just him, but the others too; no doubt, they want to question them to see just what it is exactly that's going on. An event that Ozpin hardly wanted to have happen. There were just some things that the council was better off not knowing and the existence of magi and these Holy Knights were but a few of them. After all, considering how the council usually tends to react to things, there was little doubt that they'd do everything in their power to have any number of magi under their thumbs. And if pushed truly to some point of desperation, it wouldn't surprise the headmaster of Beacon at all if they'd secretly try to replicate the Holy Knights.

Nonetheless, he was at least trying to keep a level head for now. "I can understand your concerns, but as we can safely establish for now, the Holy Knights seem to not feel like making a direct assault of any kind against the academy. And should they really do so, I doubt they'd go themselves; they'd probably send some hapless minions to do the assault instead, which could easily be repelled by Glynda and the other teachers," Ozpin spoke, trying to reassure his friends.

In response, the magi and one bored/worried magical weapon could only sigh in unison. "I hope you're right, Ozpin," Ryuichi said warily. "I sincerely hope you're right."

Back at Beacon Academy, all was not well within the cafeteria.

As soon as Surma leapt from the ceiling to the ground, a panic had naturally broken out throughout the entire room, with the cooks ducking for cover within the relative safety of the kitchen while a great number of the students flipped over the tables and anything else in their way to get out of the room.

But by the time any of the students reached the main exit to the cafeteria, it was too late; Surma was on the move again.

With a speed impossible for any of the students to track, the sentient Relic rushed straight to the exit and blocked it off with its own body, bowling over a plethora of students in order to reach it. Surma then let out a howl so deafening and intense that several students were actually blown back from the sheer force of it while everyone else covered their ears to prevent their eardrums from rupturing.

"What is that thing?!" Jaune yelled, shaking horribly. The second he had looked at Surma, he could literally feel the power that the beast had and it had immediately sent uncontrollable shivers down his spine, his body all but locking in place.

"I-It's that thing from our mission!" Ruby exclaimed. "But what's it doing here?!" She shouted this question out, knowing it was futile; there was simply no way someone would just suddenly answer her. So occupied by the sudden appearance of this creature, she and her friends neglected to think on just how they could've sensed it in the first place.

As for Surma, the beast didn't move, but instead quickly scanned the entire room, looking for its target among the now frozen student populace. Not seeing its target, the beast growled and the snake that made up its tail hissed venomously. It sent a telepathic message to Kalma, asking for her orders.

"Please, keep searching!" Kalma's voice said directly into its mind. "We don't know what sort of tricks she could be using to stay hidden!"

Receiving the order, Surma made ready to move again. Only this time, it wasn't going to settle for just moving from one place to the next. In one terrible second, it decided on its next course of action: surely, if anyone here was the ancient magus, then any attack upon their person wouldn't be fatal, yes? It was with this train of simplistic thought that Surma slowly raised its massive hands, its claws glistening dangerously under the light of the room.

Everyone there, having now more or less recovered from the shock of its roar, nearly froze once again, seeing it ready its claws for an undoubtedly vicious attack.

But there was one person who didn't freeze up this time around.

"No!" Jaune cried out, seeing what it was about to do. Then much to the surprise of everyone, even to Jaune himself, the blond team leader picked up his food tray and flung it as hard as he could at Surma.

The metallic tray struck the beast in its chest and as was silently expected did no damage to it at all. But the throw had been unexpected enough for the beast to actually pause in its current action somewhat. It honestly hadn't anticipated anyone here trying anything like that.

As if flicking on a switch, however, Jaune's sudden throw was able to make the students unfreeze and immediately ready themselves for some kind of conflict. Even if this beast was something beyond their comprehension, they were still hunters and huntresses in training. To go down without any kind of fight simply wasn't in the cards for them.

"G-Get that thing!" cried out one student.

And then as quickly as everything else had been occurring thus far, the students attacked the beast.

Elsewhere, Katsu was in the midst of battle with one of the Holy Knights, Lugh.

As soon as he had spoken his final pre-battle words as he'd like to call them, Katsu immediately threw himself at the fifth seat, the ground cratering under him from the sheer force of his kick off.

Lugh had anticipated his opponent to be deceptively fast, but hadn't quite accounted for exactly how fast Katsu really was and thus it was with a slight widening of his eyes that he was forced to duck under Katsu's magical weapon, the gauntlet called World Ender. But while Katsu's initial attack, which had been a haymaker, had failed, the magus had used the momentum to let himself spin enough to deliver a kick to Lugh's face.

But with superb reflexes, Lugh raised his spear – called Areadbhar – and defended against the kick. His stance having been a little on the awkward side though, the kick was able to nearly full unbalance the Holy Knight, but he held his ground even as he even skidding back towards the massive trees.

"I don't know just what this place is," Katsu growled, motioning to the forest around him. "But don't think it'll make a difference!" He leapt forward, his gauntlet shifting form a bit.

Over the many years, he's honed his fighting skill as much as possible while also trying to further develop his magical weapon. And within the last century, he had succeeded to an extent; World Ender, being a gauntlet of dark metal, was able to somewhat shift form, being able to take the form of relatively small weapons while still retaining its conceptual destruction property.

And he decided to show Lugh this by having his gauntlet sprout a blade on its side, curved back towards his elbow.

Closing the distance between the two of them instantly, Katsu swung his fist at him with perfect form and he watched carefully to see what Lugh would do.

"Tch!" Knowing very well what would happen if Katsu's magical weapon actually struck him, Lugh leapt as high as he could over Katsu and landed on one of the many large tree branches. He turned back around just in time to see the newly formed blade on World Ender cut lightly into the tree he had been near. And sure enough, the tree simply shattered into nothingness, its 'existence' having been destroyed.

"Your speed isn't bad…" Katsu commented as he turned around to face the tree Lugh was in. He paused for a second to look to Apophis, who was hanging back almost laxly against another tree. "And judging by that look on your face, it'd seem you know what my magical weapon can do."

"But of course." Lugh took up an attack stance with his spear. As he did so, he channeled some mana into Areadbhar. In response to this, the tip of its bladed end light up hotly, flames erupting from it. The heat was great enough for Katsu to immediately feel it despite the distance between the two of them. "You didn't think we'd walk into this battle without knowing the enemy, right?"

"Hmph, knowledge is power, eh…?" Katsu almost smirked. "At least you know the value of that lesson. But don't think it'll save you in this case. A graze from my magical weapon and you're dead, little boy."

"Ha…" Lugh almost smirked, but it was suppressed nigh-instantly. Instead, he twirled his spear a bit before suddenly holding it vertically in his hands, the tip, still wreathed in clearly magical flames, aimed down at the branch. "Ignite!" he cried out as he suddenly stabbed down into the branch.

And then the tree exploded into a pillar of flames.

Katsu, genuinely shocked, had to leap back tens of meters in order to avoid getting caught up in the sudden blaze. "What in the…?!" he thought at Lugh's action.

But he didn't get to quite finish his thought as the pillar of flames suddenly broke apart into multiple streams of fire that catapulted themselves to the surrounding trees, setting them ablaze as well. So fast were the flames that faster than Katsu could almost process, the flames had reached almost all of the trees behind him, said trees now burning brightly.

And yet, Katsu noticed as he now found himself sweating profusely from the sudden spike in temperature, the trees didn't burn into ash. Although covered from bottom to top in flames, the trees remained intact. Indeed, the only one to have been destroyed was the one Lugh had stabbed.

"You were curious as to what this place was," Lugh suddenly said as he appeared before Katsu's very eyes. The fifth seat approached Katsu seemingly unaffected by the flames, not so much as single drop of sweat on his person as he slowly moved forward in an attack stance. "To answer your question, this is my Robotics Space; a special ability that was given to all of us Holy Knights. It transports us to a special dimension where we're supposed to have an advantage, ancient magus Tyr."

"Is that so?" Katsu grunted out, taking up a stance of his own whilst trying to ignore the heat of the forest of fire that this place had become. "Awfully generous of you to tell me this now."

"It wouldn't make a difference," Lugh retorted stoically. "Just know that this has all but secured my win." He paused momentarily in order to raise Areadbhar. "Here, let me show you why… Lock On!" He then thrust his spear at Katsu and in response to this action, flames from several of the trees around them suddenly shot forth at the ancient magus.

Keeping his wits about him, Katsu went on the move, jumping to avoid the sudden reality-defying flames that tried to consume him. His eyes widened slightly as the flames proceeded to follow him the second he landed back on the ground.

Rather than even try to run, Katsu reared back his gauntlet and lashed out at the flames with a punch and sure enough, World Ender did its duty by killing off the flames…

…Only to reveal Lugh in their place. The Holy Knight had used them as cover to move in on Katsu.

Thrusting his spear, wreathed in flames, at Katsu, Lugh was hoping to pierce the magus straight in the heart and put an end to this battle as quickly as possible. But to his surprise, Katsu managed to deflect his spear with World Ender.

And to Katsu's surprise, the spear wasn't destroyed. Instead, the flames that had covered it vanished instead. "The flames served as a shield!" he thought in amazement even as he went on the attack now, kneeing Lugh in the stomach. But Lugh withered the blow well and retaliated with a surprise headbutt, smashing Katsu's nose with surprising force.

Seeing Katsu stagger back as a result, Lugh covered his spear in flames with but a simple thought and took a swipe at Katsu's leg with it. However, Katsu, even while still staggering back, was able to raise his leg in time to avoid having it cut or set on fire. But before he could even remotely consider himself safe, Lugh used his Lock On ability, which causes the flames generated by his spear to go after a target on their own, to have flames from nearby trees suddenly coalesce into a large ball of fire that then launched itself at Katsu.

Due to the direction and angle it was quickly approaching him from, Katsu wouldn't be able to use World Ender in time to destroy it. So instead, still recovering from his stumble, he chose to let himself fall back just enough to do a backflip that sent him flying as far away from Lugh and the fireball as he could manage. He did this not a nanosecond too soon as the fireball struck the spot he had just been in, melting the very ground in the process.

Touching down on the ground, Katsu could only look at the Holy Knight now rushing after him and grimace. This was going to take longer than he had originally thought.

Back at Beacon Academy, Surma found itself feeling quite shocked as everyone there, invigorated by Jaune's action, decided to attack it. So surprised was the sentient Relic that it did very little to block or dodge when Pyrrha, in a grand showing of her semblance, used her powers of polarity to left every soda can and metallic tray to fling at right it.

It wasn't until all of the cans and plates harmlessly smashed against its face and chest a microsecond later that Surma seemed to blink and remember what to do. Unaffected by Pyrrha's attack, the beast instead looked to its left in time to see several students grabbing various objects, from food to books they had been carrying around, and enhancing them with their aura in order to harden the objects as they rushed at Surma to attack. At the same time, other students who had a semblance that could be used from a distance proceeded to do so, with one or two appearing to have some form of control over electricity.

Surma could only grunt as this all seemed to happen in slow motion to it. These students were just so pitiful.

And with one grand motion of its arm, Surma lashed out at the students about to physically strike it and watched for a nanosecond as its attack knocked them out immediately, sending them flying back into the veritable crowd all around it. Then with its great speed, Surma all but disappeared from sight before the long distance attacks could even get close to it.

Reappearing in front of two of the students attacking from a distance, Surma took advantage of their startled states to grab one and smash the poor girl into the other before leaping away and landing closer to the center of the cafeteria. As it did so, he kicked at the ground right before landing, hitting it with enough force to make the entire room rumble and send everyone nearly sprawling to the floor long enough for it to look around for its absent target.

But not everyone had been knocked down.

With a slight battle cry, both Ruby and Nora, gripping a long loaf of bread in placement of their unfortunately absent weapons, leapt at Surma as they swung. At this same time, Weiss grabbed a bottle of ketchup while Pyrrha readied the trays again to attack Surma.

Without so much as looking, Surma's snake tail moved with all the speed and deadly grace of an actual snake and slammed into the side of Nora hard enough to make her sail into the wall, cratering it. Furthermore, the sheer strength and speed of the tail whip attack generated a strong enough air pressure to send Ruby flying away from Surma as well, though thankfully for the young girl without taking any damage.

Then Surma turned its attention to Weiss and the other members of teams RWBY and JNPR as all of the other students were still in the process of getting up. With a growl, it rushed forth at the two teams. In response to this, Weiss literally slammed the ketchup bottle upside down and squeezed. Combined with her aura, the impromptu weapon served a similar purpose as one of her Dust attacks, with the ketchup spurting outwards from the heiress. She was trying to make Surma slip up.

But the sentient Relic saw this coming and simply closed the remaining distance with a light jump that ended with it kicking Weiss away with its massive foot.

"Weiss!" Jaune cried out in concern. Then he narrowed his eyes and ran at Surma with a tray in hands. He didn't get very close to hitting the creature though; Surma turned and poked a hole clean through the tray with just one of its fingers, which just narrowly stopped short of piercing Jaune's face. Surprised to the point of nearly freezing up, the blond leader wasn't fast enough in letting go of the tray and not even a second later, the beast flung the tray and Jaune along with it through the air, with the blond ultimately smashing into a wall headfirst.

Although no words weren't spoken, seeing Jaune get taken out so suddenly and painfully angered Ren and Pyrrha and now they went on the offensive along with Blake and Yang. Pyrrha used her semblance to create a miniature whirlwind comprised of soda cans to surround Surma while the other three rushed right at the beast.

"Take this!" Yang yelled as she charged at Surma, rearing her fist back to throw a punch. From beside her, Blake readied the leeks for an attack in placement of her swords while Ren approached from Surma's opposite side with leeks as well.

They had anticipated the creature to either dodge the attacks or launch an attack of its own against them. But instead, Surma did something else. Putting both of its large hands together and raising them high, it then did a hammer smash onto the floor with terrifying force. The entire floor shuddered violently and cratered under the blow, causing all of the students to once again stumble. This time, teams RWBY and JNPR weren't exempt from the effect. So seeing Ren, Yang, and Blake now trying to remain standing, Surma kept its hands placed on the ground and raised its legs. Then with a speed and grace that would make even the most agile and coordinated of seasoned hunters and huntresses jealous, Surma seemed to spin on its hands, striking the three students with its legs hard enough to make them go soaring through the air like everyone else.

Then after that, it immediately stopped and lunged forth at Pyrrha, her concentration naturally broken by its ground-slam. The redhead could only look on in horror as the beast reached her near instantaneously and tackled her with its right shoulder, smashing her through two large tables before stopping and watching its victim go skidding across the ground.

Although it was only toying with the students all around it, Surma couldn't help but let out a roar of triumph, its still animalistic mindset satisfied with having proven its superiority.

But alas, all this did was draw attention.

For elsewhere in the academy, Glynda Goodwitch and the rest of the teaching staff had definitely noticed the rumble that had ensued from Surma's ground-slam. And if that hadn't alerted them all to something going on, then its roar of victory definitely did.

"By God, just what in blazes was that?!" Peter Port exclaimed.

But Glynda, who had happened to be in the middle of conversation with him just now, didn't answer the man. Instead, a look of equal parts shock and horror appeared on her usually unexpressive face. For she knew immediately what was going on.

"The cafeteria!" she finally managed to say. "All faculty members, to the cafeteria now!"

Not waiting to see if anyone had truly responded, Glynda Goodwitch actually rushed off towards the area of the disturbance, praying all the while that she'd make it in time.

Meanwhile, with Katsu and Lugh, the two were engaged in a fierce exchange of blows in the middle of the still burning forest. Each combatant moved with a level of speed and finesse that could only be found in the most skilled of warriors as they attacked, blocked, parried, dodged, and simply studied their opponents.

Katsu, even in the midst of a furious exchange of punches just now, could only find the situation rather ironic. His magical weapon was one designed specifically for close-quarters combat, especially as World Ender could only take on the form of small weapons such as claw-like appendages and blades and gauntlets which were only meant to deliver kill strikes at point blank range. Yet here he was wishing to somehow avoid such a thing and with reason; thanks to the burning forest all around them, Lugh did indeed hold the field advantage as he could simply command the flames to literally jump at him with great speed, which meant that if Lugh could pin him down one way or another up close, then being able to dodge the flames in time would be next to impossible as long as Lugh kept up the attack. It certainly didn't help that Lugh's spear, Areadbhar, was constantly wreathed in flames that not only took the hit meant for the spear but could also continually reignite in an instant. Adding to the irony was the fact that destroying the spear was perhaps Katsu's best chance of winning this fight and walking away alive.

"But only if it were just him…" the ancient magus thought as he dodged with the least amount of movement against a stab meant for his left thigh. He remained almost painfully aware of the fact that there was another Holy Knight around here somewhere, watching this battle play out in silence. Katsu didn't know if that Holy Knight, clearly older than the one he was currently fighting, was simply going to sit on the sidelines, but he'd feel much better if he wasn't around at all.

So far, however, it seemed as if Lugh was too focused on their current exchange of blows to consider using his flames against him. Not that Katsu was going to complain. "Perhaps if I put some pressure on him, then maybe…" Katsu's thought stopped abruptly as he proceeded to do just that.

Before, his blows had been thrown at Lugh with a measure of caution befitting a warrior of his skill and experience. But now, Lugh suddenly found himself attacking less and defending more as Katsu unleashed one attack after another at a steady pace. "What the-?!" the fifth seat thought in surprise as he now had to start reeling away from Katsu to maintain his form. He moved his spear around over and over, deflecting every attack that now came his way. Soon it reached the point where Katsu's fists and legs and just the magus in general became a bit of a blur as he picked up speed. It was to the point where Lugh had to rely less on sight to see if or when Katsu's World Ender extinguished the flames covering his Relic to having to rely on his hearing in order to know when it happened, his heart's beating picking up speed whenever he heard his flames suddenly disperse.

"Kuh!" He then cried out when Katsu managed to finally slip past his defenses and ram an elbow into his gut before following it up with a vicious and well-aimed kick to the jaw. Nearly having his head knocked clean off his shoulders by it, Lugh was sent skidding back and therefore left open enough for Katsu to all but glide across the ground without a sound and deliver a punch to Lugh's liver. The Holy Knight doubled over, about to clutch his stomach but stopped himself when he sensed Katsu's about to strike him with World Ender. Fighting the pain of the blows, Lugh managed to deflect the punch to the side with his Relic, still wreathed in flames up until when World Ender struck it. Lugh experienced just a slight moment of panic when Katsu's magical weapon came within a centimeter of nearly grazing his cheek.

"Alright… range it is," Lugh thought as he now swiftly recovered and jumped back before Katsu could do anything else. With just the pointing of his spear, the flames engulfing several of the massive trees around the two fighters shot off at Katsu, who simply jumped as high as he could onto one of the trees that wasn't on fire anymore.

Watching the flames fail in hitting him and instead striking the ground and setting the grass on fire, Katsu could only think on it, silently glad to have Lugh off his back for now. "So the flames can be moved, yet when they do move, whatever they had been on before isn't on fire anymore," he thought clinically, taking note of the fact that the tree he was standing on had been on fire just now prior to Lugh's attack. He considered this a good thing; it gave him a bit of a place to hide in a manner of speaking. So with that particular thought in mind, he silently leapt to the next tree that wasn't on fire and proceeded to leap up to the innermost part of the tree, kneeling down on the highest branch he could possibly find.

Sure enough, it seemed to work. Having moved as quickly as possible, Katsu could now safely look down on Lugh from his new position and see the Holy Knight look cautiously all around him, trying to spot him.

"Damn it," the Holy Knight in question thought as he slowly moved in a circle now. When he had called forth the flames to attack, they had momentarily obscured Katsu from his field of view and now he was paying the price as he couldn't see him anywhere. "Just where did Tyr go? To the trees?" That would seem like the most logical thing for him to have done. In which case, it'd be wise to light those trees on fire. But if he did that, then Katsu could simply leap to the trees that weren't on fire anymore, as he was surely fast enough to pull that off.

But at the same time, trying to hide so high up might be somewhat counterintuitive; taking into consideration the magus' magical weapon, trying to hide in a tree would seem rather stupid since he has to strike his target at point blank range in order to destroy them. So there could be a small chance that Katsu was on the ground somewhere, hiding behind a tree rather than up in one.

"But then, he's an ancient magus from the age of shinobi," Lugh thought as he tried to keep up his stoicism. "He's long since been trained into fooling the enemies, using the environment to his advantage…"

Lugh had to make an effort to not grit his teeth. This was quickly proving to be stressful to contemplate. Although he wouldn't admit it aloud, he was slowly beginning to reconsider his decision to face the ancient magus alone. After all, although he considered himself a skilled warrior, Katsu has far more combat experience and now it was showing through as he took note of the sudden silence of the area, the only sounds being his flames furiously burning away at the trees.

As for Katsu, the magus looked on with slight satisfaction albeit with no visible expression on his face. Instead, he slowly shifted into a lunging stance, waiting for Lugh to fully turn his back to the tree that he was currently in. Making sure to not accidently touch the tree with his magical weapon, Katsu also made it a point to shift its form slightly, the blade from before on his gauntlet now changing into a small blade located in between his index and middle finger.

His mind devoid of thought and now of emotion as well, Katsu focused entirely on the increasingly wary Holy Knight, all but predicting how much longer he'd have to wait for the young man to fully turn his back to him. It certainly wouldn't be much longer though; a couple more seconds at the least, perhaps half a minute at the most based on Lugh's currently slow footwork and shifting of the torso.

Sure enough, his opportunity came. Lugh took another few steps, now perfectly leaving his back exposed to Katsu. The ancient magus surely didn't waste time taking advantage of it.

With a quietness one wouldn't expect of a man his size, Katsu jumps out of his tree at amazing speed towards Lugh, his magical weapon readied and now just waiting to take Lugh out.

His attack was done with such speed that it wasn't until Katsu was just several feet away above Lugh that the Holy Knight in question finally heard him coming. Lugh immediately turned, trying to position his spear into a defensive position in order to allow his flames to take the hit. But he was too slow on the uptake; Katsu was just too close.

But alas, Katsu's blow ultimately failed and not through any action of his own or Lugh's.

Faster than either combatant could track, Katsu's right arm, which donned World Ender, suddenly sported three large gashes bleeding severely across his bicep area and his tricep. Such was the sudden damage that Katsu's attack failed and his arm slowed enough for Lugh to actually jump out of the way, watching in surprise as Katsu ended up crashing into the ground and rolling to a stop.

"W-What?!" Katsu hissed out in slight pain as he put his left hand to his damaged arm, trying to stop the bleeding albeit to no real avail. As he did so, he felt his pain worsen a bit and a strange feeling of mana seemed to be at work within his wounds. "I don't feel my regeneration kicking in…" he thought in worry.

"That certainly was a close one."

Katsu turned his attention away from his arm to see Apophis now standing next to Lugh. The older of the two Holy Knights wasn't looking to Katsu, but rather to Lugh. "You dropped your guard there a bit, young one. And for a second there, I thought you were going to try and pull out our other trump card."

"I had considered it…" Lugh grumbled, though it was clear he was thankful for the save. "But I wouldn't have been able to activate it in time. And given how draining it is, it'd be best to save it."

Apophis nodded and then focused on Katsu. He then raised his left hand, revealing what he was holding. It was a long and slightly cured dagger – called an Acinace. Although its length and general size made it more of a sword than a dagger, it still carried about it a sense of majesty yet terror, some strange and forboding vibe being given off by the eerily dark blade. This blade was Apophis' Relic, simply yet ominously called the Devouring Blade.

"Well, I certainly can't just sit on the sidelines anymore," Apophis said with a slight grin as he looked Katsu up and down, assessing him.

He readied his Relic, pointing it at Katsu, who saw the blade pulsate slightly with the Holy Knight's mana. This in turn prompted the ancient magus to sum up his current thoughts verbally quite succinctly.

"Shit."

Back at Beacon Academy, Surma looked all around the room at the disoriented and hurt students, sniffing at the air for any hint of its supposed target. It took its time doing so, wanting to be as thorough as possible in its search. For although its master would never bring herself to chastise it, Surma could certainly imagine its master's captain being rather disappointed, which would surely only make Kalma feel ashamed, something that it'd never want to have happen.

But its search was halted when the doors to the cafeteria were all but blown off their hinges and in walked in Glynda with Peter and Oobleck at her sides.

The three faculty members along with Surma seemed to just freeze in place, with the former three nearly staring with wide eyes at what stood among the throngs of hurt and nearly unconscious students.

"P-Professors…" Blake, trying to keep conscious and stand up, mumbled as she only vaguely took note of their appearance.

Her one word seemed to snap them out of their frozen state upon hearing it. And immediately all three of them proceeded to outright glare at the beast responsible for all of this.

"You filthy beast!" Peter, normally so jovial, actually roared in anger upon seeing so many students hurt. With reflexes unlike anything one would expect from a man with his build, Peter pulled out his weapon, Blunderbuss and took aim at Surma. "You'll pay for this!"

Alongside him, Oobleck pulled out his weapon as well. Even in the midst of this chaotic situation, a few of the students still conscious enough to fully see the normally energetic and green haired professor found just a bit of amusement in seeing his thermos transform into his weapon.

As for Glynda, the blond woman's green eyes almost seemed to literally glow with rage and power as she pointed her riding crop at the sentient Relic. And as she did so, purple balls of pure energy appeared around her, preparing to be launched at Surma. "Get him," she said in a clipped tone.

As soon as she spoke, both Peter and Oobleck moved.

And as for Surma, the beast roared in equal parts rage and determination, rushing forward to meet his three new challengers.

The battle was only just beginning.

And that's it for now. Admittedly, not quite my best chapter, as I had originally intended to make it even longer but decided against it for the time being; I want to save my plans for longer chapters for later battles.

On a bit of a side note, I had hoped to find a weapon of Egyptian mythology to use for Apophis, but to no avail. As such, I had to make due with a completely original one for him. But I will be explaining this in the future within the story as I now have devised a little tidbit of specific information for him that ties in with how exactly these Holy Knights became, well, Holy Knights.

So with that said, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and don't hesitate to review. I'll try to get the next chapter out soon, but for now I'll have to focus on some essays for my classes.

Until next time, everyone. Take care.