Xenovia
The Lord welcomed anyone who embraced him and his guidance; no matter who they were before, no matter their path in life, once devoted to the Lord, he would embrace them. That meant holding resentment for those who lacked good qualities was redundant, but sometimes, just sometimes, Xenovia wished that her partner wasn't such a moron. Irina had Zeal, yes, there was no question about it. She would cut down the devils without hesitation if it came to that, even the one that she called her childhood friend.
Zeal was excellent in their unique line of duty, but Xenovia found it more tiresome than anything when it came to her partner. Irina had blown their money on imitation goods because of her zeal, and her enthusiasm never seemed to dim despite it, and they had to save on their food expenditures as a result. Xenovia let out a sigh as she felt her stomach complain. Going to bed with an empty stomach grew old, but at least they had a bed to sleep in tonight. Hunger was a little more tolerable when not accompanied by cold and aches.
She woke up with a mild headache and a in her stomach, but even so, she didn't let it stop her from doing her daily routine. Five hundred swings, no less would do. Pain and fatigue were better to best in training than in battle. That's what her mentor, Griselda, always said. And though Xenovia wanted to complain, she knew that battle was close at hand. Hopefully I'll get to eat first.
The Excalibur swords, great holy swords venerated by all the churches, were stolen. Not just stolen either, they were stolen in the most humiliating way possible. There were seven in total, each crafted from a shard of the original Excalibur after it shattered. Two of the swords were given to each of the three church branches, and the last one was missing. The thief, or thieves more likely, had stolen one sword from each of the churches, a power move that left no one in doubt as to the skill of the perpetrators.
That was what led her to partner with Irina, a protestant. The different churches would normally never consider collaborating, but because the theft had impacted them all equally, that was just how things turned out. The only thing they knew about the perpetrators was that they were led by Kokabiel, one of the greatest of the fallen angels. How many were with him, who had stolen the swords, what his plans were, all of it was shrouded in mystery, but Xenovia didn't spare much thought to figuring it out. After all, her only mission was to retrieve the swords, the thinking could be left to the cardinals.
Irina came into view, her face looking as dumb and happy as ever.
They needed to contact the devils in charge of the territory, Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri. Failing to let the devils know of their intentions would lead to a political disaster, they had been told as much by the church leaders. That meant speaking with devils. Before the journey, the idea of conversing freely with devils repulsed Xenovia, but after meeting a few of them the night before, thanks to Irina's incessant wish to meet her old childhood friend who just happened to be Rias Gremory's pawn, it seemed less bad.
An annoying talk to the leaders, an impromptu duel with a crazed devil, and a first-row view of the Red Dragon Emperor's dress-break magic, a foul spell that destroyed the clothes of its target, later, Xenovia needed some time alone. Irina agreed to meet up come evening to continue their search since Kokabiel and his followers were unlikely to be out in the open until then anyway.
Until evening, she had nothing to do, and searching for clues on her own was pointless. The language she knew best was spoken with steel, and though it was effective enough with the devils, even Xenovia reckoned that a daytime investigation was beyond her means.
Her freedom meant that she had some reprieve from her idiot of a partner, but with little to do, Xenovia just ended up wandering the streets of Kuoh, eventually deciding to get something to eat with what little money she had managed to hide from Irina. That Irina wasn't with her just meant that she didn't need to answer any questions about it.
The place she picked was a ramen-shop. She'd passed plenty on the way there, and the wonderful scent that reached her in the streets had her mouth filling with saliva. Irina had spoken extensively about how she missed ramen on the flight to Japan, and for a moment Xenovia felt that she should have brought Irina after all. A growl from her stomach later, and she was sitting with a steaming bowl of ramen in front of her. It was beautiful, she thought. Food was rarely something that she used the word beautiful to describe, but the arrangement in front of her surely was, else her hunger was getting the best of her after all. The arrangement of egg, pork, and beansprouts coupled with the heavenly scent of the broth were such a distraction that she hardly noticed the bowl of ramen placed opposite hers before the stranger spoke.
"You look to be new around here," he said. Xenovia jumped at the voice, startled out of her reverie. "My bad, didn't mean to startle you."
He was a gruff man with twin-colored hair, blonde in front but black, or at least dark, in the back. Though his appearance was off-putting, his smile put Xenovia at ease.
"It's no problem. Yes, I'm a stranger to these lands."
"A ramen shop isn't the place for such formalities," he continued. "This your first time eating ramen?"
"Oh, am I doing something wrong?"
"Not at all, it's just that it's rare for anyone to look at a bowl with such intensity unless it's their first. Most people just dig in," the stranger decided to do just that, slurping loudly as he shoveled noodles into his mouth, sucking up broth along with them. "Hot, hot! Phew. The trick to eating the noodles is to steep them well in the broth, then quickly put them into your mouth and slurp. Don't let propriety hold you back."
Despite the advice, Xenovia took a more discrete approach to her own bowl, trying her best to ignore the man's obnoxious eating noises as she did so. Ramen really was a wonderful thing. Her stomach heated up from the broth and the spices, and Xenovia felt a strength that she didn't know she was missing return to her.
"What are you visiting Japan for?"
"I…" Xenovia didn't know how to respond. Why would she be in another country, alone by the looks of it. Telling the truth was out of the question, obviously, but lying didn't sit well with her. She had intended to remain secretive by staying away from the locals, but as it so often happened, trouble had come to her, and before she even realized what she was doing, she had said too much… lying really wasn't her strong suit. "I'm looking for something."
"Something?" the stranger said. "Not the food, I presume, though the food certainly would be worth looking for. And the booze as well."
Curses, I should've said the food. It would've been believable enough and close enough to the truth to not hurt her conscience.
"Well, I might be able to help you with that, as a matter of fact."
Xenovia perked up. Griselda had often told her not to be too trusting of strangers, but that lesson was forgotten in the afterglow of the meal. She leaned in over the table in anticipation.
The stranger nodded with a bright smile on his face before he continued, dragging out the silence for dramatic effect. "There's a man here in town, a private investigator, the locals call him the Magician," he said. "Whenever something or someone is lost, the people go to him with their troubles."
It had to be some sort of local celebrity. The title didn't sit well with Xenovia. "Magician, why do they call him that?"
Magician wasn't a title to be taken lightly. If he was a magician and member of a non-Church faction, he was a factor to be worried about whether or not she spoke with him. And since she wasn't told about him by the church in advance, he surely wasn't with them. "Because no matter what might be lost, he always finds it, and he always finds it fast. He takes up almost any request as well, as far as I know, not to mention, he's a foreigner like you."
"Sounds like a waste of time."
"You may say so now," the man scratched his chin. "But that's only because you haven't heard of what he's managed to do. Cold cases, kidnappings, even the police turn to him for help when they get stuck."
"And that's why they call him the Magician," Xenovia surmised.
"That's right."
"But he's not a magician," Xenovia asked, just to be safe. The stranger laughed at her, a real belly-laugh, as though what she said was ridiculous.
"What, you're the type to believe in magic?"
She felt heat creep up her neck. Of course to him, magic was no more real than Santa Claus or flying reindeer.
"Anyway, here's his card. I sure hope you find what you're looking for," he said, handing her a card with an address and a phone number. "And I hope your stay here in Kuoh is a pleasure no matter what. God knows we get too few visitors as it is."
With that, he got up and left, and Xenovia just stared at the card and the bottom of her bowl, wondering what in the world that was about. She didn't even get the man's name.
She flipped the card over.
"Kuoh Detective Service,
Magician Cato"
It might be worth a try. There were still some hours until she had to meet up with the devils.
Finding the place proved easy despite Xenovia being unused to the city. She had asked a stranger in the streets about "the magician", and they pointed her in the right direction quickly enough. Finding it was something of a disappointment, though. The place was a reasonably sized house on a regular street, nothing stood out about it at all save for the sign that hung on the door:
P.I. Cato
Closed.
Will remain closed until open.
Testing the door, Xenovia found it open and decided to go in heedless of the sign – when had a closed door ever stopped the Lord?
"Hello?"
She couldn't see anyone when she entered, but there was some loud rummaging going on in the next room. Xenovia went toward the door in the room and debated on knocking on on it when she heard some low muttered cursing. Footsteps alerted her that someone was on their way, and she stepped back, suddenly feeling like an intruder.
The door opened and a large man came into view. It was hard to describe him as anything other than large, really. He was tall, far taller than anyone she had seen since coming to Japan, and his arms were huge, bulging with muscle. His shirt was grey, tight fitted, and dotted with soot, and his face had sharp features framed by well-kept stubble. His eyes bored into her, as though he was weighing her worth when he spoke.
"I thought the office was closed, though you're not the first to brazenly ignore that."
Though he sounded less threatening and more like he was commenting on the weather, Xenovia felt a chill run down her spine. She couldn't think of the words to say. Her mouth opened and closed without sound a few times before she merely held out the card that the stranger in the ramen shop had given her, as though giving the man his own business card back would somehow change things. She was an intruder in the lair of the magician, a fly in the hornet's nest, and she felt the part.
"Oh, what's this?" he took the card, looking at it for a moment too long for someone looking at their own card before looking back up at Xenovia. "I see."
Xenovia didn't particularly understand what he saw, but given the way his eyes were measuring her still, she doubted that she'd like it. Coming here had been a mistake. She was sure of it.
"I am Cato," he said, apparently deciding now was a good time to introduce himself. "I take it that you're here because you're looking for someone, or perhaps for something?"
Xenovia nodded bleakly, trying to regain her voice, failing to even introduce herself, heat crept up her neck.
"Do you speak?" his features softened. "What is your name, young miss?"
"Xenovia," she managed eventually, though it sounded haggard rather than the stalwart introduction befitting a knight like her that she had in mind.
"Xenovia…" he mispronounced her name and was still looking at her as though he could see her very soul, but eventually he nodded. "Yes, I suppose you do look like a foreigner."
It was such an absurd thing to say that Xenovia couldn't help but laugh. She laughed and all tension drained from her body. The magician was just something they called him, after all. Cato went over to a kettle stood in the corner, gesturing for her to take a seat in an arrangement of two couches opposite one another with a table in between. As she sat down, her thoughts turned to a matter that she really should've thought through beforehand. What was she to say to this magician? She couldn't just tell him that the Church had lost priceless artefacts to a group of mythological beings, and that she needed help finding them. Even worse, if she misled him about the fallen angels and he turned out to be as good at finding things as everyone claimed, then he'd be in grave danger.
Her heartbeat quickened as she panicked. Yes, coming here had been a mistake.
Cato placed a cup of tea in front of her, its scent alluring despite the turmoil in her mind. She could just leave, she should just leave, but then leaving would be much too suspicious. The magician had said so himself. She wouldn't have come without being looking for something or someone. If she left with no explanation, would he follow her to find out why? She would have to make up a goose-chase to be certain that he wouldn't, but lying to an innocent man like him would sit poorly with her conscience. She was to complete her mission no matter what, and God would surely forgive her for lying to serve the Church on a secretive mission, but lying to an innocent man to waste his time because of her own blunder was different. It was worse. And she was crap at lying.
Cato was in no rush to hear her explanation. He sipped his tea from its small teacup with elegance that belied his large frame, and then rubbed at one of the soot-marks on his shirt which shattered any image Xenovia was building of the elegant giant. Reluctantly, she took a sip of her own cup to maintain the appearance of politeness that Irina told her was so important in this country. Only after she drank did he speak, and she couldn't help but feel pleased at the whole thing.
"So, Xenovia," the magician said as he put down his cup, once more focusing his full attention to her. "Tell me what's troubling you."
Did she look troubled, or perhaps everyone who came here had troubles of some sort? She hid her face in the cup trying to find a way out of it. "I'm looking for something," she said, surprised at how steady her voice sounded now.
"Many people are. You're here because you can't find it."
"I… well maybe I can. I haven't tried hard enough, not yet. I don't know why I came here at all."
Cato said nothing.
"I'm with the Church," Xenovia continued, but if the magician understood the implication, he didn't show it. "We have a lot of relics that are priceless."
Understanding dawned in his eyes. "Magical artefacts and the like, yes. I've seen the movies. What was it then, some old saint's remains said to cure all ailments is missing, lost, stolen?"
It seemed he didn't understand after all, but perhaps that was for the better. In the end, Xenovia nodded slowly before continuing. "Yes, that's the idea. Rather than a corpse or some ashes, it was a sword that went missing. Three swords, as a matter of fact."
"Indeed, you Churches love to do things in threes, don't you."
"No, that's not," Xenovia paused. Was he mocking her? "Have you heard of Excalibur?"
"Yes, I've seen the movie. King Arthur's sword, right? I always did enjoy the medieval setting. The battles have more character that way, don't they? The rustic weaponry looks better than some musclehead with a fingergun, or whatever. As a child, I often dreamed of being the great hero, a paragon of courage on the battlefield, always charging ahead with a greatsword or something like that. There's just more enjoyment in seeing knights duke it out than someone tossing a ticking rock only for it to blow up, fire everywhere, just flashes of light on the screen with no one having a damn clue about what's going on, constant camera cuts, confusion, you name it," for a moment Xenovia thought he was done, but it was not to be. "And they always get shot, don't they, the hero. But it never hurts them. Sure they saw 'ow', 'ouch', 'fuck', but they just keep on kicking ass like their blood loss is a prop, which I guess it is. That said, I never really got the whole 'ooh look it's Excaaalibur' thing either. Seems to me that a sword's a sword."
Perhaps wiggling her way out the situation would be easier than she had first feared. Xenovia smiled at the anxiety she had felt at first. "That's right, though of course that's just the story. It was a real, holy sword that the Church prized greatly, but it was shattered into pieces, each of which was then forged into a sword."
"A holy sword then. Sounds impressive. What's it do, create massive craters or wiggle around like an extendable worm?"
"Three of the reforged holy swords were stolen from the Church, and we have reason to believe that they're being held here, in Kuoh city."
"That reason being…?"
The words were coming easily now, never truly lying, but skirting the truth at every turn. "There is a criminal organization in Kuoh known as the Fallen, and they've been known to target the Church in the past."
"The Fallen, huh. That's quite a dramatic name for an organization like that, makes them sound real mean," he made a face to illustrate just how mean.
"They are depraved creatures; the name befits them."
The Magician huffed. "Yes, I've heard your Church likes to deal in absolutes like that, though if they really stole one of your priceless artefacts, I can't exactly blame you."
Xenovia only nodded in response, unsure of what to say to that.
"Well," the Magician said. "I won't lie to you; I doubt I can help you with this. It might be that the swords are in Kuoh, but it sounds like they could be anywhere; after all, your Church is far, far away. I will keep an eye out though, and if I do manage to find it, we can discuss the fee at that time."
Xenovia did her best to smile at that, guilt at her deception threatening to spill over. Still, if he was only keeping an eye out for them without truly believing that he could find them, then he probably wasn't in any danger, so her lies were for a good cause. "Thank you, that is all I can ask."
After a pleasant goodbye, Xenovia left with a smile on her face. The whole thing had let her think the situation through and going back to Irina didn't seem so bad now. The Magician wouldn't find the swords, only she could do it, and that was why the Church had given her the responsibility. Not to mention, the tea was delicious, and the company wasn't half bad.
Yes, her mind was at peace.
Run.
Xenovia spared no moment to look behind her to see if Irina or the devil managed to get away. They had found Freed easily enough, but then the big fish had shown up. Kokabiel himself, in all his repulsive glory, the great general of the fallen angels had power to rival perhaps even Michael, one of the great archangels. But his was a power driven by a madness that was apparent to anyone who laid eyes on him.
She had resolved herself to give her life for the mission if it became necessary, but facing Kokabiel directly like that was meaningless suicide, nothing more. It was a tactical retreat, she told herself, even as doubt crept into her heart for the first time since she was sent on the mission. Against a might like that of Kokabiel, why had the Church sent only two young girls to retrieve the greatest holy swords?
The thought stuck with her as she finally stopped running desperately, catching her breath by one of the less run-down buildings and appreciating the way pedestrians managed to ignore her entirely. She shouldn't doubt the Church. She knew that in her heart, because even though her newfound fear had buried its roots deep within her, her faith in the Church and God had its roots deeper still, but she just didn't understand. A prayer escaped her lips as she reminded herself that God always knew best. With His help, they would surely succeed, even if it did end up costing them their lives.
Irina and the devil were nowhere in sight, but neither was Kokabiel or the mad priest, Freed. Like Xenovia, Freed was a holy sword user, one of the exceedingly rare chosen ones, but his attitude was the antithesis of holiness. On his mind was murder and violence and sadism, they fueled him in the same way that God's will fueled Xenovia, but there was something odd about him, something that the devil had commented on, Xenovia remembered. Being a holy sword user working for Kokabiel and fighting against a devil, Freed ought to be using an Excalibur shard, and Kiba even warned them that he had at least one, so why was he using a simple sword of light?
It might've made sense if Kokabiel wanted to avoid losing the swords, but with Kokabiel himself present, that fear was moot. Such thoughts led her nowhere, and she still had her mission to complete. The other devils would engage Kokabiel soon, and they would need all the help they could get. Freed and Kokabiel may have fought her off, but backed by the devils, loathe as she was to work with them, she might stand a chance at taking back the shards. Dealing with Kokabiel was a different matter, and ultimately, it wasn't her concern. Her mission was to retrieve the stolen swords. Any aftermath was left with the devils seeing as it was their territory. Interference on her part might be misconstrued as meddling in the affairs of the devils and should be avoided.
A figure passed through the sky so fast that it was barely visible. Kokabiel. Her instincts made her move to follow it, but then she hesitated. Going back in after escaping was folly. It was better to wait for the devils to engage Kokabiel, as much as it hurt her pride.
She spent the intermission looking for Freed, thinking that maybe, just maybe she'd get lucky and catch him and then get away, or failing that, she might find Irina. Everything was a mess. Trust in God, she reminded herself. Griselda, her mentor, had always said to trust God and her sword-arm, putting particular emphasis on the latter whenever no priest was in earshot.
Search as she might, there was no trace of Freed or Irina anywhere, let alone the Excaliburs. She caught sight of the Red Dragon Emperor, Hyoudou Issei, running along with the small white-haired devil from the Gremory heiress's peerage, but she let them be on their way, noting to herself that they went in the same direction that Kokabiel had gone earlier, the direction of Kuoh Academy. Hopefully the following engagement would gather everyone together at the very least. Xenovia stopped dead in her tracks. Kuoh Academy was the front given for two devil heiress's fortress in the human world. She had thought that the devils would be chasing down Kokabiel, but if he was headed straight for their stronghold…
Xenovia's eyes widened. Only now did the true oddity of the situation dawn on her.
Kokabiel was much too strong an opponent for Irina and Xenovia to take on, and even his followers were making things hard for them. Xenovia understood this even before she left home. The only reason that the three churches sent only two young girls, powerful as they may be, to retrieve the swords would be to avoid sparking a major incident between the factions, but what Kokabiel was doing every single step of the way it was the exact opposite, going so far as to attack the devils on their turf…
He was trying to start another great war.
Xenovia's legs started moving on their own.
Speech 100.
