It was a Sunday, I didn't talk about the two objects to Akeno, really didn't need her to worry besides I didn't know what they were for. But that wasn't in my mind, today I would go to Mass and Akeno would go with me, so I prepared myself and ate the breakfast Akeno made for me, I went a bit more formal this time since I was still going to mass even though the alba and the cassock of the acolyte covered everything. Akeno also wore a white dress, and she could not look more beautiful in that dress, modesty really brings the best out of a woman's beauty. We left the house and went down the street towards the church, its name being the church of St John of the Cross, it only took us three minutes to arrive since my church was near my neighbourhood anyways, which made me wonder why the church at the mountain was closed in the first place. It was a white and austere building, with the only ornamentation being inside, with paintings, sculptures and the high altar being made in the baroque style, one of my favourite sculptures being Christ Crucified, but this place had a reputation of being heterodox in doctrine, turns out this place teaches that Christ actually rose from the dead instead of staying dead, such a doctrine I was familiar with, intimately so I might add, but it was foreign to the mainstream Church who preached Christ as an example to attain Heaven instead of Him being the Risen Saviour.
Such a doctrine also made it very unpopular with normal Christians, but it had a following among some in the neighbourhood, only enough to fill half the pews but they were a devout bunch.
"It's a pretty church, Subaru-kun, I have to say I don't recognize the style of the paintings, and "He" is represented quite differently here"
"The Passion is a gruesome event, Akeno, I admit, but it's at the same time my favourite scene, now, I know you feel uncomfortable staying here but…"
"No, no, no, it's okay, this is important to you, so I won't do anything to embarrass you, I won't even go to eat the bread since you told me to" she reassured me, I smiled sadly.
"Hopefully you will be worthy of taking communion soon, now just stay here, it will take me five minutes to prepare since the altar is ready" with that I left for the sacristy, inside a middle aged man with a beard, showing he had spent three years in missionary work, and a dark brown cassock showing he belonged with the Discalced Carmelite order, he noticed me from his desk and smiled and stood up.
"Aah, good morning child" he said as he gave me a hug.
"Good morning father Diego" I replied.
"I managed to clean your cassock and alba since you forgot them here" I forgot my cassock and my clothes last weekend.
"Thank you"
"It's no big deal Subaru, now, get prepared, you know how the flock is" and so I did, I put on my cassock and alba, saying the different prayers when putting the clothes on, after that both father and I stayed for three minutes in prayer, to ask for a good Mass and help in all our duties in it, especially since the Latin Mass was more complex than the mass done in mainline churches.
During the whole time Akeno stayed patiently where she was, even copying the congregation, except in the communion, she did not say anything and even looked quite interested, especially in the homily and the Canon of the mass. When all was done and our prayer to Our Lady were done, father and I went back to the sacristy chanting the Christus Vincit. When I finished cleaning the altar of everything, I went to Father Diego.
"You did better than yesterday, even remembering to bring the candle and not put it too close" he chuckled, "also, I noticed a new girl in our congregation"
"She came with me, she is actually from a pagan family, and a childhood friend" I replied.
"Really? Well, it's good that you brought her here, it means you followed my advice on conversion and that the best thing you can do is to have people get their own encounter with the Saviour"
"Actually, she came here for a different purpose" with that the door opened, it was Akeno.
"Subaru-kun, are you going to take long?" she asked.
"I will talk with Father Diego for a moment, just wait in the entrance" I told her.
"Okay, don't take long" she then left.
"That was her?" asked Father Diego "she looks pretty that's for sure, but I long ago renounced women, so I don't think I can help with relationship advice after you convert her" I blushed for a moment, which only made him chuckle even more, "you are as red as tomato soup, Subaru"
"Please Father Diego, be serious" I pleaded, trying to change the subject, Father Diego was no stranger to teases, and he liked making jokes at my expense, which I didn't mind but when it comes to Akeno, he stroked a nerve.
"Okay, okay, never say I don't have a sense of humour, now, what did you want to talk about? Come on, sit, I believe this is going to be good" I sat down, and I told him everything about what happened on Friday, his smile turned into a frown and then into surprise when I told him I tested Akeno with holy water and a Golden crucifix, I also told him of the odd golden box and the sword with thorns.
"Goodness, child, if I didn't know any better, I would say you are lying, you are lucky I know you well enough"
"What could it mean Father? The sword and the odd box? Or the fact Akeno was not affected by the holy water despite claiming she is a devil?" I asked, I knew Akeno was not a devil, else she wouldn't go to Mass, but what then was she really?
"Well I don't know what to say, also, I would guess that the fact she wasn't affected by holy water means she isn't a devil in any sense, at least not in the way we know them as devils, for one devils don't take a physical form unless it's by possession" he scratched his beard "as for the sword and box, the box I think it's a reliquary by what you told me, of what Saint or what relic I don't know, the fact that they just appeared when you woke up is amazing in and of itself"
"Regarding the devils, perhaps they are still around, and these "devils" simply took their name for some old connection or what have you, like how devils would take the names of pagan deities"
"Maybe, I will consult my books once I get back in the monastery, and now that you mention it, I would like to properly meet the girl and her "master" sometime, would it be possible to set up a meeting in your house this Wednesday or Thursday, you know, so I can examine them of any demonic influence?" he asked.
"I could try, though I make no promises, the only one who fully trusts me is Akeno"
"That's enough, if I have to do it separately with each case I will" then he smiled as he reclined in his chair, "to meet a different race, and those who say they are devils, I have to say, you answered well when you confronted your friend, that phrase "you are what I always wanted you to be, my best friend" reminds me of the book of Proverbs, about how a good friend is closer than a brother, treasure her, people like her only appear once in a lifetime, if you convert her I'm sure both of you will go to heaven hand in hand" he replied, I smiled.
"Thank you, father," with that said I put away my cassock and alba and left the church through the back, meeting Akeno waiting by the entrance shortly after, she came to me, and we went back home.
"Say, Subaru-kun, what does the bread mean?" she asked, surprising me slightly.
"It's the Flesh and Blood of Christ" I replied, surprising her.
"What? As in its literally "Him"?"
"Yes" she looked puzzled, which is honestly normal, the doctrine of transubstantiation is for the most part a mystery at least for me.
"How, if its still bread"
"Bread and wine, and it's so because this is no just a simple ceremony done in remembrance, as Christians we believe that in doing the Eucharist we are really participating in the Crucifixion yet again, we repeat it every Sunday, and God is the sacrifice, while the sensible characteristics of the bread, that is, what your senses tell you from the bread, are still the same, the substance of the bread and wine are Christ himself, it is also the reason why we consider it sacrilegious to commune with our hands, because only the priest has permission to touch Christ, the rest of us must take him in the mouth" I explained.
"Why do such a thing? Aren't you torturing your God that way?" she asked.
"It would be bad yes, we would be torturing God that way, but he has commanded it to be repeated, if you ever read my copy of the Sacred Scriptures, you will see in the Gospels this phrase "Take it and eat it, for this is my body that will be given over for you" Akeno looked thoughtful over those words, had it been any other person she would have maybe giggled at the idea, but as a supernatural being, she knows that what people think is impossible, can happen, like a man throwing fireballs with his hands, she later told me she thought of my answer for the whole walk back home.
Later in the day, after lunch, I went back to my room, there the golden box and the sword stayed where they were the other day. I sat by the bed and took the golden box, immediately I had a vision, it was of a monk with white simple robes, he was about to be struck by a bandit, but when the sword struck him, it suddenly stopped when the sword touched the cloths, the monk ran away, outrunning the bandit. I came back from the box, dropping it on my bed as I backed away quickly, almost falling down the other side.
'What was that' I thought, but it was an obvious question, I just saw a vision, of a monk that had indestructible clothes, 'was the piece of cloth part of that monk clothes?' I thought again, the fact it appeared out of nowhere when I woke up in Saturday, I looked then to the sword, as I said once it had the scenes from the Crucifixion and the Final Judgment, whats more it had thorns that crawled up from the upper half of the blade all the way to the top of the handle, I grabbed the handle and like before I had a vision, 'a knight was in a cave in the desert, inside was a tomb made out of sandstone with a sword on top of it, the knight got closer to it and grabbed the sword, as he did the thorns on the sword coiled around his arm up to his elbows, hurting him a lot, then a creature sprung from the shadows and tried to attack the distracted knight, surprised he quickly entered a defensive posture, the creature shrieked as it saw the sword, letting the confused knight concentrate briefly to kill the creature' once again I backed up again, dropping the sword.
I had then no doubt, these objects were sent by God, for what reason I do not know, but I think it has to do with me finding out about Akeno's true nature and that of her 'club', if you could even call it that, but for now I left those thoughts out, I had other things to do, namely the fact that I had business with the priest that night.
Let me explain, Father Diego and I met shortly before I met Akeno, and due to some circumstances he became a sort of father figure to me, and it's because he trusts me that much and a certain talent of mine that he eventually trained me to help in his other work, that being his work as an exorcist, not like the exorcists of the other churches where they are more foot soldiers than anything else, no, I mean exorcists like you probably see in those movies, although nothing can truly prepare you for meeting a possessed and exorcising the demon, it's a very dangerous job and the possibility of the priest dying in the process is not low at all, there was no way I would tell Akeno that I was doing a dangerous job, she would only follow me and put herself in unnecessary danger, which is why I texted Father Diego telling him to come to my house first so that he can explain to Akeno alongside me as to why I will leave at night, he okayed it and so I passed the time with my friend, read: freeloading squatter, until evening came and we heard a knock on the door while we were binging on anime. I opened the door and Father Diego was there.
"Hello, child, may I come in?" I let him enter the house and into the living room, Akeno was a bit surprised when she saw him.
"Subaru-kun, why is the priest from earlier here?" she asked.
"Im leaving with him"
"It's only a small job, if it makes you feel any better, he can call you once we finish, oh, but I almost forgot, we never properly met, Father Diego, priest from the Discalced Carmelite Order and the Roman Catholic Church" he followed, Akeno narrowed her eyes, clearly not buying my excuse.
"There is no way I'm convincing you out of it, am I, Subaru-kun?" I shook my head, Akeno sighed.
"Okay, but please do call me when you are done, and if I don't see you here at ten o' clock I will come to pick you up myself" I looked at Father Diego when she said that, but he didn't look at me back.
"Well, don't worry, I'm sure he will be back before you even notice, God will grant him the speed necessary to go back home before then" then he looked at me, "are you ready to leave?" he asked.
"Yeah" I replied while tapping my small backpack.
"Marvellous" and with that we left the house, Father Diego insisted we went walking to the place he was informed by one of the parishioners, it later turned out that a few of them had the gift of Discernment of Spirits, like me, which made them very good at spotting demons, among other things.
"That girl" Father Diego broke the silence "how long have you known her for?"
"Eleven years, I met her not too long after moving to Kuoh" I replied.
"I expected her to be more" he paused for a few moments, thinking on the right word "ah, what do kids call it these days, tomboyish, seeing as you told me you wouldn't mind having a woman that could count as a sparring partner for your boxing and training in general" he said.
"If anything, the one that would need to keep up would be me, her being one of those 'supernaturals' makes her, from what she told me, stronger than the strongest bodybuilder, not to mention she can shoot lighting from her hands"
"Goodness boy, next you are going to tell me you took out her from the Rabbit Hole"
"With what I saw the other day, I might as well have fallen into it myself, I already mentioned her 'master', her name being Rias by the way, but she also has a blonde-haired boy and a small girl, she referred to them as her servants"
"What as in the servants of her household?" he asked.
"Something like that, it's a pretty long story, but to summarise, they have been reincarnated by Rias to serve her in exchange for a big favour that she did for them" Father Diego's expression turned grim.
"Ah yes, you told me that the girl willingly submitted herself to what amounts to slavery all to save you because you were brave ,or stupid enough, to fight the would-be murderers of her mother" he looked towards the horizon, now almost completely dark with only the last rays of sunlight coming from the west, "to think you almost died that day, child, its nothing short of a miracle, I only hope this 'Rias' isn't treating your friend too harshly" suddenly I had a tingling sensation coming from my right, Father Diego stopped too.
"This is the place I was told" he replied, he rang the bell of the house we were in front of, it was only then I could see one of the windows of the second floor broken. A moment later a woman opened the door for us.
"Good night, madame, it has come to our attention that you have a certain problem with a family member" the woman breathed loudly, she obviously was scared.
"Are you the people Satou-san talked about? Thank goodness, please help, my, my daughter, my poor Kaori" she started to sob.
"Madame, I know how traumatising it is to see a possession, but you must let me see her and tell me everything that happened" replied Father Diego, the woman nodded.
"I understand, please come in" we entered the house, first thing I could see was that, some parts of the ceiling were missing, there were glass fragments and even burn marks on the walls, even more disturbing were hand prints made out of blood in the stairs leading up and on the wall next to the stairs, there was also a man with a claw mark on his face that he tried to stop it from bleeding using a towel, and, to my shock, there was also the same white haired girl that saved me two days before clutching her bowels.
"Toujo-san? What are you doing here?" I asked her, she looked at me while stopping the bleeding from her abdomen.
"Got summoned by the client using the pamphlet, then I almost died" she replied in a monotone voice "didn't know you were from the Church"
"Yes and no, we consider each other heathens" I replied, "never mind that, could you explain what happened alongside her" I said referring to the woman tending to her husband with a first aid kit, she looked over to us.
"Kaori-chan was calling Koneko-chan over for her usual time with her, girl stuff she would say, but two days ago she picked up some artifact and a book and since then she has been scribbling symbols in the basement and her room, she wasn't eating much and was very rude and angry these past four days, when I stopped her from carving symbols in the living room floor, she went, she went, she slapped me and threw me into the kitchen, then she grew some sort of claw and almost killed Akira, then she ran, in all fours to her room upstairs" explained the woman while sobbing, father Diego then went up to me.
"Go to the basement and make photos of whatever symbols the girl made, I will tend to the woman, her husband and then start blessing this place so the possessed cant enter this part of the house"
"Father, the patient is not restrained, what if she comes before you can finish the blessing?"
"She will not" he replied, I sighed, my gesture making the friar chuckle.
"Have a little faith, boy, I know my job well" he then looked to Toujo-san.
"Do you need help, girl? Maybe, call your friends from that 'pamphlet' of yours?" he asked, the 'devil' shook her head.
"At least let me see your cut" with that said I went to the woman.
"Where is the basement? I must see what symbols your daughter made" I asked.
"Behind the stairs, be careful, Toujo-san said she heard voices come from the basement" I nodded and went to the basement, I could faintly hear growls coming from upstairs and my sensation was guiding me towards the basement, were there more demons than the ones possessing the poor girl? I didn't know at the time. I opened the door and flicked the light switch next to it, it was a typical basement, wooden stairs, a boiler, old furniture, the usual, or it would be had it not been for the massive, intricate sigil carved into the floor, the light flickered as I got my phone and started making photos from all angles possible, I also took from my bag one of the books father Diego gave me, a small handbook on recognizing sigils, whether satanic, occultic or the like, but I already had an idea, and it dreaded me to no end, of what the symbol was, it was a sacrificial circle, the thought almost made me vomit, had the girl planned on sacrificing one of her family members to whatever devil was possessing her? I must have passed almost fifteen minutes down there pondering the circle, but in the end, I figured it out, and my fears were confirmed, it wasn't a mere demon we were dealing with, we were dealing with one of the five generals of Hell, the Lord of Flies or at least a demon serving under him. I was about to run back to Father Diego when the door slammed shut and the room started to shake as if there was an earthquake and a disembodied growl was heard, one of the drawers levitated and hurled towards me, and after I dashed to evade it a whole fridge was hurled towards me again, it barely missed my head, instead slamming hard on the wall behind me, but I did not anticipate me being hurled towards the stairs, I screamed as I was slammed against the door and tumbled down the stairs as I heard a sinister, guttural, laugh coming from everywhere at once.
"Subaru, boy, what happened?" I heard Father Diego ask frantically, the door was opened revealing him, the couple and Toujo-san, and I felt his hands grabbing my right arm.
"Are you alright"
"I have been thrown down the stairs, my back, my legs, my everything hurts" I replied grunting as I stood up, trying to ignore the pain in my back.
"Ooof, that was a hard fall, nothing is broken right?"
"I can stand, but this will hurt tomorrow" I replied, I looked at him in the eyes and ignoring the rest of the people gathered, "it's a sacrificial circle" I told him as I showed him photos, Father Diego's eyes went wide and the woman gasped "but not just that, it was directed to the Lord of Flies"
"One of the Generals, I hope it's only a servant" he muttered; Toujo-san was quick to interject.
"Subaru-sempai, it wasn't one of us, Rias-sama would never even think of human sacrifice"
"We are not talking about you or your master, Toujo-san" I replied quickly, "go back to Rias and tell her what you saw, I will talk to her tomorrow" just as I said that I saw someone behind the husband of the woman.
"Look out!" I screamed as I pulled him to me, the sword barely missing him, it was a blonde man wearing black and golden garbs and white t-shirt and trousers.
"No fair, man, I almost had him, what are you doing protecting bloody satanists anyways?" asked the man with a deranged look on his face, "ooh, I see, you are one of those heathens from that church, are you? Preaching that bold faced lie you call doctrine, no wonder you are in cahoots with those bloody devils"
"If you knew what devils really where, you would leave this place"
"Oh no, that's not how it works, kid, you and that heathen priest are dying alongside this nest of satanists, they even made their own daughter insane, and they call me crazy back at base" he replied as he grabbed my shirt and pinned me on the wall, and just as I was about to die once again, Koneko punches the man in the side, launching him skidding towards the entrance.
"I have to stop depending on you to save me" I said with a smile.
"You owe me twice" she replied, fortunately I did not come unarmed, on my bag was a machete saw, in case I needed something to defend myself.
"You little skank, how can you barge into someone killing a person and two time him? This will hurt tomorrow"
"If I split you in half maybe you will have better time with the both of us" I replied immediately after.
"Hah! The boy has some bark, I appreciate the offer, but it has the result of me dying, and that's your job, buddy, not mine" he rushed towards me, light-sword in hand, but I blocked the downwards strike, quickly retaliating with a thrust towards his gut, he blocked it, but in doing so I managed to get close enough to give him a jab to the face. Said jab, knuckles hitting right on the eyes, staggered him enough for me to slash his right wrist, the blade stopped halfway through the hand and even slashed part of his face, the man screamed in pain and swung his sword wildly, forcing me back until he stopped, he looked back at me, furious and with his right wrist slightly dangling, forcing him to grab his sword with his left hand.
"You son of a bitch, I'm right-handed, how am I supposed to slice you now?"
"You won't, you will stay put and wait for the police"
"Hah! Like I would let myself be arrested by some pigs" he ran towards me but was stopped by Koneko-san, the man had to evade a punch right to his plexus
"President will be here any second now, you can leave him with me and take care of Kaori-sempai" I looked at her, then back at Father Diego next to the couple.
"Fine, but under any circumstances, don't go to the girl's room, exorcisms are unpredictable enough in any other day, let alone this one" I turned then to Father Diego again, "she has it under control, let's do the exorcism before the others arrive, or worse"
Father Diego said something to the couple behind him and then we rushed upstairs before my senses lead me to a door to the right, claw marks were on it and the blood splatters lead towards it, I could even hear scratching and growls in between the lull of the fighting downstairs.
"Are you ready, child?"
"As ready as I can be right now"
We opened the door and we saw the girl and the room, and, oh my, I could already feel the demon's presence in the form of an almost debilitating fear, even before I saw it, and when I saw it, oh my. The room was covered in sigils crudely carved into the walls, with what looks to be another sacrificial circle in it, on which was the corpses of several animals, and in the room sitting on the bed was a girl I saw in school, Kaori Katase, her pink hair was stained with blood, her hands had been transformed into claws resembling that of birds but with five fingers instead of three, her teeth also changed to that of a shark and had a very horrifying smile that even showed flesh chunks and blood inside her mouth, my muscles tensed as I forced down my fear.
"Subaru, prepare the chains, we are doing this as fast as we can" as Father Diego said that the possessed lunged towards him, but was repelled, with a horrifying screech, by Father Diego putting a blessed cross right in front of the possessed, I quickly put my bag down and searched for the chains.
"On my mark, rush towards the girl and restrain her" the demon then looked at me and said something in a guttural language I could not recognize.
"Now!" the priest said, and I rushed to the girl and tackled her, the possessed flailed and struggled, I grabbed her right arm and put the first pair of chains on the arm, Father Diego was holding the other arm in place, even when he got scrapped by the claw on his own right arm
"Quick, give me the other one, then we will chain her to the bed!" I gave him the other chains and he put it on the other arm, then we carried the flailing possessed over to the bed where she was restrained on the bed, the possessed then had no way of escaping, the chains were also blessed so the demon's strength was nullified almost completely, a reason why the possessed could not just throw me off, the chains were already touching him. Father Diego and I stood up and he gave me the ritual handbook.
"You already know, read only the responses"
I will not walk you through the ritual since
I will not talk about the ritual since it's a very long one, I can however talk about the stages of the ritual in regard to the state of the demon, I already felt the presence of the demon entering the room, when we started the ritual came the pretence, the demon for a moment imitated Kaori Katase.
"What, what is happening, who are you?"
"For haughty men have risen up against me, and fierce men seek my life; they set not God before their eyes"
"See, God is my helper; the Lord sustains my life" I read out loud.
"Mom, dad, help, help, I'm scared" cried the demon, trying to disguise itself as the girl, we kept the ritual going, and at one point the demon dropped all pretence and it was then when the real really became apparent, the breaking point, suddenly the demon started screaming through the girl, and with it came a feeling of overwhelming terror, around us the room's lights started to flicker, reality itself started to change, blood, ichor and pus started to seep from the walls, flies started to sprout from the ceiling and buzzed around us, even the smell changed to that of rotten bodies, demons at this point truly become desperate and do everything they can to make us go away, for them anything is preferable to spending any second in Hell, during this part we can also hear the demon speak in an inhuman voice which I cannot really describe, it sounded from all directions, it sounded a mix of a growl and a hiss, again not something I can easily describe.
"Leave me alone, leave me with her you assholes"
We ignored the demon and Father Diego approached the demon, demanding to know its name, the name of the demon is important because it will only be expelled by a prayer that needs the name of the demon to be exorcised, and to interrogate the demon since it will only obey the exorcist that knows its name. Then I heard the name of the demon being said.
"Judas, Judas, I am Judas"
"His name is Judas" I told Father Diego, inwardly I was relieved, we weren't dealing with a literal General.
"Tell me, Judas, who do you serve?" the demon replied in a pained voice.
"Master Beelzebub"
"Why is his sigil in this house?" the demon laughed.
"Are you retarded, priest? To bring him to this world, why else would there be two dead muts here, the parents of the girl would have done good, and that maniac downstairs and that little girl too, but the Almighty has other plans" the demon replied.
"What is the purpose of bringing him into this world?" asked Father Diego, the demon at that question tried to resist answering, but he replied with a forced tone.
"We plan on taking over this world and using it to win in the Final Day, at least to bring as many of you fuckers with us, so that you suffer with us as you should"
Somehow Father Diego knew that the demon would not answer any more questions so then came the exorcism proper, this was known as the clash, where the demon starts losing against exorcist who is being helped by God. The demon then was truly desperate and tried to do one last act of spite, try to break the girls arms before being forced out, I was about to run towards her when Father Diego stopped me, understanding what it meant I kept saying the responses, even when I could hear from where I was the bones of the poor girl straining by the demon trying to bend them, for a moment I was scared the girl would actually have her arms broken but then the Presence started to fade, alongside the flies and the blood and everything that the demon made in this room, even the smells left, the girl stopped screaming when we ended the ritual, then she started to sob, Father Diego approached the girl.
"I will unlock the chains and comfort her, you know that possessions, if the victim remembers everything, are very traumatic, you go and see if our "guest" has been apprehended"
I nodded, left the room and headed downstairs, I saw the ORC sans Akeno with Rias standing with her arms crossed and a frown but no sign of the heathen "priest", the boy with brown spiky hair looked just as winded as Toujo-san.
"What happened? Where is the "priest"?" I asked.
"He escaped" replied Toujo-san.
"Yeah, he used some smoke grenade to disappear like some street wizard" continued the brunette boy.
"Right" I said, looking at Rias.
"I thought I told Akeno that she was not supposed to take her eyes off you" she told me, "It's a miracle you are okay, seriously, what's with you getting into trouble with the supernatural?"
"Believe me, I'm starting to ask myself that question, but would you also believe me, if I told you this is not the first time I see a house this trashed because of something out of this world?" I told her, she sighed.
"Honestly yes, but I will wait for tomorrow for you to explain everything"
"Sure, but I don't think you will believe me, besides, Toujo-san will tell you anyways" I looked at the clock, I only had half an hour to get back home.
"So, we'll see each other tomorrow, I gotta break the news to the parents and leave for home, I told Akeno I would call when I finished" I turned towards the parents who were now sitting at the kitchen table, "your daughter is okay, she is with Father Diego, in her room" the mother looked to me, and frantically shook my hands while her husband bowed down.
"Thank you, young man, thank you for curing our Kaori-chan, thank you very much"
"No problem madame, by the way, I supposed I know the answer, but have you been baptized?" the woman shook her head with a questioning look.
"No, neither us or Kaori-chan"
"Right, you might want to fix that, go to Father Diego's parish, the other churches or faiths will not help you against a demon, Father Diego and your daughter will explain why, I believe you will find their explanations very convincing", I took my phone, texted Father Diego that I would go back home and left the house. As soon as I was out and walking back., I phoned Akeno and as soon as I started the call she took the call.
"Subaru-kun?"
"I finished Akeno, I'm walking back home as we speak" I heard Akeno sigh in relief.
"Thank goodness, once you're back I will have dinner ready"
"Thank you, Ill be back in about 20 minutes" I ended the call.
Like I said earlier, I was back home just under 20 minutes later, Akeno opened the door and she led me to the kitchen where we had dinner.
"Nothing bad happened, right?" she asked.
"Nothing that I couldn't fix" I replied.
"Good, I would hate to have my favourite kohai get hurt" she replied teasingly, I looked away.
"Awww, don't be shy now, especially when you were so firm in leaving in the first place, I like that side of you" if she didn't leave it clear then, Akeno is a tease, that was due to Shuri's influence who would encourage Akeno to make me flustered once Shuri learned how shy of a boy I was. Akeno leaned closer from the table with that teasing smile of hers, even turning my face away from embarrassment
"Come on, show me your face, your cuteness never changed I want to see it again" I kept my face away from her eyes.
"Come on, you know I won't leave you alone until I see it" she was right unfortunately, if I refused she would be far more determined in her flirting. Hesitantly I let her see my face and her smile widened.
"Ah, cute, like always, see it wasn't too hard"
"Easy for you to say when you aren't in the receiving end of your own teasing" she chuckled
"I like to think Im teaching you how to do it, sooner or later I will be the one blushing, when that time comes I'm afraid you will be the victim of a shotgun wedding"
"So I was being groomed this whole time?" I asked, following her game.
"Yes, all this time you were being groomed to be my husband, and I will make sure we get married before you even step on the ground of any university"
I rolled my eyes, but as much as I hate to admit it, it wasn't such a horrible idea, but again with her, I didn't know if she was serious or not. I went back to sleep exhausted that night, but at the same time I was wide awake, thinking what I would say once I met properly with Rias.