MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Asia watched as the two exorcists left, clearly wary of her after the way she kicked Xenovia's ass.
"I'm going to be staying at a friend's place, since Issei has already stated that Irina is an old friend of his. I'd rather not inadvertently instigate anything further," she said.
Issei winced, but agreed to let his parents know.
She immediately went to Azazel's place where he and Verde were working on something.
She set the tone of the next conversation by casually stating "So someone stole several fragments of Excalibur and now there are two Exorcists in Kuoh who have apparently tracked them here."
Dead silence. Azazel stops what he's doing and turned to her with a rather serious expression.
"Please tell me you're kidding."
"I just had to put the beat down on a rather zealous exorcist carrying an Excalibur knock-off, and her partner had one as well. They specifically went to visit Rias to alert her that they would be operating in the area and to make sure she wouldn't interfere. I seriously doubt they would send two holy sword users to deal with a 'minor' matter in an area controlled by the younger siblings of two Satans," deadpanned Asia.
Azazel let out some rather impressive swears. There was no way a Devil could have stolen the fragments without setting off some MAJOR alarms that even he would have noticed. The fact they somehow ended up in Kuoh (or the Church was lead to believe they were) so shortly after Raynare and her lot tried to attack the user of Twilight Burning and managed to piss off the younger siblings of those two sis-cons couldn't possibly be a coincidence. Particularly since Asia had rather publicly kicked Riser's ass as a favor to Rias.
"So are you thinking what I'm thinking? Or am I reading too much into something unrelated?"
"Some dumbass is trying to rekindle the great war after all the headaches we put into a damn truce," said Azazel pissed.
"Hence why I came to you first. Considering Kiba's reaction to the idea of Excalibur being within reach, I'm just going to guess he has some history with either it or some project connected to it. Which means he'll get in over his head, and Rias will be drawn in as well as Ddraig through Issei. And since this is shared territory, Sona will help if only to keep the peace and because she's friends with Rias. Add in the two holy sword users, both with Excaliburs..." said Asia.
Azazel swore again.
"What do you need?"
"Well considering there's a high chance a fallen is involved, since I highly doubt an angel would pull a stunt like this without falling as a result, I'll probably need to borrow Vali. Oh, and a drone or something to catch the inevitable clash once the current instigator is found."
Azazel considered who had been acting up of late, then had a dark expression. That damn idiot Kokabiel. It had to be...he never forgave the fact Azazel had opted for a truce rather than finish the Great War and Raynare was under him before she was killed off.
He looked to Verde, who was neutral on the whole matter, for obvious reasons.
"Just so we're clear, once this is over I'm going to come up with some sort of excuse to drag my idiot son in. If someone is trying to restart the war, I would rather have someone of his skills backing you up as well...besides, I'm tired of him hiding his heritage."
Normally he wouldn't care, as it was Reborn's life...but this was too serious for such petty sentiments. Reborn was strong enough to throw off the curse outright, but had never bothered to do so.
Asia considered that.
"I remember hearing that he had his memory sealed or some nonsense. Is it possible someone tampered with his memory after the curse to insure he wouldn't ask for help?"
Verde blinked.
"Wait...Reborn is your son?" said Verde.
"Not that the ungrateful ass ever mentions it."
Verde started swearing.
"That explains far too much," he complained.
Like why he knew so much about the Moonlit World in the first place.
"I'm giving your familiars or at least that damn tiger some upgrades," said Azazel.
"Have fun," said Asia. "I'm going to crash on your couch until the main instigators show up."
Azazel waved her off, still slightly fuming.
Asia felt it probably said something about her personality that when she did meet up with Rias and Sona again, they were about to discipline Issei and Saji for going against their orders.
"Sona, Rias wait..." said Asia. Saji almost held out for a modicum of mercy...Issei was under no such illusions and awaited for worse punishment. "Since these two are part of your peerage and they were colluding with Exorcists, I think this deserves a slightly harsher punishment. Besides, we wouldn't want to hurt your hands. Use these instead."
She handed them two braided leather whips. Sona's eyes glinted darkly. Rias looked like she wanted to laugh at the expression of horror on Issei's face.
"I do believe you have a point," said Rias, trying not to laugh.
Asia was entirely unsurprised when Akeno sidled up to her to inquire where she got such fun...toys.
And if she happened to direct the half-fallen towards one of the shops that was owned by Azazel and happened to cater to the tastes of the Fallen, well hopefully Akeno wouldn't notice.
With that done, she went to crash on Azazel's couch once more. He had gotten excited over her tiger cub, though he wouldn't explain why.
Asia wound up oversleeping and just called in sick with a mild cold. Nothing too serious, but she was a favored student so the teachers ignored her playing hooky.
It was later that night that things turned interesting.
She took one look at the massive shield around the school then turned to Azazel and Vali.
"I'm borrowing Vali so he can record the inevitable beat down, and to insure the guilty parties don't actually have a chance to escape."
"Deal," said Vali.
"Oh and if you do a good job of recording I'll skip our usual training sessions for a week."
"If you're going there, you might as well take these with you," said Verde.
Asia had an evil grin on her face.
"Want me to openly call you and put you on speaker so Kokabiel understands exactly how boned he is even if he survives me?"
"Hell yes!" said Azazel cackling at the thought of it.
Asia took her new toys, holding back a truly terrifying cackle the entire time.
"Is it bad I almost feel pity for whatever idiots are stirring up trouble?" asked Vali.
"Nope," said Azazel.
One of the benefits of having Asia around was that when Vali realized exactly how...annoyed...she would be with him for restarting the Great War and that there was someone all too happy to fight him to his heart's content and make him stronger for it, he became far more tolerable.
Azazel almost thought something would develop between them, but the two had firmly settled into a weird sort of sibling rivalry. Asia was not only protective of Vali, but she was all too happy to try and cave his head in if it meant he got strong enough to challenge the one he REALLY wanted to fight.
Vali on the other hand saw her as a sister/rival, and would happily follow her requests because with her luck it was almost guaranteed he'd get a decent fight out of it.
"Just be sure to have Mukkuru out when you go," said Azazel.
Mukkuru being the name she gave the tiger cub she found.
Asia got a small bag and put her familiar inside. She didn't want to risk him being unable to be summoned by some random spell. Besides, she trusted Azazel enough not to screw her over...particularly over something this serious.
In Kuoh...
The sheer relief Rias and Sona had seeing her there was palpable. Then again she had established herself as a major wild card that could be reasonably be trusted to help them in times of crisis.
Asia made a point to stay out of the main fighting. They needed this sort of reminder to keep training, and besides she was saving herself for the main player Kokabiel.
And then the bastard had to drop that sort of bombshell. While it had come as some shock learning the original Yahweh was deceased, it made a twisted sort of sense.
Asia thought that through, considered what she knew of the Three Factions and groaned.
"Dammit...that idiot Sephira made the whole Tri-Ni-Sette system to stabilize the energy after he died, didn't she? That's why it's been screwed up for years."
Kokabiel gave her an interested look.
"You know of that flawed system? He's been trying to keep it active for years now, despite the fact the worst of the instability has long since settled," said the fallen.
Asia rolled her eyes.
"I'm Giotto's descendant and strong enough to take on the mantle of the Sky Arcobaleno. There's no way I wouldn't know about that ridiculous set-up that woman put into place and that man insists remain," deadpanned Asia. "Besides, last I heard Micheal was doing a rather credible job of keeping the heavenly systems active...he just hasn't figured out how to reset the administrative access."
She had some theories about that, but it was possible Micheal was too busy trying to keep things stable and maintain the uneasy truce that he hadn't had a chance to think outside the box to reset the administrative access to the very system that could create angels. Either that or he was too afraid of crashing it entirely to try all the angles. Not her problem, at least at the moment.
Kokabiel sneered at them all, and Rias eyed him for a moment before she looked at Asia and Mukkuru.
She came to a decision this fight was far above what she could handle, and she knew for a fact Asia hadn't really pushed herself against Riser.
"Asia, would you be offended if I left him (she nodded to the fallen) to your capable hands?"
"Is that permission for me to intrude on a territory dispute?" asked Asia. Rias nodded. "Give me a moment to call someone and put them on speaker."
Rias looked puzzled at this and Kokabiel looked amused...right up until he heard the voice on the other end.
He went from smug to almost freaked out.
Asia's smile was downright terrifying, to the point Issei and the rest of Rias' peerage had only one thing they thought appropriate for the situation.
"How did it go again?" mused Issei, as Akeno, Koneko and Kiba stood next to him. "Oh yeah, now I remember."
As one, the four did a reverse cross against their chest and said rather vocally in odd unison...
"Lucifer-sama, please bestow what little mercy you may give to this fallen, for Asia will have none on him," said the quartet, even putting their hands together in mock prayer.
If one strained their ears, they might hear Azazel's cackling from the other end of the phone the moment he heard that. It only got worse when Vali delivered the video and he saw them doing the reverse cross. Xenovia...just looked confused and highly offended, while Rias looked torn between amusement and annoyance.
Asia's smirk only got worse, as she had jokingly taught that particular "prayer" to Issei shortly before the exorcist's came to the clubhouse purely to piss them off. When asked why, her answer was that "since they can't pray to God, they can at least send their prayer the opposite direction". And with Rias being the younger sister of the current Lucifer, sending it his way just added to the amusement factor.
Coincidentally Sona's peerage directed their prayer to her older sister Serafall, who held the post of Leviathan.
What happened next was brutal to say the least... Xenovia in particular seemed heavily affected when Asia released her blazing wings, revealing the true nature of "Twilight Burning".
It was safe to say that had any of the Church had an inkling of the fact she heavily resembled a Seraphim at that moment, they never would have dared to call her a witch.
As it was, she was highly tempted to prostate herself, and likely would have had it not been a rather poor idea considering the situation. Certainly she had never heard of any past user of Twilight Healing having wings.
Seeing Kokabiel getting his ass kicked by a mere teenager was rather humbling. Seeing the current incarnation of Albion drag him off for a very long overdue punishment by Azazel was barely a footnote in the night's long headache.
As it was, Asia was still kicking Azazel in the shin repeatedly for not warning her of the true nature of her tiger cub.