Hello, Vinzelles here.

Welcome back to A Path To Freedom. I hope you liked the first chapter, although there isn't much of a story yet. Today I'll actually show the "encounter" that was mentioned in the... synopsis? I have no idea of what the descriptions of the stories are actually called, my bad. As I said before, I have a good English but it's certainly not perfect.

Anyway, the encounter. Obviously you know who the black-haired person is if you're reading this, because if you don't then what the heck are you doing here? ...But I suppose one should never assume.

I won't say anything else for now, but know this: I intend to have her stick around longer than what you'd be used to, readers.

I'll see you at the bottom. Enjoy.

Chapter 2 - The Strangest Meeting

Orochi found himself looking towards the girl shouting from afar. He didn't recognize her, but didn't think much of it. He jogged towards her.

"Good evening" he greeted politely as he stopped in front of her. "You said you needed something? I'll help you out if I can."

Orochi's disposition with people, as long as it didn't involve 'getting all buddy-buddy' as he called it, had actually gotten a lot better in the years. He built up a level of patience with them he didn't think he could achieve (he sure had needed it sometimes), and realized soon that he wasn't okay with leaving them to their fate. Such a thing had happened to him, and he did not wish that kind of suffering to anyone, so he decided he would help out whenever it was in his power to do so. He didn't even have to worry about who he would leave behind, like a certain spiky-haired boy in a novel he started to read recently. (1)

"Thank you, I appreciate it." she quickly bowed. Her appearance was nothing special, with a simple pink blouse and a black skirt covering her form.

"You see, I'm a bit nervous about some stuff I have to take care of in the near future, and I really, really need a stress reliever..."

"...Okay?" Orochi was understandably confused. Stress reliever? He wasn't sure of what he could do to help this stranger with this particular request. "I don't know if I'm the right person to ask for this, but I guess I'll bite. What do you need exactly?"

The girl all of a sudden glared fiercely at him.

"I just need you to die right now."

Something shiny materialized in her right hand. Something Orochi was barely able to recognize as a spear of some sorts. A pair of black wings sprouted out of the girl's back as she thrusted towards the seemingly stunned boy.

It did not connect.

As the pink spear of light passed through thin air, it was the girl's turn to be stunned as the boy, the "human" before her simply sidestepped to his right to dodge the linear attack, his red eyes gazing at her. Her stunned expression immediately gave space to pain as she felt a closed left hand slam into her diaphragm.

She couldn't help arching forward and holding her abdomen as spit and bile threatened to leak from her mouth. A whisper reached her; the human had leaned forward himself before he spoke into her ear.

"Sorry, can't help you with that."

The boy's tone was the same she had just used to state her intentions. It made her angry. Incredibly angry. In a split second a new spear appeared in her other hand, aimed to his throat. He merely spun around the blow, his red eyes fixed on the bright weapon as it passed centimeters from his flesh. Having moved once again to her side, he completed the spin and elbowed the back of her head with his left arm.

The girl just could not believe what was happening as she laid on the ground after the last blow. Having gained distance as the girl pondered what to do, Orochi spoke softly.

"...You'd think that someone with wings would be faster than this. Something must be wrong with your body..." he mused, putting his thumb on his chin in a pensive manner. "What are you anyway?" he added, addressing the winged lady on the ground with genuine curiosity in his voice.

She slowly got up. "If there's anything wrong with something, it has to be your head..." she answered, her glare somehow intensified from before.

"Oh? How so? Do tell." was the response, the white haired boy not missing a beat despite not receiving an answer to his question.

"...Why aren't you afraid?"

Orochi blinked, slightly confused at the question. "What are you talking about? A lady with black wings trying to kill me for no valid reason? Anyone would be scared, and I'm no exception. It's just that you don't really seem all that threatening." he answered honestly.

"Heh, are you sure about that?" The girl smirked, once again with spears at the ready in her hands.

"Pretty sure. After all, your hand has been trembling since before I struck you."

She froze up at those words. '...I knew it. Something's definitely wrong. It almost looks like she's forcing herself...' Orochi thought. "If you're here with the specific purpose of killing me you'd better pick up the pace, I'm giving you the time of day out of sheer boredom here, and you'll never reach me with such sloppy moves. If you're not here to kill me, however, I'd rather not waste my time so get lost." He said.

"You... are you implying I'm weak?!"

"Aren't we all, to some extent?"

"I'm getting real tired of your smart mouth!" At that, she threw one of her spears towards the boy's abdomen. Once again, he easily dodged.

'Her movements are incredibly predictable for some reason. Too linear. It's almost sad...' He thought, as the girl suddenly closed in, ready to lunge again after forcing him to move from his spot. Still too slow of an approach for Orochi, who sidestepped again to the girl's right before planting a foot right in her cheek, the kick sending her to the ground once more.

At that point, Orochi's mild amusement up to that point had already turned back into boredom. In his attempt to find something to talk about, since the fight was getting nowhere, he couldn't come up with anything, so he decided to figuratively take a step back. "...Let's start from scratch. Why are you here? And don't lie to me this time."

The girl stood back up as she nursed her bruised cheek. "What made you think I was lying? You don't know anything about my business here, do you?"

"Fair enough. So, assuming you were telling the truth, you simply picked someone to kill at random to calm your nerves, which implies you're unsettled by something. In other words, the one who's afraid here is you."

The girl scoffed at that. "Hah, you think this Raynare is afraid of a human of all things?"

"I never said that. The reason doesn't have to be me after all. What is worrying you? I did say I would help you." He smiled. He meant it, too. The girl, Raynare, was not a threat and seemed to be in distress, so he didn't even mind her attempt to take his life. "Could it be that the 'stuff' you have to take care of is bothering you for some reason?"

"It's none of your business!"

"True, but this fight seems pointless to me, and I can't exactly talk about the weather or something with you, can I? So inevitably, the only topic worth discussing is your state of mind." He responded with nonchalance.

"ENOUGH! I will not tolerate a human talking down to me!" Her glare was full of hatred by now, her hands now steadily gripping a new pink spear. "I''LL KILL YOU!"

"Try it if you can."

The girl lunged forward once again, but this time no hesitation could be found in her movements. Her spear was still missing its mark, but Orochi's dodges were a lot more narrow. "Ah, that's much better, I knew you could do it!" said Orochi with a smirk of his own as he dodged more blows by a hair's breadth. "Keep it up, I'm actually having fun here!"

Raynare grunted in rage as she kept thrusting and swinging at thin air. 'Why?! Why can't I hit him? Is this guy really human?!'

One of her swings, a bit too powerful, eventually overreached, leaving her open. Orochi didn't waste the chance and closed in in an instant before brutally uppercutting the winged woman.

On the ground again. Raynare could not understand what was happening. Orochi's amusement was waning again, especially because it seemed impossible to help the girl as long as she didn't cooperate, so he decided to knock her out and finish that farce of a battle.

"...How?" Orochi stopped as he heard a low and weak voice from the girl laying in front of the fountain. "...I have to know... how can you be this strong?..." It looked like Raynare had already run out of steam, if her panting wasn't enough of a clue.

"No idea," The boy answered honestly. "To be fair, I still think of myself as weak despite what you've seen and the pain you felt. By all means, I was not supposed to win this fight, but that's what ended up happening so I'm just as confused as you are."

"...How pathetic, a fallen angel defeated by a human..."

'Fallen angel? Such a thing exists?' Orochi couldn't help thinking that. "Shouldn't you do something about it then? Even I, the victim, feel that this situation is just wrong." he said.

Raynare had to agree to that. She might as well tell the boy what her reasoning was for her actions, she concluded. She was ashamed of herself for more than one reason. She had to know if something could be salvaged, even if she had to hear a human's opinion.

"...I arrived in this city with three other Fallens yesterday. We were waiting for a certain someone to arrive in this city. We intended to steal this someone's magical artifact in order to gain power."

Orochi's interest perked up again.

"...The item we're after is bound to that person's soul, and extracting it will kill her."

Orochi was now very interested.

"Mind you, I have no qualms about killing people. But I didn't truly feel that this was the right way to go about gathering strength. After tonight, I realize I was right. ...A human, someone who shouldn't even be aware of my existence unless he's about to die, has completely defeated me. So I'll ask again. What it is that makes you strong?"

"...If I had to guess, one of the factors would be experience." Orochi said, after pondering his answer for a few seconds. "I faced many opponents of varying ability over the course of my life, be it out of necessity or because I felt the need to protect someone. Eventually I was able to tell exactly how the person in front of me would move, how he would behave, how he would react to my words. They become predictable, and there's no excitement in that."

Raynare just laid there, absorbing it all. "But that's not all there is to it, I think" Orochi added, "A solid drive to move forward without sacrificing your morals, that is also a requirement I believe. As far as you're concerned, if you don't mind killing, go ahead and kill, as long as it's not me or someone I know I couldn't care less." He was being completely honest here. He would not beat himself up if someone couldn't be saved because it was impossible for him to intervene in time. It would be meaningless. "But if your current path to power doesn't satisfy you, you can just choose another one. It's not even that hard for someone like you, you know?"

Raynare raised her head slightly to look at the boy. He was smiling again. "I mean, you have wings, for God's sake! It's about time you use them for something, don't you think? Just fly above the clouds and you'll definitely see your ideal path."

The fallen angel laid her head back down, thinking hard about the boy's words. She eventually conceded. "...I'll consider it. Leave me alone now, I still need to catch my breath."

"Still? You ought to do some cardio, missy."

"Shut it. And my name is Raynare!"

"I understood that much, thank you. I'm Kamakura Orochi, by the way. I'll put some effort into remembering your name so you better remember mine because if we meet again and you call me 'human' I promise I'll start breaking bones. See you around..." With that the 'human' turned around and walked away as he waved to the girl he just fought, finally feeling tired enough that he felt he should be able to sleep.

Raynare was left alone with her thoughts. The bastard had a smart mouth, but he said what he thought while taking into consideration her position and her wavering resolve. Nothing about what he said was wrong, she had to admit, but she still had doubts.

However, she knew exactly how to make them disappear.

"The strength of one's resolve is what matters, huh... But does what you said apply to yourself? If I put you into an impossible situation, will that 'strength' of yours be the deciding factor, Kamakura Orochi? Will you put yourself in danger if the threat to your life is real? If you show me definite proof of your power, it won't be all that hard to make a decision for myself after all..."

A quiet laugh echoed through the park.

(1): This is a reference to Kamijou Touma from A Certain Magical Index. This "Index", who is an actual person having a weird name, is often left behind while Touma goes to save the day with his magical-but-scientific-but-it's-not really-clear-yet right hand of OP-ness.

Welcome to the bottom.

Raynare, huh? ...She's kind of weak right now, not even a match for Orochi. That might or might not change, keep this in mind. Usually she dies very early, and I'm not okay with that. Usually she has this very bright idea of stealing magical thingamajigs to gain power, and I'm not okay with that. So, I decided to keep her alive and actually have her fulfill a proper role that you'll see... probably at the end of the second arc. You could say she's even destined to become a member of the main cast of APoF. But I've said enough about that for now.

Orochi doesn't turn into a Devil. Often enough, Issei, or whatever protagonist a writer decides to put in his place, gets reincarnated after getting killed by Raynare, or "insert Fallen Angel random name here". I don't judge. The point is, that scenario doesn't suit this story, so our protagonist will keep his humanity, or whatever is left of it.

"What about his strength? Does he have an ability?" you might ask. Well, obviously he does but there's a catch to it. I'll tell you right now, it won't be explained until the second arc so please wait patiently until I get to that point. There IS one thing I can tell you about it though: it is part of an almost completely original set of abilities that very few possess. The only not-original thing about them is their general name, which is inspired by a different anime where stuff like that happens all the time when it comes to certain people and their ridiculous skills.

That's all I'm willing to tell you people for now. Next time, self-reflection.

Hope you enjoyed, see you soon. Ciao!