Hello, Vinzelles here. Welcome back to A Path To Freedom.

I happened to notice that I wrote the name of the fic slightly wrong in the last chapter. It's just an "of" rather than a "to" but it still pisses me off. I'll fix that when I'm done here though so you won't notice at all, hahaha!

Anyway, today we've got an intermission of sorts, something to put between battles as an excuse to delve into an "old" character's personality or introduce a new one altogether. I'm gonna go ahead and do both in this chapter, while Raynare prepares... something... behind the curtains. It won't have a title, because I'm bad at titles- um, I mean because it's just an intermission and I don't feel it needs one. It IS kinda necessary to read at least the second half of this intermission, lest you find yourself confused at the start of the next chapter. I do look forward to publishing it (incidentally, the next two chapters will end the first arc)!

Before we start, I actually got a review! So I'll go ahead and answer it real quick:

ArcherGenes - Thank you for the review! Good question. My honest answer is that I have yet to decide that. This is my first time writing so I don't know if I can handle that kind of entertainment, so to speak, when I create stuff. If I DO decide to go and do pairings, and of course I'll adjust the genres accordingly if I do, I think I'll go with a single pairing (which might not necessarily be Raynare but again, I haven't decided), maybe two or three but that's all. No harems here, I definitely don't have enough confidence for that e.e

There are going to be a bunch of line breaks, just so you know. It was inevitable, I had to set up the next scenario properly and I need all this stuff, more or less. Apologies for that if it ends up uncomfortable.

I'll see you at the bottom. Enjoy.

Intermission 1

Orochi reached his dorm room safely that night and went to sleep. He was slightly concerned due to the fact that Raynare might have decided to come and kill him in his bed, but by the time this thought had taken form in his mind he was already asleep.

Nobody came that night.

The next day, Orochi got up like usual, washed himself like usual, had breakfast like usual and walked out towards his school like usual. The events of the last night almost seemed forgotten if you knew about them and looked at his currently serene face. What was unusual, as in 'unusual enough that even he would notice', was the slight spring in his step. He felt in great shape and light as a feather, he was in a very good mood and it had been a while since the last time he experienced this level of personal satisfaction.

He reached the usual crossroad where he met sometimes with Unryuu before or after school, and even felt like waiting for her to arrive. Waiting for someone! Him of all people! He seriously felt great today and had no idea why.

After 5 minutes, he saw his friend running towards him, both her braid and her bosom bouncing about as she approached him. As usual, he forced himself to focus on her face. And he noticed the small flash of concern in Unryuu's delicate lineaments.

Once Unryuu had caught her breath, she addressed him in what seemed like hurry.

"G-Good morning, Orochi-kun! H-How are you doing?"

'Too close?!' thought Orochi as Unryuu pretty much shoved her head into his personal space and looked at him dead in the eye.

"I-I'm fine! More than fine in fact, I feel great today!" he said, managing to put back a smile in his face as he pulled back his head.

Unryuu seemed to calm down slightly at that. "Are you sure?" She still felt she had to ask, due to how strange it was for Orochi's mood to be this good this early in the morning. Or at least that's what Orochi thought was swimming in his friend's mind at the moment.

"Yeah, I feel like I can do anything today, hahaha!" He charged across the crossroad as he laughed childishly, leaving Unryuu behind in a trail of dust.

"W-Wait for me, you idiot!"

The school day in itself was otherwise uneventful. He was even paying attention to the teachers more than usual! Now that was strange! He never had much trouble with the subjects of his course and scored fairly average in his tests, but whenever he was in a slump, such as yesterday and the days before, his attention span was almost nil. He knew that much, it was one of his flaws when it came to topics he didn't care much for.

When the last bell rang though, a single thought emerged from his mind. One he didn't want to deal with lest it ruined his mood.

'...What do I do now?'

He moved among the desks and reached the window of his classroom, his schoolbag in hand. He felt he had at the very least the duty to think about what had transpired at the park and analyze carefully if he made any mistakes. It was something that he thought necessary whenever a situation required him to get violent, and it also helped him as a distraction from dull thoughts. Could he have gone easier on his opponent? Did he say what he believed were the right things? Questions such as these would leave him pensive for several minutes, as he seemed to be looking at nothing outside the window, making an unreadable expression.

An expression Unryuu was familiar with.

"...You've been in a fight again." It wasn't a question. Unryuu knew him too well. 'But not well enough...' he thought.

"...yeah." Orochi decided to admit to what he did.

"Who did you send to the hospital this time?"

"No one. My opponent came out of it just a bit winded and with a few minor bruises."

Unryuu clicked her tongue. "Only you would feel happy after delivering a beating, no matter how easy you went on them..." She seemed disappointed, but Orochi didn't pay it any mind. His pondering had led to a conclusion he was satisfied with. He used the right amount of force, maybe less than he should have considering that Raynare wanted to take his life. He said what was needed to be said, he was certain of that too. He protected her identity, since Unryuu would be even more upset if she knew he had beat up a girl. And also because it was a fallen angel, a creature that wasn't supposed to exist. His friend would never believe him, he thought, so he had decided to go with half-lies.

"I'm not happy about that in particular." That was true. "I'm just glad that we actually managed to talk it out throughout the ordeal." Also true. "He needed a good talking to, and was a bit too stubborn, that's all." That was not true; the total opposite in fact. If anything, Raynare was hesitating until he decided to provoke her. Not that Unryuu needed to know that little detail.

He imagined she would keep questioning him, but found himself surprised as she apparently decided to drop the subject. "Fine, I'll believe you just this once. What are you doing today? And you better not answer with 'kickboxing' or it'll be me who kicks the box you wouldn't want me to kick!"

He immediately felt fear for himself. He had never been sure if his sacred place was as sturdy as the rest of his body and had never been able to figure it out. The fear of the unknown, as usual, is more than enough to bring down to earth even the biggest airhead.

"P-Please refrain from doing that, Nishijima!" he pleaded. "I'm still in a fairly good mood and wouldn't want to ruin it by carelessly opening my mouth, so don't worry about potentially hearing what you don't want to hear, okay?!"

"Aren't you pretty much admitting that the thought crossed your miiiiiiiiindddd?"

"HOW DID YOU COME TO THAT CONCLUSION?!"

"YOU'RE ALREADY RUNNING AWAY, THAT'S HOW! COME BACK HERE!"

In all seriousness, Orochi really did not think about kickboxing. There was no need. His mind was focused elsewhere as he ran for his life and didn't even notice that Unryuu was not chasing him.

Instead, she stood there, glaring at the door of her classroom.

"...I'd better report this to Anya-sama..." she muttered.

Unryuu marched towards the old school building of Kuoh, where her Devil master was waiting for her arrival. She was a Devil herself, reincarnated back when she was still a child by one Anya Adramelech, Anya Adachi her human name. Anya was the elected supervisor for this city, this was her territory and she was aware of anything supernatural that happened within the city grounds.

Kamakura Orochi's abnormal existence, inevitably, did not escape her radar. As such, Unryuu recieved the order of befriending him a few years back in order to keep him under watch and make sure nothing happened to his somewhat normal life. That, at least, was the order until her master was notified of a few rogue Fallens invading the city, just when the wielder of the Sacred Gear *Twilight Healing* had decided to move to this district from a convent in Italy.

"The Fallens are only after Twilight Healing, and as such might decide to eliminate anything they would consider a threat. Kamakura-kun's abnormal aura might be enough to make him a target so keep a close eye on him. At worst, we might have to reincarnate him." was what Anya told her.

So, Unryuu had observed from the shadows Orochi's encounter with Raynare the night before. Imagine the surprise when she saw him defeat the Fallen easily! Apparently he wasn't even meant to be a target yet, as evident by the fact that the Fallen engaged him on her own. In fact, it really was out of bad luck that she had stumbled into someone she could not defeat on her own. Even stranger, no attempts to his life were made in the span of almost a day after the fact, which was concerning. Even worse, she was told by phone this morning by her master that the presence of one of the 4 Fallens she had sensed had vanished from the city for some reason. Why would one of them leave exactly before Twilight Healing arrived in the city? Their behaviour didn't match their predictions, it was as if the Fallen woman had decided to go do her own thing all of a sudden...

Unryuu reached the old building, where some of the clubs were currently residing for their extra-curricular activities, her destination being the Occult Research Club. She swinged the door open and saw her master sorting papers at her desk, a young woman her own age with long burgundy hair and blood red eyes, having a slightly smaller bosom than herself, clad in her Kuoh uniform.

"Anya-sama, I have returned" said Unryuu as she closed the door.

"Welcome back. So, how was he?"

"All in one piece, at the very least. He didn't seem to be hurt at all. I did tell you that much this morning."

"True, but it never hurts to double-check. Now, I have asked for permission to deal with the Fallens in the city, but apparently the Grigori needs to verify whether they have been authorized to enter or not." She clicked her tongue. "...It will take a while before we can take action, damn burocracy."

"What shall we do until then, Anya-sama?" Unryuu inquired.

"Well, we have to wait until we recieve the okay from the higher-ups, but until then what I want you to do in the meantime is to keep watching Kamakura-kun, in case he gets attacked again. Especially now that apparently one of the Fallens is acting independently, it's a lot harder for me to track the 'lone wolf'. We know where they are, but that woman is currently out of the city and of my jurisdiction. I wouldn't be able to locate her in time if she were to carry out an actual assassination attempt."

"Understood. I shall take my leave." Unryuu bowed and finally left the premises after receiving her new/old orders.

(3 days later)

Orochi had just arrived at his dorm. His good mood seemed to have vanished after 3 days of average school life.

He was bored again.

As he hanged his uniform to a coathanger, he noticed a piece of paper on a small table near the entrance of the door. It didn't look like the paper Unryuu had given him, since it was still abandoned somewhere in the house. He picked it up: it was a letter. He immediately felt annoyed.

"Someone entered the house to leave this thing here..." he muttered.

He opened it and read what little contents were written.

*I've thought about what you told me and I made my decision. Let's talk. I'll wait for you in front of the abandoned church. Come at 8 p.m., alone. Expect a fight.*

- Raynare

"...Well, at the very least whatever she has planned might relieve me of my boredom...".

"Unryuu, we have finally received permission to act. We will subdue the Fallens tonight." Anya declared, internally glad that she had a chance to act after such a long wait.

"I'll get ready immediately." said Unryuu.

"Dohnaseek, I don't think Raynare will come back." said a small blonde girl in a Gothic dress.

"Think she decided to wuss out at the last moment?" inquired a blue haired woman with a maroon trenchcoat-like top open enough to reveal her cleavage.

"Doesn't matter." claimed the addressed man in a fedora and a gray trenchcoat, Dohnaseek. "We'll do it without her if need be. I have left Freed to guard the main hall. Mittelt, and you too, Kalawarner, your positions shall be in front of the entrance to the catacombs. I'll take care of the ritual."

"What are you afraid of?" said Mittelt. "The Devils haven't detected us so far so there will be nothing to do, and I kind of want to watch the ritual!"

"It's a safety measure, you fool. Just because the Devils haven't acted it doesn't mean they don't know about what we'll be doing." Dohnaseek had to point out.

"That's right" confirmed Kalawarner. "I also hope they won't come but that's too optimistic of a view. Let's go already."

"Fiiiiiiine..." drooled out Mittelt.

Raynare stood outside the gates of the church, a cloaking spell cast to prevent even her former allies from sensing her presence. She had organized all this, even using her comrades as pawns, just to see if it was enough to stop him. She couldn't hang around too long, since the Devils themselves were going to move in a matter of minutes, and she had no wish to be caught in the crossfire. Not after making a life-changing decision.

Finally, a familiar figure emerged at the base of the stairs.

Raynare couldn't help smirking.

"Welcome, Kamakura Orochi... Glad you could make it..."

Welcome to the bottom.

I hope it wasn't TOO much of a mess. ...it probably is though. If I ever come back to look at the early chapters this one is definitely going to be the first one I fix up.

Anyway, new stuff.

Orochi's way of thinking isn't merciful nor merciless, but an odd in-between typical of a human. What makes him peculiar in my opinion is that being an introverse person intensifies his emotions when they do come out, with varying results depending on what he feels at that moment. If he has no reason to injure his enemies then he won't go too hard on them: Raynare was not a threat, so she came out of a battle against him relatively fine. But I wonder what would happen if he didn't have or want to hold back? You'll be able to see a glimpse of that side of Orochi next chapter, I promise.

There's also his boredom. He's clearly had enough of a life where nothing happens, and normality will not satisfy him at this point because he always had something superior up until high school, in a sense. Not necessarily good though, as you saw from the first chapter where he had been bullied harshly for a short time in his childhood. The events he witnessed, along with his inability to feel anything that comes from other people, have left him desensitized, and unable to bond properly with normal people. This will be related to his ability.

Finally, Anya Adramelech. She's based on Lancer from Fate/Grand Order (Scathach is her name apparently. Huh. Didn't know that while I was writing the intro. Shows how little I know about certain characters e.e) and will probably have similar powers. I'm not too sold on a certain OP trait of hers though, and I'll have to decide whether I want to keep it or not for the third arc where she actually does things.

Not much else to say. Raynare's decision will be hinted at in the next chapter and explained properly in the second arc so no spoilers there. Next time, a bunch of old stuff breaks.

Hope you enjoyed, see you soon. Ciao!