Draconian Fate Works - Volume 1

by Kratos1989

Honestly, I should have expected it. After all, my line of work would always be screwing with me when I don't need to. What I did not expect was getting myself into a world where Gods are alive and around, Angels and Demons are real, and the residents are really weird. I blame Zelretch for this. Rated T for the time being. (Yes, the title has been changed / Sporadic Updates)

6. Excalibur Blade Works - Part 2

Disclaimer:

High School DxD is a Japanese light novel series written by Ichiei Ishibumi and illustrated by Miyama-Zero. The Fate series is owned by Type-Moon. I do not own any of the characters mentioned from both series. The only things I own are the ideas that popped into my head for this story and whatever original characters I would create for the story.

My main muses come from Gabriel Blessing and Marcus Galen Sands, authors of great works themselves. This story is meant to be a work of pure fiction made solely for fun, constructive reviews will be welcomed, flames will be ignored. Any references to characters in real-life are purely coincidental and should not be taken seriously. If I could make money out of my ideas, it would be nice...

Root Damn It!

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Published: July 30th 2016

Edited: 7th August 2016 / 18th September 2017

Chapter 6: Excalibur Blade Works - Part 2

Part 1

"HAH~ HAH~"

I panted hard while grabbing my knees to support my tired body. Around me, the area got completely reduced to earth and rubble while the remains of trees laid smothering on the ground as a result of me using several fire-based weapons to vent off some steam. The nearby stream was completely destroyed, thus disrupting the flow of the water and sending its contents in different directions and giving some trouble to the fishes.

I would have to repair this huge mess with a few water elemental and tree-elemental blades.

It had been ten minutes since I pulled the sword out of the boulder, and I was still having insecurities and in need of some major anger management lessons from it. I still don't feel that I was worthy for it, and all these unvented rage was starting to get a little out of control for me. It was as if I was not the only one feeling very angry about the Excalibur Shard. I paused at that thought and closed my eyes a moment to focus on something, before letting out a sigh at the confirmation.

It seemed that I was not the only one angry about this business anymore. Many of the swords in my reality marble were getting quite restless, both holy and demonic types. A majority of them had their roots in Britain, thus reflecting a large bulk of the rage. Amongst them, a few particular weapons were getting extremely pissed off.

Excalibur Galantine of Gawain was giving off waves of displeasure.

Arondight of Lancelot was roaring its discontent.

The Grail Sword of Percival and the Red Hilted Sword of Balin were getting agitated to the point of giving me a migraine.

Even Clarent that belonged to Mordred was reacting badly, as though the Knight of Betrayal was angered at the idea that this world's sword was being remotely compared to Saber's.

Oddly enough, the armaments that should likely be the most angered by this revelation were acting rather civilized; Carnwennan, Goswhit, Rhongomiat, Caliburn and lastly Excalibur were all calm like they did not bothered themselves being too wrapped up like the other swords. If anything there was a hint of competitiveness resonating from them as if they wished to compete with the Excalibur Shards of this word to see if they were worthy to wield the name.

In a sense, it does suit Saber. She would be calm but at the same time she would want to see if someone could measure up to her standards.

I finally managed to catch my breath and straightened my body to survey the area, but my attempts to distract my thoughts were futile as I could not help remembering the odd sensation when I grabbed Excalibur Destruction, the history behind the forging, the past users and…

[Make us whole]

I would admit wholeheartedly that I was essentially scared shitless the moment I heard those words in my head. It sounded like something from a zombie video game or horror movie, certainly not helped by the deep whisper that 'Destruction' used to say that to me. Last thing I needed was to have resurrected dead knights emerge from the ground and attacking everyone in sight, all while chanting "Make us whole" in a scary tone.

I would have nightmares for a long time.

But perhaps the most disturbing thing about the sword was perhaps the odd image I got right before I dropped the sword: a type of figure that was… 'Fragmented' for a lack of description, like I was trying to look at someone's reflection from a broken and aged mirror. Parts of the body was missing and what I could assume to be the head seemed to be cracked at places and blurred out like I was looking through a mist, and what seemed to be an empty eye socket looking at me as the words were repeated.

Yup, I would have nightmares tonight.

"Have you cooled your head off, young man?" A voice brought my attention to Griselda who came up from behind. A little further away, some of the others stood close to the trees and my heart ached slightly at the sight of their uncertainty at me. I guess they were watching me all this time and were probably a little taken back by my ruthlessness to deal out as much damage to the rocks and trees as possible.

"Is there something you need?" I focused my attention on the woman now standing a little closer to me.

"You are needed back at the safe house. The heiresses wished to have a discussion with everyone present to deal with this matter." The exorcist took a moment to ponder the holy sword that was near her. "They are thinking about splitting their forces to try and locate both the renegades and their fellow devil knight. But they are having trouble coordinating the efforts. In my honest opinion, the Crimson Princess is not thinking calmly of the situation."

I let out a light snort as I dismissed most of the projections around me and absorbed the residual Prana around me before projecting the elemental weaponry needed to repair the landscape in front of me. I had already pegged Rias as being the worrywart she was; it did not take much to see that she cares a little too much for her fellow servants to be appropriate of a master-servant relationship, and given the short time I had trained her for Raiser's match, she was often trying to finish the training quickly to find her servants and comfort them. If this type of thing happened in my world, her team would likely be the target of many just so they could distract her.

"Interesting." I looked at Griselda to find her looking at my ongoing handiwork with a discerning eye while lightly handling the holy sword next to her. "This is not like any of the other Holy Swords back in the Vatican Vaults. This seems to be more 'solid' if I had to describe it, and the feeling of the holy energy is vastly different from the ones I am familiar with. And those other swords of yours are diverse in both nature and abilities." She looked at me in the eye with an expression that kind of reminded me of Rin when she found something new about my magecraft that she wanted to test out. "And these are created from your magic if I recall correctly?"

"Magecraft, and you are partially right in that regard." I decided to give her a different version of my abilities just in case we ever got into a fight and I could hold on to my cards. "I can create any weapon I laid my eyes on, swords being the easiest of them all. It won't be as strong as the original but at least I would have enough to help me though my fights."

"I see." She went back to studying the sword in her hand with a cursory eye, but I could tell from her glance that she was not satisfied with my answer as though she knew that I was withholding information from her. I ignored her for the time being to focus on the restoration of the area. With what little I have seen, this woman was clearly going to be a problem in the near future. A problem for whom, that would be the question for later.

"Right, that is done." I sighed in content after the last bit of grass covered the ground, leaving no trace of any overthrown pieces of rock or scraps of firewood. If anything, I think I made the area a lot better than before.

"Did you have to include a waterfall feature in this area?" Griselda asked while raising an eyebrow at the relatively small river stemming from the waterfall I made from the underground spring I uncovered. "And is that a pond for you to have fishes in?"

Hey, if I have to hang on to my safe house, I would at least do some decorating to spruce the area up.

"Shall we head back to the others?" I dismissed all the other projections that were around, and I made doubly sure that the holy sword Griselda was holding onto disappeared. One effect I noted about this world having on my projections was that some seem to disappear a lot longer if I do not actively keep an eye on them, and I really do not want projections to be lying around.

"…" Griselda watched the sword in her hand disappear in a cloud of gold dust, flexing her fingers as though to check that the sword did vanish before her eyes before nodding in reply. We were soon joined shortly by Mitelt and some of the other devils and we made our way back to the safe house.

"So… Have you cooled off now?" Mitelt drawled on that question while looking at me.

"Considering the way you asked me, I must have been pretty bad." I replied with a shrug.

"You think? For a moment I thought you would turn into the Hulk." Ise snorted as he answered to my remark. He paused to ponder his words before slowly asking me with a hint of dread. "Erm, you can't really turn into the Hulk, right?"

For a moment I was tempted to say yes to his query, but I wasn't in the mood for it, so I shook my head. "I don't really have an ability to turn into the Hulk, but there are spells that allow one to go berserk in order to remove all the physical limitations on the body in exchange of losing their sanity."

Case in point, Herakles.

"So those type of spells exist? Do you know how to use them?" Momo asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I have heard of them and fought off users of said spells, but I can't use them myself." I shook my head again as I answered. "Good thing too, because I really do not like the idea of losing myself to rage."

"No kidding, you are already a handful during our training. I don't want to fight you at your boiling point." Ise shivered at that thought.

"That reminds me, I haven't given you guys your training yet." I held back the smile as I enjoyed the members of the Student Council cringing lightly at that reminder. "Perhaps after this fight we can get started on your bit?"

"Ha~ ha ~ ha~ you can take your time, no need to rush." Saji weakly laughed as he tried to move away from me.

"Oh don't worry, it won't be any trouble." I pretended to be earnest as I took the moment to enjoy the suffering. "As soon as this is over, we can start the training right away. I would even give you the one I gave to Ise for your part so that you can keep up." Ise shivered at the reminder while Saji went to a new level of paleness possible.

"We can think about that later. For now let us deal with the current situation." Griselda put an end to my small bit of fun with that sentence. I could only nod in agreement as we continued on to the warehouse in silence. It did not take long to reach the back door and opened it to find the others seating around in a rough circle. At our footsteps they turned around, and I found myself gazing at the shard in Xenovia's hand.

'Thump~ Bump!'

[Make us whole. Make us whole.]

"Emiya-kun?" Reya looked to me with a concerned face as I clutched my head in response to the pain that came from the shard. Ever since I pulled that sword out of the rock, its voice has been trying to reach me for a while, but it was only in close proximity that the whisper seemed to echo in my head and I could not stop the image of me being alone in front of the sword, with chains surrounding us and getting tighter to prevent me from running away, and the figure standing right next to me and looking at me with that empty eye socket.

"Okay, I hear you, you can quieten down the racket a little." I growled out as I clutched my head further to ease the pain.

"Hey, that's not very nice! She was trying to be nice to you!" Irina's comment made me realize that the odd chant was over, and then what I said out loud. With a slight fear in me, I turned slightly to find a teary-eyed Kusaka Reya looking a little hurt.

Oh great, Shirou Emiya. You made a cute devil girl cry, now you would burn in hell.

"I'm sorry, I was not referring to you, Reya. I was talking to the sword over there." I apologized to the girl before gesturing to the Excalibur Shard. "It just won't stay quiet."

"That explains the odd vibrations." Xenovia looked at the sword with a cursory glance. "It has been somewhat eager to come after you for some time."

"That is right, so on that note, I am really sorry Reya-san! I did not mean to hurt you in any way, please don't cry!" I let out that last bit in a desperate plea at the sight of those eyes clouding over in tears. Damn it, I would willingly take a full-day beat-down from Rin and Luvia for this, just don't cry! I would never forgive myself for doing this to her!

"Oh I see, that was what you meant." Reya cleared her tears away and smiled gently. "I understand. But I am still a little worried about you."

"I am fine really, and I am very sorry about yelling at you. I will make it up to you in any way." I earnestly tried to cheer her up. In hindsight though, I really should have noticed the expression that appeared briefly when I said that.

"… Anything?"

"Yes, anything. You name it!"

"… If you are insistent on that, we can make it that you owe me a favor after this problem okay?" Reya finally beamed at me earnestly nodding my head.

Whew~ that was close.

… Why was Meguri pouting at me? Why were some of the council members smirking in amusement? And why were the two males of the group face-palming?

"Dang it, I was kind of hoping he would get trashed on the spot." Xenovia muttered softly but ended up getting heard by everyone in the area. Oh that was it, I was so going to put her in a head-locker courtesy of Luvia's training regime.

"Tell me, what is the shard speaking of?" Griselda asked with a curious tone. "There have been stories of people being able to hear the swords when they wield them, but none of the current users have reported anything of the sort."

"Not sure what I can relate regarding what you have said, but if the people you asked were augmented like those two over there, then that might be the reason why you don't hear any voices. If you are talking about natural users though, perhaps they are not communicating with their weapons enough." I explained while slightly noting the manner Xenovia perked her ears up when I mentioned the latter part. "It is quite common in a way."

"I see, but back to the question." I sighed at her insistence for an answer.

"Excalibur Destruction keeps chanting the same thing. 'Make us whole.' I would guess that the shards are reacting to one another." I gave that reply after thinking a little. Best to keep quiet on the part about some disfigured phantom haunting me to myself.

"That would make sense, but they are still going to you for that, so it seems you may have an answer to deal with them." Griselda noted before looking to the devil princesses. "So had there been any developments so far?"

Sona shook her head while adjusting her glasses. "Afraid there is none. I'm not sure how, but they seemed to have fallen off the radar without a trace. None of the familiars are able to find them, and none of the detection spells in the town are sounding off. They must be in an area where neither can find them or they are utilizing some sort of charms to avoid detection."

"I will go with both." I moved to their spot and looked at the map they had. "Considering the range your familiars have and your statuses, I would choose a spot that would be out of town, then for added security, I would also place some spells to deter any eavesdroppers." I pointed out a few areas with that in mind. "These would be good places to start."

"Hmm, never thought of those places. Guess we could send them out." Sona tapped her finger on her chin thoughtfully.

"The sooner we find them, the sooner I give them a piece of my mind on laying their hands on my cute knight!" Rias growled as the Prana started to leak out from her body, making me subconsciously move back out of habit to prepare a trigger. "They will learn it is a big mistake to take one of my children from me."

"Not in that state of mind you will." Her head snapped to me with narrowed eyes.

"Rias Gremory, we will not see eye to eye on certain matters; that much I can say, and in this case I will say this." I talked in a calm manner to reduce the likelihood of me getting blown up. "Your sense of duty towards your servants is admirable, but too much of it is clouding your mind. You are not thinking straight."

"He is my child, and I will not let you say otherwise!" The loose bits of the furniture started to vibrate violently ad the dust dropped from the ceilings as the scent of the sickening sweetness started to thicken and threatened to choke me out. Thankfully I had a counter for that.

"Do you think he would want you to be like this?" My soft question seemed to have knocked her out of her rage, if the feeling of diminishing Prana was of any indication. "Rias, I have already taught you and the others about controlling your emotions during the field camp. Now granted, I have my fair of share of experiments done on me…"

'Courtesy of a certain twin-tailed magus.'

'… And of course I do not know what he may had gone through, but the fact that despite the warnings given to him by the others, he ignored them and got himself caught. Now you are also going the same path and I think he cares enough to wish you not to fall for that same weakness. So you need to calm down now."

"…" There was a very tense atmosphere in the air as the Mexican standoff between the two of us went on for a few seconds. Then with closed eyes and a heavy sigh, Rias brought down her Prana levels to more soothing levels.

And that proved I was still the champion of the staring game.

"Then what would you suggest we do?" Rias opened her eyes and looked at me tiredly.

"For now, all of you need to get some rest." I glanced at all of them and noted their positions. "As it is, you guys are in no state of mind to continue this search, nor do you have the physical capacity. You all should take a quick breather to relax."

"Then what about you?"

"I have rested enough and I might have a better idea of where they might be." I replied simply while taking another glance at the map. "I should be able to get some information from my charms, so in that time you guys can take a break from the craziness." I held up a finger to stop the respective leaders from speaking. "Both sides need to take stock of the situation and prepare for whatever is to come. My gut is telling me that their purpose for coming here has something to do with the shards; the amount of planning that goes into this suggest that they will attempt some sort of experiment with the shards and they likely need something that doubles as protection while they are here."

"What makes you so sure?" Irina raised her hand while acting like someone asking a question in the classroom.

"I may be third rate, but I am still a magus, and one of the principles that we follow is to perform experiments that will help to improve our abilities that would help us get closer to the Root." I shrugged while giving the explanation. "This amount of preparation reminds me of those people performing wide scale experiments."

"The Root?" Tsubaki tilted her head in puzzlement. "I hear you speak that a few times. What is it exactly?"

"Something that can be explained another time." I waved it off as I gathered up the necessary materials. "We can meet up later once I get some information. So on that note." I turned to Mitelt who raised an eyebrow at me. "I will be bringing you to Kawako and Kano so that they can watch over you."

"Excuse me?" The other eyebrow raised itself as she used her famous glare on me. "Do you honestly believe that I am going to be hung back like a little princess? I may look like a fourteen year old, but need I remind you that I have been kicking ass for the past few centuries while you were still in your mom's womb?"

"Which is partially why I am sending you to them, because just in case things go south, you are there to watch over them." I said with another pat on her head. "This way I can keep both parties safe. I prefer to have you bored and safe in the old folks' hands than with us. And maybe you can help take care of the others in the town."

"Hmm…. Fine." Mitelt folded her arms and looked away with a pout. "I will at least look after those two, but I make no promise to the others. Is that clear?!" I merely nodded to her terms. It was a bit of a gamble to attempt keeping her in one spot and perhaps a stupid idea to ask her to help in protecting people, but considering her interactions with the old couple, I would try to at least have her near them.

"Okay then, I will be delivering her to a safe place while you guys take a quick break." I was about to leave the warehouse when a voice stopped me.

"Wait a minute young man." We turned to face the elder Exorcist looking at me with a serious eye. "The fact that the shards are reacting to you is likely to have been conveyed to Galilei, and if I know him well enough, he would likely attempt to get you for whatever experiments he had planned."

"It won't be the first time. It is after all an occupational hazard." I shrugged with the straightest face I have.

"Emiya-kun, that is not funny." Sona looked at me sternly. "Your life is in danger, don't even joke that way."

"As I said, it is an occupation hazard." I replied back while rolling my eyes. "If ever I don't get hurt, I will go for the lottery."

"Emiya-kun~" My spine got chills as I slowly turned to find a smiling Kusaka Reya with the smile that would make Tohsaka proud. "Don't even think about gambling your life like that. Got it?"

"… Yes, madam."

"Oh~ somebody got whipped."

Mitelt, not helping my situation at all.

=()=

Mitelt lightly huffed as she watched the human walk away with the exorcists after he dropped her off near to the store where the old couple worked. There was so much going on that her head was starting to hurt from all the random thoughts that was crowding up in her brain. She might as well used the time to help the old lady with whatever work she had on hand to clear her head.

Perhaps the biggest source of her headaches was the fact that the Excalibur Shards were all brought here to this town for some ritual that was meant to combine them back into one sword. She recalled that sword back when she was still an angel and when Excalibur was still considered one whole blade. It was somewhat lackluster in appearance when compared to other Holy Swords, but she recalled that blade as being one of the few weapons that Father had considered to be one of the best he had made for mankind; it was special to him as it was one of the few times that he could work alongside one of the species around to help mankind.

Unfortunately, the sword got wrecked and what little goodwill left between Heaven and the Fairies seemed to have disappeared in time and memory, and many of the angels seemed to have washed their hands off that incident, feeling that humans was no longer worth their prayers if they were to destroy one of Father's greatest creations. That was perhaps one of the reasons she and a number of them fallen to earth, mankind had let Father down in that sense.

She may not have kept in touch regarding the shards, but she did know there have been attempts to bind users to them, while others tried to replicate the properties to make imitations with limited success. The one thing that was prevalent was the fact that a user could only be compatible with one shard, another would not accept that person.

Now something unusual was happening. The shards were all in one place, and considering what she had seen and what she had overheard from the exorcists, the shards were all reacting rather crazily towards her current 'caretaker' in a manner that she recognized as being approved by the shards. However this reaction seemed somewhat fanatic, and she had a theory that was more or less stated by the others.

The shards were separated for a long time, and now that they were together in one spot and in a presence of someone who could wield them all, it seems that they have awoken enough from their slumber to start wishing to be made whole again into one sword, or least almost whole since the final shard was still missing. Though she questioned the decision to have Shirou as their next owner, somewhere in the back of her head the thought did not seem wrong.

The next problem she had issues understanding was the theft of the shards in the first place. She had met Galilei once after she had fallen, and she was frankly disturbed by the man's obsession with Holy Swords in general. He seemed to take the part of not being worthy for the swords to the extreme by performing so many experiments on children. Even some of the fallen, devils and angels could agree unanimously that he was really screwed up in the head.

And finally…

"I am not worthy to wield Excalibur. Neither his nor Saber's"

Those words confused her. She got the part on 'his' which would refer to King Arthur, but who was Saber? It had to be someone very dear to Shirou that he spoke her name in such a manner, but was she a user of an Excalibur Shard? Was that why he was conflicted about taking up the sword?

"Well~ well, what do we have here?"

Mitelt's heart literally stopped beating for a moment as she heard that voice. Slowly and paling, she turned to face the one person she did not expect nor want to meet in this town or situation.

"I must say, I am a little surprised to see you here. I would have thought you had perished along with the others when they went AWOL on us and tried to go after the Sacred Gear of healing." The person let out a smile that did not reach his cold eyes. "To think that you were happily going about your life amongst the devils and one magician. Even for one of us, you have gone way lower huh?"

"Kokabiel-sama?!" Mitelt only got her wings out and drew out her spear before black feathers blocked her vision and darkness overtook her.

=()=

"…" I paused for a moment to look at my surroundings, a sudden feeling of unease settling in my stomach. I was not too sure what was that about, but I really did not like the feeling I had.

"Hey kid, everything okay?" I turned to look at the store owner I was buying my bread for the week.

"Ah yes, I'm fine. I just thought I heard something." I waved my hand to assure him.

"Hmm, maybe Kano and Kawako were right. You do look a lot more burnt out than normal, perhaps of your illness?" The guy commented as he looked at my face. "Maybe you need that herbal bread more than the whole-grain bread?"

"Ah it is fine really. I have been told to take a break anyway." I tried to diminish his worries for me. The elderly couple were already on my case, last thing I needed was the district doing the same thing.

"Hmm, if you are sure. By the way young lad, don't mind me asking." The shop owner paused before pointing a finger behind me. "Are they your companions?"

"Nope, I do not know them." I said that in a firm tone. "They are a group of cosplayers from one of the neighboring academies and for some odd reason, they have been following me because somewhere in their heads they think I would be a great model for some savior role."

"Hey, we are not 'cosplayers'! We are the exorcists of the church and you are someone who can be!" Xenovia started to retort only to get her mouth covered by Griselda's hand, her buddy followed shortly after.

"And she is…"

"The supervisor for those two girls and the only sane person of the lot, and one I have the most sympathy for having to deal with these two girls and their chunibiyou fantasies." I answered that bit with the straightest face I ever have. That definitely did the trick as the guy took one look at the rowdy bunch and lightly nodded in agreement.

"They must be a handful." The owner had a look of pity on his face as he looked to Griselda.

"Oh yes, they are such a handful." Griselda lightly sighed as she ignored the muffled complaints of Xenovia and Irina. "Sometimes I feel that I am handling a bunch of delinquents rather than students interested in costume parties."

"I hear you lady." The shop owner nodded before handing over a bag of buns towards her. "Here you go, fresh rolls on the house."

"Ah we can't…"

"No need to feel modest, madam. It is the least I can do considering you have to deal with these type of kids every day. I will never understand how children are growing up to be this rebellious or weird in this day and age. Emiya here is one of the rare ones to be so nice to folks around here." The store owner shook his head in disappointment. "So at least someone is able to control some of those kids makes it a good thing. Also, you are a beautiful young woman, so you get extras." I only smiled at his blatant attempt to flirt with the female exorcist on the spot. There was a small bet going around town that he would eventually get slapped by one of the women he would meet on occasions.

"Hamada-san, you might want to control yourself, otherwise your daughter might catch word of this." My comment made him drop his smile and go pale at the implication. I merely chuckled as I walked away from him with my groceries, the exorcists following shortly after thanking him for the buns.

"This town area is rather peaceful." Griselda nodded in light approval as she looked around the area. "There was a report about the increasing numbers of Stray Devils entering the town, but it seems to be dealt with quite well."

"It helps that the two caretakers are willing to go out and take care of the problems themselves." I commented as I eyed a decently priced fish from one of the stores. "Most supernatural creatures would not go out of their way to protect the common folk. They would usually just feed off whatever came into their area or hightailed it out of here."

"Perhaps it is true for the devils here, but I believe you are being too modest by not mentioning your own efforts." Griselda leveled her eyes at me. "I have collected all the information I could get on you, which admittedly wasn't much, but basically you helped to clear the town of those strays and maintain the secrecy of our work, especially with Regeis. If anything, it seems you have done this before."

"Many times over." I rolled my eyes at that bit of information as I thought back to all the missions I have ever done as an Enforcer for the Clock Tower. "It is extremely annoying to have to do damage control after each major mission, not helped when one out of ten magus decides to announce to the world about the supernatural in the most explosive manner possible."

"Sounds like a lot of work." Irina commented as she listened.

"Yes, so much memory-wiping spells and at least a day's worth of paperwork." I sighed at the memories I had on all my missions. "It gets repetitive to the point that I needed a whole cabinet just for the documents alone, and another for all the memory-alteration spells in the event I needed them."

"That's… rather extreme." Xenovia blinked as she took in my story.

"When you dealt with your fifth bombastic magus, you start to prepare for such things." I answered back in a heartbeat.

"Well then, I guess you will need to prepare that paperwork now."

The fours of us stopped at the same moment upon hearing that voice and turned as one at the young man who was standing in front of us with a loose but notable stance of combat.

"Lyle Wallner!" Griselda's eyes went wide while the two apprentices got into a battle stance. I took a quick glance of the area and noted that the streets were unusually empty. Seemed like a spell was cast to keep people out and our conversation private.

"I am not here to fight. I am here to have a talk with the magician." Lyle said calmly while eyeing the weapons that were to be reached by the exorcists.

"Like we would let some traitor be standing around and spreading lies with his mouth." Xenovia grabbed Excalibur Destruction just short of drawing it out. "I will cut you down right here and then we can talk about where you have hidden the other Excalibur Shards."

"I would imagine that you would enjoy that, but I would ask that you refrain from your actions. First point, I won't be able to talk after you cut me down. Second point, we are in a very public area and I believe you know better than to initiate a fight in the open. Lastly" Lyle pointed a finger at me as he talked. "Unless I am much mistaken, the magician over there has placed a spell in this area to ensure no one with bad intentions try to fight here otherwise they would suffer some sort of feedback." That got them to pause for a moment while looking at me for confirmation.

"I'm impressed. I think you are the first one who has seen through the wards." I replied easily to confirm their thoughts and to get a read on the fellow in front of me. "Granted they were low grade versions, but even the devils living here wouldn't be able to detect them."

"That is true, I myself can't feel them. But there were signs that there was some sort of spell to deter any with violent intentions." Lyle motioned with his thumb at some high school delinquents slumped on the wall and looking a little dazed. "Earlier on, those guys tried to stir up some trouble at the market place, but something shocked them and the majority dropped on the spot. The bigger guy took a longer period but eventually went down as well. This has happened a few more times with other people when I was observing the area."

"Those guys do not know anything else other than wreck the stores around here, so I had to incorporate a spell that would discourage them depending on the level of ill-intent they have. More often than not, that always seems to be the default state they would get in. At the very least, the residents do not have to worry too much about them." I shrugged easily.

"That type of spell sounds like it would be ideal for prison riots rather than a shopping district." Xenovia remarked in a disbelieving tone.

"Technically speaking, the spell is designed for hot-headed idiots who like to plunge headfirst into battles without considering the lives of the innocents around them or trying to uphold the masquerade of normalcy, all the while ignoring the advice of people who know better." I answered her statement with that and an expression that left little doubt of who I was referring to and what I meant. I turned back to find Lyle with a raised eyebrow at the interaction. "Long story."

"… Okay." I would give Lyle props for quick recovery from weird conversations. Said person motioned with his hand to the side. "May we continue this conversation elsewhere? Preferably with chairs because I believe this conversation would take a while." I looked at the corner of my eye at the trio of exorcists before turning back to him.

"I might know a place."

=()=

"This is not what I had in mind when you said you knew a place." Griselda remarked while Irina and Xenovia blinked as they looked around at the half-furnished bar they were in.

"Well, it's not like we can talk in the open with everyone else dressed like there is some carnival going on. We would probably need some place private, and this place was the closest." I replied as I placed a small tray of refreshments on the table. "This is supposed to be a sister shop to be used by my boss to sell pastries and other snacks, so it is undergoing some repairs. No one would find us here." I placed one of the drinks in front of our guest. "Here, one for you."

"My thanks." Lyle bowed his head lightly before taking the drink and starting a very odd ritual of taking out a pouch, taking several vials and charms out and slowly test the drink. After a few drops from the vials and checking his charms, he nodded and took a sip of the drink.

"… You know, if it wasn't for the fact that I had a similar habit of checking for poisons, I would be greatly insulted by your actions." I sat on my chair while raising an eyebrow. "When it comes to the kitchen, the role of the chef is to make sure nothing goes wrong with the food."

"My apologies, Shirou Emiya. It is a habit, and I am in enemy territory." Lyle replied easily as he took another sip of the drink. "If it is of any comfort to you, this drink is very nice. A touch of Darjeeling with a hint of cinnamon?"

"Close." I shrugged back at him before taking a seat and drinking my brew. "There is another ingredient that helps to control the cinnamon."

"Hmm, I believe nutmeg is added to this." Lyle took a whiff of the drink as he pondered. "It certainly helps, though I believe something a little more citreous would be appropriate."

"Hmm, tried that, nothing seems to fit." I answered as I tasted my brew thoughtfully. "Any suggestions?"

"Perhaps a few drops of grapefruit and a couple of pomegranate juice? That might help with the cinnamon while boosting the nutmeg." Lyle commented as he took another sip. "Though you probably need to hold back on the cinnamon in the end."

"Hmm, that would be quite an interesting combination. Thanks for the suggestion."

"No problem."

"Are you two kidding me?" Xenovia growled at the odd conversation we were having. "What happened to the important message you want to tell us?"

"She's a big ball of sunshine, ain't she?" I rolled my eyes at her expression.

"Indeed. A big ball that is in need of an attitude adjustment. But she has a point." Lyle looked at us slowly before opening his mouth.

"We will be conducting a ritual tonight at Kuoh Academy to merge the Excalibur Shards into one sword, during which Lord Kokabiel and the Archbishop will be attending. Your comrade Kiba Yuuto is currently under the control of Galilei's device, so you will end up fighting three of us in total before you can deal with Kokabiel himself. If you do not stop the ritual in time, this town will likely be destroyed and the very big possibility of the different factions fighting each other in another Great War."

"…"

A silence descended in the shop as the rest of us took in what he said while the speaker himself took another sip of the drink, lightly nodding in approval. Then Xenovia slammed her hands on the table and said the one thought that was likely in all our heads.

"Bullshit!"

I was thinking something with less cursing, but yeah basically that.

"How the heck do you expect us to believe this hogwash?!" Xenovia glared at Lyle who was calmly taking a bite of the snack on the table as though he was watching a soap opera unfold.

"I don't." Lyle gave that simple reply. "I have given you what I know, it would only be up to you to decide what you want to do with that information."

"Lyle Wallner, I understand that you are an individual who tends to look at matters a lot differently than most." Griselda held her hand to stop Xenovia from retorting while maintaining a steady gaze at him. "Now I do not know the real reason as to you deserting the church, but I can tell that you still wish to prevent innocent people from getting involved. Is that your reasoning behind the information you are telling us?"

"Yes and no." He answered as he placed the cup on the table and grabbed the kettle to get another round of the drink. "But it is not for you or me to decide. It is for the magician here."

"Magus." Now I understood a little of what Rin felt every time people just carelessly call us wizards, witches or magicians. This was getting repetitive, but that was beside the point right now.

"Why me specifically?"

"…" Lyle took the moment to swirl the liquid, watching his reflection on it before looking back at me. "All of the shards in this area are reacting to you, something that has not happened for many years. This means you are someone worthy enough for all the shards to seek you attentively."

"Whatever that means, I do not know. But I get the feeling that you will be at the eye of the storm that is to come real soon." His eyes seemed to bore into my head as he looked on. "So I want to know what you would do with that information."

"… The reason you do that is because you believe that I am worthy of those shards?"

"Partially, but if what I am reading is true, you are the key to something that would change the dynamics of this world. I want to know precisely who you are. I want to understand what your thoughts are." Lyle replied in a manner that seemed foreboding and for whatever reason, this conversation was reminding me of the few occasions I had a talk with Kirei. I was not sure why, but for whatever reason, this guy seemed… 'Similar' to the both of us.

Like, he was empty.

"Can I ask why do they want this location? I have fought enough bad guys to know there is always a secondary reason to this."

"Yes well, that is an answer I think you might know too well." Lyle let out a sigh that was very familiar to me. "The original intent was to get away from prying eyes, but Kokabiel wants to piss off the devil faction by doing the ritual in an area under their supervision, Galilei wants to piss off the church for throwing him out and getting rid of his research, and Creed followed along just to piss me off."

"… Yeah, I figured as much." I placed a hand on my face and started massaging my temple to ease the headache. "It has to be the 'piss off the enemy' routine."

"But that is just asking for more than angry people, you people are risking war!" Xenovia snarled as she glared at Lyle.

"Unfortunately, that might be the case." Lyle agreed with that sentiment as he closed his eyes with a deep frown. "I am honestly troubled by this, and I would prefer that Galilei is not trying to start a war with Kokabiel but…"

"You knew that would be lies behind all that crap?" I continued his words as I listened in. "If so, why do you still continue? Is it because he has some hold on you or by chance is it due to your promise to the pope?"

"!" Lyle snapped his head up at a rate that I was sure would break his neck if he was not careful, giving me an expression of shock, fear and a tiny bit of anger at me. Uncomfortably I also noted the others looking at me with complicated expressions and it was only then I realized that I had accidentally said something I shouldn't have.

"… Was that supposed to be a secret? Erm, sorry?"

"Lyle Wallner, is this true?" Griselda turned to face the fallen exorcist who was now sporting a very complicated expression.

"… I neither confirm nor deny those allegations." Lyle said shortly before directing hardened eyes at me. "Pray tell, what makes you think that I was under orders from Pope Francis?"

"… Well for one thing, you have this type of 'devotion' feeling when talking about the pope. You seemed to avoid attacking the others unnecessarily and you want to be away from the civilians." I started to list my observations as an explanation and to avoid revealing my magecraft was the reason I found something out through our last altercation. "I also requested information from Griselda regarding your mission, and one thing that struck me was you being the only one from those experiments who had some contact with the pope, someone who had been taught in the church properly unlike the others and if I recalled, you were temporarily under his direct guard. I have known a few others in similar situations, so I guessed that you may have been under orders of sorts to go after Galilei. Am I wrong?"

"…" Lyle sat still for a few seconds, his eyes seemingly trying to find fault in my words. After that he sighed heavily and drank the remainder of his drink in a big gulp before hitting the cup on the table with a bit more force than required.

"I have come to say my piece, now I will return to Galilei. I have overstayed my welcome." Before we could react, he got up and made his way out of the door.

"Oh no you don't buster!" Xenovia got out of her seat and ran after him with Excalibur Destruction in her hand. "You are not getting away that easily!"

"I highly doubt that." Lyle remarked lightly as he sidestepped her swinging attacks. "Not to mention that you may have forgotten something."

"What do you MEAWWOOH?!" Xenovia grabbed her head as she wobbled and stumbled to the ground.

"There is a non-aggression spell going on in this area. And you are being extremely aggressive in trying to chop my limbs off." Lyle replied with a tired sigh as he looked at her with somewhat unamused eyes. "Seriously it would benefit you to pay attention to the magician."

"ARGH!" Xenovia groaned as a humming sound grew inside her head, feeling like someone was pushing a bar of hot iron in her head. "Make it stop!"

"Young man, could you remove the spell?!" Griselda turned to me with quite frankly a very scary expression. But thankfully I was way ahead of her in removing the runes.

"Done!" The effect was immediate as I removed the last rune; Xenovia seemingly got back her stance and aimed her sword at Lyle.

"Xenovia, watch out!" Irina's timely shout was her only warning to get out of the way of a gun-shot aimed at her legs.

"Man I nearly got her!" Creed let out an irritated sound as he stood up from the cover he was behind on one of the buildings near us. He dropped down lightly to the ground and looked at us with a raised eyebrow. "Seriously this damn spell is stopping me from getting a clear shot at her."

"And you won't get the next shot." Before anyone could comment on it, I quickly set up a brand new barrier to stop everyone from getting aggressive. "Now I really don't want this district destroyed. So leave while I am being lenient."

"And why should we AAHHH!" Creed tried to speak only to grab his head in agony. "What is with this noise?"

"That would be you suffering the consequences of having very violent thoughts towards the host." Lyle mentioned calmly as he looked at the two girls wincing slightly. "At the very least, you are not the only one suffering."

"Whoopie~" Creed hissed as the pain grew in his head. "ARG! Fine we will leave!"

"We can't let them leave! AH DAMN THIS PAIN?!" Xenovia growled as she kneeled to the ground. "Seriously come on! Why?!"

"It is safe to say neither one of us want to fight here and now." Lyle moved his hand to cover the Creed's mouth, likely to stop a retort by that person. "We shall leave now, but later we can resume our fighting in a less populated place."

"Is that really what you want?" I asked while Griselda clamped the mouths of the two apprentices who wanted to protest.

"More like what we both want. Especially since we did not use our full strength before." His eyes steadily focused on mine. "And I believed that you wanted to at least go further than what we did in our last fight if we were not in a populated place."

"…"

Okay, this guy was really similar in some ways.

"Fine." I shot a look at the elder exorcist who merely raised an eyebrow as she spoke. "I think it is best that we continue our conversation in an area more suitable." Lyle merely nodded and grabbed Creed by the shoulder as he took out a charm and dropped it to the floor. A dim circle with Christian symbols formed around them as he looked to us again.

"We will meet again later." Lyle turned to look at me one last time. "Better bring your 'A-Game', Shirou Emiya." And with that, he vanished with the other person, leaving us behind with a few questions and a challenge.

A challenge I intend to follow up.

=()=

"Tch~ now I really hate that magician." Creed growled as he massaged his head hard.

"Be grateful that he was willing to let us go, otherwise we both would be captured and the last thig we need is Galilei on our hides." Lyle commented as he helped him up from his spot.

"Yeah~ I am so happy." Creed rolled his eyes as he straightened himself. A few minutes of silence hung between them as they entered the compound of the safe-house before Creed spoke again.

"You know, I should be cutting you down where you stand, considering the possibility of you betraying us." Creed said lazily as they neared their destination.

"Logically you should, but I also know your personality enough that you would be probably plan something real nasty." Lyle replied blandly. "That and I know that you would likely use this as an excuse to pick a fight with me."

"You're right." A light hiss at his side was all Lyle needed to draw his sword and turned in time to stop Creed's blade from cutting his head off. "I am really liking this excuse I have."

"Well then, I guess I too can use this as an excuse to get rid of you." Lyle narrowed his eyes while tightening his grip.

"Enough."

The both of them turned to look at the priest that was standing at the gates and looking on with a disapproving eye. "We are running behind our schedule, and your bickering is not helpful in our situation." The two looked at each other and with a reluctance that was evident in them, stepped away and sheathed their weapons.

"Come along now. The preparations are almost complete." Silently the two of them followed the fake priest back into the safe-house, only to find a sight that made Creed crackle uncontrollably while Lyle having a troubled expression.

The devil knight they had in their custody was currently standing in the middle of the area, his back facing them and revealing what Galilei had done to him; his uniform had been removed to make room for an apparatus that seemed to be grafted right into his flesh and bone, the dried blood that oozed from the wounds being a clear indicator that the priest did not use anything to stem the blood flow during the operation. The arms had a pair of gauntlets attached to the apparatus with thick wires and an odd crimson mesh around his fingers. On the back of his neck, the spider-like device sat snugly in his flesh, looking like an enlarged organ that pulsed every so often.

At a gesture made by Galilei, the devil slowly turned to reveal more of the twisted horror that the man had inflicted on him. He had some sort of metal plate embedded roughly into his chest and the tubes attached to the gauntlets were embedded deep into his arms.

But the thing that got Lyle's attention the most was the eyes. Up till his capture, his eyes held a flame that burned like an inferno, showing how his entire existence was consumed for his thirst for revenge. Now it was completely void, lifeless, as if there was nothing in him.

A mere puppet.

"Like my work? It took a long time to graft the equipment onto him without killing him outright." Galilei strolled to Kiba and waved his hand like he was promoting a new product on sale. "But it is worth it. His compatibility to withstand the holy attributes from our equipment is high enough to ignore most of the injuries placed on him."

"So what can he do? Play 'Fetch'?" Creed came forward to inspect Galilei's work, snapping his fingers in front of the devil to see the reaction.

"Well for that matter…" The priest turned to the devil. "Go pick up a shard." Silently Kiba turned to the table where the Excalibur Shards were resting on and grabbed one by the handle. The sword immediately reacted by glowing a dull red and the smell of burning flesh filled the room. With no indication of the rejection, Kiba lifted the sword and presented it to Galilei, showing no pain or any expression at the burns spreading across his hands or the blood dripping from the wounds.

"As you can see, he can handle most of our standard holy equipment without any feedback, but if we are talking about higher grade weaponry like the Excalibur, he would still experience some form of rejection. But he can wield them for a short while before the cleansing effects burn his entire arm off." Galilei replied while taking the sword from the devil using a pair of pliers to avoid contact of the sword.

"That would be nice, but I am guessing that you will use him more as a decoy for our eventual guests." Creed said as he looked at the tubes forced into Kiba's collarbone.

"Exactly, he would be a nice distraction for the Gremory group at least. Speaking about our guests…" Galilei turned to Lyle with a raised eyebrow. "I heard that you went to meet up with the exorcists and the magician. Care to share what you were discussing with them?"

"I wanted to meet the magician alone, however the exorcists happened to be with him, so I decided to engage them to force their hand in a non-violent manner." Lyle replied while narrowing his eyes at Kiba.

"Well good thing I was following you so as least you did not get your head chopped off." Creed motioned with his hand while rolling his eyes.

"I will think of a suitable punishment later, but since you have make contact with them, what are your thoughts based on our plans?" Galilei asked while placing the sword on the boxes next to him.

"Based on our conversation, it is safe to assume that they are fully prepared for the confrontation that is to come." Lyle replied as he checked his firearms. "Griselda would definitely be the one we must watch out for, the apprentices and the devils are more of a hindrance compared to her."

"I see." Galilei paused while tilting his head. "Then what of the magician? What is your opinion of him?"

"…" Lyle kept silent as he replenished the bullets in his firearms and holstered them securely. "Honestly speaking, he is a big wild card in this situation. Skill-wise for combat, he is perhaps as good as Griselda if not better, and he can be tricky with that weapon-type magic of his."

"Personality-wise, now that is the question."

"Is it because he reminds you of yourself?" Galilei's remark made Lyle look at him with an unusual expression of uncertainty and curiosity. "I have been hearing a lot of comments from Creed about this magician and seen the small clip of your tussle with him, and I had to agree with him."

"I know, they are like carbon copies of each other." Creed shivered at the thought. "Seriously, one of you is bad enough for me."

"Do you think he is a liability?" Galilei ignored Creed's comments and asked again.

"… He might be a bigger problem than Griselda." Lyle gave that answer after some thought.

"I see." Galilei tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Then we might need to speed up our plans a little. You will get to the school to prepare the last portions of the ritual. We will be there shortly." He paused as he checked the clock. "Get everything done by the hour. At the very least, that should be more than enough time for you to get the students out and to safety."

"…"

Galilei looked at the two exorcists and inwardly enjoyed their god-smacked expressions as they gapped at him. Even the mind-controlled devil seemed to have an expression of shock if the widened eyes were of any indication.

"What, I know that Lyle keeps worrying about innocent lives, and considering how well this mission has gone so far, I would indulge him and give him more time to get those students out. It is also to prevent any unforeseen issues if one of them is around." The priest gave his reasoning to which the other two looked to one another and lightly nodded dizzily. Inwardly he thought this had to be the first time they agreed on something other than fighting.

"Oh one thing though" The two turned their heads back to him. "You will be taking our friend here for assistance and a test drive if you would."

"What?" Lyle asked in the flattest tone possible.

"You went AWOL for a few hours, went to see the magician against my orders and possibly brought their attention to our plan earlier than needed." Galilei's eyes gleamed darkly while his tone went grimmer. "Be thankful I am not doing something more drastic."

"…" Lyle looked at Galilei with a frown before directing his attention to the devil. "Come on." Kiba merely followed him silently at his tail as they both went out of the door.

"Well, that could have gone differently." Creed remarked once the door closed.

"Indeed, it is troublesome that Lyle has gone behind our backs to quench his curiosity but this does not change the plan at all. If not for the fact that you two got this project of ours moving at such a quick pace, I would have probably dissected both of you at this point." Galilei remarked as he took up the shard and went to the table where the others rested.

"You know old man, you probably have your reasons, but the both of us and some of the others could not help wondering why you did not call us earlier for the operation. If we are so much more efficient than Freed, you should have brought us in from the start." Creed raised an eyebrow as he mentioned.

"Yes well, when this plan started coming together, both of you were not around, and Kokabiel wanted a mad dog to be let loose on the devils. He wanted someone who was crazy enough to follow his words without questioning." Galilei cleaned up his equipment and kept them in his bag.

"It was only after Freed got himself killed that I got hold of some information that needed to speed my plans up significantly. Fortunately by that time, the both of you were already done with your missions so I could recruit you both."

"You say that, but I believe there are other reasons, right?" Creed looked out of the window to see his partner departing with the brainwashed devil.

"You might be right." Galilei also turned his head to look at Lyle turning his head quickly before breaking into a run, with the devil following suit. "You checked out fine, but our other partner in crime is a bit more questionable. Kokabiel for one was rather against the idea of Lyle joining in earlier, but after seeing his prowess, he decided to have him under his eye." Galilei tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Lyle is a bit of a wild card right now."

"So are the rumors true then? Lyle may be under the orders of the pope to spy on us?" Creed clenched his hands a little tightly. "Then shouldn't we get rid of him?"

"That is not certain. I admit it was a bit of a mistake to leave Lyle alone too long on the outside, he may have gotten influenced by Francis when I was not supervising." Galilei lightly gritted his teeth as he considered the possibility. "At the very least I still have some hold on him, but we would still need to watch out for him. He has been growing a little too rebellious for my liking."

"Well then." Creed's smirk went wider. "Guess we will know by tonight."

Part 2

"I still think it is a trap." Those were the words that came out of Sona's mouth after she heard our story.

"I agree, it is odd that Lyle Wallner would just come up and give us the information that easily." Griselda agreed with her as she crossed her arms, unintentionally pushing her assets outwards and distracting the other males of our group. "He must be planning an ambush of sorts to take us out, or maybe split our forces apart."

"I don't think he is lying." I tapped my finger thoughtfully as I recalled the conversation. "If anything, I think he genuinely wants us to stop them. But you are correct in thinking it is a trap. Perhaps he may have gotten information that could be false to throw us off."

"You really want to trust that guy. After all that had happened earlier?" Xenovia remarked.

"… I can't honestly say I trust him completely. Regardless of his own intentions, it does not change the fact that he is part of a group that went about stealing these shards and using a town to perform a ritual that could potentially dragged innocent people into this mess. The fact that the higher-ups chose this location just for the sake of pissing the devil faction while placing the blame on the church is something I can't forgive." I went my finger along the makeshift table I have put together using a couple of boxes and one old piece of fiber-board as I considered the information.

"At the same time however, I don't think we should disregard the information. Considering what I know of the layout of the area, if my guess is correct, they are aiming for a leyline to assist in the creation of the sword, and if I recall correctly, you guys are sitting on quite a nest here."

"Ah, so you have researched on this area huh?" Rias commented before continuing. "True, the academy is currently seating on one of the biggest and possibly purest leylines around here. It helps us to regulate our powers while ensuring that anyone who tries to take the town by force would not be able to get the leyline without a fight."

"Wait a minute." Tsubaki interrupted with her eyes widened in concerned realization. "But that means what we are doing now is!"

"Playing right into their hands by leaving the place empty." I finished off her words, having considered the same thing. "So likely they are already preparing to use the school for the ritual for some time, but since the others have gone to seek them out, they had to accelerate their plans to perform the ritual. But I am still not sure why Lyle went out of his way to come tell us that."

"Not us, you." Griselda pointed that out. "I am not sure but he does seem a little interested in you."

"Erm~ I don't swing that way, I am straight?" That comment made a few of the girls, Saji and Ise grabbed their mouths in a futile attempt to silence their laughter. "Seriously though, why would he be doing this?"

"I can think of a few reasons." Griselda ignored the others' attempts to control their laughter as she sat back. "The first likely reason would be related to an odd wish he has."

"Wish?"

"To find the next natural user of Excalibur." Griselda nodded her head at the expression that I and the others were sporting. "It might be weird to you, but for those who have been in the experiments to create and wield holy swords, there are a few who wished to see if their sacrifices were worth it. They want to have their blood and sweat acknowledged by those who could wield holy swords without the experiments."

"For Lyle Wallner, his desire to meet a natural user of Excalibur is pretty well-known amongst the other exorcists. It seemed to stem from his past around the time he met the man who is now our current pope, but we don't know enough about it, and Pope Francis who knows the exorcist does not wish to talk about it." Griselda explained as she recalled whatever information about the exorcist they gotten. "I think a second possible reason was the manner the shards reacted to you. Lyle is perhaps the only other person I know from the Vatican who has some compatibility that allows him to handle other holy swords in the vault without any argumentation and at least hold the Excalibur Shards without any issue. That still has not subsided even after he had went with Galilei, so it would make sense greatly if what you said was true about him being under orders. After all the swords themselves decide whether a user is worthy of their approval, and the fact that the majority is still reacting to him after him leaving the Vatican is quite a good indicator."

'The swords decide the user?'

Those words seemed to strike me more prominently than the others as I turned to look at the shard, the glowing and humming resuming under my gaze. That much I understood from wielding the Noble Phantasms in my arsenal, but the part about the shards and possibly the Sacred Gears themselves reacting to me was somewhat of an issue to me.

Was this why Lyle came after me? Had he felt alienated by his affinity with the swords, questioning the swords' choice of making him their owner? Perhaps he wanted answers from someone who understood his insecurities.

"You disagree with a statement I made." I turned back to find Griselda looking at me with that thoughtful expression. "You are really similar to Lyle Wallner in that he kept saying he was not worthy to wield the holy swords in the vault."

"… I would not know how he would really feel, but I just think that there are others out there who should be more worthy than me." I absentmindedly fingered the miniaturized spear around my neck, making it glow at the touch. "It might sound selfish, but considering all the blood I have shed and other reasons of my own, I just feel that there is no chance I should be allowed to touch the shards, let alone wield them."

"Definitely like Lyle Wallner. The both of you may complain about it, but it does not change the reality that you both are chosen by the swords." Griselda said as she looked at me in the eye. "I do not know your lifestyle, but I can make a few guesses. What I do know is that despite your doubts, it is the weapons themselves that have the final say in this matter."

My only reply was to scratch the back of my head as I considered her words. It was rather problematic trying to argue my point to her or the exorcists, but in the end she had a decent point; the weapons that have some form of sentience would always react to those they felt could wield them the best or suit their needs. The Noble Phantasms in my Reality Marble were the best examples; Gram and other malevolent weapons only allowed themselves to be wielded by me since I was the only other person who could bring out some bit of potential from them, but if they were in the presence of someone who could bring out their malicious intents with his own bloodlust, they would eagerly jump ship.

Ha~ what a pain.

My thoughts were interrupted as the sound of the door slammed and I turned to find both Momo and Akeno lightly panting as they took the moment to catch their breath.

"Okay, we have good news and we have bad news." Momo wiped the sweat of her brow as she talked. "Which do you want to hear first?"

"Let's hear the bad news first so that we can get it over and done with." I said in a dry tone.

"Okay then." Momo took a deep breath before speaking. "It looks like the exorcist's information is true. They have taken over the entire academy grounds and set up a lot of traps just to make sure that we can't get in without disabling all of them. Akeno managed to remove the ones at the front gate at least so that we could use it to get in, but the amount of holy spells around the area is messing with our magic."

"So that would likely be where the exorcists and I come in, to remove them for you guys." I said while raising my eyebrow. "And the good news?"

"At the very least, we were able to evacuate everyone within a two mile radius of the school, just in case something goes wrong. Also Akeno went to alert Sirzechs-sama about the situation."

"Akeno!" Rias turned to her Queen with a terrified expression.

"Rias, I know you do not want to bother your brother, but this is not the time to be worried about it." Akeno looked at her while using her name. "You know we would need all the help we could get."

"By any chance the maid is on the way? No offense, but I don't think she takes to me well." I replied lamely while thinking back to our previous meeting. Don't get me wrong, she was certainly packing a lot of firepower (or 'ice' power for that matter), but I was not certain if I could trust her that easily and vice-versa.

"Err, don't think Grayfia-sama is coming." Momo tilted her head in confusion. "Considering Lucifer-sama is considering on arriving himself, I think she would not be needed. She would however insist on coming based on principle so…"

"Assume she is coming over. Got it." I let out a sigh as I stood up and stretched a little.

"Well then, let's go."

=()=

"Well isn't this a big surprise?" I let out a dull remark as I looked at the big pillar of light that was coming from behind the academy, the ominous light throwing an eerie shadow around the area in a manner that reminded me of Julius's Shadow Creed.

"Man am I glad that Kaichou made us write all those charms and placed them around the school?" Tsubasa sighed heavily as she looked with an indescribable expression. "I will be honest, I thought she was just paranoid at the idea of an attack coming at night. To think that the illusion charms would be useful this time round."

"Well then, you will not complain the next time this situation comes up." Sona quipped with a serious tone.

"If we have a next time." Momo muttered softly while looking at the light.

"Okay, the holy charms that are in the general area are removed." Griselda spoke as she and the other two exorcists came to us with a few broken charms in their arms. "How about your bit?"

"I have disabled the traps for the inner perimeters, but I can't deal with the ones in the building unless I am physically there." I replied as I motioned with my hand. "But as it stands we should be outside most of the time. So what's the plan of attack?"

"First things first, let's set up a proper barrier around the academy. If Kokabiel really is coming to crash the party we don't want the neighborhood to wake up from such a situation." Rias looked to the Student Council with a stern face. "Can I ask you to help out with that? We will deal with Galilei and the exorcists."

"If you are thinking about Kiba then that is fine. But please note we do not know the circumstances on his part." Sona warned her friend but Rias brushed her off with a hand.

"I know that, but I will not be satisfied until I know what has happened to my junior, and I will not let anyone get in my way!"

"Well then." I wryly smiled while pointing in the distance. "Start backing up those words with that guy." Everyone turned to find a figure with a black coat and a red mask making his way slowly to us, stopping just a few feet from us and the gate. For a moment he looked at us while turning his head, then he spoke.

"So you have come." Lyle's voice reverberated in the area as he remarked stonily. "So you still think the info is bullshit?"

"Better milk it while you can, this girl is not going to answer you anytime soon." I gestured to Xenovia who was now resembling a ripe tomato at that reminder. It was somewhat gratifying to see haughty individuals get knocked down a couple of notches.

"You there, answer me! What have you done with my child?!" Rias stepped forward with a fair of Prana radiating from her, the loose rocks and sand rising from the ground and pushed away from the force.

"Kiba Yuuto is currently at the courtyard together with Creed and Galilei. No doubt you have been told about him being mind-controlled, so my advice is to not hold back against him. He will be going into this fight with the intent to kill every one of you." Lyle answered in a tone that was somewhat mechanical as though he had faced this type of situation so many times he had become somewhat annulled to it. "Kokabiel is arriving shortly and the ritual is going at full speed. I believe." He paused to check his watch in a manner I knew was going to aggravate the others. "In ten minutes times the shards would be made whole again."

"Then why are you here?" Griselda asked with narrowed eyes.

"My orders are simple. To deter any interference from this area by any means necessary, particularly for your group I am to use lethal force." Lyle answered in a heartbeat. In response, the others got into battle stances with hardened glares at him.

"You must be damn confident that you can take us all on." Xenovia growled as Excalibur Destruction glowed in anticipation of cutting her opponent down.

"Quite the contrary, this is a really messed up idea that Galilei had thought up." I almost felt sorry for the guy as he let out a very heavy sigh that clearly showed how frustrated he was at his superior. "This is clearly something that a person should logically avoid at all costs. Common sense tells you that one normal human against devils, exorcists and a magician is insane."

"Even if I could easily beat most of the group within five minutes."

And~ that just made the current atmosphere more tensed and awkward.

"So then, let's do this thing!" Ise and Saji got themselves pumped up by activing their separate Sacred Gears, only to be halted at the sight of Lyle holding his hand up.

"I did say most of you, the remainder are those who are able to give me a hard time if pressed." Lyle started to move his head slowly as he looked at each and every one of them. "There are the two heiresses with their separate peerages, the Red Dragon Emperor, the apprentice Exorcists, one senior Exorcist and an unorthodox magician." He lingered on Griselda for a moment before continuing. "There is the possibility that I could get held up by even one individual who is able to push me back long enough to let the others slip by me and get to the courtyard to stop the ritual."

"Of course." His eyes stopped to look at me. "That's provided someone is able to do so willingly."

… This guy was not too subtle about it was he?

"Right then, let's see if you could huh? Shirou?!" Ise tried to step up to the plate only to look at me as I walked right past him and stopped roughly a few meters from Lyle. With a flick of my fingers, several staves with charms stabbed the ground, separating me and Lyle from them.

"Sitri-san, use these to create the barriers. They may not be as strong as yours, but it should be sufficient enough to withstand a few explosions and keep the illusion intact." I kept my eye on Lyle while preparing my mental trigger. "The whole lot of you are to go after the priest and the other exorcist and stop that ritual."

"Wait, we cannot leave you alone with this man…"

"You will got to the courtyard, you will find Kiba and you will leave me alone with this guy." I looked at them with a hard expression. "If this Kokabeil is as crazy as everyone has set him up to be, then every one of you should deal with this as soon as possible." I turned back to look at Lyle who was patiently waiting for me to finish up. "This guy wants me for some reason, and that is good enough for us. Get going."

"… Very well then. We shall head off." Griselda grabbed the shoulders of the two princesses and steered them towards the courtyard. "We hope for your swift return then."

"Wait one minute here! We are not!" The others tried to protest only for a loud voice to interrupt.

"Enough!"

It was only when the others looked at me that I realized I was the one who shouted that.

"Listen to me. Whatever Kokabiel and Galilei are planning, it has to be stopped. Having everyone dealing with one person is not the most ideal right now. In this case the trial-and-tested method is to be used." I said it a calm manner. "Sacrifice one for ten. Ten for a hundred. A hundred for a thousand. You have to leave me behind so that you can deal with Kokabiel." I noted their expressions of uneasiness when I said that, they were certainly unnerved by my thinking, but the one that got my attention was Lyle's. He seemed to straighten his back and lightly nodded in a manner that suggested he agreed with my thoughts.

"We shall do that." Griselda once again took charge and shepherded the others to the area, not before giving a hard look that reminded me of Fuji-nee when she was in her rare serious moments. "I don't think I need to tell you this young man, but you should return in one piece, and preferably alive."

"No promises." I said as I loosely got into position. Griselda merely herded the others away from me and moved them to the courtyard, some of them taking the staves with them. Soon the sounds of their footsteps faded away.

"… Still sticking around?" I voiced out to the one staying by.

"Well, we already lost sight of one damn handsome to these guys, last thing we need is to have another damn handsome disappear on us." Ise said as he looked at the both of us.

"Hmm, I thought you would have preferred my and Kiba out of the way. If I recall, your dream is to have a harem?" I noted with a little disbelief in my tone. And from the looks of Lyle's tilting of his head, he too could not believe what was the boy's dream.

"Hah! It would be nice, but it would be better if I could take all the girls from under both your noses! MUHAHAHA!" If this were an anime, I think both the exorcist and I would be sporting a huge sweat drop on our heads at his declaration. I mean, did he really have to say that out loud?

"But seriously Shirou, you better not lose this fight." Ise stopped his laugh and looked at me in the eye. "I'm not lying when I say that you are at least someone I can count on for being the closest thing to being human while understanding all this supernatural stuff. I really need a lot of help for that."

"… Fine, I will do my best." I paused before projecting Rule Breaker and lightly tossing it to him. "I am not sure what type of situation Kiba might be in, but if he is under some type of mind control, this should deal with most of them."

"… It doesn't look that sturdy?" Ise looked at the knife while handling it gingerly.

"It isn't, but it is meant to break any type of magical construct, so this should help out. Just make sure you get it right the first time." I looked at the exorcist who was still waiting patiently. My suspicions about him being on some other person's payroll or being rebellious were getting more positive by the second; he was doing absolutely nothing to prevent us from interfering with the job or trying to attack us, if anything he was encouraging it.

"Okay, first time jam it in. Got it." Ise paused as he considered what he said before face-palming. "That could have been worded differently."

"You could have done that. Do me a favor when you get to Kiba and released him from his control. Lay one punch for me." I let out a playful smirk.

"Will do!" Ise yelled back before he went after the others. Soon it was just me and Lyle.

"Thank you for being patient with us." I spoke after making sure that the others were well and truly away from the area.

"It is of little concern. I merely wished to have a proper fight with you." Lyle took out two sword handles from his coat and attached them end to end. "As stated before, the both of us held back on our last encounter, and I would think that for your case, you would prefer no one to be around when you fight."

"The same to you." I projected Kanshou and Bakuya and got into my stance. "So this should make both of us happy huh?"

"I believe so." With a quick motion, he threw the conjoined handles in the air while removing his coat, catching the handle and got into a loose combat stance as two crimson blades of light erupted from the handles.

"Flashy." I commented, to which he shrugged.

It was time.

"I am the bone of my sword."

I jumped forward at roughly the same time as him, intercepting his blades and pushing hard before jumping away from him and throwing Kanshou and Bakuya at him. Lyle spun his blades in quick succession to deflect them before flicking his arm to throw a knife straight at my face. I barely had enough time to bend backwards to avoid the knife when he appeared in front of my face to swing the blades at me. With a quick movement, I twisted my body to avoid the strike while using the momentum to kick him. Without stopping he used that to actually reposition himself and got out his gun to shoot me, leaving me barely enough time to project Kanshou and deflect all the bullets.

"Impressive coordination." Lyle twirled the sword a bit before bending down. "Let's kick it up a notch."

It was a good thing I was already moving as he sprinted towards me at a speed that might make Lancer give an impressed whistle, aiming one of the sword like a spear and pushing it towards my neck. With a quick flick of my hand, Kanshou smacked the blade enough to deflect by an inch and barely grazed my eyebrow. With my free hand, I laid a solid punch into his stomach, briefly tensing my body to ensure the sudden hefting wasn't him pretending before I pushed him away, recreating a fresh sword in my hand as I did so. That did not deter him much as he recovered quickly and threw another hidden dagger for my leg, using that distraction to aim the gun at the lamppost next to me and let off a volley of rounds to destroy the support and send it crashing on my head. I cursed inwardly as I barely dodged the lamppost and sent two of my swords at him, but he ended up parrying them at an angle to make them shoot past him and hit the building behind him.

Man, I was so not looking forward to the bill that came after this mission.

"Hmm, from the looks of those attacks, you seem to be placing a lot of your magical energy into those swords as makeshift missiles before firing. My guess is that doing so with some such unconventional weaponry actually help in creating IEDs of sorts."

"That said." He turned to me and stared with an intense eye. "If I am not mistaken, you would normally do that with a bow rather than shooting them off in such a manner. That much I gathered from our previous fight."

… This guy was good. We only fought for a few minutes back then and he already made a few detailed observations about my fighting style. This guy was a good fighter to be able to keep up with me, just like Regeis but more controlled and less battle hungry. He was careful and meticulous, and at the same time possessing a morality that seemed commendable.

Yet something did not add up.

"You are still holding back." Lyle got into position once more, but the tone he used was more energetic and somewhat more excited at the prospect of fighting me. "Better fight me a little more seriously."

"… One quick question if you would." I asked as I got into position and tightened my grip on Kanshou and Bakuya. "Twice you have seek me out. First for passing information, then a request for this fight. You said you were seeking answers, but what is the question, and how will I give them to you?"

For a moment Lyle looked at me, before replying in a calm tone. "You will have to find that out yourself."

This was a strong opponent, someone who could match my fighting style and clearly in his element. His behavior reminded me of myself and Kirei Kotomine. I should be wary of him…

Yet I could not help the grin that was spreading on my face as I faced my opponent.

Time to do some real hunting.

=()=

"Are you sure we should leave that guy behind?" Irina commented as they made their way to the school yard. "I mean, that has to be one of those moments we should be ganging up on Lyle Wallner so that we have one less problem to deal with."

"Normally I would agree with you, but this is something far bigger than a schoolyard fight." Griselda reminded her of that fact. "If we spend too much time on one person, we won't be able to stop the ritual on time."

"Besides…" She paused as they neared their destination. "It is rather obvious that Lyle Wallner wishes to have an audience with Shirou Emiya alone. The lot of you who have gained Sacred Gears or the few of us able to use the Holy Swords naturally or from the experiments may not understand it, but those who lived their lives in those heinous experiments tend to be confused about many things. He is currently showing the same pattern as those before him by seeking someone who is similar to him, and right now the boy is that focus."

Ise could only frown as he listened to them talking. He had commented about the exorcist's behavior being similar to Shirou's, but that was hardly a good description; he had seen first-hand the manner in which they fought with their individual styles, both against them and each other. There was a certain edge to their fighting styles that made it apparent that they were both used for something besides real fighting. The way Kiba described it, it was more for dealing with tougher opponents, or something that required a fight to the death, with zero regards to their own lives. It was suicidal at the best and yet extremely effective.

And that led to the second point. He had been in enough of Shirou's spars and fights, not to mention getting lots of explanations from some of the others, to note the somewhat odd transformation that Shirou undergoes during their odd jobs of hunting down Stray Devils. It was somewhat alarming seeing how a guy who seemed so nice and helpful could turn into someone so ruthless and cold, like a switch flipped inside him that made him into some killer robot gone primal. There was no other way to describe the type of ferocity he used in his fights.

Yet despite all that, Shirou seemed somewhat conflicted and, dare he say it, bored after some of the missions, as though the hunts were unsatisfying to him. And that one time he went with the others to find Shirou in the midst of what looked to be a hell of a fight with Regeis, seeing him covered in blood with a mangled corpse nearby, a part of him actually feared Shirou at that point.

And now someone similar to him showed up and started going for him specifically. How would this turn out?

"We are here!" Rias's voice broke his thoughts and he idly wondered how fast they moved to get to the courtyard so quickly. He shook his head to clear the unnecessary thoughts from his head. He had to get his head into the game and stop the ritual, then he can help deal with that Lyle fellow.

"What the?!" Tsubasa yelled out as she stopped in her tracks to take note of the scene in front of her. Now that they were at the actual site, Ise could finally see the size of the column of light that was coming out of the ground. The amount of power exuding from it was making his skin crawl in an unnatural manner.

"Hello everybody! To tonight's entertainment!" Everyone turned to find the second rogue exorcist walking towards them with his arms wide open and a smile as though he was hosting a TV program. "I hope you can enjoy our little fun-time!"

"Creed Diskenth!" Griselda hissed as the others got into position.

"Oh hello there Griselda, looking hot as always." Creed widened his eyes in mock surprise. "But I am not the host for today, merely a participant. Here's the man with the plan, Mister Galilei Valper!" At that, the glow from the column of light diminished to reveal an old man in priest clothing standing in the middle of a magic circle with five swords hovering around him.

"You!" This time Ise flinched at the amount of venom that was evident in Griselda's tone. He only knew a little about this old man from their discussions, but considering the manner the elder exorcist was glaring at him in an eerily calm manner, it spoke volumes of the amount of rage against him.

"Hello there, Lady Griselda. It has been quite a while." Galilei gave a mock bow while giving a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Forgive me that I cannot give you a proper reception but I am rather busy combing the swords into one form." Before anyone could comment, Creed butted in with an even bigger smile.

"And to the main guest of this show, the Big B himself, The Angel of Fallen Stars and the King of Bloody Carnage, Kokabiel!" He gestured with his arms to a figure that they only just noticed was looking down at them while sitting on a chair and with the moon in the background. His eyes gleamed darkly as he watched them from above with one leg crossed with the other.

"So, the church saw fit to send one senior exorcist and two apprentices to back up a bunch of filthy devils? I am almost amused if it was not so insulting to me." The fallen angel narrowed his eyes as he looked at them with contempt. "Honestly, the nerve of those people if they think this is enough to challenge me."

Ise nervously swallowed as he looked at the fallen angel before him, his throat feeling extremely dry to the point of thinking he had swallowed sand instead. He was not sure of it, but something about this dude was making alarm bells scream in his head. One thing was clear: this guy was bad news.

Not knowing his thoughts, the fallen angel spoke again. "Considering this group is here, it seems your prodigy did nothing to stop them. However…" He paused as he moved his eyes around them. "It seems there is someone missing from this group."

"You are right. Damn it, that Lyle keeps getting the magician! I wanted to fight that guy!" Creed clenched his fists in mock anger as he glared at them.

"No matter, Galilei…" Kokabiel directed his eyes at the old priest, "how much longer?"

"Five minutes, my lord." Galilei replied back with a hint of trepidation, as though he was fearful of getting the fallen angel's wrath. "It will be done within that time."

"I see, well I guess I can wait." Kokabiel drawled as he looked back at them "Perhaps some entertainment is in order? But I wonder if these creatures could even give me a minute to spare me from my boredom?"

"You! What have you done with my knight?!" Rias stepped forward with her hair flowing in all directions and her eyes seemingly turning a crimson red while a dark aura appeared around her.

"Knight?" Galilei tilted his head as he gave a mocking impression of recollecting his thoughts before letting out a disturbing smile. "Ah you mean subject 3026? Ah don't worry my dear, he is fine. He is just helping me with a little experiment."

"…"

Ise was not sure what the problem was, but something about the entire situation was making the hair on his neck stand up. Shirou had beaten this type of response into him during the training camp to act as a secondary sensory to 'feel' for any danger aimed for him, and as much as he hated to admit it, it had helped him a couple of times during the Phenex match and his brief fight with the exorcists. Now he was getting a very strong vibe.

And it was getting stronger…

"He is not some test subject! He is my cute knight and I demand you return him this instant!" Rias stomped her foot on the ground in agitation, creating a crater with cracks extending from it.

"Well, I guess we could let her meet him, after all it is a while since she last seen him, right old man?" Creed shrugged with a smile that made the danger response even stronger in Ise.

"Yes that is true, perhaps a little reassurance will be ideal." Galilei smiled a little eerily as he looked to Rias. "If you wish to see your knight, he is already here in this area."

The feeling of danger went further up as Ise watched his friends looked around to find the knight.

"In fact, he is really close by." Creed added on with a full-blown smirk.

The feeling just skyrocketed and it was coming from behind Rias!

"Watch out Buchou!" Ise threw his arms around her and tackled her roughly just as a sword edge barely grazed her skin and cut his cheek. With a loud thump, they hit the ground hard, bruised but alive.

"Sorry about that Buchou!" Ise quickly got up and apologized to her quickly before turning to punch the living daylights of the attacker. But he stopped short of yelling at the person while his eyes widened in shock.

"Yuuto!" Rias gasped as the devil knight slowly stood up from the crouch he was in and turned to face them. It was like a reenactment of a horror flick, what with the odd contraption that was bolted to his body painfully and the lack of light in his eyes. It was oddly disconnecting from the usual manner Kiba would face them. Looks like Shirou was right again, this was really bad.

"What have you done to him?!" Rias directed her attention at Galilei with her anger renewed from the sight of her knight.

"Oh I am just using him for a side project I have planned based from this." Galilei replied easily. "Indeed it is so hard to find a suitable candidate for my experiments, so it was good fortune that someone who used to participate in my experiments came right back into my hands."

"You fiend, you will hand him over this instant!" Rias summoned a ball of her energy in her hand and threw it at him, only to be blocked by a wall of swords summoned by Kiba.

"Ah that might be a problem with that." Galilei gave a mocking shake of his head. "It has been so long since my last experiment and it is hard to find good guinea pigs. I think I will hang on to him for a while longer."

"Why you!"

"BOOM!"

Whatever Rias was about to call Galilei, she ended up getting cut off by an explosion that destroyed part of the main building and rocked the entire area they were in, causing many to fall to the ground.

"What the heck just happened?!" Tsubasa yelled out while covering her ears. Ise mentally agreed as he shook his head to rid the ringing in his ears. Trembling slightly, he got on to his feet and directed his attention to the roof.

Whoa, cue a John William's Soundtrack.

On the top of the burning roof, Shirou was going sword crazy against the rogue exorcist with the double-bladed light sword ('or a lightsaber' Issei thought privately). From the looks of it, the both of them had been going at each other hard; Shirou had lost his custom blazer and was sporting a few cuts around his body, while Lyle had several parts of his clothing burned and half of his mask broken to reveal his face.

For every strike that Shirou makes, Lyle Wallner would immediately counter with a flourish of his weapon and dodged with a few spins of his body as though he was doing a dance rather than fighting. Every so often Lyle would parry an attack that forces Shriou back, giving him a chance to use his gun on him. Shirou would then dodge the bullet, deflect it or even throw his sword to distract Lyle from shooting him.

Then there were the explosions.

"BOOM! BAM!"

Like some weird performance with pyrotechnics, the both of them seemed to have laid out explosives around the area to prepare for this fight and they were making good use of them. Each one was aimed specifically to disable if not outright kill the opponent in front of them, and more were added into the mix as Shirou used his flying swords at Lyle while the exorcist used his explosive rounds at Shirou.

But perhaps the craziest thing was the manner they were going at each other without a single care for their own survival. The both of them were sporting deep cuts that were staining the clothes they have and yet they were not bothering to dodge some of the attacks the other was inflicting. They were going at each other like their very existences demanded the enemy before them was to be destroyed at all costs, and their odd expressions of seriousness and exhilaration were rather disturbing.

Just as things were crazy enough as it were, the both of them seemed to have come to a decision to stop holding back and bring out the big guns. Lyle pounced back to get more distance from Shirou, but the wizard did not hesitate to throw those Asian swords he was wielding at him, creating another pair and charging forward. Not to be deterred, Lyle parried one of the swords and using the momentum to aim his gun at the other and knock it off, finishing off the maneuver with a light touchdown and throwing a dagger at Shirou. He merely sidestepped to let the blade fly past his face before doing something to his swords to make them longer and bigger, and swinging them right at the exorcist, who took out a charm in time to create some spider-web barrier and absorb the resulting attack that pushed him back quite a fair bit.

Not to be outdone, Lyle used the opportunity to take out that desert eagle he had and aimed it straight at Shirou. The wizard in turn did not hesitate to create a seriously murderous looking spear with barbs running down its end and threw it at the same time as Lyle pulling the trigger.

"BOORAOROM!"

The resulting explosions once again rocked the entire area that sent everyone but Kokabiel falling to the ground, the heat extending all the way to their area and making a few yell out in pain. After a while the wind picked up and blew some of the smoke away, revealing two battered but still fighting combatants who did not stop for a breather and just charged at each other again.

Damn, was that really Shirou?! He hardly fought that much even during the training camp!

"My, oh my, that is a very interesting young man." Galilei commented as he watched the sparks fly between their weapons. "And that fighting style… correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he is basically utilizing those disposable weapons in a manner that would give him the edge by changing his style all the time."

"Yes." Kokabiel narrowed his eyes in interest as he looked closer. "Those weapons are unusual though, they are from different mythologies altogether, and they seemed familiar yet different at the same time."

"Well with any luck, I might be able to obtain a sample from his body." Galilei replied as he looked on with a maniacal eye. Something about those words seemed to light a fire in Ise as he glared at them. These guys already did something horrific to Kiba, and they wanted to do the same thing to Shirou?!

"Like hell you will!" Ise transferred the boosted energy to his legs and rushed forward to aim a punch to his face. A brief flash of light was the only indication he needed to move his head back in time to avoid his head rolling by Kiba.

"Damn it Kiba! Wake the hell up!" Ise now knew what Shirou must have felt about him whenever he did something totally off the norms; Kiba was so infuriatingly nonchalant about certain things but because of his temper, now he was being controlled and worse, it seemed he had zero compulsions holding him back.

"Thank you my pet. That would have been disastrous." Galilei said with a nasty smile on his face. "And just in the nick of time too." Before the others could react, the magic circle he was in started to glow a dark blue while the swords align themselves on top of one another and stack tightly. They glowed briefly before their form seemed to deform and merge with one another, then with a final flash of light, the magic circle collapsed to reveal the merged sword.

"What the heck is that?!" Tsubasa muttered loudly as they looked at the sword in front of them and Ise had to agree with her. Despite the lethality of the holy swords, there was a certain air of 'nobility' that exuded from them, as though to show that they were weapons that were to be wielded by the chosen warriors. This 'thing' in front of them seemed to be completely lacking any of that presence, and its mismatched form that possessed elements of the other swords seemed to reflect the twisted nature of the people around it.

Inwardly, Ise was somewhat thankful that Shirou was not here to see this. He had the feeling that Shirou might go ballistic at the sight of that blade.

"Here Creed, you want to take it?" Galilei gestured to the exorcist who gleefully skipped forward and grabbed the reformed blade in his hand. The blade seemed to radiate a wave of bloodthirstiness as he swung it, as though the sword was bringing out the true nature of the wielder.

"Oh, this feels right in my hands!" Creed seemed almost giddy with joy, a rather disturbing image considering he was holding on to an item that looked good for torture. "Now it seems I can have some fun!"

"Well then, you can take your pick." Galilei commented as he stood back.

"RIGHTO!" Creed took out a charm and looked at the Student Council with a sneer. "Then perhaps I can have the ladies all to myself!" With that he threw the charm into the air, where it glowed brightly before a netting of light extended from it and draped around them.

"Oh shit, I think he is going to trap us!" Saji paled as some of the netting's ends touched the ground and spread towards them.

"You two, you must get out of here now!" Before Irina and Xenovia could react, Griselda grabbed the both of them by the collars and threw them as hard as she could away from them.

"Gen-chan, you need to move now!" Momo and Ruruko each took one of Saji's arm, and with a big heave, threw him out before the netting cut their escape route.

"Griselda!" Xenovia and Irina banged on the barrier, followed shortly by Saji and the others as they tried to break it to no avail. For a brief moment, they saw the others getting into a stance against the exorcist, then with a bright flash, they disappear along with the barrier.

"What the?! The heck they go?!" Xenovia turned around in agitation.

"You! Where are they headed to?" Rias rounded to Galilei who looked on calmly.

"Hmm, likely around here, so you needn't worry about them." The priest replied with a shrug. "If anything, you might want to start worrying about yourselves." At his words, the mind-controlled knight appeared in front of them in a flash, his cold empty eyes gazing at them. "I believe that it is time for my side project to show some progress."

"Kiba, snap out of it man!" Ise stepped forward only to take a hasty back step to avoid a sword aimed for his leg. Silently, Kiba created a pair of swords and got into a stance.

"Finally, some entertainment." Kokabiel pushed himself further in his floating chair. "Hopefully we can get a proper performance."

"Genshirou-kun, I'm afraid you would need to work with us for this matter." Akeno commented as they got into a stance. "If we want to help Sona and the others, we would need to take Kiba down quickly and preferably without much bloodshed." Saji could only grunt in irritation as he got into position with his gear deployed, while Ise looked at the mind-controlled knight with one thought in mind.

'Damn it, this is so going to hurt a lot!'

=()=

'Darn it, this was not what I had in mind!' Sona was swearing in her mind with all the profanities she could muster in her vocabulary but not allowed to speak them in public. If one could peer into her head, they would no doubt be dropping their jaws at the sheer amount of cursing that was in her mind.

She, the Student Council girls and the senior exorcist were currently inside the Science and Arts Building where they were transported to from the courtyard. They did not have time to examine their situation when Creed appeared near them and proceeded to destroy the entire front portion of the building in his attempts to blindside them. With little choice on their part, they made their way into the building to try and get a home field advantage. Unfortunately that was not the case as they started to run into multiple traps set all over the area which slowed them down significantly, not helped with the rogue exorcist dogging their ends at each turn.

"Ah come on! How many of these traps are there?!" Momo yelled out in frustration as she conjured up a few ice spikes to trigger the traps before them.

"Considering the number, you can direct your complaints to Lyle Wallner." Griselda commented rather easily as she sidestepped to dodge a few bullets. "Most of the traps are his, so at least be thankful that they are designed to incapacitate quickly or to be an instant death."

"Most?" Tsubasa dragged a locker out of its placement and threw it down the corridor to fend off an explosion.

"The remainder is Creed's, and his versions are the type to inflict maximum pain." Griselda fired off a round to trigger a spiked pipe that was aimed for her head. "Like so."

"Seriously, I'm not sure who is more demented!" Tsubaki conjured up her mirrors to reflect the attacks directed at them. "A guy who is trying to kill you the fastest way possible by aiming for your vitals, or the guy who wants to prolong your suffering!"

"CREKKAK!"

"I think you are about to get an answer to that! Here he comes!" Momo conjured up a ring of fire and ice around her before sending them behind them, only to have them explode before reaching their target.

"Come on ladies, let's not be so hasty. Let's have some fun!" Creed came around the corner banishing a metallic whip with barbed ends which he used with terrifying effect to destroy the corridor they were in and limiting their options to escape. "Considering you girls like to run, let's play a game of hide-and-seek. And if I win…" He flashed a rather sadistic smile at them. "Well, I guess I would think about it when I do catch you girls."

"ARRGG! This boy is incurable!" Tsubaki summoned a giant fireball and shot it down the corridor, setting off every fire alarm in its wake, but he merely gave the weapon a flick to dispel the fireball with a bored look.

"Come on, you are supposed to be the guardians of this area, is this really your strength?" He let out an exasperated sigh. "Man now I wished that I volunteered for that guard duty. Lyle has the better fighter to entertain him." He paused to think about it before shrugging. "You know what, I should just wrap this up quickly so that I can go after the magician. If I'm lucky he will still be alive."

"You are not going near Emiya-kun you damn maniac!" Before Sona could comprehend who said that, both Reya and Meguri rushed past her to get to the fallen exorcist. Reya created a fireball and threw it for Meguri to hit it like a baseball at him with high speeds, forcing him to transform the sword into a make shift shield.

"Oh~ you can do better with the right motivation." Creed let out a gleeful voice as he peeked out of the shield. "So it seems the wizard is pretty close to you girls or at least for you two to take the initiative. So it begs the question, will you be more motivated when I kill him, or will he when I present him your heads?!" He twisted his body in a quick motion and transformed the shield into a segmented blade that whipped around like an angry snake. With a delighted yell, he swung the weapon at them, the blade tearing through the walls like a chainsaw through wood and making its way to them.

"CLANK!"

Only to be stopped by a blade wielded by the senior exorcist.

"Why hello there, it has been a while since I get to trade blows with you." Creed look at Griselda with a nasty light in his eyes. "Who knows, maybe you can give me blows of a different type?"

"Still an incurable vermin, I see?" Griselda showed no outward expression at the words that Creed spoke as she pressed forward with her defense.

"What can I say? I enjoy my food, my women and a great deal of alcohol to go with any fighting." Creed replied as he lightly stepped back and changed his weapon back to its default state. "I find that being out of the church definitely has its perks. You should try it out sometime."

"I would rather not." Griselda merely raised her arm and gave a lazy swing of her normal sword…

… A swing which destroy the greater portion of the corridor and pushed Creed back quite a fair bit to the other side.

"Oh yeah! Now we are getting somewhere!" Creed gave a quick flick of his wrist to change the sword into a barbed spear. "Maybe you can be my appetizer before the magician then!"

"You and Lyle are oddly obsessed with the magician." Griselda lightly parried the spear while dodging some of his strikes.

"Lyle has his insecurities, and I just want to fight that asshole for screwing up a lot of our plans!" Creed grabbed the spear harder, making it glow a crimson red. "That guy has a lot more spunk compared to the rest of the fighters I have gone against, and I will not Lyle get all the fun!" With a yell, he thrust the spear forward, letting forth a burst of energy that shot past them and down the other end of the corridor, bringing down the wall and making a big hole in the building.

"AH COME ON! Must you destroy EVERYTHING?!" Tsuabsa grabbed her head in frustration as she glared at the rogue exorcist. "Do you know how much it cost to repair that?!"

"Don't know, don't care~" Creed replied in a sing-along manner. "I just want to kill you all and get that wizard~ WHOA!" He stopped talking for a short while to avoid a few icicles aimed at his head by Reya, followed shortly of him moving his leg to avoid a sword slash by Meguri.

"Wow, you girls really are motivated to kill me. Now I am really interested about that wizard and how he makes you two tick for him!" The exorcist changed the spear into a scimitar and spun on his spot, rays of light seemingly flying off him and towards them.

"Incoming!" Tsubaki, Momo and Reya stepped forward to bring up a barrier in time to stop the first shots from passing through, but it was clear it would not be enough as the barrier started to crack from the oncoming onslaught.

"Feeling up for a challenge, ladies?!" Creed slowed down and used the remaining momentum to jump up and fire off a curving blade of energy at them, the amount of holy energy making them take cover in time as it cut through the barrier and continued through the hole in the wall and outside the area.

"Chance!" Using the speed aspect of Excalibur, Creed rushed forward and swung at Reya, only to have his weapon deflected by Griselda again. "Ah come on!"

"You are not making this easier on yourself, just give up." Griselda started going on the offensive and pushed him back.

"Yeah, I will do that if you can loosen up lady!" Creed changed the form into a spear again and started to thrust the end at her.

"That would not be appropriate in this situation." Griselda commented as she blocked a particularly heavy attack.

"Seriously, lady, like get a life!" Creed calmly rolled his eyes while commenting in a manner like he was talking about the weather. "Want some advice? Get out of those clothes, put on a low-cut dress or a bikini, and walk right into the red - light district around here and go get laid already! Maybe stay there for a full month with men coming through your room 24 hours straight! That ought to do for you!"

"You would love that huh, you vulgar man?" Griselda replied with narrowed eyes.

"Lady, I don't think you realize the number of hard-ons you keep giving to the people of the church every damn time you visit anywhere. Do you know how many times I end up walking into a room that has at least one guy who can't control his libido AND his imagination because you just show up with those tight clothes of yours?!" He sneered as he continued to rain down hits on them. "Hell, a third of them are underage and you helped them shoot straight to puberty!"

"Well then, I shall apologize to them while punishing them at the same time." Griselda stepped back as she pulled a bottle of glowing liquid from underneath her robes. "But for the time being, I will start with you." She threw the bottle at him who merely knocked the glass in mid-air. That was a mistake on his part as the water glowed brighter before his area blew up in bright flames.

"Quickly now, it would only hold him back for a short while!" Griselda picked the two girls up from the ground and ushered them away around the corner, just in time to avoid a long serrated spear pierce the flames and banished it away.

"Come on, I just got this dried-cleaned!" Creed complained as he looked around him only to find no trace of the devils. "Oh~ so we are playing hide-and-seek, huh? Okay then, I will be it. Ready or not, here I come~" With that he ran down the corridor with a gleeful smile.

"…"

Sona pursed her lips as she listened carefully with her ear pressed against the door at the diminishing footsteps. Once she could not hear Creed anymore, she let out the breath that she had been holding for quite a while. "I think we lost him."

"Thank goodness." Meguri slumped back on the cupboard next to her as she turned her tired eyes around to gaze at the chemicals that were in the room they were hiding in.

"Damn it, that guy is not making it easy for us." Tsubasa collapsed on the ground while panting hard. "Maybe I was being a little too optimistic about our chances with that guy."

"In a sense, I wonder if Emiya-kun got the easier job of dealing with the other exorcist." Momo leaned back on the tabletop to catch her breath. "This guy is practically making us run around with our tails between our legs, and he seems to have a bit of an issue in the head to come after us."

"Well, Creed has always been a little unhinged in the head." Griselda remarked as she took the moment to remove her head gown to let her hair out, unknowingly getting a few gasps from the girls near her. "For as long as I can tell, he has been quite questionable in his behavior to begin with, but he started getting more destructive and murderous after taking part in Galilei's experiments. Even Freed had a bit more difficulty dealing with him than most."

"And you still volunteered for this rather than dealing with Lyle Wallner?" Tsubaki raised her eye at her.

"Creed is more unstable and ruthless, but his methods and end-goals are pretty consistent. Lyle Wallner…" Griselda paused for a moment before continuing. "I can't seem to understand his motives. On the one hand I know he does not desire unnecessary death, yet he seems to have no qualms in wiping out entire towns or cities to kill off the target. His methods are always methodical but completely unethical, and the way he acts as more of a mercenary than an exorcist before and after the time at the Vatican, he does not have a self."

"If I have to describe him, he acts empty at times. A martyr without a purpose." Griselda looked up to see them in the eye. "And unless I am much mistaken, the magician seems to be similar in that regard, thus Lyle's interest in him."

"Emiya-kun?" Reya sat up a little straighter at her words while lightly narrowing her eyes. "May I ask how is he considered empty? And I do not like you comparing him to those killers."

"Whatever information I have gotten on that boy kept telling me a rather disturbing pattern to his fighting style. He essentially throws all caution to the wind and leaves himself wide open to attacks so that he can take down his opponents. His methods could be described as brutally efficient, and the manner he does his actions resembles someone who has no reason to live, so yes in that aspect, he resembles Lyle."

"…"

Sona hated to admit it, but she agreed with the woman about Shirou's personality and fighting style. They had a bit of culture shock of sorts when they saw firsthand his methods of hunting down the Stray Devils, and during the training camp for Raiser's match, she got a front row seat to the type of cruelty that he could potentially unleash if they got into a fight with him, further evidenced from the aftermath of his fight with Regeis. More often than not, she had trouble wrapping her head around the idea that the 'Fake Janitor', one if not the nicest boys around who goes around helping others and enjoys cooking, was also one of the most ruthless who did not bat an eye at beheading his opponents or someone who seemed void of emotions when fighting.

Which was the real Shirou Emiya?

"Well, I don't know about this Lyle fellow, but I know our resident Brownie. He is not some rampaging murderer who is empty, whatever that means." Tsubasa spoke out after listening in. "That guy is too nice for his own sake, he is the Fake Janitor of Kurou Academy and he is one of the two most sought after in this academy. I for one am not letting him out of my sights." She added that bit while wriggling her eyebrows at Reya and Meguri.

"And Sempai cooks good food too!" Ruruko added in that one bit with a wave of her hand. Sona had to chuckle at that remark. At least the others did not seem too bothered about Shirou's personality issues. Then again if Rias could handle her group of mismatched individuals that included Kuoh Academy's top pervert, she should be able to handle Shirou's odd behavior.

She just needed to keep a closer eye on him.

"… Well, I won't comment on your preference, but I guess I shall trust your judgment for now." Griselda replaced the head gown and adjusted it. "After all he is the only one dealing with Lyle. If he is capable so be it."

"Trust us on this. He has not let us down yet." Tsubasa said while folding her arms.

"BAGK! CLUNK!"

"KYAAAAA!" The girls screamed as the edge of a big golden axe smashed through the door repeatedly to make a small gap in it, pulling out pieces of the shredded door in the process. A moment's pause, then the crazed face of the white-haired exorcist appeared at the gap with a very deranged smile on his face.

"HERE'S CREED~" He let out those words with a sick sing-along tone before retracting his face and with a big kick, took down the door without a hitch. Creed then calmly strode right into the room with confident steps, lightly tapping the sword on his shoulder as he looked at them.

"Come on ladies, why so serious?" He leered as he raised the sword and pointed it at them. "Shall I help you put a smile on those faces?"

"ARH! Just take a hike already!" Tsubasa grabbed the nearest table and ripped it out of its attachments before throwing with her full strength at the exorcist. But with a quick swing of Excalibur, the concrete table turned to dust within seconds.

"Oh, so cold~ I am almost feeling chills." His smirk went wider as the sword changed into a scythe and he twirled it in his hand. "Let's warm our bodies up with a little exercise, shall we?" With a quick motion, he grabbed the long end of the weapon and swung wide, demolishing al the furniture in its wake as the light from the weapon started to turn crimson and the waves of holy energy threatened to burn them.

"Momo, Reya! Barriers now!" Sona gave the order as she conjured up the water from the broken pipes and fired off balls of water at him. As soon as the barrier was up, she directed the water at the other pipes to break them and spill their contents.

"Wait, Kaichou! I don't think that is a good idea!" Momo's eyes widened as she realized what she was planning to do.

"If you want to meet your maker, be my guest! As for me!" Tsubaki conjured up a fireball and aimed at the mess. "I just want this guy out of my life!" With that, she released the fireball and within seconds ignited the contents and…

"BOOM!"

… The sight of seeing the exorcist blown away through the wall was rather cardiac for the devils.

"Finally, we hit that bastard!" Momo whooped as the shields went down.

"I am not looking forward to the cleanup though." Ruruko looked around at the wreckage that used to be their classroom with a slightly tired tone.

"We can deal with that later. Let's just make sure that guy is dead so that we can collect the sword and take on Kokabiel." No sooner Sona said that, one section of the already broken wall got sliced in half, revealing a fallen exorcist with a pissed-off smile.

"Okay~ I did not expect that. I definitely should thank you girls for that." Creed seemed to be seething with anger and the words coming out of his mouth were making their spines shiver at the amount of venom present in it. A quick glow from the sword and Creed was now holding a weapon that seemed to be an unholy fusion of a mace and a scimitar. "Let me return the favor to you in full!" He swung hard at the ground, causing fissures to appear on the ground before small bolts of light shot out and sprayed all over the area.

"Hit the deck!" Tsubasa grabbed a couple of the ruined tables and threw them to make a temporary barrier from the shots. They merely disintegrated on contact, leaving them wide open to the shots, causing a few them to yell out in pain as the shots hit their bodies, leaving open wounds that were smoking from the holy aura.

"Tsubasa! Hanakai! Tsubaki!" Sona yelled out in a fair amount of panic as she watched them fall to the ground with blood flowing from their wounds. "Hang on!" She summoned a huge wall of water that separated them from the rogue exorcist before making her way to them.

"How are they?" Griselda came forward as the others stood before their king to guard against the exorcist.

"They got hit with a huge dose of that Holy energy. It is poisoning them from the inside out!" Sona tried to use her healing arts with little success. "Darn it, it is not working fast enough!"

"Calm yourself, heiress." Griselda held out her hand and checked their wounds. "Right now they are still within normal levels. Just get them out of the room and away from the sword. The closer they are to it, the more potent the effects."

"Okay then, let's get them out of here!" Meguri, Reya and Ruruko each grabbed one of them and started to drag them quickly out of the science room just as rays of lights started to pierce through the wall of water.

"Heiress, I believe we would need to buy your companions some time." Griselda looked at the obstacle while readying her weapon.

"No problem." Sona's eyes seemed to turn to slits as wings appeared behind her. "I intend to do more than make time for them." Without a moment's hesitation, she conjured up a large amount of water above her and shaped them into drills just as the wall collapsed to reveal a very angry Creed.

"Okay, seriously. NOT. COOL." Creed grabbed the handle with both hands and slammed it to the ground to release a beam of light at them. Sona wasted no time to send the water projectiles at him, ensuring his attack could not get the retreating devils behind her.

"Keep it up!" Griselda took out her own firearm and shot a few times at Creed, who was forced to take cover behind some of the wreckage. Snarling, Creed changed his weapon into the whip form and tried to extend its reach, but the shots by the senior exorcist and the water projectiles from the devil made that impotent.

"ARGGHH! Cut it out you damn wretches!" Creed changed the shards into a halberd and stabbed the tip into the ground, causing the ground to fracture and literal streams of light flowing out of the cracks and spreading.

"Heiress, get out of there!" Griselda grabbed Sona by the collar and threw her to the wall in time just as the water touched the feet of the Elder Exorcist. A quick flash of light and the woman was sent flying over some of the desk and into one of the cabinets, knocking her unconscious.

"Griselda-san!" Sona tried to get to her feet, only to be roughly pushed to the ground by Creed who used his body to straddle her while pinning her arms above her head with a talisman.

"You my dear are a very persistent bitch you know that?" Creed grabbed the handle of the sword and pulled sideways, making the sword split down the middle to form two thinner versions. Taking the one on his right, he stabbed it into the ground before it glowed and formed a web-like barrier around them, stopping the other devils who had just returned from approaching them.

"I will have a lot of fun killing you." Creed raised the other sword above her head with the point aimed right for her head. "And at the very least, I should be able to have an audience with those Maous if I do so." Sona could almost see her reflection on the sword as tears threatened to leak out of her eyes. Was she really going to die in this manner?

'Somebody, anybody! Help me!'

A face of a certain boy appeared in front of her with a gentle smile on his face…

'EMIYA-KUN!'

"BANG!"

Like an answer to her prayers, a loud gunshot rang through the open area as the barrier shattered into pieces and Creed's sword got diverted from the bullet hitting it, the point missing Sona's head by inches and stabbing the ground next to her, parting bits of her hair but leaving her very much alive. Sona barely registered that and just laid still while heaving heavily.

Did Shirou do that?

"… So is that how it is?" Creed started to shake with a disturbing expression of glee and rage that made Sona cringe as she attempted to move away from him. "Does this mean you decided to fight for that wizard and these wretches, or is it you are the lapdog for the pope all this time, huh?!" Creed made a big turn to face the intruder that was at the other side of the building. "Answer me, Lyle!"

At that yell, the intruder lowered his weapon and directed cold eyes at his former partner before opening his mouth, the silence seemingly carrying his words to them.

"Time to hunt down a heretic."

Part 3

'Are you sure you can do this?' I asked as I looked at the injured exorcist before me.

'I am most familiar with his fighting style and behavior, so I should be able to take him on. Besides, I have been meaning to do this for a very long time.' He got up from the ground he was on and wiped away some of the blood and soot.

'But why?'

He turned to me and looked me in the eye. 'I have gotten my answer from you. This is my repayment to you.'

I shook my head lightly as I made my way to the courtyard where the mayhem was going on. Honestly I could not fathom what was going through his head, but at least I was able to get to him without much bloodshed and as a bonus he was willing to help me out. I was a bit unsure of his reasons, but if he was willing to help me look after the Student Council members, that was fine by me. I lightly hopped onto the roof and surveyed the situation.

Man that place had seen better days.

The courtyard was getting gutted from all the explosions and attacks that the others were dishing out at Galilei and the mind-controlled Kiba, not to mentioned the knight's own contribution to the mess. I ignored the destruction and focused on the knight briefly, noting the contraption that was stuck to his body. It was somewhat disturbing in appearance yet I felt nothing. Guess I got immunity to body modifications after so many of my own missions.

Shaking that depressing thought out of my head, I refocus my attention the one part that seemed to be the cause for his actions: the odd contraption that looked like an oversized spider with small legs embedded deeply into the back of his neck. It was weird seeing it with my 'Tracing', the nauseating feeling that came from something that was clearly not a live and yet had a heartbeat.

No matter, that part should be handled by Ise and the others, provided he did not lose the knife. I should deal with this Kokabiel fellow and…

"You seem to enjoy scurrying around like a rat for a human."

"!"

I barely had the time to roll away when a spear of light exploded the spot I was at, the force pushing me further than I needed to and sending me crashing into the wall. Grunting, I got to my feet and face the being in front of me while lightly reinforcing my eyes to check his strength.

'Oh you have got to be kidding me.'

This guy had enough Prana to possibly compete with Lancer and judging from what I have heard about this guy, he could potentially be summoned as a Berserker and from the looks of it, I was going to need a lot of my Prana to deal with him.

Bummer.

"Hmm, you are a lot shorter than what I was told." My thoughts got broken and I looked at the fallen angel who looked at me while raising an eyebrow.

"And you are an even bigger jerk than what people told me." I grumbled as I projected a fresh set of swords into my hands. That seemed to have surprised the Fallen Angel that someone actually talked back at him as his other eyebrow got raised before he gave a rather scary sneer.

"Cheeky brat, aren't you?"

"BOOM!"

… Okay, note to self. Mouthing off at a higher being was not a good idea, leave it to the magus that was living in Chicago. What was his name again? Harry Blackstone? Harry Copperfield?

Forget it, now I got to stay away from all the shots that angel was firing at me.

"Come on little boy, dance for me!" Kokabiel waved a lazy hand to produce several spears and aimed them at me. I parried off most of the spears while moving to dodge the few that got past me, then with a quick reinforcement of my hand, grabbed one of the spears and threw it back at him.

"Oopsie~ that could be dangerous." Kokabiel tiled his head to avoid the spear while smirking. "Come one, you can do better right?" I narrowed my eyes as I considered my options. I really did not want to use too much of my Prana from the get-go, but at this rate I would have to bring out the heavy artillery earlier than expected. I just need something!

"Ba~ Bump!" A light pulse made me pause for a moment as I considered that possibility. Come to think of it, I used this fellow in my training but never in an actual fight before, so…

"[Hell's Trident], Trace On."

At my call, the miniature spear around my neck glowed before it flew out of the chain and appeared behind me in its full form and size, its energy seemingly blanketing around me like an invisible shroud that promised protection to me and death to my enemies.

Good demonic spear.

"Ho~ so it is true then, the rumors about someone seemingly taking Sacred Gears away and using them." Kokabiel looked at the Sacred Gear with narrowed eyes. "I recognize that weapon from that rogue Stray a few years back, his name was Regeis I believe." His eyes went back to me. "Now the question is can you use it?"

One way to find out.

"Bring into my hand, [Obsidian Custom]." I held out my right arm as an outline of a spear appeared by my side, fully materializing as I grabbed the shaft and twirled it. The black stone-head gleamed from the fire around us while the scent of heated stone filled the air from the glowing runes.

"Let's do this." With a great leap, I appeared right below him and thrust the spear at him. Kokabiel merely moved to one side, no doubt thinking he was safe at a distance, only to widen his eyes as a dark energy emerged from the spear and launched itself at him, the demonic energy leaking from it seemingly roaring for blood. The wall that was exposed to it started to crumble and fall apart from the energy eating at it.

"[Thunder Custom]!" I did not stop pushing my attack and created another spear, this time a yellowish-blue spear with jagged edges that emit small bolts of electricity. Grabbing the end of the shaft, I swung the spear hard towards the ground, creating a magic circle below us and shooting several bolts of electricity into the air, reducing his escape routes significantly and trapping him here with me.

"What the GATRH!" Kokabiel's curse got cut short as the black energy caught up to him and touch his leg, the clothing getting burned and his flesh starting to turn dark and crack. With a snarl, he produced a spear and thrust it into the black wave, detonating it to cut off the connection and the process of eating his leg. It did not matter to me, all he did was give me the opening to my next move. I reversed my grip on the black spear and threw it at him, letting loose the demonic energy that I held back earlier. I temporarily made the other spear float behind me alongside [Hell's Trident] as I create the next set.

"[Married Spears Custom]!" I gripped hard on the spear versions of Kanshou and Bakuya and threw them hard at Kokabiel who was busy avoiding the black energy and the lightning bolts that appeared randomly. The Fallen Angel deflected the two spears with ease, obviously thinking they were the least of his concern, only to be made wrong when the married pairs came straight at him from opposite directions.

"This is a hell of a nuisance you are giving me boy!" Kokabiel glared as he knocked the two spears back at me, but I merely grabbed them and spun them lightly in front of me so that they were stuck in place for my next maneuver. Gesturing with my hand to bring the thunder spear back, I held it in between the rotating spears, their magnetism holding it in place and the electricity building up to rather absurd levels.

'Hope you like my present of a railgun.'

"GUNGNIR!" I slammed the butt of the thunder spear, launching it forward through the married spears and accelerated from the combination of the magnetism and the accumulated electricity. The thunder spear roared throughout the campus as it rocketed its way towards Kokabiel.

"WHAT THE!" Kokabiel wrapped his wings around him and created a barrier in time to prevent the tip of the spear from piercing him. The amount of force in the spear pushed him back quite a distance as it struggled to pierce the barrier that he erected. I did not stop to see if it was working; something of that level was likely not enough. I immediately projected my bow and a familiar sword into my hands and got into my stance, pouring my Prana into it and preparing to fire it off.

"That is enough!" Kokabiel let out a roar as he gathered whatever energy he has and with a burst of light, destroyed the thunder spear, the black spear and the magic circle that created the lightning bolt. He turned only to look with wide eyes at the sword in my hands, no doubt feeling the amount of Prana that was threatening to be let loose explosively.

Say 'AH!'

"Steel is my body, Fire is my blood."

"My core is twisted in Madness, [Caladbolg II]!" I released the makeshift arrow and watched it make its way to Kokabiel, its coiled form forcing the air around it to twist irregularly and leaving behind a deep vacuum that swallows all in its wake. Even as the Fallen Angel moved out of its way, the vacuum formed forcefully dragged him back and in an instant, twisted and shredded his left arm completely and clipping one of his wings, leaving behind a bloody stump and an arrow that went all the way to the other side of town and to the small hill where I fought Regeis. I paid little attention to the resulting fire that broke out on the hill and focused my attention on the fallen angel.

"…" Kokabiel slowly raised his right hand to touch the stump lightly and raised it to his eyes. For a while he looked at it, then his clipped wing, then at me, before looking downwards to the ground for a while.

I expected him to look back up at me with an angry expression.

I hoped he would fall to the ground dead.

Instead, his body began to shake and he began to laugh.

---

=()=

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=====Author's Notes=====

Hello, I have returned with a new chapter for this story. My apologies for the long wait, I can only say that everything that could go wrong in my life, decided to come together for a party and do so this year. A short summary of what I had to go through: having to work overtime with no extra pay, nearly losing my job because the boss thought I was not doing enough, taking care of my family, having to attend a second funeral, nearly attending a third, having to deal with a few robberies in my area and finally Microsoft deciding that I have delayed upgrading my machine to Windows 10 and proceeded to do so, with the end result of my machine locked up and my work stuck in it.

... Yeah, so with all that, my desire to write got sidetracked, to say the least.

Again I had planned to send this off in one chapter, but with my computer holding my other bits hostage, I was forced to separate the chapter (again) and send in this bit through another (older) machine. For the final portion, I have to rewrite at least 20,000 words to replace the portions that were lost due to data corruption. Thankfully I had copies of my ideas in a separate device. Hopefully I can get it out soon with no interruptions.

Now to certain comments or notes.

I had to admit, when I written the bit about the Excalibur Shard saying [Make us whole], I wasn't thinking Dead Space at first, but when I read the comments and looked at the portion, I could only think to myself 'What the hell did I write?!' So I decided to add some bits to this chapter to play slightly into the horror aspect.

Someone had said I was the harbinger of a new change to this crossover. I was honestly a little surprised at that because I just thought of writing this story with no clear direction. But I guess there is some truth, since for this arc other writers seemed to have shifted from using Unlimited Blade Works to just using Excalibur or Caliburn. Though I am a little sad that I cannot be the first one to finish this arc in a different manner, I can safely say that I might be the first one to do something completely different from the norm since everyone else is doing a default style with Nasuverse information.

Only time can tell, hoping you would like that final portion of this arc I am writing (or at least fixing). For now I hope you forgive me for the long delay and that you enjoy this chapter. This is possibly one of the shorter chapters I have written, but I hope it will suffice until the next chapter.

So if you would excuse me (picks up a baseball bat), I got to have a word with a certain messed up laptop...

And I lay my pen down for now.

Update(s):

1) I have a lot of people requesting what to do with Xenovia and Irina at the end of this arc, so I have created a poll on my profile page.

2) I have now included options for Griselda. Take your pick...