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For disclaimer see the prologue.
2 days after Demonic Portal incident, head office 'Higa Pharmaceuticals', 18:12
"…And that's all for daily report." – That was the end of speech coming from Kakizaki, loyal personal secretary of Higa Izumi. It was a bespectacled man of average height with short spiky black hair, dressed in classic black suit with white shirt and black tie. He fixed his glasses and lowered pad from which he was reading during previous speech, while looking at his current boss and previously college friend, Higa Izumi.
"That means our company rating was increasing steadily for the last week. Good. With this much profit we may turn our resources to a new project." – That was Higa Izumi, heir to the 'Higa Pharmaceuticals', man that knows how to be ruthless and effective in any business venue. That was man of average height with short brown hair, dark brown eyes, and slightly delicate features of well-bred Japanese man, who was dressed in classic completely white, except for black tie, suit. His face was impassive; his eyes didn't convey anything except for concentration at his current guests.
Higa is currently sitting in simple revolving chair behind his working table. Actually his workplace has almost no decorations, except for big windows, simple carpet and one big flowerpot. That was pretty dull place, with almost everything dedicated to work – office table with computer and neatly placed stacks of documents; three chairs, one for Higa himself, and two for visitors and employees; and lastly, air conditioner. Yep, pretty boring place that doesn't look like the office of one of the most influential and rich people currently residing in Shinto Teito. But it is!
"And now we can discuss our other business. Kochou, what information was gathered about incident involving No.10's Ashikabi that happened yesterday at Hiyamakai Hospital, also give me information on parties that were guilty at not properly sedating him and records about analyzes on his blood samples." – After few seconds of silent thinking Higa moved on with his business by addressing his second guest. That was a woman named Kochou, she is a Sekirei No.22, Brain-Type with ability to telepathically access electronic devices, good analytical skills and highly advanced eidetic memory. As any other female Sekirei she was a very attractive woman, her hair was grey and short, eyes dark-grey, face features were quite delicate and impassive, also she had red dot in the middle of her forehead. She was wearing red half-moon glasses, her clothes consisted of long light-purple dress with corset on her waist, white frills under her big breasts, around her collar and white arm-warmers with purple lining.
"According to our information No.10's Ashikabi is a male known under name Dante, height 6'4", with highly developed musculature, white hair and light-blue eyes. He was admitted at hospital at 23:03, unconscious, covered in blood, with his clothes heavily damaged. After medical inspection he was recognized as completely healthy except for severe case of exhaustion. No signs of any health defects, no signs of any passed diseases, not a single scratch on his body despite the fact that the only blood in which he was covered was recognized as his own, he had absolutely no scar tissue except for his belly-button and there were no allergic reactions at all. None of these five factors is possible for a human or Sekirei. To weaken his immune system and increase effectiveness of administered sedatives our personnel gathered from him amount of blood twice as big, as usually gathered for blood transfusions, counting 800 ml. Sedatives were distributed according to the plan, estimated minimal time for his sleep was 55 hours and 40 minutes. He awoke in less than 17 hours since his admittance to hospital. During this time he was injected with preordained virulent. At his additional check-up after 12 hours after admittance he showed no signs of designated disease at such a period of incubation. After he woke up at 15:21 he proceeded to act with high levels of activity immediately. After two minutes he came into contact with his Sekirei No.10, Uzume. After two minutes he was contacted by Minaka Hiroto as new participant of Sekirei Plan. In the next minute Dante has damaged TV-set used to establish connection with CEO of MBI, presumably by a gun with .45 ACP rounds. In opposition to this theory stands the fact that in the room were absolutely no traces of gunpowder and no bullets, while there were bullet holes. While TV-set was damaged, connection was still on. After confirming this fact Dante got a second gun in his left hand and fired 60 shots in exactly six seconds, with 36 shots from white pistol in his right hand and 24 shots from black pistol in his left hand. When personnel heard gunshots, they called for police, who came with a SWAT team of six members after 17 minutes since that call. After destroying TV-set, Dante used very powerful burst of speed to get dressed in his old cleansed clothes in less than one second. After one minuter he took No.10 on his arms and demolished window with one strike from his right leg. He jumped out of window and escaped hospital's territory in less than 10 seconds. I already send you all related security footages to your computer, Higa-sama." – At the end of prolonged speech Higa was still looking calm, but he adorned contemplating expression and slightly furrowed his eyebrows. Though he was surprised, he already saw the security tapes and incident scene and after his prolonged involvement in Sekirei Plan was inclined to believe in existence of superhuman abilities. Kakizaki was also involved, but less accustomed and tempered, so he was sitting there completely flabbergasted with his jaw hanging as low as possible for human being.
"Holy shit, what kind of monster is THAT..." – Also Kakizaki didn't saw security footage and never, in all time of his partnership with Kochou, heard a joke from her. His cracked whisper showed that he hoped that this was the first time. Seeing her usual calm and serious expression he decided that this was unlikely.
"That is not all, Kakizaki-sama. There were commenced a number of tests on his blood and according to results of these tests we weren't capable of drugging or infecting him with designated methods at Hiyamakai hospital." – At this statement of Kochou both Higa and Kakizaki showed signs of surprise in their expressions. None of these two heard about blood-tests before now, so they were interested to hear their results. At seeing this Kochou fixed her glasses and continued her report.
"According to the basic tests his blood doesn't belong to any of four standard groups, it's unique to the point of barely being human. Also it showed signs of being universal recipient and acted aggressive to the point of mutating recipient's tissue at donor tests. This substance that he has instead of his blood is extremely aggressive to most kinds of toxins and absolutely all kinds of virulent agents. After introducing the blood samples absolutely all kinds of virulent agents were completely destroyed, not a single trace of them in samples. The exceptions to this are ethanol and three types of opiates, list included with description of these reactions, which are within norm. Though even under effects of these substances it still acts the same with other introduced agents. Our specialists were unable to freeze or boil the samples, even though temperature was changed from -67 C° to +728 C°. In 2 ml of blood were dissolved 2.5 g of uranium-238, though there was no reaction with non-radioactive metals. Only one sample of blood got destroyed, when 1 ml of blood was added into a beaker with 500 ml of concentrated sulfuric acid. In process that sample neutralized 47.6% of acid. All of blood samples introduced to extreme conditions and virulent agents radiating unknown type of energy. It's not radioactive, not electrical or thermal. Closest type of energy is the one radiated by Sekirei's Tama, but there're still some substantial differences. In process of all of these experiments were used 97 ml of blood gathered from Dante, of which only 1 ml completely lost. 703 ml is still remains locked until further notice in specifically designated refrigerator with standard temperature regime for keeping blood samples. Therefore, the only reason that Dante stayed in hospital room for this long is a severe case of exhaustion. If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't be able to hold him for half an hour." – And this time both of the males in the room were flabbergasted. Though Higa managed to compose himself first and voiced out his opinions.
"If information on his blood is anything to go by, than this creature is nigh indestructible…" – After he thoughtfully said that he took a deeply contemplating look for a few seconds and suddenly there appeared an evil gleam in his eyes together with wide grin. Higa straitened himself up and looked at his secretary. Kakizaki was still looking very shocked with his hanging jaw, moving lips and glazed over eyes.
"Kakizaki!" – Shout, which was made with commanding tone, seemed to snap Higa's secretary out of his stupor.
"Yes, Higa-sama!" – Without any pause Kakizaki prepared himself to do his job, just as duty tells him.
"We've found our new project." – At the look at the face of his Boss Kakizaki felt his own grin appear on his face.
Around the same time, secret laboratory in the underground of Teito tower
"Yes, that's what I'm talking about! Coming of the New Age of Gods brings us more and more spectacular findings. With this our Game will evolve further, much further and would have new interesting twists! It's like turning a Sim-Game into MMORPG. And these! Would! Be! Our! Mobs!" – Minaka Hiroto, CEO of MBI, certified psycho according to many who met him and genius according to fewer who know him. Scientists working in current lab were handpicked by Minaka and they know for sure that both statements about their boss are right. Right now he is pointing at their newest specimen, while bubbling out some bullshit. That specimen was stranded in the cell with transparent walls, made by project from Minaka himself.
The creature doesn't look like it cares about anything at all, while simply hanging on the chains. Though it always tries to attack people who pass by, and it always end up with useless rattling of the chains. One of the reasons that scientists even gathered here is to study that creature, which looks like a human that was drained of all water. That creature had grey extremely dry looking skin, shining red eyes and tattered black cloak with couple of metallic spikes protruding from its chest. There were other two initially, but they were destroyed by Sekirei No.104 Haihane, member of Disciplinary Squad. Though they cleansed her memories of that day – it was done for a purpose of secrecy of that absolutely new project, supervised by Minaka personally. Well, none of them knows what these creatures are, with two of them leaving behind only piles of simple quartz sand.
But any greenhorn devil hunter would say to you that these are Hell's Prides, some of the weakest denizens of Hell – brainless, aggressive and submissive to greater force. Meaning, they're perfect grunts for high-tier demons. Well there wasn't anyone among these eggheads with demon-hunting experience, so they would need to make a shit-ton of experiments for some result.
"Minaka-sama, according to our analyzes the only thing that was unusual about remains of other two creatures is traces of energy unique to these creatures, that would be about 0.04% compared to minimal passive radiation of similar energy from Object S. And with the rate it disappearing we wouldn't be able to pick it up by our most sensitive scanners in about 14 hours, meaning another 2 hours. And while this creature appears sentient, it's not very smart and too aggressive for any kind of communication between us to work. All parts of its body turn to sand if separated from creature and the only things that we got left are three scythes of these creatures. Their blades are made from above average quality steel with numbers of imperfections in it, while handle are made from some bone-like substance. According to our tests it is a human bone with changed shape with increased durability." – That was report of the current head of research division of Object S. Previous one got killed by one of Hell's Prides.
"Interesting, try and subject our specimen to standard drug tests. I want to see how it would respond to everything! In the meantime, don't be such a killjoy Yuichi-kun, learn to enjoy your job and stop calling the Sword Gifted by the Gods as Object S!" – While saying that, Minaka pointed to other part of the laboratory that was quite far from their specimen's cell. There few scientists from other sub-division were studying other object, placed in giant machine with thick glass shield. There also were a big number of heavily armed and armored guards around this contraption. And in the center of machine itself, covered in sensors, surrounded by moving manipulators, different kinds of emitters, big crystals that glow purple and giving of an aura of purple energy was a sword, like most would say. But those in this lab who worked with this weapon would say that this is The Sword or as it was dubbed in research papers, Object S.
After that Minaka has gone closer to this contraption to once more look at his new toy. His researcher walked away while grumbling something about 'Crazy boss who can't be serious for a freaking day even if that would kill him'. Meanwhile Minaka took another look at The Sword.
It seemingly was a simple weapon, bastard sword with polished blade, silvery cross-guard with simple designs and a skull-shaped pommel with spike coming out of it. Minaka found it in the morning after slight freak-storm stabbed to the hilt at his favorite spot on the balcony connected to his office. Minaka took it appearance there as a Gift from the Gods who saw his actions as right, so he doubled his efforts on the workings of Sekirei Plan and started to use everything at his disposal to work with his new Gift! Some would say that this sword is freaky with this purple aura; some would be slightly interested in this weapon; most would discard it as just a sword… And few would be completely awed by merely seeing the Force Edge, personal Devil Arm of Legendary Dark Knight Sparda himself! So Minaka didn't understand that this sword was more like an invitation to Hell… But then again, he was always quite delusional.
"Koichi-kun, what news can you tell me about the last accident where these three Reapers appeared." – After looking for a few moments at the Force Edge Minaka addressed man in charge of second sub-division, working directly with The Sword. At that one of the scientists turned to Minaka and started to speak with him.
"We make some progress in understanding what happened, though we still need much more time to understand all the intricacies of how it happened. According to our observations, energy emitted by Object S caused some kind of space-time anomaly after it was released in one burst from specified response to the pattern of emitting energy, like some kind parole lock with energy-based key. Also we managed to increase stabilized energy output of the Object by 417% and found a way to store excess released energy in quartz crystals of substantial size. Later we plan to experiment with other types of crystals. Also according to our tests the energy stores insides object don't decrease, they actually increase with each time we introduce it to energy emitters of specified types. We tested possibility of repeating this space-time effect with our smallest quartz crystal. We saw signs of the same space-time anomaly and saw the appearance of new Reaper specimen, but energy output was insufficient to continue." – After that report scientist waited for reaction from Minaka, which came in the form of a calm (that almost freaked egghead out!) question.
"What is the estimated time for Project Gate to be completed?" – It was the first time for many of the workers here to see serious expression on the face of their Boss. That made shivers to go down their spines, including guards.
"With all of the tests required and placing of safety measures first working unit would be ready in a month with power sources for eight more." – The head scientist of Project Gate composed himself before calmly answering that question, but when he saw the grin that started to slowly spread on Minaka's face… He for a moment got a very bad feeling.
"Excellent."
A/N: Mwa-ha-ha-ha! Evil is gathering around this city and that would be so much fun! We shall see how devil brothers would prepare for a coming shitstorm. And yeah, I know that the stuff I wrote about Dante's blood is pretty freaky, but damnit, that's Dante, every drop of his blood just must ooze badassery!
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