Chapter 6

"I'll be taking my leave then." Leo said, standing up and backing away from the chess board. They had been playing for hours, the setting sun a perfect symbol to set the mood.

"Good night, Leo-san. Get home safely, and thank you for indulging me." Sona said standing and extending her hand.

"Trust me, the pleasure was all mine." He grinned, looking at the score board. Both of them were matched at six points, ½ point for each draw and they played 12 games. Taking her hand he shook it firmly, giving a slight bow. "After all it's not every day that one gets to play with the best female chess player in the world."

She smiled at his compliment, a light almost faint blush on her cheeks. "Well, my door is always open to you, should you wish to play again."

"Likewise." Saying that he took his leave, sliding the door closed behind him. For a moment the smile lingered on her face, before she shifted into her trademark stoic behavior. "Ruruko." She commanded.

"Yes Kaichou?" Her pawn asked.

Holding out her hand she stripped off the invisible glove that she had worn, having captured some of Leo fingerprints. Then she gently floated the last set of pieces he had handled into the air and sealed them in individual bags. "Head to the local police station, and have them run these for prints. Hypnotize them to do it as quickly as possible. With all these pieces as well as the glove they should be able to compile it into a full print. If they can't at least with a partial it'll give us some direction."

"Hai." She nodded, getting ready to depart.

"Momo, Reya. Did you get anything with your scans?"

Reya stood up and addressed her King. "I subtly probed at him, and each time the probe failed to pierce his defenses."

"He destroyed them?" Sona asked knowing that there was a difference between actively destroying a probe and it failing to pierce the defenses of the target.

"No, they seemed to run into some sort of defensive barrier." Reya explained. "I tried to take a subtler approach using the faintest of magics, and was partially successful. I was able to detect what I believe to be power suppressor items, on his wrist as well as his throat, a bracelet and necklace most likely. I also picked up on what I believe to be several extradimensional storage items, a dozen single use instant teleportation items, and 2 wands loaded with single action spells."

"Seems like our kouhai, is ready to run in case things get too hot for him." Tsubaki commented. Sona nodded, a dozen teleportation circles was overkill as tracking magics failed to follow the person through and identify locations after 3 transports. "The extradimensional storages items are standard things that adventurers carry with them, and those two wands are probably his fall back weapons as all they're doing is unleashing the stored magic rather than taking it from him. The power suppressor items, now that is unusual."

"Indeed. Those have to be tailored to the individual and are quite expensive to produce." Sona said. "It's too bad that we couldn't see them, knowing what kind of material it was created from would give us an idea of what kind of resources that he has access to, as well as narrow down the list of people capable of producing them."

After finishing her report Reya sat down and Momo stood up. "While Reya was subtly probing and scanning his clothing, I was doing my best to get a judge of his powers as well as race." Sona nodded, she expected nothing less from her two bishops. "I was able to determine that he is human, though there is a great deal of holy light flowing through him."

"A holy sword wielder?" Tomoe asked. As a knight she knew about the Church's greatest exorcists and how they wielded powerful holy swords. A key requirement was the ability for the body to generate and circulate holy energy. The more your body produced the higher your compatibility would be with a holy weapon, and some of the legendary weapons such as the Excaliburs and Ascalon, required a minimum level before they even judged if you were worthy enough to use them.

"I wouldn't be surprised." Momo answered. "The holy element was densely packed and flowing through him."

"Is it possible that he's an exorcist?" Sona asked.

"There's a chance. Heaven and the Vatican wouldn't be able to ignore someone with that much holy element flowing through them."

"I don't think he's a holy sword wielder." Tomoe countered. "His hand didn't have the calluses that one gains with sword training."

"It's possible he's a Dragoon or an Aria." Tsubasa pointed out, referring to the class of exorcists that fought primarily with ranged weapons, and those that fought using verses of the Bible. "With that much holy element in him he might be able to use the Bow of Jonathan. But there have been no sightings of knights." She said. Knights was the technical term for exorcists whose primary focus was close ranged combat, though many of them carried small and discrete light pistols, just as Dragoons often carried shorter light swords.

"He might be a scout." Sona mused. "And Cornelia might be his knight."

"She's not human, but I don't think she's an angel." Her bishops both spoke up.

"Were you able to figure out which Sacred Gear he has?" Their King asked.

Both shook their heads. "Sorry Kaichou." Momo apologized. "But I think that he's already awakened it."

"Hmmm." Sona pondered. "There goes that option. I can't exactly lure him to us with promised to help him unlock his powers if he's already done so." Looking out the window she saw the sun finally setting. "Best to bunker down and set up for the long game."

"Tomoe." She said. "Did he have any reaction when you used Sitri instead of Shitori to call him earlier?"

"No Kaichou." Her knight answered.

"It's possible that he didn't notice the slip up as the pronunciation of the two names only has minor differences in the syllabic stress." She contemplated. "It's also possible that he already knows about our real identity and is playing innocent in order to draw us out." A savage smile blossomed on her face. "Either way the future looks to be quite interesting. And he is without a doubt 10x the challenge that the Ape poses."

"Do you want him to join us?" Tsubaki inquired.

"I don't know yet." Sona admitted. "Right now continue to gather information on him. Once we know a little more about him I'll be able to make my decision."

"Hopefully we are able to find something, on him." She continued. "I haven't told Rias about my suspicions yet, as she would no doubt draw her brother into this and eventually my sister."

"And also because you enjoy a challenge." Tsubaki said.

"That I do." She smiled staring at the now empty chess board. A wave of her hand later and a new set of pieces appeared, this time bearing her image as king and her peerage with their respective pieces. Across the board the black king took the shape of Leo and the Queen, Cornelia. "And Leopold Aurelianus is shaping up to be one of my greatest conquests."

Meanwhile Leo had already teleported to where he and Cornelia were staying and after briefing her on what had happened they both headed to their respective workshops. When he got to his shop the first thing that he did was set the time dilation to 24:1 meaning 24 hours inside for every one hour on the outside. As soon as that was done he moved to the receiving room, where all incoming packages and shipments were stored. Smiling at the sight of hundreds of copper and silvery zinc blocks he knew that he had his work cut out for him, but before that he went to his mailbox and check for a response from Njall Vidarr, who ran the import/export business of Nidavellir.

Breaking the seal on the letter he skimmed it over, before putting it into his pocket. The letter was what he had expected, as Njall and he had done business many times before. After the pleasantries and greetings the dwarf had opened up with a 15:1 exchange rate for his imperial gold to Uru, as well as giving a date and meeting place in order to further conduct negotiations. Hell the dwarf knew that there was no way he'd settle for a 15:1 ratio of imperial gold to Uru. He'd settle for nothing less than 8:1 and even that was high. A part of him really regretted not buying that store of Mithril when it was on sale, but there were other legendary metals that were equivalent. Dismissing it he opened the Abyss Auction catalogue and ran through the offers, idly marking certain raw materials while putting in bids for others. When he had finished he took a hand cart and began to load several bricks of copper and zinc which he would be using to form the cases of his new bullets.

Now normally you'd need to melt the copper before adding zinc to create brass, all the while taking out the impurities, but with alchemy the process was much simpler. The copper he was using was Nidavellir certified 99.9% pure, the same with the zinc, and saved him a lot of time. Placing both the copper and the zinc in the middle of a large transmutation circle, he made sure that his calculations were correct before pumping power into the circle.

In a flash of light both the piles of material were replaced by thousands of identical and empty cartridge casings. Each was perfect and had no imperfections in them that could lead to the cases being breached during firing. Later he'd take them and individually fortify them so that they could handle his hot loads. Besides the cases was a solid block of waste, all the imperfections that existed in the metal had been removed and forced into this block. Eventually he would take this block and the hundreds of others like it and using alchemy see if he could split it into its pure base elements, and hopefully he'd be able to salvage a bit of material.

Taking the cases he measured them just to make sure that they were the required 3.900 inches he required. His work allowed for no failures and the last thing he needed was for one of his rounds to not chamber. Best to triple measure that way there were no accidents out in the field. Happy with the results he got he stored them in a container and pulled out a box full of brass that had already been reinforced with magic. These he sprayed with a light coating of lubricant before setting them up for priming.

For the next several hours he primed and flared the cases, and once he was done with them they were set to the side having been divided into several groups. Next he brought out the powder he used, filling each one with 235grs, followed by taking out the projectiles. They were almost visually the same to one another, each having a long boat tail at the end, a very small and pointed meplat, and a secant ogive but what differentiated them from the others was the various colors that the tips were painted. Some were unpainted signifying ball ammo, green for tracer, red for incendiary and some were a mix of colors, but the one that he was most interested in was the black tips. Well black tips was a bit misleading as the tip wasn't black but silvery grey, however the sabot that held the projectile was black. These didn't shoot lead copper jacketed bullets but rather saboted light armor penetrator tungsten projectiles.

The reason for using this was because of intent. These bullets were created with the intended purpose of piercing through the toughest armors, and he used this as a basis for their enchantments. Instead of layering the concept of Piercing onto them he merely fortified it a thousand fold, taking the bullet's abilities to the absolute pinnacle. Sure he could've done the same with any other bullet as they still had the idea of piercing and killing the target from their conception, but these because they were conceived to pierce through defenses were much easier to enchant.

The bullets were seated, the powder compressed, and the cases crimped before he checked each completed cartridge over to make sure the overall length matched exactly what he wanted. For several hours he did this restocking his supplies to peak capacity, and when he was finally done he this area of the workshop to go to the war room.

A massive table dominated the bulk of the room, and atop it was a map of Kuoh with various 3-D models of key buildings such as Azazel's home, the Academy, the abandoned church, and the various locations that the Sitri and Gremory peerage called home.

From the scouting reports Azazel had given him, he had been able to also map out the various people that had scheduled contracts with the devils. Like he had told Sona earlier, information was power and he would win this war. He knew what she was doing, saw the bait that she had dangled in front of him. He had felt the subtle probing of her bishop's magics. How her knight said Sitri instead of Shitori, and her attempt to ferret out information. He smiled, down at the table.

In addition to the various models it also had his troop movement, in this case Cornelia's golem corp. transporting the various golems had been a chore though it was done easily, but the results spoke for themselves. He now had 250 mini golems placed throughout the city hiding everywhere from sewers, to buried in the dirt. These golems weren't any larger than an action figure, but when given the command they would automatically resize themselves to their original 15ft.

She may have been a chess prodigy but war and chess had very little in common. You couldn't pull off flanking maneuvers in chess, couldn't drop enemies in behind her lines, and most of all you couldn't use their fear and terror against them. At times like this he felt like he should get a cat to stroke while contemplating his stratagems, but Lia hated felines in general. He wasn't even allowed to puff on a cigar anymore as she didn't like the smell, and he valued her above his desire for a smoke. Maybe he should get a dog?

Sona's choice of peerage exemplified her fighting style, she relied on copious amounts of information on the enemy to plan effective strategies and counterstrategies, but in war information was a scarce resource. Each one of her peerage members was a scalpel, but they would fall apart as the slightest sign of chaos. She had chosen her subordinates to fight and triumph in rating games, not real life frontline warfare. Individually each of her members lacked the stopping power required to put down or hold the line against a surprise attack from a powerful opponent that she didn't account for.

Conjuring another model to represent the golem troops he placed it in the school. While difficult it wouldn't be impossible for them to place a few to act as a distraction in case they needed to escape. Sona's tactical genius was easy enough to account for, and for all her skills and strategies she was predictable. Gremory on the other hand was harder to plan against. While she was nowhere near as tactically minded as Sona, she was no slouch. The only thing working in his favor was the fact that most of her peerage was borderline power-types and she had only one technique-type.

Looking at the far wall that had pictures of both heiresses and their peerages his eyes narrowed on the Gremory's. The technique type could easily be dealt with, all his research said that like most knights Gremory's focused on close range combat, using their sacred gear Sword Birth to capitalize on enemy weaknesses. A light round in the leg would drastically decrease the knight's mobility and making them easier to deal with, or he could lure them into an area of his choosing, carefully laced with caltrops to halt their rapid movement, his last option was to go with a wide spread attack that they had no chance of dodging. Overall her knight's thereat level was low. Her rook wouldn't be a problem either as the foolish girl had sealed off most of her powers, his rifle could turn her into mincemeat, her rook enhanced defenses offering all the protection of paper against enchanted bullets. Threat level low. The queen would be a pain to deal with as she was Barakiel's daughter and no harm could befall her. He could temporarily seal her in a pocket dimension, that would be the easiest way to deal with her. Threat level medium due to complications in her subduction. Once those three were dealt with Gremory's defeat would be child's play. He'd capitalize on her clan's caring nature, hurting her peerage would drive her into a rage and make her attacks sloppy. He had nothing to fear from the power of destruction if her aim was completely off. She would likely be able to fire off a few fully powered shots before she tired herself out and then it would be checkmate, a single bullet to the heart. Threat level low.

Even with all these plans he would've preferred the job to go smoothly, resulting in nothing more than him getting a paycheck before packing up and moving from here.

However there were several loose ends to tie up before they could call this complete. Who ordered the Fallen to assassinate Issei? What was their endgame? While he had a gut feeling on who ordered the Fallen to kill the boy he couldn't prove anything.

Now though he had to deal with a possible rampaging Red Dragon Emperor. No doubt the boy would be approached by Gremory within the next few days, who would then use the current situation to draw him to her side. The last thing he needed was for the boy to find out that Yuuma Amano was really the one to almost kill him and go on a quest for revenge. If he did Leo would put a bullet into him before he even realized he was there. The idea of putting him down before Gremory could approach him was actually quite appealing. Staging an accident would be no trouble, nor would be hiring the local gangs to attack him. A mugging gone wrong? Or perhaps he should fabricate evidence that the boy had finally crossed over the line into criminal behavior. After all he already had such a terrible reputation at school and in the community that the idea of him snapping and sexually assaulting someone was easily believable. If he went that route he'd need to doctor a few pictures that would've served as Hyoudou's trophies, before the boy returned to reality and realized his mistake. One suicide note later, a length of rope, and the situation would be resolved. It wouldn't be the first time that he had staged a death, though normally it was something he was paid to do.

Hmmmm. Decisions. Decisions.

In the end though he decided to shelve any plans for assassinating the current host of the Red Dragon Emperor for the simple fact that Vali would be angry at him for stealing her fight. The girl was a complete battle-maniac and would demand that he took the place of her rival. Not that it would be much of a fight anyways, as Hyoudou posed as much a threat to Vali as an ant against a tank. The two were completely incomparable. While he may have decided not to kill the boy right now, he still planned several contingencies to be used if the boy ever became a threat.

With that done, his basic objectives set and plans to bring them about created he left the war room and headed back to the library. Ars Goethica, the grimoire that he had purchased just a few days ago lay on the largest table next to reams of blank paper that he would use to sketch out and take notes while reading. He devoted the next six days to pouring over the manuscript, and even then he barely managed a fifth of it, as the amount of arcane knowledge held within the book threatened to burn out his brain. Reading a grimoire wasn't like reading a regular spell book, the grimoire literally transferred knowledge into the reader's brain as well as their magic. Overexert yourself and you'd end up a pile of smoldering ash. He would need to rest for several days and limit his casting to weak spells in order to fully recover but when he did he could continue his study of the grimoire.

Soon enough though the time came for him to leave his workshop, and after making sure that everything was properly fixed and he had no orders coming in he sealed the rooms and left the pocket dimension. 7 hours had passed in the real world, and he arrived just in time to see the sun beginning to rise.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" Cornelia said, wrapping her arms around him. "I wonder what it must feel like from Heaven, Mother told me that it was an indescribable feeling."

"It is beautiful." Leo agreed, basking in the warmth that it brought about. "Though try to remember we're in Amaterasu's domain."

She chuckled, knowing exactly what he meant by that. "She still scares you doesn't she?"

The slight stiffening in his posture told her all that she needed to know. Taking her arms she spun him around, snuggling into her chest as he wrapped his arms around her. "I love you." He said placing a kiss on her forehead.

"I love you too." She answered. The moment was picture perfect, and neither one wanted to break it, but they had work to do.

"Best to get ready for school." Leo sighed, none too eager to separate from her.

"No choice." She grumbled, leaving his embrace and moving towards her room. Minutes later they were both dressed in their uniforms, Leo as always the very picture of wickedly cultured, his uniform made of fine materials and everything about him meticulously combed and pressed. Cornelia had discretely lengthened her skirt as she did not like how short it was, and she had no intention of giving anyone a free show should the wind blow or she take walk up the stairs.

"Sone Sitri is going to call you in today after school." He reminded.

"I'll try to play nice." Lia grinned.

"Please do. If given the choice I'd prefer to be on good terms with the Sitri clan over Gremory." Leo said. "I'll watch our target later on today while you're being interrogated by Sitri."

"Alright. Do you want some of my golems as backup?" She asked.

He shook his head. "There shouldn't be any need for them." Saying that he wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her out to the garage, once again taking Azazel's Mercedes to school. This time he drove normally, almost sedately as the two traded idle chatter and enjoyed each other's presence. When they pulled up to the lot they saw Hyoudou Issei being beaten by the kendo club, a fake and innocent smile on Yuuma's face as she saw her 'ex-boyfriend' being pummeled into the ground with shinais.

"Are you planning on continuing with that club?" Leo deadpanned seeing them begin to beat the other two members of the perverted trio.

"Of course." She answered. "Their forms are quite sloppy and I feel like it my duty to help educate them in the fine art of the blade."

"Noblesse Oblige?" He asked with a raised brow.

"It's the duty of those who are better to act with generosity to those underneath." She said haughtily.

He shot her a questioning look, knowing what she was spouting and what she was sawing were completely contradictory. In all the time he had known her she was more likely to demean those underneath her rather than attempt to help them. She also wouldn't hesitate to seeing the impoverished as a sign of weakness to be exploited for her gain.

Shaking his head in disbelief he continued to watch as the Hyoudou Issei was beaten, none of the teachers intervening. After about 5 minutes he was nothing more than an unrecognizable pulp, a mass of black and blue that oddly twitched. "Show's over." He said heading to class.

Once again class was boring, and he drifted in and out of consciousness. When the final bell had rung, Tomoe had asked Cornelia to come with her to Student Council Room. He shot his partner a looking reminding her not to kill anyone before getting up from his seat.

"Kyaaa!" Several girls and boys squealed from the doorway. Turning he saw the so called "Princess" of Kuoh, Kiba Yumi, moving towards Hyoudou Issei. She was a beautiful girl with slate grey eyes and long blonde hair that reached her waist. The Kuoh uniform suited her stunning figure and the corset emphasized her ample chest while the short skirt showed off the long and toned legs. She's definitely built for speed. He thought trying not to stare.

"What's Yumi-sama doing going near that pervert for?" One of the girls asked.

"Stay away from Hyoudou! You'll be defiled!" Another girl screamed, every female in the room nodding their heads in agreement.

"He must be blackmailing her! Right? I mean that's the only reason a loser like him could get a beauty like her!" The thought passed through several people's minds as they glared at the pervert.

"Kill. Kill. Kill." Several of the male members chanted, glaring at Issei with all the fury they could muster. Needless to say that if looks could kill then not even a pentaquark of the boy would've been left in existence.

"Hi." Yumi greeted, a thousand watt smile on her face. "Hyoudou Issei, right?"

The boy could do nothing more than nod dumbly while trying to keep his mouth closed.

"Great." She beamed. "My club president, Rias Gremory, would like a word with you. Please follow me."

As the two brushed past him, he purposefully knocked himself into Hyoudou, and in the brief moment of contact slapped several listening charms on to the boy.

"Watch it." The boy said, only to falter as Leo glared at him, as if he were beneath him.

"Kyaaa."

"The Ice Prince."

"Please glare at me."

"He's so handsome." One girl said dreamily.

Inwardly he sighed, wondering just how he got the nickname Ice Prince. It wasn't like he was that cold to his classmates. Maybe it was because of his hair?

Either way he stepped outside the class and began to make his way out to the courtyard, ignoring the glances and looks that were shot his way. Arriving at a relatively isolated spot he drew his cloak laden with invisibility charms and pulled up the hood, disappearing from view. Just in case someone had seen him disappear the activation of the cloak sent out a brief pulse of magic wiping the memories of everyone close by clean of the past 10 seconds, more than enough to move. Rather than actively use magic which could be detected he activated one of the enchantments on his shoes and leapt to the top of the school, landing lightly on the roof, his gaze directed at the Old School Building.

Even if he didn't have any information about the location of the devils, it was quite obvious that this served as someone's base, with the amount of demonic magic emanating from the structure not to mention the amount of protections that surrounded the building. Reaching into his pocket he withdrew a pair of old fashioned glasses with various lens that could be moved into position to act as magnifiers. Flipping through the various lenses he finally found the one the proper combination that allowed him to see the entire ward structure. "Flimsy." He muttered cycling through another combination to make sure that there were none that he missed. Analyzing the ward structure he isolated the ones that prevented eavesdropping and spying, his accelerated thought processes already devising the needed formula to counteract her defenses. A few minutes later he managed to break through her defenses, and lay prone on the roof, drawing his rifle out of his dimensional storage. Once the wards were nullified it was child's play to send a quick burst of magic out like an active sonar getting the position of everyone in the building. While there was a chance that the pulse would be detected especially by a good bishop, he wasn't too worried, trusting in his cloak and numerous masking and invisibility charms to protect him. At this point the only way someone would be able to find him was if they tripped over his prone form.

Got you. He grinned detecting the 5 people in the room, the density of the demonic element a telltale sign of each person. Knight's demonic energy was focused in their legs granting their speed. A rook was dense and stagnant though it was in the entire body showing their powerful offense and defense. The queen embodied all the traits but not to the level of the specialized pieces and lastly the King's piece was located in the heart. Hyoudou's pitiful magic potential and life force was easily distinguishable from the supernatural beings that were in the room. "Black tips." He commanded his rifle, pulling the bolt back and chambering the conceptual bullet. His cheek firmly against the raised rest he looked down the sights the enchanted scope peeling away the various layers of sheetrock and wood to reveal the interior of the room.

His finger itched to take the shot, but he knew that it would give him nothing but trouble. Moving the crosshairs away from Rias' heart he focused in on Issei, keeping the boy in his sights as he triggered the listening charms.

Gremory looked like she had just gotten out of the shower, her alabaster skin had a faint sheen to it as a few drops of water rolled between her ample breasts. Her uniform clung to her skin emphasizing her curves. He snorted at the blatant manipulation, though acknowledged that this was probably the easiest way to manipulate the walking incarnate of perversity.

"Please enjoy." Akeno Himejima said coming from the attached kitchenette and placing a cup of tea in front of him. She placed several more cups in front of each person before putting the pot on the table.

"Ah. Thank you." Issei stammered, his face flush as he took the cup and quickly gulped it down, choking a moment later as the hot liquid made its way down his throat.

"Ufufufufu." Akeno giggled, placing a hand over her mouth. She took a seat next to Rias, and everyone sipped at their tea, occasionally staring at Hyoudou. The boy fidgeted under their gazes, the silence overwhelming, a classic psychological technique to help break a person.

Just as it looked like he was about to get up and run under the pressure Rias began. "Are you aware of why you were called here?" She crossed her arms underneath her bust pushing up her breasts as she leaned back into the chair.

That simple movement was enough to draw the boy's attention, a lecherous look on his face as he began to speak without even realizing it. "No."

She smiled. "I was wondering what you're greatest desire is."

"Huh?" He said stupidly.

"What is your greatest desire?" Rias repeated.

"TO BE A HAREM KING!" The boy declared proudly, shooting to his feet. If this weren't such a serious situation Leo would've face-palmed followed by shooting the fool. However he couldn't help but feel his jaw drop in disbelief. He knew that the boy was a self-proclaimed harem king, but still to think that was his greatest desire in life.

Akeno giggles, Yumi sweatdropped, Koneko stared at him like an insect to be squished, and finally Rias smiled at his enthusiasm. "Tell me. If I were to grant you your wish, what would you do?"

"Anything!" He nodded.

"Then tell me. Will you die for me?" She grinned darkly.

Issei froze, his entire body shivering. "What?"

"I asked if you would die for me?" Rias said.

"How-?" He stuttered.

"Don't you remember you're date with Yuuma Amano, this past weekend?" She asked.

"How do you know about that?" He whispered. "No one else believes me."

"Yuuma Amano. She came to you after school one day, asking you out on a date." Rias said. "Then after the date she stabbed you, leaving you for dead." The boy was growing paler with every word she spoke. "You've been dragged into a world that you're ill prepared for."

"Who are you?"

She smiled at him broadly before standing, her peerage following her lead. They towered over him, their shadows dancing in the dimming light. "Why my name is Rias Gremory, Heiress to the House of Gremory." Menacing bat-like wings sprouted from their back. "And I am a Devil."

Issei's eyes rolled back into his head, as he fainted.