Welcome!
By now, you're probably sick of reading apologies and excuses about delays and writer's block. Frankly, I'm sick of writing them, so I'll endeavor to not do that anymore.
I'll keep saying this for every chapter, however, because it definitely needs to be said: Thank you! I am so thrilled that this has come as far as it has, and even more thrilled that you all like it!
Disclaimer: I do not own High School DxD, nor do I own Type Moon or any of its intellectual properties.
Published: July 1, 2021
Updated: April 1, 2022
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Chapter 8 – Siege
With Tobio having gone to deal with the Stray exorcists holed up in the abandoned church, minus his canine companion, that left Connor with a very unusual house guest, and the lingering possibility of someone coming to finish what the home invaders had started.
The magus was just now finishing up his work on the door, having spent little more than five minutes on it. It was a quick fix; a hastily constructed barricade using the original door, the dining room table and the lounge chair from the living room, all of which were sandwiched together by Nauthiz runes across every contacting surface of the objects in question. The whole thing was ugly, but functional. Nothing would be coming in or going out unless the door itself was obliterated for one reason or another.
This left Connor's only way out to be the patio, which was less than optimal, but only temporary. His shoes would have to stay on while inside for tonight.
He had also taken some time to rummage through the dead exorcists' equipment and tools. Both men had been carrying one firearm and one melee weapon, as well as several other tools for work in the field of 'purging the unholy.'
Among the most intriguing loot was one of their light swords, if he dared call it that. Weighing rather lightly in his hand compared to the runic sword, the hilt had a slanted guard at the top and several sections of lightweight metal of different thicknesses composing its main body. Toward the bottom, the weapon bore a rubberized grip that housed what he assumed to be the power cell, and was capped with a pommel bearing short semi-circular grooves and a clip to hang from a belt.
When he pressed a recessed button near the top, a blade of light shot out and came to a stop at about the length of his arm. He would readily admit that he got lost for a moment, transfixed on this surreal fusion of technology and magic. The light blue glow was pleasing to the eye and the hum it generated was almost hypnotic. Even better was that, unlike his runic sword, there was no counterweight to the weapon; everything was in the hilt.
If he ever got a hold of multiple light swords, he could see himself not leaving the apartment for a long time, even at the expense of school. He'd be far too busy dismantling the weapons and trying to learn how they worked. Just thinking about it brought a smile to his face.
While he familiarized himself with his new weapon and added a couple of runes to the outer casing, he attempted to break the ice with Jin.
"So, uhh… How does Tobio talk with you?"
Jin tilted his head.
"Does he talk to you like this all the time," he pointed back and forth between the two of them, "or can you two talk telepathically?"
Jin lifted his paw and tapped it on the floor twice.
"Telepathy, then?" Jin nodded. "Alright, makes sense. Can you do that with anyone?"
Connor could've sworn he saw the dog's left eyebrow quirk.
"Er, what I mean is… when you jumped into that shadow up on the roof, I assumed you could do that with anything, or anyone, right?" Jin nodded. "Well, if you jump into a person's shadow, can you talk with them telepathically?"
A sideways shake of the dog's head shot him down.
"Oh. Okay," he muttered in disappointment. "Guess we're stuck like this, huh?"
Jin shrugged, which made his mane puff up a little bit.
"Well, could be worse. Incidentally, beside shadow hopping, what else can you do?"
Jin stared at him for a few seconds, and an uncomfortable silence ensued. Connor got his answer, though, when the shadows around him and Jin ripped themselves from the ground and the walls, gathering around the canine's mane. When they stopped, Jin stood up and bristled. The shadows burst outward and formed multiple sharpened edges along his body. His head, back, shoulders, legs and even tail were all now covered in sickle-shaped blades, and each one looked sharp enough to slice through steel like it were paper.
Then, the shadowy blades began to move again. Like snakes in the grass, they slithered back into his body, up his neck and face, converging at his mouth and forming a pitch black scimitar. Clutching the winding grip in his teeth, he looked up at Connor. Engraved along the cutting edge, Connor could see some kind of characters in a glowing blood red, not unlike Jin's eyes.
"Whoa…" Moving closer, he inspected the blade. While the glowing characters were from a language he had never seen before, they bore a faint resemblance to both Hebrew and Arabic in certain places.
Before the magus could ask any further, Jin's ears suddenly perked up and his head jerked toward the door. The sudden movement made Connor jump back a bit, as focused as he was on the sword. Jin got to his feet as a snarl began to emanate from his throat, and his eyes narrowed. The hair along his back was standing straight up, much like an actual dog's fur when they felt threatened.
Connor was about to ask what was wrong, until he felt it for himself.
Six signatures had just crossed the Bounded Field. One matched up to the power level of the man he'd met earlier, while the other five weren't quite as large as the man's, but still stronger than that of a human. The Devil was back, and he brought friends. Connor stood up and looked to his temporary companion.
"Yeah, looks like we got company. Come on, I'm not waiting around this time."
He went for the patio, with Jin preemptively hopping into his shadow. If he could catch them off guard, then maybe he could take down a few before things got out of hand.
For a magus to be the aggressor was unthinkable, but if he had any chance at all against six enemies, he had to strike first.
Tobio had kept a swift and steady pace on his way to the church, only slowing down once he got within visual range of the decrepit building.
His plan of attack was simple: Eliminate all hostiles currently on site, use what he could find to draw in and eliminate the remaining hostiles, then get the dhampir to safety. Since Canis Lykaon allowed him to produce blades from any shadow within his field of vision, he needed only to view sources of light and follow the shadows cast by objects around that light in order to best turn a fight in his favor. If the state of this place at first glance was any clue, he would have very little trouble should it come to that, even without Jin beside him.
Approaching the nearest corner of the church and placing his hand on the wall, he sensed an energy similar to that of the Field surrounding Connor's apartment building. It was barely noticeable, but the sensation was like a difference in air pressure as one stepped into a pocket of cold air on a warm night. Less stuffy and even somewhat relaxing. Other than exist, though, it didn't seem to do anything, so he moved on. He could ask about it later.
From an open window, he gave a quick scan of the chapel and spotted his first targets. Two men, one sitting on a pew near the front and tinkering with something, the other pacing back and forth across the floor humming a tune to himself. The shadows around the first man provided all he needed to eliminate them quickly.
He crept around to the entrance and slipped through without a sound. He watched from behind an open doorway and waited until the second guard came back around to his cohort, then took the shot. Shadowy spikes erected from the floor and plunged into the base of the men's skulls, killing them instantly. Several more spikes pierced the standing exorcist and kept him upright, easing the body down to prevent it from making noise were it to fall. The man in the pew just slumped backward and came to rest with his head facing up.
The Grigori agent let out an agitated breath. There were days when he hated his job, even when it had to be done. He didn't enjoy killing. It reminded him too much of the classmates he'd been forced to kill years ago after the Utsusemi Agency came hunting for him and the other survivors of their pet project, and it was a long time before he finally came to terms with what he'd needed to do. Back then, it was in self-defense, and he was putting his peers out of their misery, unlike here, where the mission specifically called for these men to die in order to prevent more suffering.
Without another glance to the two corpses, Tobio walked to the altar and ascended the steps, not making even slightest of sounds.
'Now, about this wall.'
He went from left to right against the back wall, lightly tapping his finger against it and listening for a difference in sound. After a few seconds of searching, he discovered a section of wood amidst the stone wall just large enough for one person to move through with relative ease. Silently, he congratulated the exorcists; from a distance, even with his trained eyes, this fake wall was practically invisible.
He conjured a blade in his right hand and traced the line between the real wall and the wood until he found a suitable gap. Levering the blade like a pry bar, he slowly pushed the blade forward and kept his left hand against the false wall, pulling it up and out with barely a creak.
The whole thing was little more than a plywood cutout, with bracing legs at the back to hold it up. Behind the cutout, a long staircase descended below ground, where he could make out faint voices coming from around the corner to a left hand turn.
Carefully, he set the door aside and began traversing down the stairs, his eyes adjusting quickly to the darkness. He checked the corner, and could now see light at the bottom. Watching every step, he moved against the wall slowly until he reached the end of the staircase and stopped. A quick scan of the hidden room revealed it to be an old storage room, based on the unused boxes and plastic containers stashed in one corner.
His targets, or at least a sizable number of them, were holed up down here as well. Six men were positioned on small fold-up cots to the left of the basement entrance. Three of them were asleep, two more were eating snacks while sitting up, the sixth was relaxing and reading from a smartphone, and four others were further away in the center of the room, standing on some sort of diagram lit with candles around the outer edge. They were in a quiet but heated discussion, based on the gestures of one big man in particular.
Counting the two dead men upstairs and the two from the apartment, the total came out to fourteen.
Ten on one was normally a bad idea for close quarters. Here, though, he had full advantage. The hanging light fixtures and candlesticks along the walls were the only lights to be found, providing plenty of shadows by which he could use his Gear to attack without them even knowing he was there.
If nothing else, they would get a quick death.
At that moment, he heard something skitter across the floor. Looking down, he saw the blur of a small creature with a long tail vanish into a hole in the wall.
One of the snacking men stopped and looked around. "What was that?"
Tobio backed up a bit, but still kept the group in his sight.
"What was what?" the man's fellow eater asked, halfway through a protein bar.
"That sound, did you not hear it?"
"No, 's probly just a mouse lookin' for crumbs. I've seen 'em in here before, don't worry 'bout it."
"No, no, that… didn't sound like a mouse. It was like a-"
"Ugh, Diedrich, don't even start." The reader griped while he set his phone down and sat up. "Nobody wants to hear you go on and on about what you think every little noise could be."
"Go back to your fantasy novel, asshole."
"I will, just as soon as you stop being so damn paranoid. It's fucking irritating."
"Would you guys just shut up?! You-guurk!"
"Whoa, what-aaugh!"
The argument was violently stopped as Tobio took the chance swiftly cut down one man after another, giving no time for any of them to act; sickles tearing open their throats, spikes stabbing their skulls and hearts. Those who died immediately were the lucky ones. In a fraction of a second, he slaughtered all ten men in the room, including the ones by the circle, with a flick of a wrist.
With the area clear, Tobio stepped around the corpses and toward the diagram to get a better look. Using his phone's camera feature, he went about taking pictures of the evidence in preparation for his eventual report. He'd seen this ritual before when he and Shemhazai oversaw the extraction of a Sacred Gear from a Stray Devil that had killed two of their operatives, so he knew what to look for.
The layout of the base was correct, as were the specific symbols and the needed numbers of them, but the symbols were misaligned and in the wrong places, which would cause interference at crucial points in the ritual's process. Smudge marks from erased earlier attempts gave the impression that this group really was just using trial and error to solve the problem, with no success. They were just spinning their wheels and digging themselves into a deeper pit.
Shaking his head, having seen all he needed to of this, Tobio pocketed his phone glanced around the room to continue his search. His eyes stopped when they came upon two wooden doors recessed in the middle of one wall. Both were held in place with padlocks and simple hasps bolted to the wall.
Nothing a shadow blade couldn't quickly sever.
He pushed the now unlocked right hand door open, and was greeted to the sight of a body lying on the ground mere feet from the exit.
His heart sank, believing himself to be too late. He bent down to examine them, and on closer inspection, he found that the body belonged to the person he was here to retrieve. Pointed ears and sharp fangs for top canine teeth indicated her to be the dhampir these men were holding captive.
"Miss? Miss, can you hear me?" No response. He frowned and checked her pulse and breathing next. To his relief, he could see her stomach was rising and falling with every breath, and her pulse was weak but still active. He went back to grab a flashlight from one of the dead exorcists, then gently pulled open of her eyes –a striking ruby color with a slit pupil– and shined the light directly into it. The pupil dilated, which was enough for him.
She was alive, but incognitive.
Tobio knew enough magic to treat minor injuries and even stabilize someone until a medical specialist could help, but this was beyond his skill level. She needed the Grigori's doctors.
First things first, though. The remaining exorcists needed to be dealt with. He laid the woman back down and shut the door to her room. He then rummaged through the corpses to pick out all the beacons he could find. Just as he'd suspected, every one of them had one.
The agent pulled the bodies of the dead exorcists off to the side of the chamber and piled them all underneath the cots. While he worked, he grabbed their weapons and tools before dumping it all into the shadow pocket. The equipment could be put to better use with more loyal Grigori operatives, and he could pick and choose what Connor received as a 'bonus' once the job was done.
He hit the button for the first two beacons, then another two, then three, then the remaining five, timing every set so as to imitate a wave among those at the church calling for backup. Once the devices were active, he scattered them across the center of the floor and destroyed all the light fixtures and candles, plunging the chamber into complete darkness. They would be blind as bats down there without something to provide light. Not that those would be of any help to them.
He didn't have to wait for very long. Within about five minutes, footsteps could be heard directly above on the rickety old boards, followed by a clamorous group of voices all shouting out, "Clear!"
"All clear here! Secure the chamber!"
Taking cover in the recess to the dhampir's dooway, he watched and waited as more armed men descended the stairs, flashlights and guns drawn.
He waited until he could see nobody else coming down the stairs.
And then…
Light's out.
"What? What happened?"
"The hell's wrong with my flashlight?"
"Somebody get- AAAGH!"
The very darkness around the men became a gauntlet of ethereal blades, cutting them down before they even realized what was in there with them. Their screams of agony could barely be released before their lives were ended, and the few that died last did so with abject fear gripping their hearts, pleading for help from the God they had turned their backs on. The help never came.
Once more, a seamless group assassination.
When the last body dropped, all was quiet once again. In the pitch-black basement, Tobio counted close to twenty corpses scattered here and there. But he could sense someone else inside the church. There were two other presences that hadn't followed the crowd, and were waiting upstairs. They were at least suspicious of a potential trap, it seemed.
This was fine. He could more than handle just two combatants.
Cautiously, in the event that they had their guns trained on the basement entrance, he trekked back up the stairs while hugging the wall. He stopped just at the doorway, keeping himself hidden from the light as he assessed the chapel.
His two remaining targets were standing between the front row of pews, weapons drawn but showing no signs of moving from their position. Of the two, the shorter one with white hair and red eyes looked to be about in his teens. Beside him was a much older man, his eyes wide with anger and his face covered from ear to ear with stubble.
"Yeah, see? Didn't I tell ya it was a bad idea to follow them?" the younger of the two quipped with a smile.
"So you did. Then again, this wouldn't be happening if you had just stuck to the plan and not screwed us over!" the older man spat.
"Fuck you, I was getting jittery from murder withdrawal."
"Never should've brought you here," the man sneered before looking at Tobio, who had stepped out of the doorway. "Alright, look, we had a top-tier Sacred Gear ready for picking, and we were so close to extracting it. All we needed was just a little more time."
Tobio simply stared at him, wondering how this man thought he'd buy that lie. Even his companion looked at him with snide disbelief.
The man clicked his tongue when he got no answer. "Tch, nevermind. Go ahead, Freed, kill him."
"Cool."
What happened next made even Tobio pause.
Without an ounce of hesitation or mercy, the young man, 'Freed,' brought his arm straight up and pulled the trigger. Instead of aiming at Tobio, however, he had pointed the firearm at his fellow exorcist's head. The high caliber round entered the man's right temple and blasted out the left side of his skull, scattering blood, skull fragments and brain matter in a wide cone. His eyes rolled up into his head as he collapsed against the pew, dead before his body hit the ground.
A malevolent smile spread on Freed's previously smug face. Holstering his pistol, he turned back to address Tobio and let out a sigh of contentment.
"It's always so satisfying to kill a guy who's been a pain in the ass from day one. You know what I mean? So. Goddamn. Bossy!"
"Do you make it a habit of killing your colleagues while on the job?" Tobio jabbed.
Freed's smile dropped for a half second, then morphed into a grin before he threw his head back and laughed uproariously. "Heh… Hehehehe- Hahahahaha! AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
Tobio didn't see what was so funny.
"Hah, heh… C-Colleagues?! That is the best joke I've heard in a long time, hahahaha! Ah-hah, aah… oh, hell, thank you, I needed that." He cleared his throat before continuing. "But, back on topic. Nah, it was just a perfect shot, too good to pass up. They were all expendable, just like you and me. All they really wanted was that bloodsucker's Sacred Gear, but I'm the only one who had the forethought to plan ahead in case what we got from Grigori wasn't actual reinforcements. Shows you what I was working with, doesn't it?"
"So you know who sent me?" Tobio asked while stepping down from the stage to get on even ground with his last target.
Freed moved to stand equidistant from both pews to his sides. "Well, duh. This isn't my first rodeo, pal. I was just surprised you didn't come sooner. Grigori kill squads are usually a lot faster than this. What'd you do, stop to smell the flowers?"
"And you don't care one bit that the dhampir does in fact have a Sacred Gear?"
"Fuck no, I got swindled! That son of a bitch promised me that I could kill all the shitty devils this rat's nest of a town had to offer while they worked," Freed gestured to the corpse of the man he executed. "But once I got here and found out the whole job had gone to shit, he went back on that promise and said the bloodsucker's Gear was more important. I only stuck around long enough for a cleanup crew to come kill the others so I could kill him without much hassle. You do not double-cross Freed Sellzen and live to talk about it. It just does not happen."
"So, in retaliation to him, you put a death mark on your whole group by causing trouble the Grigori couldn't afford to ignore," Tobio summarized.
"It's always worked before," Freed answered with a remorseless smirk.
'Just how many people have died because of you?'
"I see. Well, thanks for clearing things up. But there is still the matter of you being the last one alive. Let's fix that." Two shapeless opaque black masses shot out of Tobio's shadow and gathered into his hands. He closed his fists around both, then brought them together in front of him. The shadows in his grasp flowed outward and formed a long war scythe that looked to swallow all light and darkness around it. With practiced ease, he spun the scythe to bring it before him, holding the blade close to the ground while keeping the tip aimed at his opponent.
Not the least bit intimidated, Freed's eyes gained a predatory gleam.
"Ooh, sounds like fun. I've been bored out of my mind recently. Please don't disappoint me. I wanna clear my low-water mark." He unhooked his light sword from his belt and ignited it, the gentle blue glow of the blade casting an eerie shadow across his face.
Both sides stood motionless at first, testing one another to see who would make the first move. The space between them grew thick with killing intent. So great was the pressure from that combined intent, the surrounding floorboards and pews began to rattle and vibrate. Tobio finally brought his shadow scythe up and, with one final reminiscent thought, shot forward.
'And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stol'n out of holy writ, and seem a saint, when most I play the devil.'
Freed merely cackled as he met the charge head on.
"Maria, Lara, Christine. Find Asia and kill anyone that gets in the way."
"Yes, Lord Diodora," All three replied in unison. His Knight, Christine, the former exorcist, drew her sword and took point toward the apartment, with Pawns Maria on her right and Lara to her left.
Diodora shook his head in aggravation and huffed. By his side stood his Queen, Anna, and one of his two Rooks, Judith, all three of which stood several meters behind. He should've done this from the beginning instead of waste time in using the two exorcists. It was overkill to bring this many servants for a mere retrieval, but Asia was worth it, and this whole sordid affair had gone on for far too long.
While the failure of the exorcists spoke of what the human was capable of against other humans, it meant nothing against Devils. His servants would crush this fool like-
A clattering noise suddenly put everyone on alert. Christine had stopped and dropped into her defensive stance, while everyone else looked around for the source of the sound. To him, it sounded like… something was rolling across a rocky surface.
"Lord Diodora," Judith called to his attention. She pointed to something small on the ground near to their right. Following her gaze, he saw… colored rocks?
"What is–"
And then, the world around him and his peerage exploded in white.
When the flashbangs burst, Connor hopped over the peak of the apaato's roof and began his attack.
With a running start, he jumped and dropped down onto one of the three leading Devils. Runic sword in hand, he used their body to cushion his landing, and stabbed downward, impaling them through the chest and killing them almost instantly.
Mystic Eyes active and adrenal runes firing at full strength, he tore the sword from its first victim and brought it to bear against the other unarmed Devil in the lead. In a long overhead swing, his weapon found flesh, slicing across their torso in a monk's robe cut from right shoulder to left hip. Organs and bones were cleanly severed, and the force behind the strike sent their body to the ground in a heap.
Two down, four to go.
He turned in time to see the sword-wielding Devil charge and go for a panicked thrust to his chest. Pivoting on his left foot, he deflected the enemy's blade and reached under his own to grab their sword arm's wrist with his left hand. He pulled them forward and delivered a right elbow strike to the face, stunning them, then brought his weapon down again. This time, severing the assailant's captured arm at the elbow.
Their agonized shriek made him notice something he'd missed for the sake of quickly reducing the enemy numbers. It was a female voice, and the cloak concealing their body parted just enough for the magus to see that they were indeed a woman. The now one-armed Devil fell backwards, clutching her arm in pain while blood continued to spew from the cleanly sliced vessels.
Connor glanced to the two corpses, then looked to the other three Devils that were recovering farther back. With the swordswoman's screaming, their attention was on her, giving him the brief moment to realize something else.
Once more, his expectations were proven dead wrong. It looked like every Devil here, besides the one he'd talked to before, was a woman, including the two he'd just killed. And fairly young, at that, based on their appearance. Although, if Devils really did live to ten thousand years like he'd been told, there was no way for him to know how old any of them actually were.
"You bastard!" Connor heard the little weasel of a male Devil yell. "What have you done?!"
Connor said nothing in rebuttal, instead choosing to toss aside the severed arm in his grip and dig out four more runestones from his pocket, then return the runic sword to his Magic Crest. In its place, he pulled the light sword from its clip on his waist, and pressed the button. The light blue blade ignited with a 'snap-hiss', highlighting his body amid the darkness. His eyes darted between his attackers, the male of whom flinched at first, but was ultimately undeterred by his new weapon.
"Tch, so you got the better of them, did you?" the man commented with mocking disdain. "It makes no difference, you'll still die tonight."
Connor elected to remain silent, looking between the three and waiting for the first attack.
From the corner of his eyes, Connor could see the one with the severed arm starting to pick her sword up from her lost hand and join the fight again. She didn't get far with it, as Jin leaped out from Connor's shadow, clutching his jet-black sword, and swiped at her neck. The Devil's throat split open and gushed blood in a torrent onto the ground and down the front of her cloak. She dropped her weapon and clutched at her neck in a fruitless attempt to stem the bleeding, and Jin, following up his attack, dispelled his weapon and latched onto the woman's neck, pushing her down and opening up the same 'shadow pocket' Tobio had used. Both bodies vanished into the pit, which closed immediately behind them.
'Atta boy!'
The male Devil saw this, too, and it only seemed to enrage him further.
"Damn you!" he roared, raising his hands at Connor. A large magic circle manifested before him, and Connor had nowhere he could move to evade; the two remaining female Devils had quickly changed position to block his avenues of escape.
In response, Connor tossed the runestones in his left hand into the air before him in a spread. Instead of exploding in one massive burst like the flashbangs had, these stones went off like firecrackers, hanging in the air for several seconds and delivering distractive continuous blasts. The male Devil recoiled and stumbled backward a bit, losing focus on his spell.
Connor turned his attention back to the hooded woman, who chose to attack while his eyes were away. Looking at her eyes, he noticed something… off about them. He couldn't see any ill intent. There wasn't even any emotion behind them. Normally, he could tell what someone's end goal was through eye contact, but he couldn't sense that from her. She didn't even seem to care what her planned gut shot would end up doing. She was just… acting with a singular goal in mind. Like a robot.
He was about to counter her attack, but a stream of fire shot towards him at the same time. He dove and rolled away to avoid it, getting up just in time to deflect the blow coming from the hooded Devil. While managing to direct most of the force of her strike away, he could feel the power put into it. Fighting her would be difficult enough, even without the, quite literal, suppressing fire from the blonde.
As much as he wanted to, in order to even the odds further, he couldn't use Ath nGabla here. If he did, whoever wasn't targeted by its effect could go after Asia while he was locked in combat with the target. They didn't know that, but he didn't want to risk them figuring it out.
He lost track of time on just how long this game of cat and mouse played out; dodging magic bullets from the male and taking cover from the blonde's fire attacks, all while trying to keep from getting smashed to pieces by the hooded Devil. He'd stupidly let his window to end the fight quickly slip by, and he couldn't find an opening to attack or retreat! Only by making eye contact with the Devils and reading their intentions again and again did Connor manage to predict and evade, which was getting increasingly hard to do with how much they were destroying the area.
Unfortunately, the exhaustion from this and the night's earlier events were quickly catching up to him. His eyes and overclocked magic circuits were beginning to burn from the strain, and his reactions were getting slower. Even worse was that the three Devils were starting to better synchronize their attacks.
'Anytime now, Jin!' He figured the creature was watching for another good chance to attack, but the wait was killing him.
Suddenly, his foot caught on something and made him stumble. He rolled and dodged another punch from the hooded Devil, but failed to stop her as she swung past his guard and planted a follow-up fist just below his right pectoral. Connor would later compare the feeling of her punch to taking a police battering ram to the chest while lying spread eagle on the ground. Even through the adrenaline in his system and Reinforcement enhancing his body, he could feel something give out… violently. Her punch sent him flying into a nearby tree, making his head whip back from the sudden stop.
"Gaagh!" Spittle flew from his mouth and all the air in his lungs seemed to vanish. The light sword fell out of his hands and into the dirt, disengaging as it fell. Before he could get back up, a hand –closer to a vice– clamped around his neck and pinned him against the tree. Instinctively, his hands clawed and pried at the grip, to no avail.
"Keep him there! He's mine!" he heard the male demand. The hand stopped squeezing but maintained its hold nonetheless. "You insect… I'm going to enjoy flaying you ali- wooah!"
He didn't finish his threat as Jin burst out from the shadows once again and leaped onto the man's back, throwing the Devil face first into the dirt. The canine entity buried his fangs into the man's neck, eliciting a pained yell, then hopped to the side in order to get his feet planted on solid ground. From there, he began pulling and thrashing his head from side to side, causing even more damage to his victim while keeping him face-down and unable to fight back.
"AAH! AAAUGH! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!"
The man's now frenzied screams and flailing caused the two females to break their focus on their target, panicked worry appearing on their faces for the first time since the fight began as they looked on in shock at what was happening. The blonde snapped out of it first, rushing to her downed master's aid. The hooded Devil's grip on Connor's neck loosened slightly, giving him just enough of a chance to act. Taking advantage of the distraction, he turned his right hand toward where the light sword had fallen.
'Nauthiz!'
In the center of his palm, the rune for binding lit up as the underlying magic circuits opened the link. Similarly, another rune flashed on the pommel of the sword. In an instant, the hilt picked itself out of the dirt and flew through the air, straight into his awaiting hand. Reaching up, despite the stabbing pain he felt, he grabbed the hooded Devil's cloak, pulled her forward, and ignited the weapon directly into the side of her head, then quickly extinguished it.
Connor didn't know about painlessly, but she did die quickly.
Her body crumpled to the ground and released the grip on Connor's throat, the hole in her cranium gushing blood from both sides. He took in one gulp of air, then shakily stood to his feet again, using the tree for support. The pain in his chest didn't make it easy. It felt like jagged pieces of wood were piercing into his lungs, and it got worse with every breath he tried to take. By his estimates, multiple ribs were broken.
He heard Jin bark and looked up. He had jumped off of the male Devil and now stood in front of Connor, snarling and growling at the two Devils while the blonde began to treat her male counterpart.
She glanced to Jin, then muttered something into the man's ear urgently. His eyes widened before he looked at the sentient Sacred Gear before him, blood freely flowing down his back as he got to his feet. To the Devil, this must have been a prime opportunity to attack and finish what he started, but for some reason, he was hesitating to act.
He gave one last look to the human and sneered. "This is not over, you filth!" With that, a magic circle suddenly flared to life underneath him and his servant, and the two vanished in a flash of light, the bodies of the deceased Devils disappearing as well.
Was that it? Did he really retreat?
For a good thirty seconds, Connor didn't move, silently hoping that the Devils had well and truly left. When nothing else happened, his shoulders drooped and he leaned on the tree while his legs began to wobble and shake vigorously. Slowly, he eased himself back down until he was sitting on the ground with his back to the tree once again.
He looked at Jin, his eyes now back to normal.
"Serio-" he started to admonish the dog, but all that came out was a wheeze. He coughed to clear his throat, but that left him gasping for air. Then, the crushing pain from no less than three different sources set in at once; his eyes, magic circuits and chest cavity.
'Oh shit…'
Tobio ducked under a slice to his head and countered with a strike of his own, only to be blocked with a a reverse gripped light sword and avoid a kick to the side of his knee.
As the duel had carried on, the church interior was reduced to an even more ruined state than before. Pews were cut cleanly into small sections, the walls and floor were riddled with new holes and slash marks, and two of the pillars had been cut as well. He could almost hear a creaking sound coming from the roof as the distribution of the building's weight shifted dangerously again and again.
The Grigori agent had to give his opponent credit, the man's style was truly his own: Wild, yet precise; Untamed, yet disciplined. There was never a set pattern to his movements. Every few attacks from his light sword were quickly followed by a strike from an unoccupied limb, be it his free hand or feet. He would also mix things up by switching swordsmanship styles at random intervals, sometimes even during mid-swing.
It was all so random but, at the same time, so coordinated. Tobio was a skilled fighter in his own right, but even he was constantly left guessing on the next attack, and marveling at the man's seemingly limitless energy. He must have really wanted this fight. (1)
The agent attacked high and low with long swipes and forced Freed to put some distance between the two. He then stood at full height to address the deranged priest. "You know, the mere mention of your name was enough to make one of your fellow exorcists nearly soil himself. It made me curious to see why the others were so afraid of you. But then I crossed blades with you, and I realized how the stigma surrounding you was… overblown. All you are is a rabid dog, and I've wasted enough time with this."
"Heh, what, are you saying you've been playing with me this whol- Whoa!" Freed stopped and jumped forward just before his legs and knees could be pierced from below by black spikes erupting from his own shadow.
Tobio closed the distance and delivered a long swipe, aiming for Freed's throat. The exorcist barely blocked the attack, the dark scythe's blade now locked with his light sword mere inches from his neck.
"Dick move, man! I was having fun!" he barked indignantly.
"Your amusement is not my concern."
Tobio pressed the advantage and went on the offensive, using long and deliberate arcs to force Freed back. The Grigori agent began to push the rogue exorcist around the floor this time, using any available shadows to reach out and take a shot at him, or become a tripping hazard. It worked for a short time, but Freed quickly caught on and moved to the center of the chapel with his back to the door.
"Yeah, I guess not, but tell me… would a rabid dog do this?"
Freed slashed at the floor, tearing a large gash and sending sparks and hot splinters flying into Tobio's face. He jumped back to the chapel's rear most pew on the left hand side, exchanging his light sword for a lighter from his pocket in the process. Reaching under the pew, he pulled out a glass bottle with a rag stuffed into the neck. After igniting the rag with the lighter, he turned and threw the bottle toward the church entrance. The moment it shattered against the wall, the contents ignited and splattered across every surface around within a few meters, setting everything ablaze.
"Attempt a pyrrhic victory? Yes, it would. Are you so desperate to win?" Tobio taunted.
"I was gonna burn this place down when all was said and done anyway, so this actually works out pretty well. All you did was bump up my schedule." As he talked, Freed walked backward until he was standing directly underneath the burning section of the church roof, the sinister grin never leaving his face. "If you wanna save the dhampir in distress, be my guest, I really don't give a shit. But if you still wanna kill me that bad, you gotta play in my court. None of that shadow bullshit, just you, me and this lovely venue. And quick tip: you may want to decide in the next, oh… ten seconds?"
Tobio glanced up, taking note of how quickly the fire was spreading across the decaying wooden structure. It wouldn't be long at all before it fell down around their ears. This was far too fast of a spread for a normal structure fire, and it made Tobio wonder if Freed had actually doused the whole church with some kind of accelerant beforehand. He could escape the collapse, and he was certain that Freed would as well, but he could sense Jin on the other side of his mental link urgently calling for him to return. That was a very rare occurrence, and it seemed unlikely to Tobio that Freed was going to let this fight end quickly.
He took two steps back, testing Freed's reaction. The Stray didn't move, even when a section of the rafters broke off and crashed right next to him, putting a hole in the floor.
'If nothing else, he's committed to the bit.'
Killing this scum would have to wait for now, he concluded. The dhampir was still his primary objective. With that in mind, he turned and ran for the basement entrance.
"I'll be in touch~" he heard Freed call out, his disturbingly playful voice carrying over the steadily growing roar of the flames.
All but leaping down the stairs, Tobio quickly but carefully gathered the unresponsive woman into his arms and hurried back up to the chapel. By that time, the entire ceiling was completely engulfed by flames. The heat was staggering, and as fire continued to spread across the floor with unnerving speed, possible routes of escape became burning pitfalls.
Freed was nowhere to be seen, not that Tobio expected him to stick around and gloat. He'd made his point: Let us all live, or we all die.
A loud creaking broke Tobio's train of thought. The roof was starting to cave in, and the whole structure was about to come down with it. There was no more time to think. With few options now remaining, he sprinted for the nearest open window, dodging a rafter as it fell, and leaped through. Flickers of flame plumed out after his body, almost as if grisly fingers were reaching out to snatch him in midair and pull him back into the pyre.
Tobio paid no heed to the sounds of the burning church as it gave way and crumbled to the ground behind him. He simply raced back to the apartment, never once looking back.
Connor hadn't moved from his spot against the tree. He was too busy fighting to breathe than think about or do anything else.
He hadn't felt pain of this scale since his magic circuits were first opened. His Reinforcement had stopped a potential impalement, but that woman's fist had still snapped his ribs like glass. It hurt to cough, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to do anything, even while his lungs were desperately inflating themselves right back into his broken rib cage. And that was on top of the pain he felt from his eyes and the use of the adrenal runes.
The magus barely noticed the agent appear next to him.
"Lochlainn-san?" he heard but didn't answer.
Tobio set something down on the ground beside him and knelt to face Connor.
"Let me see," he urged, lifting up Connor's shirt. "Ugh. Not good. I think you've got a collapsed lung."
'No shit, Sherlock!'
Connor grabbed hold of Tobio's arm to get his attention. "Get… Asia…" he tried to say, but again, nothing but a pathetic whisper came out. With a trembling left hand, he slipped his grandfather's pendant out from under his shirt and presented it to the older man. "tell her I sent you… show her… this… she'll know it's me…"
Tobio blinked, then carefully took the pendant. "Where?"
Finding it more and more painful to talk, Connor held up three fingers then pointed to the second floor of the apaato.
"Okay, hold on."
He heard Tobio take off toward Asia's door, but didn't bother paying any more attention. He had to concentrate on maintaining oxygen flow in however small of increments he could manage. To do this, he clenched his jaw and took small breaths through his teeth, getting just the minimum air he needed to stay conscious. Finding the right breathing rhythm proved to be difficult, and he wasn't even that long into the process before he heard footsteps coming towards him.
"Connor! Are you alright?" Asia asked frantically.
The magus simply pointed to the cavity in his ribs. No sooner had he mouthed the word 'help,' the most bizarre sensation washed over him.
The pain he'd been feeling was suddenly gone. Not fade away, just flat out disappear. Curiously, he opened his eyes to see Asia dressed in her conservative nightgown and now dirty socks on her feet. She had come running, apparently. Off to the side, Tobio and Jin stood by, watching Asia while she worked and taking glances around the area. By the agent's feet, Connor could see a woman dressed in little more than rags and covered in dirt and dust, which made it hard to tell exactly what she was supposed to look like.
He looked down at the orb between Asia's hands and tried to feel with his body what was happening. It was… odd. There was really no better word he could put to it. It was the same feeling as being put under localized anesthesia; completely numb in that one spot. You knew you were being worked on, you could even watch what was happening, but you couldn't feel any pain from it.
What he could feel, however, was the pressure in his chest slowly ebbing away, allowing him to take less stressful but still shallow breaths. Bit by bit, breathing became slightly easier.
After about about sixty seconds, he supposed, of treatment, Asia stopped and leaned back. It could have actually been longer; his sense of time that night was completely askew.
"Okay. You should be fine now."
He took an experimental breath, slightly deeper than earlier. When he felt no pain, he didn't hesitate to give his best imitation of a vacuum cleaner. Suddenly, all the air he'd been trying to pace came flooding in. After a few heavy inhales and exhales, his left hand felt around where he was hit. His once shattered ribs were fully intact, back in their proper place, and his lung was working like nothing had ever happened!
The relief was indescribable.
'God in Heaven, thank you! I am never taking breathing for granted again.'
"Thank you, Asia. I'm sorry for scaring you," he apologized, his breathing and voice back to normal.
Her response was to hug him tightly. "It's okay… I'm just… glad you're alright."
Connor didn't react at first, but when he heard her sniffle and felt a dampness on his shoulder, it seemed like his heart was about to twist in his chest. Gingerly, he brought his right hand up to return the embrace, his fingers lightly brushing her golden locks against the back of her head. Her grip only tightened.
"I prayed for you."
…
…
"I know. Thank you."
He didn't know what else he could say to that.
"Right as rain now, yeah?" he heard Tobio remark, who had picked the woman up again.
A wry smile crossed the magus' lips while Asia helped him to his feet. "You try breathing through a straw for more than a minute and let me know how it goes. Asia, this is Tobio, and the dog's name is Jin. To make a long story short, Tobio's the one that led me to you. Right now, we need your… well, more of your help."
Asia looked to the woman in Tobio's arms with worry. "Is it her? What happened to her?"
"We can talk about that in a while, Argento-san. May we use your apartment?"
"Yes, of course."
She led them quickly back up the stairs, casting glances back to the dhampir every now and then. Once inside, Asia pulled off her socks and ran to the back room to grab a spare futon. Tobio told her to set it up in the bedroom for the time being and pay no heed to the smell of blood and dirt. This was easier said than done for the nun, but she was determined to help at any rate.
No sooner had Tobio set the woman down on the mattress, Asia went to work immediately. The glowing green orb Connor had seen before appeared in her hands once again, and she moved back and forth across the dhampir's body, stopping every couple of places to focus her power.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Tobio murmured, catching Connor's attention. He was holding out the pendant in an open hand for the magus to take back, which he did. "Twilight Healing: So long as the user wishes it, it can heal wounds on anybody or anything, even supernatural beings like Devils and Angels."
Connor nodded, offhandedly feeling the contours of his rib cage again. Having your broken bones and collapsed lung fully restored in seconds was indeed amazing. "Anything it can't heal?" he quietly asked.
"Fatigue and illness. No curing plagues or pandemics, and both the patient and the user have to recover from exhaustion or blood loss on their own time. I know that from our records of previous wielders."
"What about lost limbs?"
"Only if the injury is fresh and still bleeding. If something's already healed naturally, there's no point."
Connor looked back at Asia. That actually lined with his suspicions of this… artifact. If Twilight Healing really did create a small Bounded Field and reversed the time within, it made sense that the Gear itself would be somewhat time-sensitive. Old amputations or destroyed organs couldn't be healed since the missing piece(s) was already long gone or deteriorated beyond repair. This power could fix anything, but only so long as that anything fit the right criteria.
Still, being able to heal fatal wounds on the spot was pretty damn incredible.
Another couple of minutes went by before Asia stopped. The orb in her hands disappeared as she stood up and approached the two men.
"I've healed what I can, but… I've never tried to help someone who's in this state. I don't know what else to do for her. I'm sorry," she apologized solemnly.
"Don't worry about it, Argento-san. She's not in immediate danger anymore thanks to you."
"Thank you, but what happened to her?" she asked once again. The look in her eyes told Connor and Tobio that she wouldn't let the subject go unspoken any further.
Connor turned to Tobio and nodded. She deserved to know.
Tobio sighed and met his gray eyes to her green. "A group of rogue exorcists were conducting a ritual in the basement of that old church to extract Sacred Gears from people. She was their victim in that experiment. The ritual was meant to separate the Gear from the user's soul, and in turn, kill them. The problem was that they were messing up, and instead just causing soul-crushing pain, which might be why this woman isn't responding to anything. If they had gotten a hold of you, they would've done the exact same thing."
Asia's eyes widened in horror and her hands covered her mouth. She turned to look at Connor. "W-when you looked inside…"
"I didn't go into the basement, if that's what you're asking," he intercepted. "I didn't even know there was a basement until later, or if they were actually doing all that. And even if I did, I wasn't going down there, at least not right then. Too risky."
"It was a good thing, too. If he had, he likely would've been killed by the group that was stationed to guard the place. Trust me, Argento-san, he made the right decision."
Asia sighed in relief and nodded.
"I'm sorry for keeping this from you, Asia. There was so much going on so quickly that I could barely keep up."
"It's okay… So… what do we do now?" she asked, regarding the dhampir.
"I'd like to know that as well," Connor said to Tobio. "I can't help her, and I'm guessing neither can you."
Tobio shook his head. "No, I need to call Azazel-sama." Once more, he brought his phone and thumbed through the menus. "He can get her set up with better care, plus he wants to see her in person. And you, as well."
"Oh, joy," the magus deadpanned. "Should I make snacks?"
"If you've got any liquor, feel free to break it out," Tobio said with a smile. "He's a self-styled connoisseur of all things alcoholic. I think you'd like him."
"Whatever you say. Can you at least hold off on calling him until we get the mess outside cleaned up?"
The agent paused to consider, then put his phone away. "Yeah, I suppose I can do that. I'll see you out there." Without another word, he passed the magus and headed back out the door to start.
Connor sighed and leaned against the wall, massaging his temples and trying to stave off the headache he could feel coming.
'As if the night wasn't long enough.'
"Connor?" he heard Asia ask and looked up to meet her curious gaze.
"Yeah?"
"What's a connoisseur?"
Elsewhere, in an isolated region of the Underworld, a grotesque fly buzzed and zipped its way through the halls of a dimly-lit ornate palace.
Following a directive that ran deeper than basic animal instinct, the fly darted past armored guards and conservatively dressed servants along the way. Many paid nary a glance to it, if they even noticed at all. Such flies in this place were very common, considering who ruled it.
Eventually, the miniscule creature came upon a spacious and sparsely decorated throne room. There was no light to be found in this place, save for the two chandeliers dangling from above and torches along the walls. A wide red carpet led from the main doors to a raised dais, upon which stood an intimidating black and grey throne and flanked by two statues carved in the image of demons. Large obelisks lined the walls on either side, standing just tall enough to not touch the ceiling at their peaks. All of these features combined created powerful senses of authority and entrapment in equal measure.
Seated on the throne was a figure partially hidden from the lights of the chandeliers and torches. As the fly crossed the floor, the figure raised an armored left hand to present a perch for the insect. Landing with precision on the index finger, the fly then swiveled about and began buzzing its wings in code, just as it was created to do.
The lone visible eye of the hand's owner narrowed in anger upon interpreting the message.
"That fool."
…
(1): In keeping with mixing up Freed's character a bit, his fighting style here is somewhat similar to Inosuke Hashibira's Beast Breathing Form from Kimetsu no Yaiba, in addition to the swordplay of Izō Okada from the Fate series. As a berserker in everything but name, I felt that it suits him.
…
There it is.
Going in, I wasn't terribly confident in my ability to write fights in the same way that I can write a conversation, but the scenes kind of just came to life on their own. Even then, I was second-guessing myself throughout most of it, and I'm still a bit unsure about the final product, so I'm all ears for constructive criticism as needed.
I was going back and forth on what to do for this chapter for a good while, and I ended up having to cut a lot of content from this chapter and save it for the next. If I didn't, this one would've been well over 15000 words in length. While that isn't bad if done correctly, it just wasn't going to work here. Way too much stuff to go through.
If you would like what you read, leave a favorite, a follow or a review to let me know. Any advice or support that you could give would be greatly appreciated. If you'd like to take a shot at the challenge listed in chapter 1, send me a PM, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
As always, thank you for reading!