Chapter Twenty-Nine

Moment of Rest

The sound of lightning and thunder echoed throughout the area as Kaminari tossed her hammer around like a boomerang toward the crowd of Chimera and skeletons. The moment her hammer returned to her, a chimera lunged at her in an attempt to sink its fangs into the pseudo servant. Before it could do that, Lily appeared in front of it before vanishing. The sound of a blade slicing into flesh could be heard before appearing behind the beast. Within seconds, blood spews out from the monster before collapsing as Lily was soon covered in its blood.

"Fuck, seriously!?" Lily yelled as she looked over herself being covered in blood. "This is gonna take weeks to get the stains out."

"Aren't they just made out of magic and stuff?" Kaminari asked before tossing his hammer again, only this time he knocked out three chimeras.

"Yes, but not the clothes I have underneath it. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of clothes? Especially white clothes?" Lily said with a slight pouty expression on her face. "Doesn't help that these are my only pair of clothes."

"Oh right…Might be a while before we can get you the clothes that you need."

"I kind of figured. Especially after we get the hell out of this place." Lily said as she decapitated another Chimera's head while moving out of the way. "That should be the last of them…the others you pretty much just fried with your lightning." She said before looking over at Kaminari. "Okay, start dragging the bodies over to the convenience store."

"Why do I have to carry the bodies?"

"Fucker, you can bench press a metal chair in half. You think I can carry something heavier than All Might himself with these noodle arms?" Lily asked as she flexed her muscles a bit. Granted she was pretty well toned for someone her age, but she wasn't that strong in brute strength compared to Kaminari. "Plus this will give you a good workout."

"Or for you to get out doing manual work," Kaminari said in a flat tone, only to flinch from seeing Lily's glare. "A-Alright, alright, I'll get to hauling." She said before picking up the bodies of the dead chimeras.

"Honestly, some mess we've gotten ourselves into," Lily said before noticing Artoria appearing next to her. "I get the feeling some of our classmates are dead."

"Given how they're not experienced in combat, you'd be right about that. If not evident with what happened to Kota."

"I'd figured as much…you can bet they're going to blame me when we get out of this place."

"Which doesn't surprise me when they'll assume you're the cause of it. Those who are in power tend to blame someone else to ease the tension between them and the masses. "

"Swell, as if my life wasn't bad enough." She said before following Kaminari to the convenience store. "Are you sure this meat is okay to eat?"

"So long as you take care of the poison, then it can be consumed. Lucky for you, you have a servant that's willing to help thanks to Kaminari interacting with her." Artoria said before noticing that they were heading inside the store. Off to the side were an injured & passed out Shoji and Ojiro, a girl around the same age as Lily, only a year older with long silver hair, light green eyes, and slightly revealing clothing with a tattered cloth wrapped around her waist as she was currently reattaching Kirishima's arm and Mina who was currently making a fire with Kama's assistance. The moment Lily and Kaminari entered, Mina smiled as she waved at the two.

"Welcome back. Did you get something for us to eat? Because so far this store doesn't have a lot of food other than snacks and vegetables." Mina asked as Kaminari dropped the dead bodies of the chimeras she and Lily killed off to the side.

"Hope you all are hungry for demonic monster meat? Because this is the only source of protein that we could get at the moment." Lily answered as Kirishima blinked at the bodies of the chimeras.

"Is it safe to eat?"

"Only if you detox the meat, then meat from a demonic creature is safe to eat," Jack said as she finished reattaching the young man's arm. "There, your arm is reattached, but I wouldn't recommend doing anything involving physical work for about three weeks. It's going to take a while for the veins, muscle tendons, and nerves to reconnect. " She said as she watched Kirishima flex his arm and activate his quirk.

"Amazing! It's like it was never cut off!" He said before turning his attention onto the assassin servant. "Thanks!"

"It's no problem." She said before making her way over to the dead bodies of the chimera and began cutting into them with her knives.

"Geez, we've been gone for thirty minutes and you've already finished taking care of Ojiro and Shoji?" Lily asked.

"The guy with the multiple arms didn't need much other than some bandages and salves to close off some of the wounds the skeleton inflicted on him. The one with the tail took me a while, seeing how I had to replace his heart with a spare human heart with the same blood type that he had." She said before cutting sections of meat out of the chimera's body. "Giving him a numbing agent helped, but that doesn't mean he'll be waking up anytime soon."

"Makes sense," Lily said before changing back into her modified school uniform and sitting down next to Mina and the campfire. She soon heard Kirishima walking over and sitting across from them. "So how are you holding up?"

"Other than having my arm cut off by that villain in black armor, I'm doing fine for the most part." He said before tossing a small piece of wood into the fire. "Still angry that I couldn't save Kota at the time when we met that jerk of a villain."

"I'm pretty sure Jack or Mina did explain to you about what that guy was or in general the whole servant thing. But even I know you wouldn't be that much help given how strong he was. Hell, even I had trouble trying to defeat Lancelot on my own."

"Still hard to believe something like that is even possible…though I'm gonna have to believe seeing how Mina did show proof with the floating tiny girl named…Kama, right?"

"Yep," Mina said as the Kama appeared on her shoulder.

"Not to mention you and Kaminari also have one of them on your shoulders," Kirishima said as he pointed to Artoria and Magni who appeared after Kaminari took a seat next to him. "So, what's the game plan? I mean I know we're going to find the others, where do we even start looking?"

"We'll head over to the school first. Mainly because this place isn't well suited to hide out in, and from what Jack told us, Berserker roams the area we're in right now. And at this moment, I'm not prepared to face off against him. So the more distance we have from him, the better."

"And these other servants…you sure they can be trusted?"

"Well, it's not like we can trust the other team seeing how they're trying to kill every human in this place. So I'm willing to trust them more so seeing how Jack did save you three and Kaminari."

"Fair enough. You think the others might be there as well?"

"Wouldn't be surprised, seeing how it might be the only building that is still standing or isn't burned to the ground." She said before noticing Jack placing a piece of stone tablet over the fire and placing the meat on it. Just as she let the meat set, she then poured a blue liquid substance on the demonic animal meat as the poison that was on it quickly vanished.

"It's so weird that magic is a real thing. Especially when you can use it to do stuff like that." Kirishima said as he stared in amazement.

"Once the meat is done, then you can eat it without being poisoned." She said before sitting down next to the fire along with the others.

"I know this might be a shot in the dark, but you wouldn't happen to have anything to get the stain and smell of demonic monster blood from out of your clothing do you?" Lily asked as Jack shook her head. "Dammit, I figured as much. Couldn't hurt but to ask."

"So…these servants…they're spirits based on legendary heroes from the past?" Kirishima asked as Lily nodded. "So like the stuff in history class about King Arthur, Sun Wukong, and Blackbeard. They're real?"

"Yeah, they're real. The planet called upon this thing called the throne of heroes to save it from The Beast that's planning on killing off every human on the face of the earth. That thing we saw at the USJ is called a demon god pillar, and it serves The Beast named Goetia." She said before noticing a confused expression on the boy's face. "A villain is trying to kill the human race and it's up to us Grand Servants to stop him."

"And a grand servant is?"

"It's like a special kind of hero picked by the planet to save it," Mina said as Kirishima nodded.

"Oh okay…wait so that means that Lily's quirk didn't change the way you look?" He asked which caused Lily and Mina to look away from him with a slightly awkward expression on their faces.

"Yeah, sorry for lying. But would anyone believe me if I told them about this stuff without proof? Not to mention even if I did tell them with proof, would they believe me given my reputation as the villain killer?" Lily asked as it caused Kirishima to pause for a moment before speaking.

"I suppose you're right…This is just a lot to take in. How did you end up like this? Becoming a Grand Servant I mean?"

"I pretty much took up the deal mainly because I was dying due to organ failure throughout my body. You can thank the poor treatment at the orphanage I was in during that time."

"You were an orphan?" Kirishima asked as the bunny girl nodded.

"Don't have any memories of who my parents were, nor do I care about it. But the orphanage I was in didn't start as bad as it was during the two years I was in it. There was a person who treated me nicely and didn't care that I wasn't Japanese." She said before reaching into her tail to pull out a picture of herself when she was seven and a woman with dark skin, a maids outfit, and fox-like features.

"Whoa, that's you as a kid?" Kirishima asked as Lily nodded.

"Aw, you look so cute as a kid~," Mina said before noticing a deadpan expression on Lily's face. "Well, it is. You look so cheerful and full of hope compared to how you are now."

"Oh fuck off. You try being cheerful and full of hope when shit hits the fans once the owner is replaced by a shit-ass hero who wasn't that nice towards foreigners." Lily said before putting the picture away. "The woman in the picture is named Tituba. She was the previous owner of the orphanage I was in at the time. Don't know what would make her give up her position. But after she left, the place went to hell. Poor maintenance of the building, kids would end up missing, and the hero didn't keep the children in line when they would bully the other children. It didn't help that he would allow the children to beat me up and treat me like scum on his shoe. So I pretty much left the place and tried to get help from someone else…but that didn't go well seeing how I couldn't speak Japanese, though I could understand what they were saying, they couldn't understand me or choose to ignore me." She said before noticing Kirishima, Mina, and Kaminari's strange facial expressions. "What?"

"This orphanage you're speaking of…what's the name of it?" Kaminari asked.

"I think it was called Chaldea at the beginning, but with the new owner in charge it was changed to Big Al's Orphanage for the misguided." She said which caused the trio to stare at her in shock.

"...Oh my god. You were in that awful place?" Mina asked as Lily raised an eyebrow at her.

"Have you heard of that place?"

"Heard of it, dude it made it onto the news five years ago," Kaminari said as she noticed a confused expression on her face. "Right, I guess you were busy being the villain killer at the time. Well five years ago, the orphanage that you were in was closed down due to a pro-hero finding out that the owner, was part of a sex ring operation. He pretty much took certain kids and sold them off in secret."

"Yeah, they even found a dungeon down below in the basement of the building where they beat up the kids and do…other things to them," Kirishima said with a disgusted expression on his face. "Man, it's hard to believe he was suggested to look over the kids in that orphanage by All Might."

"...I'm sorry…but what was that you said about All Might?" Lily asked as the four of them felt a light aura of anger and malice coming off from Lily.

"K-Keep in mind that All Might didn't know about the hero's dirty secret until after Endeavor found out. But All Might recommend him to work at the orphanage seeing how he was planning on retiring. He even had a letter of recommendation to help get him the position." Kirishima said before noticing a dark aura forming around the bunny girl's body.

"L-Lily, are you okay?" Mina asked as she flinched from seeing Lily glaring at her. "Okay, yeah. Stupid question on my part."

"So you mean to tell me that All Might, the world's greatest hero, the symbol of peace and justice? Recommended a hero to take over the orphanage I was in. He didn't do a background check to see if he had any skeletons in his closet or anything, didn't check if he was able to do the job that was given to him or have someone spy on him to see if he was doing. Just let him take the position just because he was a hero?"

"...I mean I know I'm an outsider to what you guys are talking about…but that seems like an irresponsible thing to do," Jack said as everyone looked over at her, which caused her to raise her hands in defense. "But in my defense, I have no room to talk given how I'm a serial killer." She said before noticing Lily standing up and heading outside. "Yep, she's pissed."

"Given this bit of information that she didn't know about, I'm not surprised by her reaction," Artoria said as she noticed Kaminari looking down at the ground in shame. "If you're thinking that it was your fault for telling her that, you shouldn't."

"Yeah, but-"

"It's not your fault. End of discussion." She said before following after Lily. Just as the divine spirit left, Mina stopped up and quickly followed after Lily and Artoria. The moment she was outside, she soon heard the sound of someone crying off to the side. Mina placed her hand to her ears to pick up where the sound was coming from until she heard it coming from behind a knocked-over truck. The pink girl walked over to where the sound was coming from as she saw Lily on the ground, still covered in a dark aura as she was on the verge of crying. Mina looked around to see if Artoria or Kama were nearby, but to her surprise, they weren't. She could only guess that Artoria was inside Lily as a means to try to calm her down by talking to her and Kama pretty much vanished to get her the opportunity to talk to Lily. She was about to turn back and give her some space…but something was telling her not to as she moved over next to her.

"Hey, mind if I sit here next to you?" Mina asked as Lily looked over at her for a moment before nodding. "I guess you're pissed off at us, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not angry at you guys. I'm just…I don't know what I'm feeling at this moment." Lily said as the aura around her slowly vanished.

"What do you feel?"

"Mixed emotions. I want to kick All Might's ass…no, I want to make a knight to kick his ass…no, I want to make a knight to make another knight that can kick his ass."

"...I'm pretty sure that would be impossible to do."

"It's not impossible. He's a man, not a god. There are ways to get his ass kicked!" Lily yelled before kicking a rock that was near off to the side. "...You know the messed up part about it…Tituba promised me that she would adopt me, but she left. Not even saying goodbye or anything…and that hurts even more than when those fuckers at the orphanage treated me as a villain."

Before Lily could react in time, she soon felt herself being pulled in close to Mina. Upon realizing the pink girl's intention, she was about to pull herself away from the hug…but couldn't due to how warm and comforting it was. Was it because Kama was making her feel that way, or possibly Artoria? It didn't matter, she felt a sense of safety within the pink girl's embrace as she slowly wrapped her arms around Mina's body.

"Normally I wouldn't allow something like this…but I'll make an exception in your case, and because this is…comforting, to say the least."

"I can understand your frustration, and you have every right to be angry. But please don't take your anger out on him to where that will get you in trouble with the law."

"Yeah, I know…but he can't get off with just a slap on the wrist. He needs to pay, they all need to pay." Lily said with a grim tone in her voice.

"Which is understandable, but why not talk it out first before doing anything bold or impulsive."

"Since when I have ever been…" Lily paused mid-sentence as she noticed Mina's deadpan expression. "...Alright, fine. I tend to do stuff out of spite and impulse. But not without reason."

"Being angry at them for calling on you multiple times may be annoying, but still doesn't count as a reason~" Mina said with a smirk on her face.

"...Bitch you're lucky your friend, otherwise I'll send you flying with that sly remark," Lily said before letting out an annoyed sigh of defeat. "Fine, I'll have a little talk with Principal Nezu and see if he can get All Might to talk to me. But if I don't like what I am hearing, then you know what's going to happen. Got it?"

"Y-Yeah…So, um…do you want to go back to the others?"

"Not yet," Lily said before moving up next to Mina. "I...want to stay here a bit longer before we have to leave." She said which caused Mina to nod and move a bit closer to the bunny girl. Though that little moment would be ruined by the sound of Berserker yelling in the distance.

"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRTTTTHHHHHUUUURRRRRR!" He yelled which caused the two to stand up quickly.

"And that moment is ruined. Time for us to haul ass out of here and to the school."

"Right, but who's going to carry Shoji and Ojiro?" Mina asked as Lily looked at her for a moment. "Kaminari can carry them."

"I figured as much."