Chapter 47 : Tempus Fugit - This complicates things.
I only realized that I had made my way back home once I was in front of my door proper, mentally drained as I was, most of my focus spent channeling as much Indifference as I could in my aura, a task made triflingly easy now that I wasn't two seconds and a misstep away from drowning in Hatred and Rage, while simultaneously cladding myself in a thin sheet of telekinesis to spoof any attempts to track me by smell.
Admittedly, the last one was more a shot in the dark than anything else, but I'd rather avoid giving mixed feelings to the kitten who seems to mistake my thighs with her personal pillows with a distressing regularity..
Under the moon's pale light, far away from downtown, I allow myself a long, drawn out exhale, even as I cross the threshold, my thoughts a chaotic jumble.
I carefully close the door behind me, before making my way toward my basement, slowly descending the stairs, Skully, for once, oddly silent as his baleful blue optics amid bleached white bone trailing my approach.
Without a word, I let myself fall ass first on my meditation mat, before starting to carefully shrug off my attire after putting my sword aside.
I go at it without paying attention to what I'm doing as I peel away each layer of my armor, my mind miles away from the current happening, because, all I could think of-
"I don't even know her name." I mumble under my breath, my brows slightly furrowed and my body strangely floaty despite its aches.
-was that I legitimately had no idea who the one responsible for this clusterfuck was.
I did find her, oh, I found her alright, in a state I probably wouldn't wish to my worst enemy, which she definitely didn't rate as, battered and broken, blood and other substances having dried up along her inner thighs under her shredded Kuoh High uniform, her ribs and face a mess of bruises, a few unused condoms, still under wraps, negligently dropped on her still, passed out form as an afterthought and final taunt.
I knew her face, my memory not being that bad, and I remember how our first -and last- 'heart-to-heart' went.
But I don't know her name, and most certainly don't know why she would have gone to those kind of lengths for a high school spat, because it makes no sense, and it is beyond stupid, and I thought that girls weren't supposed to be this bad to each other and-
I inhale deeply, before slowly, very slowly, exhaling.
Idly, I notice that my hands are shaking, but I pay it no mind as I stubbornly go back to my fight against the thousands of straps holding my armor together.
One thing of positive note, at least, is that channeling Haste had made me, somehow, hyper-aware of the potential blood splatters, and that I had managed, in a ridiculous display of skill, to avoid coating my gear in a haphazard layer of blood and gore.
Haste is, after all, one of the colors of the overly excited hermaphrodite, so I wasn't really surprised that I managed to tap into some kind of supernatural grace of sorts by coincidence along the way.
…I still ache from absolutely everywhere, my body not quite ready to tank the aftermaths of metaphorically going from zero to one hundred with almost purely biological processes, and I am due for a Wellness session-
-but I'll do that later, preferably in my bath, once I finally managed to get out of this hyper realistic cosplay, the one I just used to carve open grown men with the help of my mind and a sword, painting the floor brown and red-
I pause, my breath noticeably quicker than usual and my grip very tight on one of my gloves, the only sounds breaking the silence of the basement being my ragged exhales.
I close my eyes, taking another long, deep breath, before slowly exhaling through my barely open mouth.
The crisis averted, my eyes flutter open once more, and I go about finishing my self appointed task.
It takes me a long while, much longer than I would've expected, before I'm finally done, each of my motions emotionless and oddly robotic.
Finally free of my armor, remarking to myself that I'm glad not to be any longer squeezed under mesh plates, and I summon my sword to my hands with barely a thought.
It lands heavily against my palm, the meaty thump of the pseudo-leather scabbard against my flesh echoing strangely in my Basement.
I give the blade an assessing glance, before unsheathing it fully, carefully looking at it under every angle for signs of wear and tear, very glad that the psychic coating I used in combination with it at least spared me from having to clean it, before sheathing it back once more.
I rise up from my seated position, only wearing my undies, and make my way to my weapon rack to slot my Force Sword back in its designated spot.
I step back, giving the weapon a complicated glance.
I repress a shiver as the coldness of the basement reminds itself to me, and about-face while waving goodbye to Skully over my shoulder.
Climbing the stairs, locking the door, walking through my living room, climbing another set of stairs, coming in front of my bathroom, opening the door-
I dry heave.
-scrambling towards the toilet, puking my guts out as reality finally catches up to me.
I stare at the ceiling, motionless, feeling even more floaty than before since I'm both not totally over this evening's events and actually made good on my bath idea, the slow clap of water against ceramic slowly bringing me back to a semblance of normalcy.
It's not that I regret what I did, no, anybody with both my abilities and a modicum of human decency would've done the same, especially if they were reasonably certain that they would be able to give the slip to the authorities, supernaturals or not.
I had seen an issue, I had taken the necessary steps to handle it, even if I had, admittedly, let my temper get the better of me instead of taking my time and doing the smart thing.
But I couldn't really see something wrong about going in psionic powers blazing to rescue people from a fate worse than death.
So, no, I did not regret sullying my hands.
I did have an issue with the fact that my first instinct was to go in close and personal, taking a humongous amount of risks while simultaneously casting away one of the last bits of innocence I still had.
I mean, I had killed, multiple times, since I found myself stranded in this reality, but there was a whole fucking world between seeing a soul go 'poof' remotely and cleaving through bodies in close quarter as if they are so much wheat.
…I was willing to bet that it would take me a while to properly come to terms with this new reality, despite the fact that I would probably do the same thing in a heartbeat if given the chance.
"Will wonders never cease? I still have some fucking issues." I drily chuckle to myself, before letting go of my grip on the bathtub's rim and submerging under the water fully.
In the quietness of this submarine kingdom for one, I can almost trick myself into thinking that I found my peace back.
This is a clusterfuck, Rias thinks to herself as her eyes roam the supposed 'ground zero' of this evening's incident.
Granted, nothing that a generous application of hypnosis couldn't solve, but a clusterfuck nonetheless.
In the myriad of questions her fellow King and her were currently asking both themselves and any witness they could land their hands on -the policemen taking care of the situation above ground included- only the why of the situation had a proper answer.
It had been rather easy to understand, after all, once her Queen had almost bowled over one of the recent rescues while exploring the vicinity, the previously imprisoned women were, after all, still too shocked to escape before the two Kings had taken the situation in hand.
It had been a little touch and go, what with the policemen, apparently having been called upon by some regular of the club, the 'Nighthaunt', after an earlier incident, finding themselves face to face with a bunch of teenagers traipsing around their crime scene.
Luckily, Sona's quick thinking and a little bit of hypnosis, again, had managed to redirect their attention to the situation above ground, the stampede upstairs having left a lot of people injured and in shock both.
Repressing a shiver, Rias can't help but think that she'd rather be dealing with some mundanes' injuries rather than the charnel house under their feet.
It was, for lack of a better description, the scene of a particularly one-sided slaughter.
Wincing a little as she steps onto something squishy -and which probably used to be inside a human body- she makes her way deeper into the place.
What feels like an eternity later, she steps next to her Knight, the latter apparently paying no mind to the fact that one of his knees is steadily getting soaked black-red as he kneels next to a body, a frown etched on his face as he idly rub his chin with one hand, the other carefully holding the scabbard of his blade at a length from the blood soaked floor.
Rias almost wants to snort at her Knight's incongruity, the blond seemingly paying more mind to a blade that he just summoned for protection rather than his pants, but only ends up crossing her arms under her bosom.
"What do you think, Yuto-kun?" She asks, more in an attempt to distract herself from the scenery than anything else.
The investigation was important, yes, because it was almost certainly not the work of a mundane, but she couldn't really help it if this whole debacle was giving her the creeps!
"Our guy is using two different weapons." The blue eyed boy answers instantly, "One with a cutting, superheated edge, while the other is more barbaric."
Rias quietly hums her understanding while simultaneously hugging herself a little tighter.
Taking her non-answer as his cue to elaborate, the Knight gestures around.
"It's rather easy to deduce, really." He starts, "The assailant made an almost straight path from the bottom of the stairs to the owner's office. They occasionally side-stepped, if the spread of the bodies is anything to go by, but they almost always hit the victims on the left side with this unknown, brutal device that I cannot name right now, while those on the right side were systematically bisected in some fashion with what I assume is a blade."
"And you'd be right." A voice makes its owner known, prompting Rias and her Knight both to look away from the gory display.
"Did you find something, Sona-chan?" The Gremory heiress asks, finally finding it in herself to relax her grip on her elbows as her oldest friend gives her a proper distraction.
"I did." The black haired girl answers, machinaly hiking her red rimmed glasses up her nose, an annoyed frown twisting her otherwise calm countenance, "Come along, it's easier if I show you."
It doesn't take long before the three of them find themselves into a room, full of tv screens and surveillance material, Sona's latest recruit and first bishop, a white haired girl named Hanakai Momo if Rias' memory was on point, seated in front of the keyboard.
At the trio's entrance, the girl whirls around, the crimson headed devil idly noticing that she looks decidedly very pale tonight under the artificial lighting of the room.
"Kaichou." The white haired girl demurely says, punctuating her acknowledgement with a little nod.
"Show them, Momo." The Sitri heiress answers back, before stepping to the side, looking intently at the screens.
Sona's Bishop do something on the keyboard, the image on the main screen flickering to better give place to a grainy, almost blurry, black and white recording of a camera Rias certainly had not payed attention to while she had been low-key wading through blood and entrails minute before.
The four of them watch, mutedly, as something way too fast to be human carves its way through the entryway of the Nighthaunt's side-business, bodies falling apart in its wake, in the span of a few handful of seconds.
The recording stops, Rias' Knight instantly asking the question she had on her mind.
"Is it possible for you to show it to us slower, Hanakai-san?" He kindly asks, a plastic smile etched on his face, even as the Gremory heiress takes note of his white-knuckled grip on the pommel of his sword.
"H-Hai, Yuto-san." The white-haired girl answers, before rewinding the recording, clicking a few options, and starting it again.
Once again, the recording plays, and Rias' brows furrow.
The absolutely garbage quality certainly doesn't help, but what she sees on screen actually makes very little sense.
The recording ends once more, and silence reigns heavily in the room.
"What about the quality?" Rias ends up asking after a beat.
"I'm sorry, Gremory-san," The white-haired girl demures, "The cameras are of poor quality, and the encoding is even worse. Without a better computer, I won't be able to improve the situation, and, even then, I wouldn't bet on it."
The crimson headed devil clicks her tongue in annoyance, before sighing, one of her hands coming to rub at her temple.
"Alright, what do you all make of this?" She asks aloud.
"They're good with their bladework." Her Knight grunts next to her, his deathgrip on his own sword noticeably less tight, "It's efficient, without any flourishes, they go for the kill, using their full might behind it.
"They're also deceptively strong to be able to shrug a corpse off their blade like it weighs nothing.
"What to make of the wing-like construct, though…" He trails off.
"A Sacred Gear, perhaps?" The white haired girl hazards.
"It looks like none that we know of, but it doesn't rule out the odd Balance Breaker." Sona answers, still doing her best attempt at drilling through the screen with the intensity of her gaze alone.
"Maybe it's a spell?" Rias wonders aloud.
"Impossible." The Sitri heiress instantly shoots down, before tapping with a delicate index on the rim of her glasses, "I would've seen some traces otherwise. No, this is, somehow, entirely non-magical."
"It doesn't explain why Koneko-chan stilled right the moment we stepped in there before bolting out to see if she got a lead." Rias grumbles to herself.
"Maybe…" Her Knight's start, prompting the gathering to look back at him, "It's some kind of Senjutsu?"
"The Yokai's bloodright?" Sona muses aloud, "It does draw heavily on emotions, that would explain your Rook's behavior."
"Except they don't really look like a Yokai." Rias underlines.
"Who's to say, with their odd, bulky attire. We aren't even sure if it's a guy or a woman." Sona counters.
"Actually," Rias' Queen starts as she steps inside the room, having apparently caught the tail end of the discussion, "It is a woman."
"How sure are you about that?" The Sitri heiress asks, her tone serious.
"She talked with one of the girls we found here. The one I almost bowled over, in fact." Her fellow purple eyed answers, punctuating her sentence with a feminine titter, "It was barely a few words, but the voice was decidedly feminine, and, I quote, oddly charming."
"Alright, so, our unknown is a she. Anything else?" Rias asks, the beginning of a headache having given birth to a fully fledged one at some point.
"I'm afraid I'm making myself something of a bearer of bad news, Buchou." The japanese beauty answers apologetically, before handing her a slip of paper.
Wordlessly, Rias takes it in her hands, eyeing it distractedly-
"The. FUCK?!" She yells in outrage, momentarily losing her grasp on her Power of Destruction.
-only to yelp in surprise as Sona dope-slaps her before deftly taking a hold of the slip of paper, no, the summoning contract she was seconds away from deleting from existence.
"This…" The Sitri heiress starts, a ugly sneer flashing over her usually collected features, "This complicates things."
[AN: Guess the aftermath is going to be a multi-parters because oh boy is there a lot to say.
We got a little breakdown from our protagonist's part, which, understandable, and also the beginning of the Devil's response.
Although, it seems most of the heat won't land on Prima, methink.
Hope you enjoy, xoxo]