FILFY teacher

by Vimesenthusiast

A Harry Potter who has tried to take control of his destiny from second year on finds himself in need of a fresh start. Armed with some abilities beyond the norm, a Mastery of Defense and a muggle-style teacher's license, Harry takes his daughter Lily Luna and takes a job offer at Kuoh Academy, not knowing how big the world beyond the Wizarding World is. Pairings Harry/Rias/many.

13. Chapter 13

I can't draw boobs (or at all) and I am not a British matron.

This story was the winner of my large story poll with 1835, with 384 coming from here on fanfic. This beat out my choice of Magic of the Force, which brought in a total of 1776, 282 of which came from fanfiction dot net. The third was Horse for the Force with 1,439, sunk by bringing in only 88 here on fanfic. Ouch.

This has only been edited by myself and my DxD/story flow fella, Nad Destroyer. It will no doubt have small mistakes.

Also beware, this chapter leaves up to the poll's premise. In fact, if it's pushing twelve at night where you are like it is here, I would recommend putting reading this off till tomorrow LOL. There are a lot of things going on here, personal, combat and general plot, and I wanted to put it all in this chapter since it's been a few months since this story was updated despite doing so well in every poll it was a part of. That… and my muse got away from me a few times.

Now with those warnings out of the way, here we go!

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Chapter #3 The Surprise Attack Which Wasn't

After the exorcists left, Harry, Rias, and Sona got to work, which at first largely meant giving orders to the others. Akeno and Tsubaki had other duties to see to. Tsubaki was sent out to grab Kalawarner and finish the arithmetic work needed to tell them which portion of the array could be moved in what sequence, which runes would have to be slowly erased and replaced with new ones having lost their efficacy in the move and quite a bit more. Most of that was done but going over everything again was more than a good idea on a project this large. When dealing with enough raw magic to blow the city up if they screwed up rechecking all their work was a necessity.

In contrast to that one large project, Akeno would be organizing a lot of little things, getting everything needed to make certain the pillar points could hear the music Yubelluna would be playing and the rest of the logistical work on both sides of that project. This meant getting the wireless speakers they were using working, with as little variation in the quality as possible, setting up the area under the pond where one of the pillars was located, and working with Yubelluna on her side of the project.

While the rest of Sona's peerage would be standing by for other orders along with Koneko and Loup, Rias assigned Kiba to keep an eye on their new unwanted guests. Rias knew that he would do so anyway. So instead of having him do it on his own, she ordered him to do so then assigned one of her bat familiars and two of Akeno's tiny Oni to help just in case.

As the two kings were giving out these orders, Harry stepped out for a moment to speak to Asia in the hallway beyond the ORC clubroom. She would be heading back to the compound soon, although Harry did give her some money so she could stop for ice cream she wanted. "I wanted to say I think you did a great job in there Asia. It can't be very easy to face someone from your past like that; someone who is condemning you for something you did which they think is so wrong and you believe you were in the right. But you took their accusations on and you responded by defending yourself and your actions and not trying to attack them in turn. I rather think that you showed yourself the better person there."

"Unfortunately Father, it is far too easy for those who have faith to believe that their faith always makes them in the right," Asia said with a sigh. "I wish I could have convinced the two of them that I wasn't a heretic simply because my Sacred Gear was able to heal a Devil and I did so out of ignorance, but I don't think it got through. And without that, I couldn't even begin to point out that just because someone is Devil doesn't make them automatically a bad person!"

Asia sounded more upset about that last bit than the first, which also said something about his oldest yet newest official daughter, Harry reflected. Then again, given the so-called Cold War between the factions and how most Devils still live down to the reputation their name gives them, that is a valid point.

"Always be wary of people who are so certain in themselves Asia. The world changes us as we deal with it, in fact, you could almost say that change is part of life. And if someone is unwilling to change the way they think or see the world, rather they will try to view the world through their own conceptions, that is when we start to have trouble. Your religion isn't exactly alone in creating such people after all. Heck, a lot of the wizard folk I used to live with still don't believe that mankind has landed on the moon! 'It's just not magically possible, and if it isn't magically possible how could Muggles have done it?'" Harry said, rolling his eyes as he said the last sentence in an odd, stuffy accent.

Asia giggled. She knew Harry liked to rag on his wizarding fellows, although she thought some of it was simply a reaction to how he had been treated like a punching bag so often by the public of the Wizarding World at school and afterward. One week idolized, the next week vilified with rarely an apology given, she thought, that would wear on anyone. "Thank you, father."

"Don't thank me, I just backed you up. You are the one that stood up for yourself first Asia," he said pulling her into a gentle hug while kissing her forehead. "I'm very proud of you." She hugged back, luxuriating in their familial relationship as she always did before reluctantly pushing out of his arms, smiling brightly at him as he said that he would meet her at home before turning away.

Back inside the clubroom, Harry found that Rias and Sona had rearranged the room somewhat, pushing the tables and benches out of the way so that they could look at a giant map of Kuoh and the area directly around it for several dozen miles on the floor. It was a regular map, a full city map showing every building, road, and park of the city, but there was nothing magical about it and he wondered aloud "Where did you get such a detailed map?"

"I copied all the maps I could find from the municipal building several years ago and then put them together into one map," Sona said with a wave of her hand. "I always felt that as the rulers of the magical side of things of Kuoh we should know everything about our territory. It was not nearly as helpful as I hoped simply because most of our influence never really extended that far before your arrival indeed even my peerages clients tended to be clustered nearer the academy. But it serves a purpose now."

She pointed down, as Rias took up the explanation. "If we're assuming that someone out there understands what the wards are, and where the outer edge of them is, we also have to assume they know that they can't get in or our magically, they have to come in the normal, nonmagical way. That means the subway, the train, the buses and even walking along some of the main roads. All of those things can be used to ferry people,. But, I don't think merely piling in people will be their plan. Groups of individuals sent here in small group can cause trouble, but not real damage."

Harry nodded. "We can't always assume that our enemies are stupid. As powerful as they are, our wards are obvious in their application. Any magical being should be able to spot them. Now there's a difference between spotting them and doing anything about them though. A powerful individual like Sirzechs could possibly take them down and still have enough energy left over to actually do something to the rest of us. But anyone less than that? They wouldn't be able to take the wards down through brute force. But the wards are still vulnerable until we move the pillars."

"Which means we know at least a few of their targets," Sona replied with her own nod, pushing her glasses up her nose. "But those targets can't be taken out by people, or anything one or two people could carry. I suppose the parts of a bomb could be bought within Kuoh's environs, but that is easy to watch out for. Beyond that, all freight comes into Kuoh via truck and train. The bulk freight station has its own security, but I'll send three of my peerage, with Reya in charge there. With that taken care of, we can narrow our concerns down to the roads, and thus have a limited number of places where we will need to set up your intent-based warning zones, Harry."

Harry nodded, and asked the two Kings to point out where they wanted the wards, slowly marking out different areas as he explained how they worked and why they couldn't be added to the runic scheme they already had in place, beyond the obvious reason of adding one ward on top of another normally being a very bad idea in any event. "Intent-based wards are normally used against magicals, to detect the intent they have imbued into their magic. If they are using nonmagicals, the wards needed for that are very different and would interfere with both the original intent-based wards and the active response wards. But I can still play with them a bit, add a marker to pinpoint which vehicle trips them, that's an Onmyodo trick, and set them so the intent is basically just trying to get to the places where the ward pillars are set."

"The problem is," Akeno said, coming in then. "What if the hypothetical people driving these trucks aren't intent on actually harming anything or anyone?"

"What do you mean?" Rias asked her Queen.

"What if these transport people are like those we have seen in some crime dramas? Go to such and such a location, drop off the truck, don't ever look inside. Many yakuza will take jobs like that without actually having any intent to harm or even knowing what they are carrying. The intent-based wards will miss that entirely."

"If they are thinking of the location of any of the pillars, we might be able to pick it up, but it's kind of chancy," Harry said with an approving nod at Akeno's point. "Wards have a very tough time picking out thoughts like that from the morass that is a normal human mind. So we'll need to have physical lookouts paired with the wards, at the outer edges of our territory, hidden but there to mark out any trucks coming through. Rias, you and Akeno and a few of the others have familiars, they can be used as lookouts right? Set them out on the perimeter of our territory and have them watching the main roads in and out. After that, we'll have to physically search the vehicle that trips them if we're really that paranoid."

"We're really that paranoid," Sona said shaking her head at Harry's weak joke. "This whole plan of causing trouble between the Church and the Devil factions smacks of the Khaos Brigade. And that Satan-blighted faction has shown a marked dismissal of collateral damage."

"On top of that, I'm wondering about the timing of this," Harry said. "Does the timing what we assume is going to be this attack matter? I mean, is there something special going on, some kind of event anywhere? And beyond that, how long will we need to be on watch for?"

Rias looked over at Sona, knowing she was a better diplomat than her. Rias was competent as a diplomat herself, but it wasn't her forte, which was business, stocks, bonds and trade agreements. Sona, on the other hand, wanted to follow her sister into being the Maou in charge of diplomatic affairs. She knew to a nicety the positions of the three factions at the moment, the diplomatic clashes, the various areas where they were in near direct competition, and the various nominally neutral Magician's Guilds, as well as the growing balance of trade and rapport they had begun building with the Youkai Association.

She had even gotten to the point where she felt she had a handle on the Wizards and their Onmyouji counterparts and how they figured into things on the magic/political level of the three Factions. Which was to say, not at all yet, but the potential was there for a lot more, so much so they could become a political/cultural entity on par with the Youkai association. Although at this moment that point didn't really matter in the current discussion.

"As far as the Three Factions go, there isn't anything important going on. The only important date or meeting of any kind coming up is among the neutral vampire clans, their yearly meeting to decide which clan will be their nominal spokesperson with the Factions," Sona said knowledgeably.

This made Rias stiffen for a moment in a way Harry and Akeno both caught but she said nothing, and Sona continued without pause. "As for the timing of the attack and how long we will need to be waiting for it, if they are attempting to ignite a war between the two factions, they will have to launch the attack while the two exorcists are still physically in attendance here in Kuoh. That means that it will happen sometime in the next week. By long-standing tradition diplomatic talks can only last for a week while occurring on one faction's territory and said enemy can only be diplomatically held accountable for the safety of the individuals for a week. Any longer would stretch the bounds of diplomacy, and if they attempt to stay longer than that, we would be well within our rights to kick them out."

"Now there's a most pleasant thought," Rias quipped, hiding the thought that had just occurred to her with ease. Like Harry, she had taken quite a bit of umbrage at the way the two exorcists had acted towards Asia, and even beyond that their attitude had rubbed her wrong.

"I doubt we'll have to wait that long," Harry mused. "Think about it, the longer the exorcists stay, the less likely it is that there'll be some kind of blowup between the two of them and us. Anyone with a brain should be able to figure that out, but whoever is planning this attack would also know the timing of their movements and want to strike at the most opportune time. I think we'll see an attack in the next two days, maybe three, no more than that. But changing the topic slightly, could we find whoever is planning to attack us?" he asked.

The two Devils looked at one another, thinking hard before Rias slowly shook her head. "I don't think so. Perhaps we could get the Onmyouji involved, to help in searching outside our territories, but I don't think we could find them. If it was that easy, they would have been spotted entering Japan already either by one of the factions or the Onmyodo government. Remember, our territory isn't the only Faction territory there is, there are Fallen, other Devils and even a few Church-based areas of control. We've all got our spies too."

She looked at Sona, who shook her head quickly. "If either of our older siblings had any hint that some large force of one of the other factions had moved into Japan, they would've told us about it already. No, if they're hiding from everyone already, we won't be able to find them, unless you have some kind of spell that would it be able to do that?"

"Not without knowing their names, or having some item or apparel of clothing," Harry said with a shrug. "And even then, I would have to be close for most of those spells to work. I just don't like the idea of being on the defensive for so long. It brings back bad memories."

Rias smiled, tucking her arm around Harry's. "Don't worry Harry, you're the one who's taught us all tactics, so you should know that there is nothing more dangerous than having a surprise attack turned on itself. We'll be ready for this, whatever they throw at us, we can be ready for it. Although," she said more seriously, "The fact that they are confident enough that they could take us out, even if they could somehow negate the wards, speaks of confidence and power."

"Also reach and numbers," Sona said with a sigh. "We're assuming this is the Khaos brigade again which means they have the scum of all three Factions and the neutrals out there to recruit from, but even so, they would need to have a very large force. Damn it. Why do I think that the Three Factions still aren't taking them as seriously as they should be?"

Harry looked at the two of them, then smacked his forehead, and pulled out his cell phone. Rias asked the obvious question of what he was doing, and he replied, "I'm calling Yasaka of course. She's our ally remember, heck, we wrote up mutual defense treaties and everything. If we're going to be dealing with numbers, we need to even the playing field as much as possible."

Of course, Yasaka was both more than willing to help, and a little irritated that they hadn't actually thought of calling her right off the bat. She soon joined them physically within the clubroom, dealing with the issues of being away from Kyoto in order to take part in the planning session and to express that irritation in person.

"I'm actually honestly angry right now," Yasaka said, pacing in front of Sona, Harry, and Rias. "It took until now for you to want to involve me in this planning? Ah," she waved a hand airily. "I wouldn't be able to add anything really to what you've already begun to plan, but I can add troops! Remember this attack is probably going to come from the Khaos Brigade, the same group that tried to mess with me and mine already. I can supply three dozen or so Youkai that really want to get it stuck in with that group for various reasons. Furthermore…" she turned, spearing Harry with her gaze. "The kind of illusion you're talking about is a lot more difficult than you think."

"I know that," Harry said mildly his emerald eyes dancing merrily at her attitude, which was so different from Yasaka's normal laidback persona when they were alone. "That's why I asked for you to be involved."

"That's sweet lover, but I mean that one person can't do it," she said flatly. "Not over that wide an area. Yes, the dimensional bubble spell gives you a strong starting point. However, to really fool people into believing that the bubble is the real thing, you'll need background noise and movement. The noise of traffic, of people moving around the city, of birds, the noise of the wind. The smell, all of the people moving, the train moving, the traffic, everything moving! I could maybe come up with one or two of those senses over that wide an area, but the entire thing?"

"Would information on the lay of the land, pictures of various people, and important sites and such like help?" Rias asked, holding up a hand hesitantly. This kind of affronted professionalism was something she hadn't seen yet from Yasaka, and while it was somewhat amusing, it was also a tiny bit intimidating.

"Yes, those would help immensely," Yasaka said calming down slightly. "But it still will be very tough, especially to create the illusion in such a manner that it will fool powerful, experienced opponents which I am positive we all are thinking we might face here, correct?"

Everyone nodded, and she went on. "In that case, the key to a successful illusion of this scale is to build it upon layers. Something like a multilayered cake almost. We will need to start with the actual dimensional bubble, and then from there we can…"

Eventually, they had an overall plan in place. First, of course, what they would have to capture or otherwise neutralize the non-magical threat to the wards, which they had already gone over. After that, however, their plan got trickier. Yasaka and Harry would work together to create an illusion set into the dimensional pocket which Rias and Sona would create. The dimensional bubble would give them a battlefield. The illusion would imitate Kuoh's daily life so precisely that no one would be able to tell physically or by any other sense that there was a difference between the two.

Rias and Sona would work on the spell to shift people wholesale from the real world to the alternate zone, making it so smooth that no one would be able to tell. That would be hard to get right, but it would be doable for the two of them together. After that Harry, with Akeno and Rias's help, would create a series of traps within the dimensional bubble ready to activate at need.

"But the hard part will be shifting them from the real world into the bubble on top of our illusion. We can't let a single hint of our plans out, or else whoever it is might just retreat and attack us in a way we're not prepared for. Remember we want them all," Harry said. As the most combat-experienced among them, he had taken over the planning session shortly after Yasaka arrived. "Never do an enemy a small injury, they can just come back smarter and better prepared. Trust me, that happened all too often to me."

"We might also want prisoners," Rias said, equally calculating now as she and Sona nodded, understanding they wouldn't be able to ask for aid from their families or more importantly their siblings. The arrival of a Maou would certainly make whoever was planning this to back off, possibly permanently. There was also their Sins of Pride showing in that decision to a great degree. Neither was willing to run to their siblings for aid or even the rest of their families, their Pride would not allow it, not when they had created the alliances they had already. "If they really are part of the Khaos Faction and we can take some prisoners, who knows how well we could roll those terrorists up."

Rias would be in overall strategic control as it were. Her teleportation power allowed her to exert control from a far longer distance than anyone else's, and because of her teleportation ability, she could also both send and pull people back from the fighting. And among the three of them, she also had a better idea of the layout of the city, thanks to her earlier retraining after talking to Harry about tactics and the importance of the environment in warfare. Sona might have had the foresight to take the map, but she hadn't studied the area in detail. There was a vast difference between looking at things on a map and seeing them in person.

And while Harry had a vastly greater experience than either of the two young heiresses, he didn't have the knowledge Rias had of the territory or the long-range striking power. Instead, he would be in charge at the front and would lead the rest of their main combatants to hit any large concentrations of enemies and pin them down so that Rias could redirect aid to them. Sona, Akeno and Tsubaki would be a single group, added in with Harry wherever they needed to bring down the biggest hammer.

"Although I probably won't be able to be here physically for very long or perhaps at all depending on the battle's timing, we'll also add in a few dozen Youkai. Although I will warn you, a few of them will be extremely belligerent towards either Fallen or Devils. I'll put them under the command of Captain Montoya, you've met him already. He was the Monkey Youkai that Kiba struck up a conversation about old movies with at the Swanhilde's river.

Harry nodded, and said, "I'll also ask Tonks to bring in the locals. It might not be there fight yet, but it is their country, and I hope that they have enough basic intelligence to realize that if they don't fight this fight now, they might have to fight it later. For now, I'm off to see a certain dragon lady. Perhaps I can get her involved as well."

All three women around him winced, although Yasaka's was more theatrical than anything else given she rather liked Tiamat and felt her spiky, standoffish personality was more an affectation than anything else. "Are you sure that's wise, Harry?" Sona asked.

"Yep. There's no such thing as overkill Sona, only dead and not dead enough."

Rias nodded as she rolled up the map and put it to one side, revealing the transportation array to Hell. Once through into the Underworld, Harry would then be able to teleport to the Familiar Forest on his own, but he couldn't cross the dimensional gap anymore than anyone else could. "Actually that might be a very good idea, though don't be discouraged if she doesn't agree with you, Harry. From what I know dragons are rarely willing to offer aid unless in the most serious circumstances, even to those they have made agreements with like you."

To that Harry could only shrug and say he hoped to be convincing enough to get her involved. Several minutes later he was walking through the Familiar Forest, using the connection between himself and Tiamat to find her and his werewolf form to run through the forest as quickly as possible. Eventually, he found himself outside the large warren of caves deep in the forest where Tiamat made her home.

"I know you are there, Harry Potter. Is there a reason you have come to seek me out rather than communicate through our bond or simply pull me to you through it? Although to be fair I might not have replied to such an abrupt summons unless your reasons were both serious and immediate." Tiamat's voice asked, echoing from deep inside the cave. But even with the voice echoing off the walls, Harry could tell there was something off about that voice. It wasn't as deep as it should be, indeed, it sounded almost like a normal woman's voice rather than that of a dragon.

Despite that hint, Harry was still surprised when Tiamat emerged from her cave, but given her current appearance, Harry felt his surprise could be excused. Because as the voice had warned, she was human now. Or rather, close to it.

Tiamat's features were that of a middle-aged human woman, her face regal with thin features and high cheekbones coupled with a somewhat longer than normal neck. She had long ears, almost like the type elves did in fantasy novels Harry had read to Lily occasionally. She had a decent bust to her, somewhere between Tsubaki and Kalawarner in both size and perkiness. She did not have a bra on so this last observation was actually quite clear to see as she walked forward. Her feet were still dragon paws though, and her legs were scaled from the knees down. She also had a tail sticking out of a large hole at the back of her pants, swishing as she walked.

And then there was her hair, skin color, and clothing. Tiamat was a blue-scaled dragon in her normal body, and that seemed to have carried over. Her skin was blue. Her shirt was blue. Her pants were a lighter color blue, as were her eyes. Finally her hair, which was long and flowed down to where the bottom of it barely missed the ground, was blue, several dozen different shades of blue.

All in all, she was an extremely striking and highly unusual sight and it took Harry a few seconds to get over his surprise. "Huh, I see you've been working on something since last we met in person."

"Since long before that actually." Tiamat preened. "You know how much I dislike having to shrink myself to meet you or the others beyond my forest. This seemed a solution, one I had experimented with before, several… Oh, it must be a few centuries ago by this point." She twirled in place, an odd thing to see given her draconic legs and tail. "Do you like it? This form is fully functional too. I have often wondered about how humans mate, it should be fascinating to experiment."

"Should Ddraig be jealous?" Harry teased. "As to your form, you seem to have a few additional bits here and there, but it's quite decent for a first attempt."

"Hmmm, no, I'll just force him to change forms too. The number of things you humans can do with your mouths and tongues alone could pay for the amount of time it took me to perfect it." She opened her mouth and flicked out a tongue that was quite a bit larger than the norm, smirking at Harry before becoming serious. "Still, you didn't come to see my magical experiment, what brings you here?"

Harry explained about the exorcists' arrival and what they feared they might face soon, how they were busy preparing and had even reached out to Yasaka and their other allies. He finished by asking if he could convince her to join them for this conflict.

Tiamat listened, cocking her head in such a way that it was clear it had a greater range of movement than any human neck should. Then she slowly nodded. "I will come along I suppose. But do not expect me to do your fighting for you, Harry Potter. I will step in only if my aid would make the difference between victory and defeat."

"A trump card should always be used thus Tiamat," Harry replied with a smile, earning a laugh from the transformed dragon woman. "Only, if you do come by in this form, put some more work in your legs if possible? I don't know if our floors would be able to take it."

OOOOOOO

While Harry and the others were making plans, Kiba was following the two exorcists, trailing them through the streets just out of sight, sometimes using his greater knowledge of the area to circle to one side or the other of their meanderings. He paused several blocks away though, looking to his right and groaning slightly before moving directly behind a bush that for some reason was hiding behind a trash can.

"While it may not be gentlemanly of me to say this my friend, but you are truly not wearing the correct camouflage to trail someone in a cityscape," Kiba said as diplomatically as he could to the bush.

Issei pushed his head out of the bush, looking around and noticing people all around them giving him a wide birth, some of them even pointing and whispering. Sighing he reluctantly discarded the bush. "Yeah, well, it was the only thing I could get my hands on quickly Pretty-boy."

"Don't let Yubelluna see that you ripped up a perfectly good bush like that," Kiba said with a chuckle. "She might take it personally."

At that Issei shivered a little, shaking his head. "Yeah, she can be darn scary sometimes when her bandrui-side overwhelms her." He paused then, looking at Kiba. "I suppose you are following Irina and Xenovia? For your own reasons or under orders?"

"Hmm, am I that predictable, or do you just know me that well?" Kiba asked, rhetorically before shrugging his shoulders. "I would have followed them regardless. I might have been convinced that my anger towards the church was self-destructive and pointless, but that doesn't mean I like them very much. Especially if they really are wielding Holy swords, fragments of the original Excalibur. I still have a bit of an issue with those blades, the wielding of which was the purpose that gave credence to the Holy Sword Project. If they prove unworthy of them, I would dearly like to destroy them." While Kiba liked to think he was beyond hating both the Church and the Holy Weapons which had been the cause of his pain, he also was determined to eventually find out if there was indeed any reason for the torment he and his friends had gone through.

"Well in that case, could I just join you?" Issei asked. "I know I'm not good at this spy thing, but I figure between the two of us we could do the job.

"Why are you so interested in them? Is it because that one, Irina, is an old friend of yours?" Kiba asked.

"Yeah duh! I mean she is an old friend of mine, even if I didn't know she was a girl when we were younger. But damn I'm not going to make that mistake again, I mean, did you see how she's grown?" he moved his hands in front of his chest suggestively, winking at Kiba as if expecting the other boy to join him in on the joke, but Kiba simply smiled back placidly at him, and Issei groaned.

"Look, I just want to talk to her okay, Kiba? There's nothing major in it, nothing that could set off my girlfriend you know? I mean, I guess I don't like either of them either. I think they were way too certain, too arrogant by half. But I also understood from what everyone was saying that they were probably placed in a bad position on purpose, either by their own superiors or by someone using them to cause trouble. I just, I guess I feel sorry for them."

"I still rather think that this is like trying to catch one bird while holding another in your hand already," Kiba said slowly. Really the idea of a Devil having pity for a church exorcist is rather unusual, yet also somewhat in keeping with the boy given his generally good nature, and his single-minded devotion to his 'oppai'. "But I'll allow you to come along with me."

Although, I do have to wonder what his girlfriend would think about him spending time with two cute girls. Still, that can be something to hold over his head in the future if need be. Whatever his knightly airs, Kiba remained a Devil after all.

"Great, so let's go do this," Issei said happily, bounding away without another word.

"Wait, what?" Kiba asked before Issei darted around the corner he'd been peering around and walked up boldly to the two exorcists.

The two of them turned to the two Devils, one glaring, the other welcoming Issei with a smile that dimmed only slightly at the sight of Kiba behind him. Of course, it was the glaring one who spoke up first. "What, have you come to make fun of us again, warn us we're not welcome once more? Or are you here just to watch us and make sure we don't proselytize or something equally dangerous to you Devils?" She asked snarkily.

Of course, proselytizing wasn't actually dangerous to Devils unless someone used the term God directly in front of them. And even the exorcists were not so naïve as to think that they could create enough of an upswelling of religious fervor to irritate them in a few days' time. But Xenovia was angry, angry the Devils had treated her so, and that she couldn't lash out at them physically being under orders to not start anything. So she took it out on the two Devil boys the only way she could, verbally.

Issei waved his hands wildly in front of him, shaking his head just as fast. "No, no, nothing like that! I'm here on my own, I just um, I just wondered if you knew your way around Kuoh? And, well I'd like to talk to Irina if that's all right? We might be on, you know, opposite sides of this Cold War thing, but as I understand it that Cold War's been going on for a lot longer than either of us has been alive, so why should that matter when it comes to our friendship?"

Irina smiled at that and nodded happily. "I'd love to get to know you again Issei-kun! Although of course, I will have to ask how you actually became a Devil in the first place. I would've never imagined you becoming a Devil, you were so nice and polite as a child, and a lot of fun too. Even if you were a little perverted even back then."

"And what about him?" Xenovia muttered, pointing over Issei's shoulder at Kiba who was currently torn between irritation toward Issei and amusement at the boy's expense. Given the blushing, half-proud, half-horrified expression Issei wore, amusement won out.

"I am here just to keep an eye on you, but, I won't cause trouble if you don't. I will simply ask if you have ever heard about the Holy Sword Project and then may ask for a spar later on." Kiba replied, smiling and shaking his head at his younger compatriot.

Both exorcists winced and looked at him with a mix of revulsion and pity. Irina took it upon herself to reply. "I, oh my… if you know that name then does that mean you, you're a survival of that cursed project?"

"It does. As far as I know, I am the only survivor," Kiba said, looking away, his fingers twitching.

"The church disavowed that project the instant Father Galellei's actions came to light. They tried to find him, to bring him to justice, but he was long gone and…" Xenovia's words slid to a halt as she stopped and stared at Kiba, true horror in her face.

"And the guards of the facility dead, along with the children, all of whom had been gassed." Kiba nodded. "Yes. If not for my King, I too would not have survived."

The two exorcists looked uncomfortable, but Irina finally said, "I, I can see why you have a problem with us. Even if such acts would never be condoned by the Church as a whole, it was created under the Church's name. I apologize on the Church's behalf, though I know those are simply words. If you want us to have some sparring matches, that can perhaps be arranged, though I do not know if that would help you find closure."

"Closure, no, but it would make me feel better to see what all the fuss was about," Kiba said, his words light even as he turned to stare hard at the two exorcists, his anger and pain plain to see.

"Okay, enough about this serious talk," Issei said, clapping his hands together. "Let's get going!"

After that, Issei began showing them through the city, stopping at an ice cream store where the two girls bought themselves some ice cream, and the boys, pretzels. Issei and Irina dominated the discussion, talking about what they could remember of their childhoods, comparing memories, and talking about how they had gone on from there.

At one point even Xenovia was giggling at the idea of the two kids having a pissing contest and Irina using a tube of all things to appear like she was a boy. "If that was the case, Irina, you can't then turn around and be sad he didn't realize you were a girl. Why ever did you go through that though?"

Irina blushed and looked away, embarrassed. "Thought he wouldn't want to be friends with me," she muttered so low the others had to strain to hear her. "Or worse, would get weird around me like he already was around a few of the older girls and mothers on the block."

At that two accusing gazes turned to Issei who withered under the astonishingly combined front of Xenovia and Kiba. "Rather quick to hit puberty, weren't you? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised how quickly you grasped the way of the pervert," Kiba said dryly, with Xenovia astonishing herself by nodding agreement.

However, as the story of how Issei became a Devil came out and what happened afterward, Irina became astonished that Issei seemed to have actually become a better person through interacting with the other Devils! That was a very odd thought to her, but it seemed to be accurate and she said so. "If you had remained with those two friends of yours, I'm really afraid that you would have become a danger to society in some fashion. Staring at a girl's chest is well, it's…" she blushed, poking her fingers together and looking away. Yet Kiba was amused to see she actually thrust out her chest a bit as she did so. "it, it can be understandable I suppose, given how little control God gave mankind over our Sins, especially the Sin of Lust. But going so far as to invade someone's privacy, recording them in their most vulnerable moments? That is well beyond the pale."

"Yeah well, I realized that eventually," Issei mumbled, looking around and suddenly desperate to change the subject. Normally he'd be happy to talk about his perversions, even to girls who might judge him for it. After all, spreading the wonder of the oppai was part of his life's goal of becoming a harem king. But it was true that interacting with the other two perverts had been leading him down a very dangerous road. Issei just didn't want to admit that he had been going down that road alongside them willingly.

Looking to one side he spotted a hotel and smiled grateful for the distraction. "Look, there's a hotel there. I hear they have really good lunchboxes they sell too, and their rooms are nice if a little expensive."

He turned back to the others, not noticing that the two girls were no longer meeting his gaze or that Kiba was looking at them speculatively, having caught a flinch from Irina a moment ago. "Let me tell you, I'm really glad that you both have money for room and board! Given the way your discussion with Buchou and the others went, it'd be very bad to ask them to put you up somewhere for the time you're here."

"I can see even Kaichou, er that's Sitri-san, doing that whole dangerous angry Council President look at you." he mimed pushing up a pair of glasses on his head and glaring at them, but when no one laughed, his own humor left him. "Um, you were supposed to laugh. S, sorry if my impression wasn't good or something."

Irina winced, looking over at her friend. "We, we sort of told a white lie there when we were in front of the Devils and that werewolf fellow. We, we actually don't have any money. Um, we've enough for food," she added hastily, "but not for board."

Kiba groaned. Having anticipated that it was something like that a moment ago did not make hearing it any better. "Do you mean to say that the church sent you here without proper funding?" he asked, unwilling to believe that even of the church.

"They sent us off with enough funding," Xenovia muttered. "But Irina here thought she found a painting of a True Saint, and just had to buy it, only to realize afterward that it was a fake!" She shouted the last words, glaring at her friend in what was obviously a restart of an old argument.

"Well, it could have been! The seller even said it was. How could anyone lie about having a painting of a true saint, and then think they could get away with it? God will punish him for that." Irina said piously. Both Devils winced, and she turned to them, her hands flying to her mouth "Oh I'm so sorry I completely forgot!"

Xenovia rolled her eyes. "Irina, do I have to remind you that we are not here to make friends?" though she had mellowed markedly during the walk, having come to realize that these two turned Devils were not cut from the same mold as those born to it, she wanted to keep a certain amount of distance between them even so.

"But Issei and I were already friends, right?" She asked, smiling at him and putting her hands together in front of her chest as she did so.

The look was incredibly cute, and Issei found himself nodding rapidly answering before he could think, something that was a bit of a recurring issue with him. "Sure, we're still friends! In fact, if you don't have any place to stay Irina, I bet my parents would be fine with putting you up for a few nights. For old time sake if nothing else." He paused, looking at Xenovia. "Er, I'm not certain that they'd be willing to put you up though, and I don't want anyone working more mind magics on them than we already have been forced to in the past a few times, sorry."

Kiba barely held back a groan, his smile becoming something of a rictus, as he took in the scene thinking aloud, "Oh, this cannot end well."

"In that case, perhaps we do have enough money for one of us to get a room," Xenovia said, actually smiling now it Issei. "Thank you, for putting up my friend. That shows good Christian charity, even if you are a Devil."

Issei smiled at the compliment, even as he sweatdropped at the wording. "Um, thanks, but you do know that the number of actual Christians in Japan is like barely more than two percent if that? Good Christian charity doesn't actually mean much here."

Irina laughed at her friend's expression, and took her arm, tugging her towards Issei. "Come on Issei, you were showing us around before this, let's keep going. Maybe we can find a hotel that has rooms which are less expensive than that one. And do you think your family would be willing to feed us as well? Then we could certainly afford a room for my friend."

"Oh, sure no problem," Issei said with a laugh. "They'll be happy to see you so much that I doubt it'll even cross their minds not to feed you. Heck, they'll be happy to see me for meals if I'm honest. I spend so much time over at the Potter compound I barely take one breakfast or dinner in five at home."

Kiba rolled his eyes again, but followed the group along, as the two friends once more began to dominate the discussion. This time it was Irina talking about what had happened to her since she had left Japan with her family. It turned out that her father was an exorcist, and a very good one, his first name of Touji actually startling Kiba to look at the twin-tailed girl in surprise. Touji had dragged Irina's mother and Irina herself around the world thanks to his job, time in Kuoh being among the longest they had stayed anywhere before he finally retired in Rome. Irina herself had begun training about two years after they had left Japan and had been utterly astonished to be nominated for the Excalibur program despite regularly testing out at the top of her training cadre.

She was telling Issei a funny story from her training about how she had gone from a being able to lift forty pounds to more than a hundred pounds and what that had entailed when they passed by one of the city's parks. In fact, it was the same one that the Potter family frequented. There they cut through the park heading towards a hotel on the other side. In fact, Lily and Kunou were there now, playing with dozens of other kids in a complicated game of tag or football, it was hard for the bystanders to tell which.

As she stepped back from taking her turn, Lily spotted Issei and Kiba and waved at them only to pause as she looked at the two new girls. I wonder who they are. Her curiosity piqued, Lily moved away from the rest of the kids, heading towards the two boys and the newcomers.

Kiba saw her coming and smiled, waving at her even as he wondered how this was going to go.

"Who's she?" Irina asked, waving back at the little girl. "She's cute! Is she another Devil though, with that red hair? Not that it would matter of course," she said hurriedly. "A girl that age, there's no way she could have any sins of her own, regardless of race."

"That is not what the book teaches," Xenovia muttered shaking her head. But even so, her face had slowly melted at the sight of the girl. "But then again, God seems to have neglected to think that Devils could breed true, so perhaps that could possibly be true. I would still rather keep her at arm's length though."

"Actually no, that is Lily Potter, Harry sensei's daughter. She's quite the rambunctious little girl," Kiba said with a chuckle. "Behind her is Kunou, a young fox Youkai, the daughter of Yasaka, the leader of the Youkai association."

Issei nodded with a laugh. "Seriously! She's so dang bright you can sometimes forget how young she is until she acts her age, and there are her werewolf powers too. I mean, she thinks it's fun to wrestle with Koneko, a Rook! And that's not even mentioning the time I saw her actually fight some older Devils."

At their words, Irina winced slightly at the memory of how Harry had dressed them down during the meeting earlier before blinking. "Wait, what? But unless… oh no, did he bite her!?"

"What, no!" Kiba exclaimed. "Wherever did you get that notion?"

"But, but the werewolf curse, unless… was his wife also a werewolf?" Irina mused, calming down slightly while Xenovia quietly simmered beside her. "Um, but I didn't see a ring on his finger earlier, and… oh dear, out of wedlock and a werewolf too? That is a harsh burden to lay on any child."

"His wife was human, a witch," Issei hastened to say before Irina could pile more misconceptions on top of one another and going on from that in an unusually delicate manner for him, figuring to try to bring this topic to a close. "They divorced though, not certain why. And um, he somehow passed on his curse to her too, again not certain how, but he did, she was born with it."

While this seemed to confuse and allay Irina's concerns, or rather redirect them, Mount Xenovia finally erupted, rearing her head back and staring at the little girl in growing ire. "Another werewolf? The werewolf race is a sin in the eyes of the Lord, and now one has found out a way to pass it on to his get rather than in a way that could be fought?! And as for the Fox monsters of Japan, do you not know that they have sometimes passed themselves off as gods?! Blasphemous! The entire race should be wiped out."

By this point, Lily had come close enough for her enhanced senses to hear this, and she growled, stomping up to the girl and glaring up at her. "How dare you! Just being born is not a crime!" She growled, reaching out with a hard thumb to poke the older girl in the stomach. "I don't know who you are, but if you're going to insult my friends like that, I don't think I want to. And if you even take a step towards Kunou I'm gonna thump you one, and I'll get Ddraig first!"

Xenovia scowled, but Irina got between them shaking her head. "Forgive my friend, please? In the eyes of our Lord, monsters like werewolves are, well abominations, the curse being caused by unholy magic. A lot of the lessons we are taught about werewolves and such do not take into account the fact that there could be children among them at all let alone one born to it like you. And of course, it makes no allowance for Youkai. I, I'm afraid being here, out and about, and interacting with everyone here is causing us to come face to face with our preconceived notions and how they might be wrong, and my friend is having trouble dealing with it."

"Hmmf!" Lily muttered, shaking her head. "I suppose I'll forgive her for saying that if she's just spouting what she's been taught. But blindly believing like that, that makes you sound kind of stupid you know? Form your own ideas and thoughts and don't just spout some books. If you don't, well, what you said earlier Big Blue, sounds a lot like racism and that's never a good thing." With that, she turned and ignoring the horrified look on both Exorcist's faces, sped off back into the weird ballgame she and the other kids were playing.

The group was silent and rather stiff towards one another as they moved away from the park, but Xenovia was actually looking more thoughtful than anything else at the moment, and she finally sighed. "I was in the wrong," she said simply. "While God's teachings should always be honored and followed, I should not use them as an excuse for stereotyping young children who do not know better, and whose sins were not their own. I suppose that I let my own beliefs get ahead of me, and I will apologize for it now."

I perhaps should even apologize to Asia, she thought; although I would sooner dance naked through the church then do so. "Further, I have… been off-balance mentally since arriving here, and let that color my words and actions when speaking to the Gremory and Sitri heirs." She finished.

"We're not the ones you should apologize to, Xenovia-san," Issei said, glancing over at Kiba.

"I'll accept your apology on behalf of my lady for your lack of manners in the meeting," Kiba said with a nod. "But I think Lily, and Asia in particular, deserve personal apologies," he said, not about to let Xenovia off the hook as she might have hoped.

"Showing no remorse and piling on an opponent who has already been forced to concede, you really are a Devil aren't you?" Xenovia muttered, but her anger had dissipated, and she nodded. "I will do so when next I meet them."

"I suppose that's as far as we'll get at this point," Kiba said chuckling ruefully. "However, I believe we should find you that hotel now, and after that, I will leave you, Shidou-san, in Issei's hands. Buchou might have need of my services later on."

Eventually, they found a small motel where Xenovia could pay for a single bed for three days lodging with what money she and Irina had. She would have to join Irina at Issei's for food, but that was no great hardship. Soon Kiba was set to leave, letting Issei stay behind to wave the Gremory and Sitri names to give the exorcist a discount, something he felt was the height of irony.

Still, by this point he was convinced that the two young women were nothing more than they had shown so far, simple exorcists sent on a mission because of their weapons and training rather than their experience. Neither of them were spies or the sort to act in a duplicitous manner. Why look at the way they were utterly unable to lie when called upon it with their finances. And, it has to be said, Xenovia's ability to see she was in the wrong, no matter how long it took her, is positive. If they can curtail their arrogance, I don't honestly think they'll be much trouble.

But his plans to leave Issei to watch the two exorcists changed abruptly as a van pulled up in front of them with a squeal of wheeling tires. The side of the van opened and four people within opened fire with submachine guns on the four of them. Bullets shot towards them faster than any normal human would've been able to even track, let alone dodge.

But none of these four were normal. The two exorcists immediately went to ground, while Kiba leaped up high, landing on a lamp post above the action. Unable to dodge, Issei shouted out a protective spell, one of the ones he had learned from Harry which created a foot thick meter of condensed air, which stopped the bullets aiming towards him in midair.

Amidst the screaming of the passerby everywhere nearby, Kiba groaned, knowing how much work covering this up would be. That was for later though. For now, he pulled out one of his generic swords and leaped down, bisecting the front of the van and killing the driver. He then twisted around the truck and started to cut into the side of the truck that didn't have a door.

Another van pulled up nearby, disgorging four more men, and they too fired. But unlike the first group, two of these attackers had been stupid enough to load their weapons with sanctified bullets against their orders. They all fired on the two exorcists. But the weapons of the two who attempted to use sanctified bullets exploded the instant they tried to fire them.

The intent-based wards didn't care if you are using items, weapons or whatever. If it was magical, and you were trying to use it against someone within the wards, you would be shut down with prejudice. Those two men fell screaming as their weapons exploded in their hands, then Xenovia was on the two of them, pulling out a blade from somewhere on her shoulder.

The weapon the blue-haired girl pulled out was a huge sword, with a grip long enough Xenovia could have stacked three hands on one another before meeting the pommel which was in the shape of a cross. A guard that looked like the blade had been fused with an ax and a blade that ended with three points made the giant sword look very unusual.

"Excalibur Explosion!" her giant sword blasted down between them, creating an explosion as the name suggested, hurling them to either where they landed, their bodies shredded by the shrapnel and the explosive force.

The four attackers within the first van were now trapped, unable to escape thanks to Kiba and stuck between him, and the shield that Issei had just thrown up between them. Then Irina rolled forward under that shield and leaped into the van, her fists and feet lashing out with bone-breaking force. The attackers were all able to drop their guns and grab up knives, but then Kiba was cutting in from the other side and soon enough all the attackers were dealt with.

Scowlign angrily, Xenovia marched back toward the others, simmering in her anger, her voice formal as she raised Excalibur Explosion to point at the Knight. "You said that this was safe territory, and yet not six hours after our arrival here Irina and I are attacked. Is this your doing Devil?" .

"If we wanted to attack you, why would we use non-magical means?" Kiba asked slightly mystified by her accusation and thrown off by the events himself. The fact that they had avoided shooting at him was very telling and he said so aloud. "I think actually you are jumping to the exact conclusion whoever is trying to stir up trouble between the Devils and the Church wants you to reach.

Xenovia gritted her teeth but after a few tense seconds, Irina was there, touching her shoulder gently. At that touch, she slowly lowered her weapon, where it disappeared into a special magical pouch, invisible at her waist. "I, very well. I will not apologize for my suspicions, Devil, but you are correct, if you wanted to get rid of Irina and I this is not the method you would use. But know we will be watching you and yours."

At that, it was Kiba's turn to become somewhat angry. "Xenovia-san, you are in our territory, not the reverse. You are here to search for signs of that missing Excalibur fragment. Remember that, and remember you are here on sufferance. Diplomacy must flow both ways Xenovia-san." He kept up the glare, then slowly jerked a thumb out of the hole he had cut into the side of the van. "Now, are you going to help me modify the memories of the people who saw this little attack, and then search these people for clues as to why they attacked you two, or not?"

With Irina still holding her shoulder, Xenovia was forced to accede to this point, and the three of them moved off, quickly spreading out to start erasing memories. Issei watched them go then sighed and began to drag the bodies of the attackers together. "Well, this wasn't what I expected to be doing with my day, let me tell you."

OOOOOOO

"So Kiba thinks that there won't be any further attacks like that. It was meant to simply point fingers, the exorcists were meant to be scared and worried that Devils were trying to attack them like that, but whoever was planning for didn't realize that we would have two of our own there to watch them," Rias finished.

"And if not for Issei we might not have," Harry said mildly.

Rias could only nod ruefully at that. "His desire to get close to a pretty girl actually worked in our favor this time yes," she said dryly. "I'll mark the date shall I?"

Harry chuckled and leaned over, kissing her cheek lightly. She nuzzled her head into his shoulder for a second, before they kept walking down the street, the two of them following Asia and Koneko who had gone out for ice cream together. Although the couple was covered in an illusion to keep anyone from noticing how close they were walking or anything else, while the two girls were not. They were heading home where they would meet Yubelluna, Kalawarner and the others prior to the start of the ritual. Kalawarner had finished the arithmantic checks, while Akeno had finished preparing each pillar sector for what was going to happen as Yubelluna prepared for her concert. Each pillar had its own speaker, connectedvia a wireless device to the sound system back in the backyard where Yubelluna would be performing.

When they reached the house, Harry opened the door for the ladies, bowing them in, causing them all to smile at him, and Koneko to sneak a little sideways hug before following the others in. Harry followed after her, staring at the back of Koneko's head thoughtfully. He had heard her calling him 'father' during their sparring match/battle of survival with Sirzechs but since she hadn't repeated it, he hadn't responded to it. It was more an acknowledgment of what he had become to the young Nekoshou than any world-shaking change in the relationship of course, but in hindsight, it had been very nice to hear. But he wouldn't push it. Until she said it in far less traumatizing situations, he'd let Koneko continue on as is.

Following the others outside, Harry was unsurprised to find Lily, Kunou, and Teddy there with their familiars along with Mittelt, Loup and Kalawarner helping to set up the backyard for the concert to come. What did surprise him was the sheer number of little speakers that were leading up to the central-most microphone though. Then again, given the fact the microphone is a large tower, is it still a microphone? There were over a dozen small speakers in rows almost like an orchestra set to either side of the microphone, where Yubelluna would be performing.

"What are all these then?" he asked, gesturing to them while the girls waved at the others before going inside to change.

As Lily and Kunou waved at him, Yubelluna smiled, moving through the kids patting heads before curtsying before him. Harry looked at her quizzically, and she shrugged. "It seemed sort of appropriate, considering everything I'm going to be doing here is, in fact, a kind of prayer to you."

"As for the speakers," she went on turning and gesturing with one hand towards them. "Each of them is set up to play a different instrument from the ten songs I'm intending to play tonight. It's just a hunch, but I think… well the more music, the more power frankly. I've got recordings of the songs I'm going to use, all of them are Irish-based folk songs, simple tunes, none of them really anything special. But they do come from the same kind of tradition as," she gestured again with her other hand towards Harry somewhat haplessly, unable to find a simple term to encompass the connection between her bandrui powers, Harry, and the fact that he had absorbed the powers of Manannán mac Lir.

Harry nodded slowly. "Yes, that makes sense I suppose. However, I'm afraid I'm going to have to talk to your little helpers for a moment."

"Did something happen?" Kalawarner asked, concern in her voice as she heard Harry's tone.

Harry nodded and gestured the three kids over to him. After a brief hug with his daughter, Harry sat them all down on a conjured sofa for a moment as he took a seat on a conjured chair. Before he could speak though, Lily asked, "Daddy, do you know about these two very rude girls that were going around with Issei and Kiba? They were saying all sorts of nonsense about werewolves and kitsune and really irritating me."

"Yes lovey, I know about them, I am afraid their presence is part of what I want to talk to you three about." He sighed, shaking his head. "I'm afraid that your ability to leave the compound for anything but school is now curtailed. From now on until you we tell you, the three of you are going to be escorted to school by two of us, and then be escorted back in the evening."

Lily frowned at that while Kunou pouted. Sprouting her tales and Fox ears for a moment she pulled her fox tail around the front and chewed on the end of it looking up at the older man who had become her second father in truth if not yet in name just yet. Uh oh, this sounds a little familiar to me…

"What's going on Harry?" Teddy asked seriously.

"Is someone going to start targeting us again, or is this a whole group sort of problem?" Lily asked.

Harry sighed, ruffling his daughter's head. "I really do hate when you occasionally say stuff like that, it shows how used to the idea of being targeted you are, lovey. Still, it isn't you this time, it's all of us." From there Harry went on to explain in as basic a way as possible what was going on, and why they thought someone was trying to get the church and the demons to go to war again. The kids all understood, and Lily nodded seriously understanding that they too would be in danger if caught out beyond the Potter compound's defenses.

Lily nodded seriously, understanding everything her dad said and hopped up from her chair to plop herself down in his lap, reaching up and pulling his head down to her so she could give him a kiss on the cheek. "Don't worry Daddy, we'll be good. But can we still have fun tonight with the whole makeshift concert thing?"

"I'm not certain how much fun Yubelluna is going to have, but yes," Harry said with a nod. "I, of course, won't be here, along with Rias, Akeno and their opposite numbers. But most of the others should be in attendance."

"Cool," Lily said hopping to her feet. "She let me listen to one of the songs she intends to play, and the songs Yubelluna picked out are kind of cool, in a Renaissance Fair sort of way."

"I'm glad you liked it," Harry said with a laugh, ruffling her hair.

Sensing a cuddle moment Kunou moved over to join the other little girl in his lap. Behind her, Teddy smiled tolerantly, twisting around and laying out on the sofa. "So," the young boy said how badly are you going to maul these idiots for trying to attack all of us, Uncle Harry?"

Harry smirked at him, hugging the two little girls to him one arm around each, hearing their heartbeats as he did. "As badly as I possibly can," he said grimly. "As badly as I possibly can."

OOOOOOO

"And exactly where have you been you wanker!?" Tonks asked angrily, crossing her arms and staring daggers at Husukai who had just walked up to her booth at the café where they had agreed to meet, valiantly keeping her hair from reacting to her emotions. Why they were meeting in person she didn't know, although she had to admit that the old man had shown a marked aversion to cell phones for some reason. He wasn't a technophobe by any means, but cell phones seemed to bother the heck out of him. He was alright with house phones and other kind of phones though.

Husukai smiled lopsidedly back at her, slipping into the booth across from Tonks as he quipped, "While I will hold my hand up to not being able to meet with you before this, I resent the name you just used to describe me. It has been a very long time since I could get up the initiative to look or be at all interested in the female form, let alone see to myself as you just implied."

Tonks rolled her eyes, but the joke did calm her down somewhat, and she leaned back before asking him seriously, "You're supposed to be training me as I was training you. What happened?"

The man winced. "Several things actually. Did Harry Potter and his ladies tell you about how they won such goodwill from my government in the first place?" Tonks nodded and he sighed in relief. "Excellent, I won't have to explain everything then. The search for the Shinra clan has not gone very well. In fact, it has not gone at all. Our search for them has, in point of fact, hit a brick wall so hard that everyone involved is now cursing the fact that they were assigned to it in the first place. That includes me. I was pulled in on the off chance that some of my contacts on the other side of the tracks would have some idea where the Shinra were based. They did not."

Tonks nodded, making no reaction to the tiny bit of corruption hinted at in his words. It was a very odd old copper who didn't have friends on the other side of the law and furthermore realized there would always be someone on the other side of the law. Mad-Eye Moody had had his contacts, even the nonmagicals knew they had to work with their opposite numbers occasionally. After all there was a certain level of acceptable crime, in comparison to say murder, terrorists, rapists, pedophiles on the hunt, or serial killers and such like. Tonks personally would put people who sold drugs to kids with that lot, but that was just her. There were worse things out there, if not many.

"There was also a certain amount of pushback from elements of our government that were not as happy to embrace 'you foreigners' like myself, and those who wished to befriend Harry Potter and his ladies. We, that is the progressive group and myself understand that we must move with the times, and also, to put it bluntly, that getting in the way of Harry Potter seems to be a very painful life decision."

"If you mean by painful it ends your life on that decision, you might have something," Tonks said dryly, her anger now gone. "So, since you are willing to meet with me like this, does that mean you finally got permission to help teach me?"

"That is the case, yes," Husukai said, smiling politely at the young woman who had just dropped off a glass of tea for him. She bowed back, before twirling away, her long ponytail flapping as she moved off.

Tonks watched the girl's hair for a moment before turned back to him, her face deathly serious. "That's great and all, but before that, I think we need your help. You know about the Three Factions and the Khaos Brigade already so this won't take long to explain..."

After hearing Tonks out, the old man nodded slowly. "I believe that both factions within my government will be quite happy to get involved with this. One will want to show our magical might, the other will wish to also make it plain where we stand in this alliance that has grown up in our territory." He paused then, sipping at his tea and smiling beatifically. "Isn't it nice when interests can coincide like that for the betterment of all?"

OOOOOOO

As Harry flew over Kuoh toward his position for the coming ritual at the radio tower, he reflected that five had proven to be an incredibly good, solid magical number, beyond what his old knowledge of arithmancy would have implied. Seven would have seemed better for its inherent magic multiplier, but not from a mixing magic point of view, when we put our various magical schools together.

Harry and the others had attempted to experiment with other ritual position styles that could be used for this size of a spellcasting, from the square favored in Europe to the circle of the Onmyodo school, and finally, the seven-sided star favored in the Ankhsera schools. But none of them had worked. Seven magical beings adding their power in would make the initial foundation as it were more powerful, but it wouldn't have the sustainability of five. And it wouldn't mix equally between all of the different magics. Five was best, and a pentagram was best for stability and mixing styles together.

Odd to think that the pentagram shape spread as far as it did, almost like the legends about dragons. Practically every continent had a legend that fit the dragon archetype, a giant flying, fire-breathing lizard. Speculating about the why of that once more was a good way to pass the time for a few minutes he estimated it would take Rias and the others to get into position.

While he waited Harry hung his phone by his head on a nearby portion of the radio tower, looking over to the giant slab of granite that had been prepared for this nearby. He took one last look all around, then breathed out and said into his phone, "This is Harry, I'm ready here."

His words were answered one after another by the other four, starting with Tsubaki and ending with Akeno almost four minutes after Rias came on, which made some sense given that preparing Rias's portion of this operation/ritual had easily been the toughest job they had given Akeno earlier that day. She had to be able to hear the music, and the magic carried by the sound of Yubelluna's playing had to be able to affect the area around her despite her point in the pentagram being underwater.

Akeno had first tried to use the same wireless speakers they'd used everywhere else underwater, which didn't work. She'd then had to replace them with specially protected wired speakers, the wires running through the park and out towards a nearby electronic store. Of course, the wires then had to be covered by protective spells, making people not notice them and so forth, and since that meant they had to be on the road, that had caused other issues, for Rias and Akeno when she arrived to find her Queen still working on it. All of which Akeno now enunciated in detail, as she finally came on, grumpy and unamused with everything at the moment.

"Sorry Akeno," Harry said with sympathy plain in his voice. "But the added impetus of our elements to the ritual hasn't changed. That means Rias still needs to be underwater."

"I know that," Akeno said with a growl. "I just wish that we had figured out that the wireless speakers wouldn't be able to pick up the signal through the water before this."

"Well, wireless speakers are a new technology, we probably shouldn't have even used them for the rest of the ritual positions," Sona said with a shrug that no one could see but her. "Still, are you and Rias ready?"

Akeno muttered something under her breath before replying in the affirmative in a louder tone, while Rias just replied with a sighing yes. The black-haired woman then held out her hands over the central courtyard of the temple her pillar was hidden within as Harry and the others did the same, closing their eyes and beginning to concentrate on readying their magic, preparing to send it into the pillars of the pentagram that was the basis of their defensive wards.

A moment later, music began to flow out from the speakers nearby. At first, it was soothing just a fiddle playing low and slow, allowing the five of them to concentrate. But then, it slowly began to change, as more and more instruments began to the heard, the music of the song that Yubelluna was playing starting to be heard coming out of their own speakers and then transmitted through the speakers from the house to hear.

OOOOOOO

For her part, Yubelluna wasn't honestly certain what she was doing anymore. It's true that I once thought to be a professional fiddle player, but then I found my love for botany, and then there was Riser, so my life never really went the way I expected. And now I'm here. Here… here I am playing my heart out, which, apparently was always a problem before at least according to most of the people who told me I couldn't make a career out of this. Not any longer I suppose, though given where I have been and where I am now, should that really surprise me?

That thought was given added impetus as she finished the first song and saw Lily hopping to her feet, out of the corner of her eye. She watched as Lily dragged the other two kids up, followed by Asia and Koneko. The irrepressible redhead then began to laughingly do a disco dance of some kind, and Yubelluna smiled. The song she was playing started to change as thoughts about where she'd been and where she was now, began to shift and sway in her mind, the change in the music affecting her.

When the second song began at first there was only the sound of the fiddle, and a woman's voice making "Da, Da, yaddiddity da" noises, which caused all the kids to stop and look at her quizzically before breaking out into giggles as another woman joined in making sharper noises like "ya Dayu, Dayu dayu," and acting as if they were having an argument. Then a third woman joined, seemingly trying to keep the peace.

After a pause, the voices began again and launched song, as all around Yubelluna, the speakers began to play Téir Abhaile Riú {Celtic Woman}. The voices all came from one speaker now, while the other speakers each played a different musical instrument from the song. That had been quite hard to set up, but it worked very well now.

Halfway through the song, Yubelluna realized that she was on her feet, but she didn't care. She didn't care when she started to high step, her skirt flaring as she pranced around the backyard while around her the dancing kids, who had been joined by Kalawarner, Ruruko, Saji and the Knights of Sona's peerage, dancing a jig around her. She didn't care that some of them had begun to sing along now. Her fiddle was playing, her fingers were moving, and her thoughts about Riser and her past were gone, replaced by thoughts of where she was now, how much happier she had been since waking up that time in Kyoto surrounded by Harry and the others. How accepted she was here. The friends and loved ones that she had met in such a short time.

It all came back to Harry though. Harry and home and just the feeling of what that word entailed, what it had been for her for so long the idea of what a home should be was a distant memory: protection, love and the hearth, the simple joy of life and living. All of that flowed into her from those surrounding her, from the very air of the Potter homestead, enforcing her own feelings. They then flowed into the music and out carrying the magic with it in a way she could feel, like a prickling on her skin.

But this was old magic, older and more powerful than any Yubelluna had ever known. It came from somewhere else she could almost sense it, but not quite, and when the music ended she would never remember. But it came from somewhere else and was renewed by her music and Harry's own internal magic and then was sent back again becoming stronger before it flowed out and away from her, creating the highly magical area they had wanted to create, ripe with potential.

She was uncertain how to explain it later on, but she knew it had centered on Lily, on Harry, on the kids and the others and simply the feel of them among the place. Magic as emotion, as feeling and desire, not the Sin of desire, as Devils would understand it, no, this was softer, more loving and far more potent, Yubelluna thought as that song came to an end. But then the next song began, her fingers moving of their own accord and the magic and the music washed away even that thought from Yubelluna's mind and she just played.

OOOOOOO

After Kiba had left, Issei had invited Irina to his house that evening to meet his parents again after so long. To his dismay, Xenovia had tagged along essentially because she didn't know her way around well enough to start their investigations and, Issei suspected, she didn't want to leave Irina alone with him. He felt that was rather a slander on his character. I mean I do have a girlfriend. Not that I'd say no to seeing her oppai, they are small but wow they look good, but I wouldn't, y'know do anything. Especially not in front of my parents!

That last was not a small consideration since his parents had met Ruruko and loved her to pieces for seemingly calming their son's perversions down. She hadn't of course, but this was a misconception Issei was very happy to let them have. That, and the fact they remembered Irina better than he had, darn it!

Because of Irina and that fact conversation had actually been pretty smooth over the dinner table, his parents happy that their son had offered to put Irina up after she and her foreign friend had been taken in by a scam and lost their money. Xenovia stayed quiet, listening and smiling occasionally at the jokes his parents shot towards Issei, which was fine by him. Better jokes than swords, right? No explody sword at the table, thank you so much.

Then the two exorcists stopped talking, Irina doing so abruptly mid-laugh. His parents thought she had choked and she acted as if she had for a second, but she was also staring to one side as Xenovia did the same, her eyes suddenly serious. "What is that?" she hissed to Issei in a low tone as Irina quickly began to engage his parents in another story about their childhood.

"What is wh…ohhh…" Issei stuttered to a halt as he now felt the waves of something nearby, some feeling. "Um, I think that's Buchou and the others. They were doing something I think to the wards of the area, the stuff you felt earlier today." At Xenovia's glare, he went on hurriedly. "Oh, it's nothing to do with you, they were planning this long before you arrived. Erm, I think they were still worried that nonmagical threats could take out the pillars that hold the wards together or something, I didn't really pay attention."

"That's impossible," Xenovia growled. "I might not know much about heathen magic, but all magic must obey some general rules. Wards can't be just, just up and moved like that, even if they were created through ritual or God's grace."

Issei once again winced at the use of the G-word, thinking idly that these two really needed to stop doing that. "Um, I don't think it was easy or anything, but they figured out a way. Um… it had something to do with Harry technically being a demigod or something I think, and Miss Yubelluna, you haven't met her yet, being a druid, or the female version of one anyway."

"What?" Xenovia asked, restraining herself from shaking Issei. She tried to get more information out of Issei, but he honestly didn't know much more, except that Harry was involved or connected to the Tuatha de Danan, the heathen pantheon favored in Ireland before the coming of the True God.

But then the feeling of the magic hit them, and she fell silent, deciding that they should leave this topic for now. It was obvious there was a lot more going on here than they had thought, and even if the Devils weren't involved in the theft of the Excalibur Fragments, they were still up to a lot of magic that she hadn't ever heard the like of before. The Church has to be informed of this.

OOOOOOO

Harry could feel the tug on his magic this time. It wasn't draining or demanding or anything of that nature, but he could feel the magic within him pulsing, then being pulled elsewhere, away towards Yubelluna somehow knowing where it was going without even trying. Closing his eyes and momentarily taking his attention off building up his magic for what he had to do here, he tried to feel out if there was an actual connection there like there had been between him and the Hallows before he had absorbed them. He couldn't find it, which he supposed he was happy about.

But I cannot deny the tug is there. It's as if someone is requesting a bit of my magic like someone coming to the door and asking for a spot of tea or something. Is that what a God feels when someone makes a request of his magic? Or is this what they feel when they are being worshiped? Harry felt it was probably closer to the latter because he could feel his magic responding and then being somehow enhanced. It was a very odd feeling, and he wondered idly how much more about magic, the basic most fundamental power that could be called magic, he would discover in his lifetime.

For a moment his magic seemed to hover around him, seemingly waiting, and he finally pushed at it a little, as if hurrying it along with his will. Since this is such a larger pull on my magic than Yubelluna's previous test runs I suppose I have to give my approval or something. That's actually a good thing really since I wouldn't want someone able to call my magic without my okay after all.

As he felt the air around him shift, shivering almost, Harry opened his eyes for the first time in about 15 minutes. When he did he saw that there was a silvery sheen in the air, covering everything, a silvery smoke in the air as the silver fog rose from the ground, the billows of it throbbing in time to the music. And Harry knew it was time.

So did everyone else put being part of the ritual. Despite not seeing one another they each raised their hands in unison, reaching out to touch specific runes on the pillars as they glowed. Wizard, Onmyodo, Anhksera, each of the runic schematics were touched one after another and then, each segment of the greater array somehow flowed through the silver of the air to the slabs of granite each of them had for this purpose. Like the one already being used in the pillar hidden under the pond, or on the teleportation gateways in the compound, these granite slabs were large enough to house the needed runic schemes.

Of course, each individual had to do this in a distinctly different sequence, since each ritual pillar's array was different and the five of them moved around their pillars, their hands flashing out as they stepped around it and the arrays flowed from the original pillar to its new home in the granite slabs in a sort of concentric ever-shifting spiral. And as it did, each of them moved on around the pillars, each of their movements precise, controlled by which section of the overall pillar scheme they had to touch.

It's almost like a dance as if we too are just part of a greater ritual, Harry thought. Heck, he could almost even see Rias and the others in his mind's eye, performing their own dances around their separate pillars. And beyond that. There was a feeling of magic in the air. It was an amazing, euphoric feeling, softer somehow then the laying of the pillars during the initial ritual, and he could tell that everything was flowing much more smoothly than it had then, and as they had all wanted, there was no sign of the wards coming down or the various schemes starting to fight one another. Good, we might be able to pull this off!

No, we will pull this off! Harry corrected himself. We will remove the final weakness in our warding scheme and the only way to take it down after that will be simple raw power, and even that will take its toll. This is my home, this is my family, and no one will threaten them through magical or non-magical means as long as I live! Never again.

OOOOOOO

Magic was a powerful, wonderful, sometimes frightening, and rather mysterious energy. There would always be things humans, whatever their affiliation, didn't know about it. There would always be things Angels, Devils, and even Gods didn't know about it. Often, what magical practitioners thought were rules of magic turn out later to be mere guidelines, rules for a given value of the effect. Such was the case of the common misconception among wizards about active magic being unable to cross the oceans of the world from one continent to another.

Oh, you could use a portkey like Tonks and Teddy had to cross the ocean since the spell essentially ignored the intervening distance, opening a hole from there to here and removing the area between, like someone putting two holes in a piece of paper and folding the paper so the holes met, ignoring the original length of paper between them. But a wizard wouldn't be able to use a communication mirror to talk to someone in America from Britain or find someone in Siberia via a ritual or enchanted device from Japan, no matter how powerful the magic behind it.

This rule didn't apply when one of the individuals who was using such magic had the power of a God who had been so intimately connected with the legends of the ocean and the passage from one life to the next in the form of a river as Manannán mac Lir had been. Magic was here long before the first god was created by the minds of humanity. It would be there long after the last gods passed on, lost to humanities growing faith in science or simple human hubris. But Gods had certainly left their marks, both on the people they interacted with and the magic of Earth as a whole.

And Harry, for all of his knowledge of the wizard type of magic and his growing knowledge with the Onmyodo style, was still somewhat of a neophyte when it came to 'the god school' of magic. More importantly, he and his friend had no idea what it meant to have won the powers of a God through trial combat and the god's own approval. A God, furthermore, who had himself passed on, killed by the God of another pantheon, one of many who had died in such a manner.

And Harry was now the only one calling upon that latent power. A power there had once been felt in the hills of Ireland from one shore to another of the emerald isle. A power that still permeated the rocks the trees, the ground, and the streams. A power, that was once more responding to a will. That power then spread, awakening further ancient enchantments.

The United Kingdom had, after all, always been steeped in legends and magic…

OOOOOOO

It had been forty-five minutes since she had started playing, and Yubelluna wasn't certain she could feel her fingers anymore as they gripped her fiddle and bow. Despite that and growing mental exhaustion, she was also exhilarated, and jubilant, her entire body thrumming, her purple hair almost standing on end like she'd been struck by lightning. She'd never been part of a project like this, never been part of magic like this!

It had been utterly exhilarating in a way that she had never experienced before even when using her bandrui powers to landscape the Potter-Gremory compound. The magic of Harry Potter flowed into her, the latent magic of the air of their home around her flowing into her, becoming music, and then flowing out, creating the setting in which the God (demi or otherwise didn't matter) she was currently worshiping and his aides needed to do what they wanted to do.

Those words in her mind were almost plebian in the way they tried to describe what was happening and failed so miserably. It simply felt like a miracle. That was the best way to describe the feeling. And who could describe miracles other than using that single, all-encompassing word?

The last song she had meant to play for this ritual, a song called Orinoco Flow, slowly came to an end, and she looked over at Kalawarner who quickly grabbed up a cell phone, dialing Loup, who was watching Harry. "Loup, do they need more time?"

Loup grunted, then replied verbally, an odd note in his voice. "No. They seem to be finished. They are wrapping things up now," he said, staring in something approaching shock as the ground underneath the radio tower simply seemed to absorb the granite slab. Like it was flowing into mud despite the ground being of concrete and metal here, the glow of the runic array on the granite seeming to spread through the ground almost. It was a very odd sight to see despite all of the magic Loup had seen in his life. He had seen similar things certainly, but it was almost as if the granite had become part of the ground, everything on it becoming part of the ground and then dipping deeper, hiding itself among the granite of the earth deep below, as if the Earth itself had been part of the ritual and understood what it needed to do.

As the granite slab disappeared and the silver tint to the air slowly dissipated, Loup stepped forward intending to catch Harry if he fell knowing that he should probably be exhausted after this. But to the other werewolf's surprise, Harry wasn't tired at all and he smiled at Loup, his eyes filled with a sort of wistful joy almost, as he grabbed Loup's forearm in his own. "We're done," he said simply. "Can you check in with the others?"

Loup nodded, letting go of Harry's forearm to do so, and moments later they and the others, along with their watchers, Momo, Reya, Tonks, and Kiba, were on their way back to the house. And just looking at his fellow miracle workers, Harry could tell all four of the ladies were filled with the same odd feeling of transcendental joy. Whatever they had just been a part of, it was bigger than the sum of its parts, and Harry could tell it had started and begun with the music, with the worship of their resident bandrui.

They arrived back at the house to find Yubelluna being almost dragged by Kalawarner and Mittelt to a picnic table set to one side of the yard setting her down there as if her legs had decided to stop working. Despite that, the music was still playing in the background from the sound system Yubelluna and Kala had set up. She smiled wanly at them, then gasped as Harry hugged her, followed by the others one after another, even Tsubaki and Sona. There were no words exchanged, they seemed unnecessary at the moment, almost trite after what had just occurred.

Then the moment snapped like a rubber band as Kunou raced up to Harry, holding a large plate of fatty finger foods out to him. Behind her, the other kids, with Asia guiding them, moved forward to the others with similar plates, although Lily did steal a bite for herself first. "Here Harry," Kunou chirped, "We know you all must be hungry so dig in."

The rumbling of six tummies at once signaled that this supposition was quite correct and Harry laughed, reached down and took the plate from her, stuffing a bite into his mouth before he ruffled Kunou's head with his free hand, and looked over at Kalawarner. "I take it we have you to thank for the food, Kala? Can I presume we are all welcome at your table?"

"My table is currently over there," Kalawarner said with a wry smile, pointing in the direction of the yard at one side of where the girls' house was connected to the backyard of the Potter house. She, Mittelt and Tonks had cooked, then brought out the food and set up the backyard further with lights here and there and several conjured benches and tables, figuring it was only a matter of time before the five pillars and the rest of them showed up. "And why you are even asking I don't know, of course, you're all welcome to eat as much as you want."

"It's always polite to ask before being allowed to the table of a beautiful woman Kalawarner," Harry said with a wink at her which caused Kala to blink in surprised pleasure at the compliment. She watched as Harry moved toward the food with Kunou beside him, a lightness to his step, almost as if he was still dancing to the music. She looked at Rias and was relieved to see a small, understanding smile there, as well as her mouthing the words 'we'll talk later' to which Kalawarner could only nod.

After that, perhaps it was inevitable that the group's recovery from their exertions shifted into a party. With Lily, Kunou, and even Asia encouraging people to eat, dance and be merry, could it have been otherwise? Mittelt and Kalawarner also helped, Kalawarner plying people with food, Mittelt with drink, with Harry and Asia taking turns to make certain Yubelluna ate and rested.

And then Issei arrived on the heels of everyone else, with the rest of Sona's peerage. Harry quickly conjured up some lights as the evening light began to fade, and once more the backyard of the Potter-Gremory compound became a place of merriment, music, and laughter.

Finishing a plate of food, Harry paused in his conversation with Lily about what she had been feeling and sensing during the ritual as the background music changed, from a fast Irish drinking song sung by four men to a slow dancing song. He looked up as he felt rather than saw the crowd parting and saw Rias across the way at one of the other picnic tables, looking up from her own conversation with Koneko and Asia. He winked down at his daughter and set his plate aside saying, "excuse me lovey, but I think Rias wants to dance."

"Rias always wants to dance Daddy don't you know that by now?" Lily asked mock-seriously, then when he laughed, she pushed at his side. "Go on!"

With that, she backed away and watched as Harry approached Rias, hopping on the balls of her feet as she did so. She loved times like this! The music, the fun, and all of her friends there with her. What more could a girl ask for? Ooh, where's Teddy, now I want to dance too!

Harry approached the three girls at the other picnic table, then held out his hand, bowing grandly towards Rias as he did. "Might I invite you to dance with me, Rias," he said softly, his eyes gleaming with pleasure at her.

Rias curtsied, and Harry realized that somehow during the party she and many of the other girls had changed. No longer were they wearing simple utilitarian jeans or pants, but rather skirts. Rias's was a little longer than she would normally wear, but it was very… swirly was the best way, Harry could think of to describe it as she stood up and curtsied, before taking her hand and hit his hand in hers. "My Love, I would be delighted," she said, her voice both formal and yet also mocking that very formality, yet her own blue eyes were soft and loving as she looked back at him.

As Asia and Koneko watched giggling to one another at the sight Harry gently pulled Rias towards him until their chests were touching, putting an arm around her waist, and twining his other one with hers. They then began to move, dancing around and through the party, which slowly began to expand around them, creating a clearing for the two of them.

Perhaps the magic of the ritual isn't quite done with us yet, Harry thought in amusement, before setting that thought aside as he simply reveled in the sensation of holding Rias in his arms. The two of them danced around in a kind of formal waltz, but not quite. Their steps weren't all that intricate, it was more that they simply danced, with their arms around one another, their bodies flushed against one another, with Harry leaning his forehead against hers occasionally, just staring into her eyes as Rias was doing the same, a small, warm yet somehow alluring smile on her face.

As the song came to a close, Harry closed the distance between them, kissing Rias lovingly on the lips to giggles and laughter from all around and blushing sighs from many of the girls of Sona's peerage. He pulled back, his breath a whisper against her lips as he murmured, "I love you Rias," before capturing her lips again.

She pulled back after a second, "I love you too Harry," she whispered then kissed him in turn, before slowly, reluctantly withdrawing. "But I think," she said, glancing over to Yubelluna, "that other people deserve to have their chance to dance with you now."

She smiled at Yubelluna as the purple-haired older woman looked up, her brows furrowing as she felt eyes on her. Then her eyes widened in happy surprise as Harry approached her in turn, holding out his hand. "Might I have this dance My Lady," he asked, winking at her. There wasn't nearly as much affection or love in his expression when he looked at her as there had been when he addressed Rias, but again the way he used Lady when he talked to her and his British accent sent shivers up Yubelluna's spine.

There was only one response she could give, and as Rias had she curtsied, although unlike Rias, she hadn't had to change to a skirt for the party. She had started with an off the shoulder purple dress that matched her hair and fell to midway down her lower legs which emphasized her chest although it only really left bare her feet and shoulders. "I would be delighted, Harry."

Another song started up then named Bean Phaidin and the two started a slightly faster but still romantic dance than Rias and Harry had done. They also had to move around other dancing couples now, as more of them began to get into the idea of dancing. To Harry's mild surprise, Issei was the first to follow their example, although it had been Ruruko who instigated things, pulling Issei away from the food and urging him to dance.

"Thank you for your help with the ritual," he said, his tone full of honest gratitude as he shook his head. "None of this would've been possible, none of this ritual, none of the magic of this evening would've happened without your Bandrui-based powers.

"Are you happy with what has happened?" He asked as Yubelluna simply smiled in response waving his thanks away. "You bring so much to us here, and we never even asked you really if you wanted to be here. I never asked you if you wanted to be a bandrui."

"Nooo," the tall purple-haired woman drawled, her full lips twisting into a sardonic smirk. "You just saved my life after my former King attempted to kill me in a fit of pique. Honestly, Harry, nothing I've done since then will match up to you saving my life like that."

"I saved your life milady, because it was the right thing to do, and because I refused to let you die like that. You deserved better," Harry said with a shake of his head. "And I wanted nothing in payment then, and I don't want anything in payment for that now. I certainly don't want your, your worship." Harry had said this to her before as they had realized the connection between her Bandrui abilities and his demigod status but to his mind, it bore repeating.

"I know that, and I don't think I worship you as you seem to fear I do, whatever the connection between Bandrui and the original gods of the Tuatha De Danan. I'm beginning to think it was a lot closer then legends might tell it. Especially among the female kind of Bandrui," she said with a wicked laugh that actually startled a blush from Harry much to her delight.

Feeling greatly daring she asked suddenly, "But if you don't want my worship, would you take my affection?"

Harry paused in his steps, then slowly continued, whirling Yubelluna around him as he stared into her purple eyes as he answered slowly. "Affection, perhaps, but where do you see that leading?"

"My heart?" Yubelluna asked, her tone serious as she too took a pause in the dancing to stare at him before going on. This conversation had taken a serious turn, and both of them were making it up as they went along despite the fact that Harry had acknowledged his attraction to Yubelluna long since and was not averse to seeing where it went. This was something he had already cleared with Rias a few days after they had woken up from the Blessing-induced exhaustion that had knocked him out after he had saved Yubelluna's life.

"If you would be willing to share mine with others then eventually… yes," Harry said with a slow nod. "I don't think we're there yet, but I can see that happening eventually."

"No, we're not," Yubelluna said with a nod. "But I could see that as a distinct possibility, and I think we both needed to acknowledge it."

"Well in that case," Harry said with a smile "consider it acknowledged." Still feeling almost high off the magic they had all created together Harry impulsively leaned forward only to pause, his head halfway towards Yubelluna's, waiting.

She blushed, looking around them, but then thought, screw it. With that, she leaned forward herself and their lips met in a kiss. It wasn't a deep kiss; it wasn't even a long one. But it was sweet, oh so sweet to Yubelluna. Like a promise given form.

But then the song ended, and Yubelluna quickly backed away, smiling at Harry and actually slightly blushing herself now to her astonishment. Really, a woman of my age blushing! Will wonders never cease. Then she looked over and smiled as she did.

As she did, Harry heard a pop of an incoming teleportation and turned to find Yasaka had made it to the party. She was instantly met by Lily and Kunou, who were shouting excitedly about everything that had happened, and the kitsune woman was grinning at them, her kitsune appearance on full display ears poking out of her light blonde tresses, her long blonde tails swishing behind her.

"I think however someone else deserves a dance with you.," Yubelluna said with a laugh and a gesture towards the newcomer as she unknowingly repeated Rias's earlier words.

With that, Harry nodded before he slowly released Yubelluna, and with a final wink sent her way he headed towards Yasaka. This time though he didn't try to invite her to dance in a romantic way. Instead, he simply moved between the two kids and picked Yasaka up by her waist, swooping her around in his arms as he shouted, "Good timing because the next dance is for you, my foxy lady!"

Yasaka chittered with laughter, wrapping her arms around Harry's shoulders and very intentionally thrusting Harry's face into her chest. "Aren't you supposed to ask instead of declaring such things my wolfy man?" she asked teasingly.

"Would you have said no?" Harry asked, looking at her face from between the amazingly comfortable prison of her breasts.

"Well… no," she said with another chittering laugh, "but it's the principle of the thing."

"I'll remember that for next time," Harry said, even as he set Yasaka down and the two of them began to dance to an even wilder sort of music than the last time. How Yasaka kept all her tails out of her own way and everyone else's way was a mystery, but she was able to do so, even as Kunou and Lily started a jig nearby.

After that, Harry had danced with Kalawarner, then Akeno, Koneko, and Sona. Sona was a blushing mess the entire time, but she was also very firm in keeping a distance between them, and she was looking around with both wonder and a distinct amount of interest, still feeling a bit of the earlier magic in the air, as too could Harry. He was just having too much fun to care about it at this moment.

When he and Akeno first started to dance, it was as part of a group, a circle of the group going through the motions of some kind of folk dance that Yasaka was teaching them, her and Kunou dancing across from one another and directing everyone in how to move their hands, their legs dipping occasionally but generally just moving around in a circle. Then that song came to an end, and Akeno found herself in Harry's arms. Memories of other times when he'd held her like this caused a flush to appear on her face and her heart to beat quicker as her body responded to those memories. But she womanfully beat it back, unlike, she had been amused to see at the time, Sona. I doubt she is harboring some deep, well-hidden desire in Harry's direction, but the sight of her blushing like a young maiden was most amusing.

The fact her thoughts on Sona kept her from thinking about how nice dancing with Harry was did not consciously occur to her. But Harry could not help feeling much the same as he held Akeno against him. For just a moment all the reasons they had broken up in the first place seemed so petty and inconsequential in relation to how holding her made him feel. We just pushed each other in different ways, pushed each other in ways the other could not deal with.

A thought then came, and he nearly tripped as it flashed across his mind: were those reasons still there? And if so, what did that mean? But Harry refused to think about that just yet. Not for a while, not until everything else had settled down. But even as he thought that he had to wonder.

Yubelluna picked up her fiddle again. As she did, a woman's voice began to sing another song from the speakers. Yubelluna joined in on the fiddle part quickly. The song Nil Se'n La began to play as Harry danced with Rias once more, this time in a jaunty swing dance, that both of them twirling around one another. "I came by a house last night, and told the woman I am staying, I said to her the moon is bright and my feet are still for playing…"

After that song ended the party slowly began to subside with Lily and Kunou falling asleep, curled up in Koneko and Yasaka's laps. Asia was on the outskirts of the cuddle pile leaning against Tonks, who had Teddy in her arms. Nearby Yubelluna was also asleep, laid out on a bench, the food and the drink which had sustained her now adding its own soporific impact.

The couples among their little community had also made their own exits, stage right. Issei had left to walk Ruruko home, and Kiba and Tsubaki were gone, having left the party a few songs ago. Loup too was leaving, having accepted an invite from Momo Hanakai for some late-night wine at her place. Where that would lead he didn't know, but since he and Sona had decided that while they were attracted to one another, they didn't have enough in common to date, he was free to flirt and date some of the other girls in their little group, and the silver-haired girl had caught his eye.

He doubted they would do anything tonight, but perhaps cuddling up with a movie would be an excellent way to end the night. She evidently seemed to think so, given her smile after he said this aloud, and Momo wrapped herself around one of his arms as Loup led her through the Potter's house.

Unfortunately, for Harry and the two Kings, their night was not yet done. Not even after Harry had put Lily to bed and said goodbye to Kunou, who was returning to Kyoto with her mother for the night, though Yasaka would return in a few hours to aid Harry in the next stage of their preparations. No, they had more magic to perform this night.

Leaving Mittelt and Sona's knights behind to clean up – after all, Kala had cooked the food in the first place, and Yubelluna certainly wasn't in any position to help clean - the trio and Akeno congregated in the Potter house's foyer. Rias was the last to arrive, having just helped Koneko change an extremely exhausted Asia into her pajamas. Harry smiled at her, putting in arm around her waist, then looking around at the others. "Are we all recovered enough for the next part?"

Sona stretched her arms above her head, cracking her shoulders and neck explosively before lowering them as she nodded. "I believe we can finish it tonight, yes. I want the dimensional bubble at least in place before tomorrow morning. After that, it will be up to you and Yasaka."

"Fufufu, my own part in the remaining business of this night is relatively simple in comparison to what I've already had to do today Harry, and I must say that party quite invigorated me. If either of you wishes me to step in because you are feeling too feeble Buchou, Kaichou, I am more than willing." Akeno said ending on a semi-formal tone.

"Hah!" Rias snorted, while Sona rolled her eyes at the sadist Queen's teasing habits. "If you think you can take over for me Akeno, please be my guest. I'll sit on the sidelines and cheer you on."

"Ara, but isn't this something you as a King should see to?" Akeno asked, changing tactics on a dime. "Don't sell yourself short, Buchou."

"Where's your confidence now then?" Rias shot back. "I thought you were offering your help."

Here Sona stepped, in shaking her head at the two friends' antics. "Ladies, the night isn't getting any younger. As fun as it is watching you two banter sometimes, let's just get this done please?"

At that, Rias nodded, and with a gesture and a blink of power she teleported the four of them to the occult research club room. From there they moved out onto the soccer field of the Academy, pausing along the way as they heard what sounded like a large splash in the distance coming from the school pool. "What was that?" Harry asked.

"Oh yes, you haven't been introduced to her yet have you?" Rias mused. "Well, it's understandable since she very deliberately stands apart from our peerages and the rest of the magical world. I might introduce our resident beast master to you when this is all over."

"Beast Master?" Harry asked, one eyebrow rising in surprise, barely visible in the light of the moon above as they reached the soccer field.

"Indeed, but as Rias said, it's not important right now, and she very much prefers to be separate from the rest of us," Sona interjected, gesturing Rias to join her. "Now come on, enough procrastinating Rias."

Sona and Rias moved away from the others, holding their hands out towards one another as they began to create another spell.

The dimensional bubbles that the Three Factions all threw around were several different spells all rolled into one actually amazing spell, Harry reflected, not for the first time. First of all, it covered everything physical and non-biological in a given area with a sort of magical sheen that then copied everything it touched. The trees, buildings, streets, stopped cars, road signs, lights, everything inside and outside the building was copied into the small bubble displaced from the rest of the world in its own separate dimension.

And they were all real, physically identical to the original, an amazing bit of conjuration, even if the dimensional bubble wasn't usually designed to last. That was why anyone within the bubble could interact with everything else in it.

Added to that could be added a minor illusion aspect on the 'surface' of the bubble which was designed to confuse the unwary into believing they were still in the real world, and of course a portion of the spell that allowed people to enter the bubble in the first place. The larger the bubble required, the more power needed both on the magical and mental side of things. All of which was well beyond the magic of Harry's own people, save the separate dimension concept, which was, in essence, the same sort of thing used in space expansion charms placed on pouches or trunks, if on a monstrously larger scale.

From an exterior perspective like this, the dimensional bubble did indeed looked from this a slowly expanding bubble, like a children's toy almost, that kind of soap bubble shimmer in the air, similar almost to the bubblehead charm. But when it hit something, even the grass underneath you, that shimmer was then transplanted onto the item, as the initial bubble continued to expand.

Harry looked on as it passed him in amusement, noticing that it wasn't on him, but it was on the grass beneath them, and the buildings he could see from here, including the soccer posts. Shaking his head, he turned to Akeno, asking dryly, "So, how have you been doing with that spellbook your cousin Suzaku gave you? I understand that you were able to perform one of the spells we forced the rest of your idiot family to give us?"

Smiling at Harry's attempt at small talk, Akeno replied in the affirmative, then smiled as Harry conjured up a few soft chairs for them. He did the same for the two Kings but given the size and complexity of the bubble they were creating neither could turn their attention back to the world around them long enough to sit down. Despite that, Harry and Akeno moved their chairs directly behind Sona and Rias, then went back to their own chairs, talking about the spells Akeno had been practicing lately.

As they talked the bubble expanded, then expanded more, covering everything he could see of the Academy, and then expanded out of sight. At that point Akeno excused herself with Rias's trio of bats as they zoomed out in opposite directions, pacing the expanded bubble as it went. Harry was left behind and idly closed his eyes, preparing himself mentally for his own spellwork to come.

The bubble continued to expand as Akeno paced it, covering the district of Kuoh from one end to another out to the limits of the wards. There it stopped, and the Akeno and the bats moved around the circumference of the area, double checking that it had covered everything and had gone the proper distance before Akeno came back to report that they were done, saying it in a quiet, calm voice so as to not startle the two Kings out of their concentration.

At Akeno's report, Sona and Rias tied off the spell, then slowly re-shrunk the dimensional bubble until it was the size of a room, then the size of a large table. Later, after Harry and Yasaka were done their part, they would shrink it to the size of a snow globe, which would then be stored for a time in the student council room until it was ready to be used.

The instant they were done Rias and Sona both fell backward, stumbling into the front of the chairs Harry had created then flopping back with grateful grunts of pleasure. Creating a throwaway dimensional bubble was relatively easy magic for the three Factions. Creating one to re-create a real setting, and not to overlay it immediately, but to prepare it for a future time, that changed the spell and the mental requirements of the spell significantly. Further, a dimensional bubble this size would, usually require a team of seven Devils to do.

But both of them were smiling as they stared at their creation, from opposite sides, taking the detail in from several conjured lights Harry had created while waiting for them. "It's ready for you Harry," Rias said with a grand gesture before leaning back in the nice, soft chair quite happy to stay there for the foreseeable future. The work she had just done on top of the earlier ritual had wiped her out, her earlier meal and the party notwithstanding.

Harry nodded and pulled out his phone, dialing Yasaka's number. The Kyuubi-no-Kitsune answered promptly, showing that she had been waiting for this call after having had to leave the party before the itching painful sensation of being away from Kyoto got to be too much. Having put her daughter to bed she quickly joined them In Kuoh, having teleported via the teleportation tunnel through to the initial Occult Research Club room.

Walking towards them over the grass of the soccer field Yasaka smiled at them all as she took in the dimensional bubble, the amount of detail she could see on this level. "Excellent work you two. Now it's up to Harry-han and myself. Come on lover-boy, this should be fun!" The kitsune enthused. It was a rare kitsune who didn't like the idea of using trickery and illusion against their enemies.

Nodding, Harry stood up from his own chair, gently touching Rias's shoulder as he passed her, feeling her hair against the back of his hand as he did so, moving to stand across from Yasaka. They put their hands on the sides of the large bubble between them and began to push their magic into the bubble, slowly creating the illusion.

Given the size and complexity of the illusion, the two of them had to do this in layers. First, they would create the sensation of wind, the movements of the plants and such like, adding more physical realism to the copy of Kuoh in the dimensional bubble. This was easy considering that the dimensional bubble had copied every physical structure that was physically connected to the ground in the original.

Then they would create the illusion of weather. At the moment it was night, but once they finished this portion of the spell that aspect would be self-sustaining and match the patterns in the real world: sunlight would appear, and would actually feel like sunlight on an individual's skin and act like it should, creating shadows for example, and any weather would also be replicated into the bubble.

Then, came the aspect Harry had no experience with. Creating actual people, cars, animals and so forth that would move around naturally within the illusion filling the dimensional bubble. Most of these were mere templates at the moment, the vehicles, pigeons and various animals being placed here and there in their dozens, ready to be moved into position, their faces and bodies ready to be molded like clay to match the realities imagery when it came time. Humans too filled the image, going about their nightly business. But their faces too were blank, their bodies simply ghostly afterimages of what a real person's body would look like.

All of this was incredibly tough, both magically and mentally intensive. It wasn't as tough as the ritual to create the pillars though, not yet. It might be when they went back to add details, faces, forms, and such like. But it was still very mentally draining and as they finished an hour later, Harry stepped back, stumbling slightly.

Coming out of their spell fugue Yasaka had it much worse. She grabbed at her head and nearly fell to her knees, only to be caught by Akeno as she moaned. "The, the pain from being away from the Dragon's Nest, I, I must return, it's tearing me apart, been here too lonngnnnnHH!" she moaned out, ending in a near cry of agony.

Harry quickly moved to support her on one side as Rias did the same on the other before teleporting them all to her clubroom. There Rias and Harry dragged Yasaka into the dimensional array, which carried them to Yasaka's palace in Kyoto within seconds.

Left behind in the soccer field Sona stood up on wobbly legs and moved around the bubble slowly. Conjuring a magnifying glass she gaped in near open-mouthed astonishment as she took in the detail. "This is, this is frankly astonishing. Magic on this scale, something so alive and active, able to change and shift and almost act on its own, that is beyond anything I've seen before." She shook her head slowly as she looked over to Akeno who had moved to shrink the dimensional bubble further. "What more can we all accomplish by further mixing our various magical styles, how much more will we discover."

Chuckling quietly at the obviously rhetorical question, Akeno smiled as she slowly began to shrink the bubble. To one side Sona watched, still somewhat in awe of what they had accomplished even as she wondered about the long term implications of it, of magic on this scale.

She then blinked. I wonder what the two exorcists have made out of all this? Sona had heard during the party that Issei had told them a bit about what had happened that evening, but she didn't know if they would have felt the expanding dimensional magic as it washed over them.

It turned out that worry was unnecessary. The two exorcists had long since been asleep before Sona had Rias had begun their magic. That at least was one complication they didn't have to deal with yet.

Back in Kyoto, Harry and Rias slowly helped Yasaka through the halls of her palace. The palace somewhat empty at this time of night bar a few scattered guards, which, Harry reflected, was a good thing considering Yasaka's current state would take some explaining. "Sorry I couldn't stay longer," the Kyuubi-no-Kitsune mumbled, feeling the pain receding now that she was back above the ley-lines she had bonded to.

"Don't worry about it," Harry soothed. 'You were able to help us, and you powered through it while we were creating the illusion, that was more than enough. Now, let's get you into bed shall we?"

Nodding over at Rias, Harry indicated he was able to look after Yasaka on his own, and Rias nodded, leaning in to kiss Yasaka tenderly before making her own weary way back to the teleportation ring, and then through it back to Kuoh. When Rias left, Harry turned back to Yasaka, still helping her along slowly. "Alone at last. This would be a perfect time to fool around a bit, but alas, I doubt you'd be able to reciprocate, and that's not as much fun."

"Ooh, just, just let us put this latest crisis or whatever behind us, I'll show you just how much fun I can be," Yasaka retorted, before wincing. 'But right now, I'm afraid you're right, I'm far too tired for anything more than light kissing. Darn it."

Harry chuckled and continued to flirt with her teasingly, one arm around her waist helping her along. When they got to Yasaka's room they found Kunou still asleep, curled up in the center of the bed, her tail tucked underneath her head like a furry, mobile pillow. The sight was so cute Harry couldn't hold back an "Awww…"

But then Yasaka, having been on the receiving of his teasing, decided to get back at him a bit. "Well, drat, with her asleep I suppose that you'll have to get me undressed Harry." Harry looked down at her, and Yasaka giggled. "What, you didn't think I'd go to sleep like this, did you?"

Harry flushed slightly but nodded gamely. "Fine, where're your pajamas?"

Those pajamas turned out to be a loose t-shirt and a loose pair of sweatpants, a hole cut out of the back for her tails. Harry got them out after propping Yasaka sitting up on the side of the bed and then lay them out to one side before starting the somewhat complicated procedure of removing Yasaka's current garb, a priestess garb with yellow and white colors to match her hair. The layers slowly came off, revealing the expanse of Yasaka's flesh underneath. Her skin was the color of porcelain, a shade lighter than Rias's, but was just as perfect, unblemished by any beauty mark or any other kind of mark beyond an occasional scar here and there, none of them large, and mostly on her arms.

Yasaka felt his gaze and she smirked. "Did you think the process of becoming the Kyuubi-no-Kitsune was peaceful or painless?" She snorted. "When it comes time to choose a new Kyuubi the candidates among the seven-tailed kitsune face one another in a series of contests, some of which are more like gladiatorial games than anything else. I won, but a few of the others did nip me a time or two."

"Grrr, that should be my job," Harry replied, a little growl in his voice as he leaned down, kissing each scar he could find. Yasaka sighed under his touches, but she really didn't have any energy for anything more, and Harry pulled back, finishing undoing her inner robe, pulling it off her body as Yasaka held her hands above her.

At that point, he paused staring as her breasts were once more revealed to his appreciative gaze. But the fact she was already falling back into the bed caused him to tear his attention away from them to grab her shoulder and gently lower her so that her back rested against the bed. Once that was done, he slowly pulled off the skirt she had been wearing underneath her robes setting them aside, followed by her sheer panties, taking a moment to study Yasaka's most private area. Since he had last been with Yasaka in a similar fashion she had waxed, not a hair left behind, revealing her pretty dark pink slit, the sides of it distended, glistening under Harry's appreciative gaze.

"Merlin, Morgana and Maeve, you are so gorgeous," Harry said throatily, fighting with all his hard-earned self-control not to jump Yasaka right then and there, aided by the sight of Kunou still curled up in the middle of the room. But his sudden desire for her came through his voice.

This caused Yasaka to giggle, but she slowly shook her head, rolling in the direction of her daughter. "None of that Harry, unless you want to take care of yourself before you go back? But even for that, I'm afraid I'd have to ask you to excuse yourself. I refuse to try to explain that dried squid smell for my daughter."

That thought sobered Harry too, and he smiled as he saw Kunou already nuzzling into her mother's side. He reached down and pulled up the covers over them both and whispered, "I'll see you late afternoon tomorrow alright, take it easy until then." With that, he leaned in and kissed her forehead lightly before doing the same to Kunou, putting a smile on both their faces before he left, whistling the tune from one of the songs he had heard that night.

OOOOOOO

Arthur and his sister were taking tea, talking amongst themselves as was their wont. While Le Fay was quite friendly with a few of the other more easy-going members of the Khaos Brigade, her brother only got along with two of the others, the monkey Youkai Bikou, and the White Dragon Emperor, who was rarely around, sadly. Thus, they spent most of their time together here in the base, but that was fine by them. If the two of them could not be happy on their own like this, the two siblings would not have run away from home together.

Most of the time their teatimes went uninterrupted except for the extremely rare call for Arthur to head out on a mission. But even Ophis knew not to bother the two siblings when they were having their teatime. Unless she had been convinced it was an emergency, their patron would not bother the two siblings. Arthur was serious about three things in life: his swordsmanship, his sister, and tea. After one incident with Bikou about a month after they joined the Brigade all of their friends had realized this and taken onboard the idea that teatime was sacred.

Thus it was something of a surprise when Le Fay's cell phone rang, causing her to stare at it in shock. Pulling it out of one of the small, concealed pockets in her witch's outfit, she held it to her ear and asked hesitantly, "Um, yes? May I ask who this is?"

"And why are you interrupting our teatime?" Arthur said, sending his saucer and teacup down, one eyebrow rising behind his small wire glasses in irritation. Any further response on his part to this effrontery to all that was right and decent would wait until the reasons behind the interruption were known.

Le Fay giggled at him, and then she heard a chuckle on the other side of the line. "It's nice to hear that the two of you are still getting along so well."

"Cousin Daniel!?" Le Fay shouted in delight, causing her brother to allow a small smile to flash across his face. Daniel was one of their cousins, of which they had six, but he was the only other one on their father's side of the family which had gone into government work. Specifically, he had gone into MI6. Or something like that anyway. Arthur knew the man was a spy, working on internal counter-terrorism, but wasn't certain he remembered the designation of his branch of the government correctly.

"It's so nice to hear from you," Le Fay went on, hopping over into Arthur's lap so that he could listen in. "But, um, why are you calling us? I thought our parents were still keeping up the fiction that Arthur ran away from home and I chased after him?"

He put his arms around her, laying his chin on top of her head scowling slightly at that. Arthur had, at the time though he had indeed run away without his family's consent, stealing their sacred blade, Excalibur Ruler, as he did. It had turned out however that their parents were very understanding in his desire to find strong opponents and for Le Fay's desire to both stay with him and see the world. They had, according to her, removed many of the protections around the blade, letting Arthur take it without causing further familial conflict. Still, since this had indeed allowed him to test himself against strong opponents, and keep his sister close, he wasn't going to complain aloud.

"They are for any outsiders, but I wouldn't be a very good spy if my aunt and uncle could lie to me like that, now would I? As for why you are hearing from me now, I wish this was a social call Le Fay, Arthur, but I'm afraid it isn't. There's no soft way to say this, so can you tell me what is going on in the magical world?" Daniel asked, his voice a rich baritone, matching Arthur's image of the man, medium height but wide shoulders and a barrel chest. Despite that, both siblings could tell he was worried, almost but not quite frantic.

For a moment Le Fay blinked, then she giggled wryly. "Um, since I've only recently learned about the wizarding world, I'm afraid you're going to have to be a bit more specific cousin."

"Not that, or at least not only that bunch of backward… blokes," Daniel said obviously clearing up what he was going to say to not wound Le Fay's young feminine ears. "I mean what is going on with the magic!"

"Um, again cousin, you're going to have to be very specific." Le Fay replied shaking her head as she repeated herself while Arthur smirked above her head, gently squeezing her.

When she had gone home Le Fay had been surprised to learn that the British government had long known about the magical world, and indeed many of the world governments did, although the exceptions, America, Canada, Russia and Italy of the first world powers, did rather stand out. The British government, however, was one of the oldest in the world and had known about the wizarding world almost since its conception. They had never had much input into that world for good or ill however, although that was slowly changing as science advanced to where it could overcome or work around magic in various ways.

For those in the know, that meant that someday in about fifteen years perhaps, there would be an interesting reckoning between the various non-magical governments and their magical counterparts. Why, simply calculating and forcing the wizards to pay the amount of back taxes owed, let alone the issue of having a near to-sovereign nation in their own borders barely paying lip service to the laws of the parent nation, was going to be interesting.

The Pendragon family, or rather the Duke of Norfolk as they had been occasionally known, reemerging as such when needed or desired over the centuries, had long kept tabs on both. Indeed, several of the instructions books Le Fay had used when she was being taught magic by her aunt, the only other magic user in the family at present, had come from the Wizarding World, though she'd had no direct knowledge until her research into Harry Potter took her back home.

"Maybe I should start from the beginning," Daniel said, sounding much calmer now in the face of Le Fay's teasing good humor.

"That's always a good plan," Le Fay replied cheekily.

"Quiet you," Daniel replied good-naturedly, although some of the panic had thankfully leached out of his tone by this point and when he went on it was in a much calmer tone. "Okay about two hours ago, visible signs of magic being worked started to appear in Ireland, but they quickly spread throughout the islands. And I'm talking about magic that is visible enough that it causes a lot of trouble to clean up afterward. I have reports of Stonehenge, the Bethany Stone Circle, and other similar places lighting up and silver mist expanding out from them. And other than somewhere in Ireland, no one's been able to figure out a direct epicenter."

"The magicals moreover are utterly baffled. They are trying to cover it up, of course: the Unspeakables, and those scary memory modifying …chaps.. are all out in force, and there have been more bloody mental modifications done than we saw even during the site of the latest counterterrorist war they'd had to fight. They are all terrified and worried, and aren't telling us anything about what's been going on."

"We stepped in and helped without being asked this time, mainly so that we could get copies of some of the recorded data. Although of course, they turned on on our agents and tried to modify that information out of our investigators' heads. But we still were able to get some photos and one video recording, and it looked, I don't know, eerie. So we need to know what caused this."

"Umm," Le Fay replied with once more, though this time it meant she was thinking instead of being confused, a frown appearing on her face. "Again, I'm afraid I've got no idea what those that could mean. I'd had to witness it to say what could have caused that kind of phenomenon."

"I'll send an email with some of the scattered reports to go over, along with one video we were able to get away from the magicals," Daniel promised. "We need to know if there's likely to be a repeat of whatever this was."

"An email?" Le Fay asked wincing. "Oh dear, I'll need to get to a computer that actually works then. Hmm…oh, I've heard about these places called computer cafés, perhaps one of them will work." She finished, lighting up as she figured out a solution that would also take her out into Japan proper. No technology was going to work anywhere near where Ophis lived, the little loli dragon leaked more magic into the ether than a whole slew of high-ranking Devils or Angels.

"I'll have to sign up for an email, is it an address or profile, I can never remember which. I promise to get back to you within a few hours so that you can email those to me but off the top of my head?" When Daniel replied that yes he would like some kind of initial idea, she went on. "It sounds as if some kind of ancient magical device, being turned on, or a large-scale ritual being performed. I'm sorry I can tell you any more than that."

"All right, get back to me when you are at this café of yours, and I'll email them to you then. We really need to get some idea of what caused this luv, there's so much speculation about it on the internet despite our and the Magicals' best efforts, it is really quite disturbing."

With that, Daniel switched topics to a few family pleasantries, and he and Le Fay spent several minutes chatting as was polite before she hung up, leaning back against her brother who of course had heard it all. He looked down at her with a faint smile. "Aren't you going to move now?"

"Nope," Le Fay replied with a giggle leaning her head against his chest, feeling his arms tighten around her even more. "I like it here."

They spent several minutes simply snuggling like that not talking until Bikou came in and smirked, finding them like that. "Oh look at you two; you look just like a happy little couple!"

At that Le Fay rolled her eyes and hopped off her brother off Arthur automatically, knowing what was to come. And just as she had known her brother reached for Excalibur ruler, grabbing it up and hefting it in one hand. "It sounds as if you have lost your will to live. Is that the case Bikou?"

Bikou guffawed, flipping his magical pole around in an intricate display before catching it on one shoulder. "Well, I am kind of bored."

"Let us at least alleviate your boredom then. After which you will apologize for my sister for your misplaced sense of humor and your disgusting insinuations." Arthur replied coldly, gesturing the other man out of the room.

Le Fay giggled as she watched her brother follow Bikou out. He'll never admit it, but Bikou has been good for him, and these spars of theirs are good for him too, giving him an outlet like that when he isn't on missions. Why one could almost think they were friends. She nearly wished that was the case. Her brother really needed more friends than just her after all.

About an hour later, Le Fay was walking into a computer café, getting a lot of odd looks from the cashier and a few customers leaving the place as she did so. More than one head turned towards her as she entered the computer café proper, a blush on many a young face, causing her to blush in turn and look away, searching for an empty computer cubicle. Those looks were not because of her clothing though, but rather her gender and Le Fay knew it. Computer cafés, after all, were famous for their private booths, normally used by boys and other people who were living at home, and needed some… space and alone time. Most definitely not young girls like her. Some were better, more open to the public and so forth, but this one was the closest to their base, and she knew her brother well enough to know he would flip if she tried to go anywhere further away.

Moments later after calling her cousin, she was now staring at a few images taken from the events that he had talked about. "Odd, the mist really is silver? The color of the most basic magics… "Daniel, what was the timing on this again? I mean do we know an exact timeframe for when it started and how wide it spread how quickly?"

"No, we only have a vague idea of when it was first noticed and reported, nothing more than that."

"And it happened at the same time across the islands?"

"It started in Ireland, or least that was where the first reports came in, but then we started getting reports from all across the western side of Britain, and then up into Scotland too."

"So it really was over all of the islands? That's not a good sign," Le Fay muttered. Most human magic could not transfer from one island or continent to another. Yes, port keys and spells like that could be used to travel long distances, but that was the difference between a lightning bolt and a sustained electrical energy. The lightning bolt would cross the sky without touching down, but the electricity had to have its lines across the intervening distance.

"That's not a good sign," she said again "But well, the United Kingdom has always been known as one of the most magical places on earth."

"Don't let a yank hear you say that," Daniel retorted, making his words into a joke, which caused her to laugh. But he went on more seriously. "What can you tell me about it?"

"At this distance not much," Le Fay said frowning. "Silver is the color of magic, and I am talking about it being the color that magic has when it doesn't have any spell component or overriding thought to shift the magic into the spell."

"You lost me there," Daniel confessed.

"Silver is the canvas and the pigments all in one." Le Fay tried to explain. "But, to actually make a painting, you have to add color to it in terms of your thoughts and the direction you wish the magic to go. Better?"

"A little bit," Daniel said with a sigh audible over the phone. "So the fact that this is silver, is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Well, if it doesn't occur again, it's possibly a good thing. I take it this magic dissipated or something? Nothing hugely tremendous happened?"

"Nothing that's getting reporting to us," Daniel grumbled. "But as far as my few contacts on the other side of the train tracks can tell us, nothing was done or accomplished beyond it spreading in the first place. This silver light and fog only seemed to hover everywhere it was seen, shifting and moving like a wave."

"Then someone called up a lot of magical potential and didn't use it. Nor could anyone else use it, which is almost as telling." She waved away Daniel's questioning grumble over the phone, not that he could see her movement of course. "That doesn't really matter, let's come back to this. On a scale the entirety of the British Isles, you'd almost have to talk to one of the Three Factions. In fact, some kind of religious ritual could perhaps create something similar. When worshipers pray to the Christian God, they create something similar, a potential that could be used to create miracles."

This time the groan she heard from Daniel actually made her rather worried about his overall health, and then she heard some kind of scratching noise, which she likened to someone scratching the side of his head, which made her smile. "Are you telling me, that there's some person out there who attempted to create some kind of miracle, and couldn't pull it off?"

"Maybe, your photos in this video don't show any kind of movement in the magic to give me an idea. And I certainly can't make out who could have caused it."

"So you can't even tell me if this could happen again?"

"Nope," Le Fay said with a perky chirp in her tone that Daniel felt was frankly offensive although she somewhat repaired that impression by her next words. "Sorry I wish I could be more help, but this far removed there's only so much I can tell you about it."

"You might wish to be ready to be called back in a moment's notice then," Daniel said, ignoring the 'Uggh' that Le Fay made at those words. "We might need you to get a handle on this. And if it turns out to be a threat, well don't be surprised if both you and your brother are recalled by word of the government."

"Double uggh," Le Fay muttered, not honestly knowing how her brother would respond to that. She knew she would probably go back, but what would Arthur do? While service to the government and military was ingrained at an early age into those of her family Arthur and Le Fay had both run away from that kind of life. But even so, Le Fay knew that if called home she would answer. Arthur though… that was an unknown.

Shaking her head at that, Le Fay answered a few more specific questions from her cousins about rituals, religious styles of magic and what she knew of the history of Stonehenge and the other places, which against wasn't as helpful as Daniel had hoped. Eventually about twenty minutes later Daniel made his excuses, and signed off, promising to get in touch again soon.

Glancing at the time, Le Fay saw that conversation had only taken them about forty minutes. She still had a good twenty minutes on her paid hour. Excitedly, Le Fay began to go to a few graphic novel websites, popping them open and perusing the context quickly a small smile on her face as she did so. She would get back to her brother soon enough, but until then her time was over, she was going to use it as constructively as possible.

OOOOOOO

The morning after moving the pillars started out in a somewhat normal manner. Harry woke up to find his vision obscured by a wave of red fire and smiled. The night before he had found his bed occupied by not one redhead, but two, and that had put a slight damper on his night, but he had logically understood that Rias wouldn't have been up to any of their normal escapades anyway.

He somehow got one hand free from the two bodies around him to push the red hair out of his eyes, only to feel one eyebrow twitching as he realized that he had been pushed off his perch on Rias's breasts, which he had pretty much decided by this point were the most perfect pillows ever. Not only because they were comfy, but because it put his head at the most appropriate and comfortable point to start some adult-type fun, even covered by her lingerie as they had been last night.

But now Lily was there, her own head where his should be. He poked her in the side, then gently tried to push her off the taller woman in order to reclaim his position. But she growled, opening her eyes to actually glare at her father. Then she very deliberately nestled in, sighing happily.

Oh, it's like that now is it, Harry thought, poking her side even harder, only to receive for Lily to retaliate by poking him in the thigh with a foot. His eyes widened just a bit at that, but brushed her foot to one side, capturing it in one hand while continuing his poking assault on Lily's side.

But Lily wriggled free and brought up her other foot while flailing at his hand with her own, making no move to relinquish her position. In fact, she kept her eyes closed too, acting as if she was still asleep. Harry, in turn, released his grip on her foot intending to push up off the bed and bring both hands to bear on Lily pushing the covers down as he did.

But he was halted in this scheme as Rias mumbled something then put an arm around Lily, pulling up the covers back over both of them. "Cold," she muttered.

Lily took advantage of this momentary inattention on Harry's part by kicking him in the side. He had been perched in a somewhat ungainly manner, lifting his upper body off the bed with one arm, the other hand in the blankets. But now that cost him as Lily's kick caught him and tumbled him off the side of the bed.

He stood up glaring lightly down at his smiling daughter, her eyes scrunched closed, then he sighed. "Fine, be that way lovey," He whispered. "You get to be her cuddle toy for a bit. Remember to try and tap out if she squeezes too hard, she sometimes forgets her strength. But since you're a werewolf" Or whatever we are now "you should be fine. Probably. So long as she doesn't roll over and put you underneath her anyway."

As Lily's eyes opened wide at that, Harry opened the attic's trapdoor and nursing his wounded pride and rear in equal measure, Harry exited the loft. After a trip to the bathroom, he soon found Kalawarner making breakfast. She smiled over her shoulder at him and nodded towards the side where she made room for him to join her in making breakfast. They were only cooking for Kala and the immediate family this morning, given how exhausted everyone had been after last night. Yasaka too wasn't due to return to Kuoh to help Harry until late this afternoon.

"The kids are still sleeping from their late night and I doubt anyone else will be up before noon," he whispered, "including Rias. She was still asleep when I left the bed, rather against my will it must be said."

"And so you were kicked out of the bed by Lily," Kalawarner replied, shaking her head. "Poor baby," She mock-cooed. "You have to get up with the rest of us peons to prepare for the day."

Harry rolled his eyes at that, moving into the kitchen slowly, taking in the view. After that last jibe Kala had turned back to the food, humming something under her breath, her body shifting this way and that as she went about the business of preparing breakfast. She was wearing her normal cooking garb, a white apron over a short skirt and light blouse that left her shoulders bare. The skirt too let her legs bare below the knees, the ensemble as a whole a thing of blue and black with bits of yellow here and there to match her dark blue hair.

While accenting her figure, certainly didn't do so to such a degree as a lot of the clothing she could be wearing from her extensive wardrobe. Despite that, there was something about the scene, a domestic sensuality to it that always called out to Harry.

Watching her move as he walked around the kitchen table, Harry was struck with an urge to kiss her and decided to act upon it. He moved up behind her, and kissing her bare shoulder, his arms going around her middle.

She stiffened and turned her head to look over her shoulder, a very complicated expression on her face. She looked almost fearful, hopeful, startled and worried all in one. "H-Harry?" she stammered. "What are you…"

"Tell me to stop," Harry said, his arms around her slowly hugging her tighter. "Do you want me to stop?"

"You, I um… I…" Kalawarner stuttered before she gathered herself, pushing her thoughts through her sudden emotional turmoil. "A part of me wants to see where this would go. But a part of me is fearful of the same thing. Will giving my Sin, the Sin of Lust I fell for a taste like this, will that let it take my mind over again? Will I be able to break free if it does?"

"Are you willing to take the chance?" Harry said with a sigh, backing away.

But Kala turned quickly, grabbing at his arms with her own, holding Harry still and staring into his face. She thought about everything that had happened since she and Harry had met, how much she had changed, how much he had changed and finally if she was willing to take this chance to find greater happiness than the happiness she had now. For a moment this conflict was plain on the Fallen Angel's face, and then Kala's beautiful face, a face like the rest of her built to entice the minds of men, slowly hardened and she nodded then leaned in to kiss him.

It was as if the floodgates had opened up at that act. They quickly went from just kissing lightly, almost like the kiss Harry had shared with Yubelluna, then Kala opened her mouth and her tongue darted out, licking at Harry's lips, demanding entry. Harry opened his mouth, and she grabbed at his head, kissing him as hard and as passionately as she could, their tongues twining around each other.

Harry kissed back just as ardently, his arms going around her, lifting her up by the waist and setting her on the counter table, where her legs went around his waist, and their kissing continued. When she felt his hardened length slowly pressing into her skirt and panty covered core at the same time she felt the cold of the kitchen counter Kala surprisingly regained some control. "Wait," she said gasping as she pulled back. Wait, we need to talk about this more. Where, where is this going?" she asked, sounding almost lost, but also yearning and hopeful.

"Wherever you want it to," Harry said simply. "I am done trying to fight my attraction to you, and you have long since atoned in my eyes and everyone else's eyes to how you treated me when we first attempted to date and what you almost let happen to Asia."

Kalawarner and Asia were very close, with Asia's relationship with Lily and Harry being the only ones that came close to it. The two of them prayed every morning when Asia woke (which meant this morning's prayer would more likely be a noontime prayer) and every night. They could even be found occasionally talking about religion and history and magic in that order... and cooking. Cooking dominated their discussions almost as much as the holy book. Asia was the most enthusiastic about learning that art among the younger set.

"And Rias? And Yasaka? Will they be happy with you adding another girl?" Kala asked. A part of her didn't care about the other women in Harry's life, her awakened Lust wanted her to continue, to make Harry desire her to the detriment of everything else in his life, to wallow in Lust. But Kala was pleased to find that was a small part of her mind, the rest had come to know the other girls, and didn't want to take away from their happiness.

"Rias and I have talked about it, and she knew that there was always a possibility if you and I getting back together. Technically speaking, you were here first after all," he teased, causing her to chuckle a little, although both of them remembered how poorly their attempt to have a relationship ended, since Harry had wanted an emotional commitment, and Kala, still under the control of her Sin, hadn't been willing to give it to him, instead wanting the two of them to simply take physical pleasure from one another.

"Yasaka also doesn't care, she too has long known this was a possibility and doesn't really care if I care for other girls, so long as she gets equal time and they don't interfere with my relationship with Kunou. Which you've proven isn't an issue," he finished dryly. Indeed, everyone in their extended clan seemed to love Kunou and Lily equally.

"And what about Yubelluna?" she asked archly. "I saw the two of you exchange a kiss last night."

"Her to," Harry said with a shrug. "If she and I do and up getting together at any rate."

"There is also another point we have to talk about, Kalawarner said pushing him away lightly and using a lock of her willpower to do so. Hell, a portion of her mind was telling Kala she should push him back he was sitting on the table and then ride him right there in the kitchen. But she wasn't going to do that. No, she was going to take this slow and lay down some important ground rules.

"I'm not, I'm not against joining you all. I, I think I had sort of Fallen for you back then and hadn't realized what the feeling was or rejected it or well, I just wasn't able to see it. But I do know what my emotions towards you are at this point, Harry. But, that's towards you," she said emphasizing the last word and watching Harry as she went on. I may have come to like and respect Rias and Yasaka, even Yubelluna a little. But that's it, that affection is purely emotional, not physical. I do not find girls attractive. At all. I have been assigned seduction missions towards women occasionally over the centuries, but I never enjoyed it. I just don't find women sexually attractive."

"I love you. I have loved you for a while I think. But I will not share a bed with any of the other girls in your life except in a very literal meaning, as in sleep beside them rather than do anything with you and them at the same time." She said, her lips twitching at talking so clinically about something that was dirty as hell. God invented marriage, but Lucifer invented the threesome, She thought with some amusement, repeating a bit of hyperbole that Azazel had been very fond of.

"I understand that. If I'm honest the fact that Yasaka and Rias both embraced one another as much as they have was a surprise to me really, when I thought about it at all anyway," Harry said. He had also thought occasionally that perhaps Rias's insistence on bringing along Akeno at times when they were making out had also been a factor in their breakup. Hmmm, odd that I think about it now. It must be that dance last night. "So that won't be a problem. After all, my bed is only so large," he said jokingly, "and sometimes one of the little ones joins us like Lily did last night, the little pillow thief."

Kala breathed a sigh of relief as she realized that Harry was serious. He didn't expect her to love Rias or Yasaka, as the two of them seemed willing to do. That was good, and it removed one of the final barriers to her accepting the idea of getting together with Harry once more. Yet, even so, it didn't remove the largest ones, and Harry could almost sense her fear.

"If you feel like you are going out of control, if you're Sin of Lust is threatening to overwhelm you, just remember that this is your home Kalawarner. You don't have to act like that to prove your self-worth, to make money, or anything else. Whatever you did in your past life is in the past, whatever Sin you fell for should not define you now. And maybe remember that Asia looks to you as a role model," he said with a faint smile, gesturing above them to where Asia and Koneko shared a room then mock-glaring at her as he added, "Up to and including her choice in literature."

That caused her to throw back her head in a laugh, knowing that Asia had a few dirty romance novels she had edited for accuracy and realism under her bed. Kala had given them to the girl after all. This let her neck unprotected, begging him to kiss it, which he did.

"Remembering that should help keep you under control," Harry breathed against her skin, licking and kissing along her collarbone. "And if you think that your lust can overwhelm me," he said, grinding slowly against her, as he pinned her hips to the kitchen counter with his hands so she couldn't writhe away. "You have another thing coming."

The two of them made out ardently for a time before Harry's enhances senses heard someone moving around above them. He reluctantly pulled away, gesturing over towards the breakfast ingredients. "So, let's finish this before anyone else starts waking up and wondering where breakfast is."

Kalawarner slowly nodded and was relieved to feel no sense of anger or anything more than a small passing amount of irritation at the interruption. "Sure," she breathed out, her chest heaving slightly. "That's probably a good idea."

She was about to step down from her perch on the counter when Harry leaned forward suddenly, not to kiss her on the lips, but to kiss her on the jugular, right where her neck met her chest. He nipped her there before pulling away, winking at her. Harry had left a hickey there visible for all to see.

After that, the kids started to rouse themselves, with Kunou being the first down to meet Teddy by the back door, and Koneko being the third. Asia came next surprisingly, she and Kala then heading back upstairs for their morning (nearly afternoon) prayer.

Harry said hello to them all, as surprisingly the boys and Mittelt arrived as a group, followed by Tonks who reported both Akeno and Yubelluna were still, "Lights out, dead to the world." Breakfast had become something of a communal meal for the compound as a whole, but he hadn't expected so many to be up and about and he and Kala had to scramble to feed them all.

However, Harry was eager to get stuff done today, and after helping Kalawarner with the meal, he bowed towards the others and told them he would be out for the next few hours. With that and armed with a map of the area with the roads he needed marked out, Harry spent several hours putting up the intent-based array just outside Kuoh at places Rias and Sona had chosen, roads which could be used by their enemies in various ways. As he did so, he saw members of Sona's peerage out and about, watching the train station, the subways, and buses in particular. He exchanged a nod with them as they came close but otherwise concentrated on his own work.

OOOOOOO

Rias woke up early that afternoon, mumbling and cracking her neck and shoulders, then looking down finding Lily's head on her chest rather than Harry's. Looking out one of the small circular windows she could tell that the day was passing quickly. But she still felt a little tired. What had woken her up was Lily moving around on top of her, trying to get free of her grip. Rias instantly let her go, giggling sheepishly. "Sorry Lily-chan, sometimes I get really clingy when I sleep."

"Guh, thought I was gonna die," Lily said dramatically, flopping to one side of the bed of the older redhead's chest then smooshing her head against Rias's to show all was forgiven. Whether it was the little girl in her who loved the attention or the young werewolf/puppy in her who loved physical closeness, Lily always enjoyed cuddling like this.

"Mmmhm, and why exactly are you still in bed? At least I have an excuse," Rias teased questioningly.

"Meh, dunno didn't have a fun night, weird dreams, oceans and doorways, and just weird stuff," Lily muttered, pulling away from Rias. "That and trying to keep up with you on the dance floor wore me out! How did you do that, I mean I've got a werewolf's endurance right?"

"Practice and the fact adult type dancing isn't nearly as body intensive as your version Lily dear," Rias said, thinking back on last night, which had both been productive and fun, the fun stuck between the two work intensive moments. "And I think the music just sort of forced it out of me. Don't worry though; you seem pretty energetic, whereas I am still exhausted."

Lily blushed slightly at the term of endearment Rias had used, then both of them looked up at the trapdoor to the attic opened and Kala poked her head up. "Rias are you awake?" she said, before spotting both redheads on the bed. "Oh, Lily, I thought you'd be up and about already, sorry I only brought one plate up with me."

At that moment Lily's stomach rumbled, and she frowned, looking at the plate in Kala's off hand in consternation. "Ooh, hugs and more cuddling with Rias, or food… tough choice!"

"What!" Rias squawked in mock-outrage before starting to tickle Lily unmercifully, "How dare you, how dare you think you had to choose." With that the tickle became a hug as Rias sat up, pulling Lilly into her lap and over her body before setting her on her feet. "But for now, why don't you go get some food, the hugs and cuddles will still be hereafter."

Lily grinned, smooshing her head against the side of Rias's again getting a kiss on the cheek for her troubles before zipping past Kala and leaping down the ladder. Kala watched her go for a moment before moving over to Rias, who was still sitting up in bed but making no move to try and get up further. The blue-haired Fallen set the plate of lunch next to her on the bed, and then stood back she pausing trying to think how this conversation should go. Darn it, I've been the other woman several times in my lifetime, but I've never actually stayed around to talk to the wife in question, and certainly never felt like I had to somehow win her approval.

Despite that, she opened her mouth to tell Rias what had happened this morning, but Rias beat her to the punch. "Did something happen between you and Harry?" she asked pulling off the tray top and revealing several rice balls and a set of sides. She looked up at Kala's silence and smirked. "You wouldn't be here waiting on me like this if there wasn't something you wanted. Since we already made certain you'd have a place to stay during that cooking competition of yours, so what else could it be?"

"Point. I just wanted you to know, he came onto me this morning, and I… I accepted. We're going to try and see where this goes." Kala replied slowly, searching Rias's face for something, some sign that she was worried about this or annoyed.

She didn't see one. Some wariness yes, but beyond that Rias seemed to take it in stride. "I knew from the moment you stuck around that this was a possibility Kala," she said with a sigh. "I wasn't willing to, to push for it as I did with Akeno or even Yasaka, because of your past and you being a Fallen Angel. But I knew it could happen, and I won't make everyone unhappy just to try and keep Harry to myself. Letting my Envy out like that, or letting my Pride rule my actions, it wouldn't serve anyone. Besides this way I can let my Lust out in a new manner."

"Not with me you can't!" Kala replied backing away slightly just to make her point. "I'm not into girls Rias. I've experimented in the past and I did not like it. Sorry. You'll have to satisfy your yuri desires with just Yasaka."

"Pooh," Rias muttered before becoming serious again, her voice turning cold and her eyes narrowing as she nearly glared at Kala. "Hurt Harry again or try to get between us or me and Lily and I will end you. Are we clear?"

Kala scowled about to retort hotly, but that response died on her lips. After all, I already hurt Harry once, didn't I? Although… "It seems a little wrong for you to get on me like that since if I hadn't hurt Harry like that he wouldn't have broken it off with me, and decided to try and be open to you and your mutual attraction."

That caused Rias to pout and glare at the same time, an amusing feat. But it was Kala who looked away, nodding. "Message understood Rias. And you don't have to worry about Lily at all. I'm not mother material really, but nor am I the kind who ever hurt children. They… the innocence of the young has always been something I enjoyed."

"I don't think you would do either of those things Kalawarner not now," Rias said, her voice much softer as she reached out to grab Kala's hand. "You were given a second chance, and you've run with it ever since. Just don't let your own fears about falling into your old thought patterns drive you away. I think you and Harry could make each other very happy."

Kala nodded wordlessly, and the two of them stared at one another, wondering how this was going to work out, with Harry dating Kala while also essentially married, magically speaking, to Rias, and with the both of them essentially dating Yasaka. If it worked out it would be fantastic for Kala and Harry, and Rias and Yasaka's positions wouldn't be threatened. If it didn't though, well the least they could expect would be for the family to lose its main (and best) chef. But Kala faced that possibility head on, and after a moment of silent communion nodded again to Rias, who grinned back at her, squeezing her hand again.

The moment was ruined however as a shout from beyond the window reached their ears. Lily and the other kids had grabbed Loup, Mittelt, and Issei and had set up a small game of football. And Mittelt had responded with all the energy of a proud footy fanatic. "Break his legs damn it!"

The two women glanced towards the window, then back to one another and just laughed. Kala then turned away and headed back downstairs, leaving Rias to her food.

OOOOOOO

To his surprise when Harry returned, Rias was still in bed. Then again, so is Akeno and Yubelluna according to Tonks, and I haven't seen Tsubaki or Sona around either. I suppose last night's ritual really wiped them out more than it did me, he thought to himself. Odd considering that most of the magic was supposedly coming from me. But, perhaps I was also being renewed by Yubelluna's 'worship' to a greater degree than they were. Hell, I feel fine really.

When he went up to her though, he found Rias awake in bed, leaning up against the headrest, smiling at him as he came up out of the trapdoor. "Hey love," she said with a smile, gesturing him over to join her.

He did so, sitting on the side of the bed, taking one of her hands in his and bring it to his lips. "Are you feeling better?"

She nodded, looking at him thoughtfully. "Last night moving those warding arrays like that and the dimensional bubble really knocked me out something fierce. Plus whatever power kept me moving during the dance disappeared sometime during the night too. But you seem to be bright and chipper this morning if your little play fight with Lily that she told me about was any indication. That, and that moment you had in the kitchen with Kalawarner." She finished leadingly, smirking at him.

Harry shrugged. "I think the magic both took from me and renewed me at the same time. It's odd, and I'm not certain how it works, but it certainly did. And as for Kalawarner, I felt it was time. Does that bother you, now that it's come to it?" He asked solicitously. Not that he was going to change his actions at this point. That would be immensely cruel to Kala, and this was, after all, something which Rias had pushed for in Akeno's case.

Rias idly noticed this, that Harry wasn't apologizing for kissing Kalawarner or asking for her permission again. He was simply waiting for her response, and she smiled a little inside. Harry seems to have gotten over his handles about having multiple relationships at least. I don't think we could call it a harem at this point considering the fact that Yasaka and I have come to have nearly as much affection towards one another as we have towards him. Although his relationship with Kala is a step in that direction.

For a moment, Rias was indeed conflicted now that it had come to the point where Kala was almost certain to join them. Is that really what I wanted? Is that really what I want? Then she remembered kissing Yasaka, some of her dreams growing up about Akeno, who unfortunately did not seem to share her affections, and some of her dreams since about Yasaka and Harry together. So I'm a Glutton for what I want and Lusty too. So what? It's not like that's a bad thing for any of us. She then remembered the house, all of the different aspects that Yubelluna, Yasaka, and Kalawarner brought to their family outside the bedroom, and nodded slowly to herself.

"Yes," she said decisively. "Yes. We are greater together, we each bring something to the relationship, to the family as a whole and everyone prospers from it. I'm a little annoyed that Kala has shut down the idea of all of us having fun together, but I can understand her position on that too."

Rias took his hand in hers' and brought it up to her lips to kiss, kissing the tips of his fingers, then the palm then the pulse point on his wrist. "I've known for a long time that you were attracted to Kalawarner, and I understood that you were attracted to Yubelluna too. I'm willing and happy to let them share in your love. Because I know I have your love too. I know they won't take that from me. Sharing is fine like that, so long as no one replaces anyone else in your affections or tries to get between you and the kids."

"Affections is it?" Harry said with a chuckle, before becoming serious. "You're right, there is no chance of that Rias. No chance at all of anyone trying to push you out of my life." He didn't even mention her last point. Anyone trying to drive a wedge between him and his daughter(s) would learn that was a Very Bad Idea.

"Good," Rias said, smiling, then reaching a finger up towards Harry's chin. "But I think I would like some more… reassurance. Come here, Harry."

Harry willingly allowed Rias to pull him into a kiss, which went on for some time, before she gently pushed him away, then tapped her neck with her fingers, at the same point where Harry had left a mark on Kalawarner that morning. "Now, kiss me here."

He did so, and she slowly pushed down the covers of the bed. This reveals that after her discussion with Kala she had gotten undressed completely, tossing her black bra and panties away.

"Now here," Rias commanded, she said pointing at the top of her breast. His eyes beginning to glimmer with lust, Harry did so, and she continued, pointing to her nipple. After a few moments she pushed his head away, her breath heaving slightly and her words coming out in a lower, throaty tone as she directed him down to her navel. "Now here, my love." And then further down, tapping the thatch of red hair sitting above her engorged lower lips. "Now here…go slowly," Rias whispered, reveling in both the actions and the fact Harry was willing to follow her lead like this. "So slowly…"

Several hours later, Harry and Rias walked outside into the yard to find Kiba, Loup, Tonks, and Yubelluna were the only ones there. The others had left the house for various errands, or to head over to the girl's dorm to do homework before they could watch a pair of movies Mittelt had found called Ghostbusters that the kids might get a kick out of, with Koneko in nominal charge of the kids.

"My word, and what you been two been doing all afternoon?" Kiba asked with a slight smirk on his face while Loup simply smiled and Tonks let out a wolf whistle.

"And what were you doing with Tsubaki last night?" Rias asked placidly, linking her arms with Harry's and using him to walk along. That session had been quite intense by the end, and she knew she was practically glowing as well as limping slightly.

Harry was also grinning like a madman, and Loup was surreptitiously giving him a thumbs up, which made Harry rolled his eyes.

"Nothing actually, she was rather too tired to engage in our normal bedroom activities. Unlike the two of you, who have a seemingly inexhaustible source of energy for such," Kiba shot back.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Rias said, with Harry chuckling alongside her. "Or perhaps envy."

"By the way, I didn't see Issei here for breakfast. He sometimes gets away from his parents for a meal over the weekend so I was wondering if something was up," Harry asked looking over at Kiba. Issei, like many of the other Devils, had become fanatical followers of Kala's cooking.

Kiba winced. "Ahhh, yes, there is something there. You see, he's sort of invited Irina over. To stay with him during her time here."

Rias blinked, then blinked again and put her head in her hands groaning. "That boy! He really has a death wish, doesn't he? Even after that confrontation, he was willing to invite an exorcist into his house? Does he have no sense of self-preservation whatsoever?!"

"Apparently not when blinded by breasts," Harry said shaking his head.

He looked up as the wards around the compound tingled lightly and Sona appeared there, having teleported in with Reya, one of her Bishops. Her teleportation was not nearly as neat as Rias's, creating a popping noise much like his own apparition. She nodded to them all and gestured at the time. "I believe it's another 30 minutes before Yasaka is due to arrive?"

"Just about yes," Harry said with a nod. That was why he and Rias weren't still getting their daily exercise after all. "Have you and yours noticed anything unusual?" he asked.

"Several groups of men and women who look like they are ex-JSDF,", said Reya, shaking her head. "But nothing concrete. We have several of our familiars following them, along with Tsubasa at the moment. But Tsubaki is still a little too exhausted to be of much use so we're down one member."

Of the five involved in the ritual, Tsubaki was the weakest in terms of magical reserves. It would be several more hours before she was up and about, whereas while Rias was a little sore from that afternoon's love-making, she was now fully recovered magically speaking.

"I asked Akeno to take her place in working with the rest of my peerage, along with her familiars and yours, Rias," Sona asked looking at her friend. "I hope you don't mind. Until the promised reinforcements arrive from the Onmyouji and the Youkai we are vulnerable."

Rias waved that off. "It's fine, in fact, it was a good idea." She looked over at Kiba, who nodded instantly, taking her meaning. She looked at Loup, Yubelluna, and Tonks but they weren't as experienced in deciphering her looks and she had to say her request aloud. "In fact, we don't really need all of us here to meet Yasaka or help Harry and Yasaka gather up faces and such to use in their illusion. Why don't you three head out and help Sona's peerage patrol the outer edge of our territory?"

At Harry's nod of agreement both Tonks and Loup nodded. "That'll give me a chance to meet the Onmyouji at the edge of our wards anyway, which is probably a good idea now that I think about it," Tonks said ruefully.

The four of them left quickly after that, and Rias turned to her fellow King and her husband. "Now, should we adjourn to the occult research club room to meet with Yasaka?"

"Actually, I'll just head to Kuoh now to see if she's good to go. We can also pick up Kunou, I know her mother wants her to watch us work on our illusions spells."

Rias nodded and smiled as he leaned down and gave her a light kiss before moving away, teleporting ahead of them to the Orc clubroom and the teleportation tunnel there. By the Original Sins but I love that man!

With Yasaka's help, Harry was able to create the third tier of the illusion spell within the dimensional bubble, creating faces, bodies, and the movement of people and cars as well as the noise of a district going about its business. The noises really gave him trouble for some reason, but Yasaka helped him find a starting point for them too. Soon enough, no one, not even a Rias or Sona or someone else who knew what they were looking for, could tell that what was within the bubble was an illusion and not a complete copy of the original reality.

And then they got creative. The two of them gleefully worked together to create traps, warded areas, and numerous little surprises throughout the district, ready to slay the unwary. Kunou interrupted them though, insisting her mother go back to Kyoto before too much longer, and she was right to do so, as the older kitsune had pushed herself too hard. The limit on how long she could be away from Kyoto was elastic to a certain extent, but the moment you went past a certain point, it hit back hard.

After Yasaka left, Rias and Sona began to help in her place. The three of them exchanged ideas in little near sentences, comparing plans and plots, as they did so, with many of the remaining powered jewels Rias had created, and even a few Sona had experimented with, going into the pocket dimension to be used as traps.

After another hour Harry smiled grimly and nodded at the other's who also stepped back. "I think we're ready," he said grimly. "Now we just have to wait for our 'guests' to arrive."

OOOOOOO

As Harry had predicted, the defenders didn't have to wait very long, although even he was surprised by how little time between the exorcist's arrival and the first, aborted attack on them and the next wave of this plot. It was only a few hours after finishing the traps when Harry blinked, turning and staring off into the distance. "My intent wards were just tripped," he said tersely.

"Show me, Harry," Rias ordered, moving towards them, as he vaguely gestured in the correct direction telling her the name of the road he thought it was and she nodded, picturing the corresponding main road that was in that direction and a position nearby.

She then gathered herself and took his shoulder in one hand. An instant later the two of them disappeared from the ORC sitting room, reappearing on a tall building which gave an overlook of the road in question as it headed into their Kuoh.

As she released him, Harry shook his head marveling again at her powers of teleportation. It was so much smoother, so much faster and much more versatile than his own. He said so aloud now, shaking his head with a laugh. "In a way, I'm still getting over the fact that you can teleport like this without needing to actually picture the spot in Kuoh you're going to teleport into so well. It's just amazing."

Rias smiled and kissed his jaw before she moved to the side of the rooftop, staring down to see if they could spot the vehicle which had tripped his wards. "You're not so bad yourself Harry," she said over her shoulder with a laugh, and then a wriggle of her rear as she felt more than heard Harry growl a little, moving up behind her and putting his arms around her waist, holding her against him very deliberately, showing that despite their afternoon session he was more than willing to go another round. Yet even as he did, he turned his attention to the road below them as she did the same.

The only van on the road down below at the moment was a large moving van which Harry unerringly pointed towards as the vehicle which had tripped his wards. Cocking her head to one side Rias nodded at that, then informed him "I think that company is one that is owned by the local Yakuza, my family gave me a report on them before I took up residence in Kuoh. So they are trying to be as subtle as Akeno feared."

Harry twitched suddenly, letting go of her waist and moving away, causing her to pout briefly before she caught the expression on his face. "Another ward was just tripped."

Rias frowned, then pulled out her phone, as Harry leaped over to a nearby building and performed a triangulation to figure out which ward it had been that had just been activated. Then she disappeared, reappearing only a brief minute later, nodding towards them. I just dropped Sona and Tomoe on that one."

But Harry was already turning, scowling angrily. "And a third."

"Are they coordinating this somehow?" she muttered, even as she took in the information again, disappearing for a third time. Reappearing, she nodded toward him. "Tsubaki and Kiba."

But then she disappeared again as Harry once more informed her that another intent-based ward had been tripped, this time closer in toward the initial wards. This pattern went on for about 20 minutes, including two attacks that came in via the trains which Momo and Tsubasa dealt with. So many of the attacks were there, however, that the locals were spread thin within twenty minutes. Yet despite that, they were all able to get to the wards in question and identify the vehicle which had tripped the wards.

In the case of the train, they were able to identify the specific cargo container when it passed over the ward line. Once the train was stopped, Momo and her team used memory charms and other demonic spells to get the workers to leave that area of the depot and then moved in to open the cargo container. The individuals within, twenty human mercenaries of some kind, were stunned by Momo and what had been found within taken. But the others had to wait a bit for each of their targets to enter Kuoh letting them get inside far enough so that anyone outside their Kuoh wouldn't be able to see what was going on.

As they did, Tonks was not idle. She ported to Kyoto and told Yasaka what was going on, and then called in the Onmyodo government forces. Their arrival would take some time however, as, unlike the Youkai who came through the teleportation tunnel, they didn't receive a limited pass from the wards to perform magic. Harry too reached out for aid while they waited to strike at these nonmagical attempts at infiltration, though in his case it was purely mental, telling Tiamat that it looked as if the action was starting.

At that point the responding individuals moved in, taking each of the invaders out one after another. This took about another twenty more minutes, and near to an hour and a half after the first Ward had tripped, they had nine different teams of individuals ranging from regular yakuza trucks to vans and SUVs driven by the same sort of mercenaries that had been on the train. The prisoners were soon gathered up and awaiting questioning at the cargo station, a nice, open area where they could store the various vehicles and be out of the way without anyone noticing.

At that point, Tonks and master Husukai were called in. After all, as a trained Auror, Tonks knew what to look for to determine what they were dealing with here. Exchanging a high five with Harry, Tonks moved to the truck and leaped up into the back of it. She had barely taken out her want to start doing a scanning spell when she paused as the wards of the area activated a heavy pressure building up and then releasing as something within the truck crackled, then dissipated in the air. The Metamorph frowned, her hair shifting colors to black from her normal pink. "A magical tripwire of some kind?"

"If it was, the wards dealt with it," Harry said grimly. "Good to know."

"You're telling me. Well, no need for subtlety now then, is there?" With that Tonks stepped to one side and with a flick of his hand, used a simple Accio spell to rip the doors of the truck off their hinges and toss them to one side with a squeal of tortured metal.

Inside, they found what could only be a bomb. Tonks moved in quickly, she had taken a few classes with antiterrorist teams back in the UK and could recognize types of bombs and its parts even if she wasn't up to defusing them or anything like that. "Okay," she said, after examining everything for a few minutes. "What we have here are bombs, big ones. They're not nukes or anything like that, but this one is a fuel-air explosive. This is, this is nasty Harry," she said shaking her head. "This truck alone, it could blow up something like six city blocks."

"Jesu Christo," Montoya, the monkey Youkai in charge of the Association's reinforcements muttered shaking his head and backing away rapidly. He had arrived with over forty Youkai barely ten minutes ago, and been fully read into the wards then hurried to here for this meeting. This was the first words he'd said since his arrival.

"Yeah," Harry drawled "I don't think he had anything to do with these."

For a moment the others just looked at Harry, and then they understood his joke, breaking into laughter in a tension reducing act that Harry had sensed everyone needed. With everyone a little more centered now, Harry turned back to Tonks and asked seriously, "Can you tell what was supposed to trigger it?"

"You mean beyond the whole opening the door thing? Nothing from what I can tell. Have I mentioned those wards of yours are fantastic yet? I so would not want to be at ground zero this thing. No shield of mine would have been able to stand that kind of explosion."

"And there are what, eight more of these? Someone believes in redundancy and overkill all in one, lovely." Akeno muttered, shaking her head.

From where he had been watching this, Husukai frowned angrily. "Is this not against the rules of your kind? To involve innocents on this scale? Or at all actually? Surely if you did do so on a regular basis humanity as a whole would be aware the Three Factions, and perhaps by extension the rest of us."

"Quite," Sona said grimly, pushing her glasses up her forehead. "However, the Khaos Brigade has shown a marked disinterest in playing by our rules before this."

Tonks clapped her hands in mocking good cheer, forcing her hair to shift to bright yellow and pink. "Well, on to the next one."

It turned out that only four of the remaining nine bombs – yes they had all been bombs - had magical means to cause the explosions, although those explosions were of equal strength to the first one. All four were tripped the moment someone opened the doors to the trucks involved, and the wards slammed down on the magic, dissipating it in place, creating something like a feedback loop before the trap could create the effect it had been ensorcelled to do.

They did so with an almost frightening ease to Husukai and Montoya, who looked at Harry and the others who had created those wards with growing respect, even reverence in the case of Montoya. And these are the kinds of wards Yasaka-sama is thinking about trying to put up in Kyoto?

The last five had more conventional means. Two of them were set on timers, and Husukai quickly gestured to two other Shinsengumi to disarm those. Three others had radio controls, which again had to be removed, connected up to a dummy system by the Shinsengumi in question. When they found the first of those, however, Harry quickly turned to Rias and asked, "How long would these trucks take to get to our pillars? We have to assume they were the target, or the school perhaps."

Rias frowned thinking of a map of the area and these particular trucks all of which were larger vehicles, but not eighteen wheelers. Still, their size does hamper them. "I don't think they could get to the radio tower at all. It's centered in a communications compound, they wouldn't get past the gates, and these bombs aren't strong enough to reach it from outside the compound. Nor could they get to the temple, the roads over there are older, smaller roads. Trucks like these wouldn't be able to navigate them."

"That leaves the 'toy store' she said, making air quotes and looking over with something like embarrassment towards Tsubaki, who growled irritably at the very mention of the adult store that had previously housed Tsubaki's pillar. It wasn't their fault though, the arithmancy of the ritual had to place it there. "That leaves the park's pool, where they'd have to park outside, and Sona's position on the apartment complex at twenty-second and Hishigata. It wouldn't be enough to damage the pool really, but I doubt our attackers know its exact positioning. So that leave's Sona's pillar as a target."

She thought for a moment, nibbling on her ahoge until Harry reached out with gentle fingers and removed it from her mouth, squeezing her hand as he watched her think. "I'd wager that this group was the most trusted, and thus could choose their targets. But I also doubt they had all the information on the terrain they'd need. So they would each go for the closest pillars, try for a time to get to them, and only then move on. Two would have tried for the temple and the other for the radio tower, then they would have switched targets to the apartment complex, but it would've taken them more than an hour. they could navigate the streets there but it's the lunchtime rush hour now and that is the restaurant center of the city."

"Not the toy store?" Tsubaki asked. "Not that I would want an attack to occur, but if it had to occur somewhere…"

The other locals laughed, the joke went over the head of the Onmyouji and Youkai, who just looked quizzical. But Rias shook her head. "Two of them might go to that one as a secondary yes, but the complex would have seemed closer. If they determined they couldn't damage it, then trying to get to the adult toy store would have taken them another forty minutes, to drive there, at the least." She looked at the now bemused expressions on their allies and shook her head. "Don't ask, just don't."

Akeno nodded. "The mercenaries from the train, once they had an idea of the layout of the city, they would probably target the temple correct?" The temple was a cultural monument too and was well known outside Kuoh as an attraction. If the enemy had somehow figured out where the pillars had to be – the Devils and Harry didn't have a monopoly on arithmancy after all – then they would have known about the temple and the area around it at least.

"Let's find out for certain," Harry said coldly, looking over at their prisoners.

"Will you want us to wake them up so you can use that soul-controlling spell of yours?" Rias asked while Akeno shivered, her eyes glimmering in sudden interest. She'd heard of this spell but hadn't seen Harry use it. The fact that he could, and as Tonks once put it was 'scary good' at it, was somewhat surprising to her and she wanted to see it in person.

"Yes thank you," Harry said politely, something that was almost jarring under the circumstance. He pointed at the first prisoner, one of the ones that were probably working for the Yakuza. "Let's start with the simple ones first."

That prisoner was woken up by a slap upside the head from Montoya, who stepped back quickly as Harry pointed a finger at the man and intoned "Imperio. Tell us what you were doing with that truck. Leave nothing out, and include who gave you the orders and why."

Akeno shivered an atavistic feeling of mixed revulsion, fear, and desire going through her at the sight of Harry utterly dominating the soul of another person like that. The others had much less complicated feelings about it, they simply looked sick and horrified. Montoya even went so far as to look away and Husukai sighed shaking his head and mumbling a Shinto prayer, not for the victim's soul surprisingly, but Harry's for his use of such a spell.

Harry ignored all this as the man replied in the calm monotone of one under the Imperio that he had been given a task by his Oyabun, the leader of his yakuza clan. The clan had been given a large amount of money to simply drive these trucks into Kuoh. While unusual to take a job from an outsider the money was too good to pass up, considering their clan was in a war with another clan for control of a nearby district. That, and they felt that perhaps this could be the first step into setting up their own control in Kuoh.

Rias and Sona scoffed at that one, considering they would never allow organized crime into their Kuoh like that. But that man was pretty much a dead end, considering that he didn't know anything about his actual employer's. Harry asked dryly, "and did you know what you were carrying?"

"No," the man said shaking his head. "I am a good donkey, a donkey does not ask questions, a donkey simply obeys."

At that, Akeno and the other nationally Japanese people, even Koneko, simply nodded. Harry blinked and then shook his head. "That's got to be some kind of cultural thing."

"I'll explain it to you sometime, Harry," Akeno said with a chuckle. "It has to do with giri, the subservience of self to one's master."

Harry shook his head. "Whatever. On to the next."

The first man was knocked out again, and Harry quickly went through the other dupes. Each of them were Yakuza donkeys, given a task by their bosses for various reasons who just were paid for it. Master Husukai took notes of which Yakuza clans (there were three) were involved here and considered passing on that information to his friends among the non-magical police forces.

The mercenary forces were a little better. They had met in person with their employers, a man whose description matched that of a Fallen angel that Mittelt had once worked with, a higher up in the Grigori with eight wings named Chaaklur. "He was a bit of an ass, to be honest," Mittelt said, "and this is me saying it, so you know he was a complete and utter fucktard."

They had been given weapons, a lot of weapons, weapons they couldn't have found on their own, as well as bottles of holy water and even some impromptu training on how to fight against Devils before being told about their target, which was indeed the temple. At the mention of holy water, Rias frowned. "Would holy water trip the wards do you think?"

"I don't know," Harry said slowly. "We know that sanctified bullets do, and holy weapons certainly would, because they are magical. But holy water? I'm not certain how the wards would combat that if they could in the first place."

"We'll find out I suppose," Sona said with a shrug. A high-level Devil like Sona and Rias didn't have much to fear from simple holy water. Issei, Saji, and Ruruko though, did, not having built enough inner magical energy yet to ignore such. And even high-ranking Devils could have their spells disrupted or deal with an intense stinging sensation if they were caught in the eyes. "It will be something we'll have to be on the watch for."

"But Potter-san," she said glancing down at her watch. "If Rias was correct on the timetable, we're running out of time for when they might trigger the bombs."

"Right," Harry said with a nod. He turned to the last group, the group of individuals who had been part of the ones that had a radio trigger on them. "The Imperio is too slow," he said aloud, then knelt down in front of one man, pointing his finger at his head. "Legelimens!" He shouted, the shout causing many of those around him to flinch or blink in surprise.

With that, Harry's mental probe flashed out into the man's mind. The man had no defenses, and it even if he had, Harry would've simply smashed through them such was the power of his probe. But he lacked control, hence the reason why Harry hadn't wanted to use this spell right away. When he was done there would be very little of this man's mind to be put back into place afterward. Better a clean death than that kind of thing in Harry's opinion, but at present, he had no compunction to hold back. They needed information, and he found it.

"This man was a scientist," he said aloud, "or something of that sort. He worked with another group of people to try and create…" he blinked, looking over at Kiba, his eyes compassionate. "To create multiple holy swords. Apparently, they have succeeded in replicating Excalibur Rapidly before we found the original and returned it, although they don't have many thankfully."

Kiba twitched, almost glaring back at Harry but Harry went on softly to describe the organization's leader. "They were lead by a priest named Valper and then another man, one with long ears, black hair and a sallow face with glowing red eyes and a perpetual… well, I would call it a grin only a certain American comic villain could love. This man didn't know his name though."

At that description, limited though it was, Kalawarner and Mittelt both stiffened in shock. "Holy shit, that's Kokabiel, that freaking grin of his always terrified me! He's one of the leaders of the Grigori! Why is he…" Mittelt began.

But then she was cut off by Kalawarner, her beautiful face twisted with fear. "He's always been a warmonger. He would no doubt love to use an attack here to restart the war. The big question is, is he working with the Khaos Brigade or on his own? And how much force can he bring to bear?"

"A lot," Harry said slowly. He had been continuing his mental assault as the others talked, getting as much information as possible. "This man, he apparently has met with your Kokabiel fellow, as well as his own employer in their base camp. He saw several thousand Fallen working with them and heard it called a Legion."

Husukai gasped, while everyone else looked in shock at the idea. "How could they bring such a large force into Japan without us knowing," the old man roared, slamming one hand against a nearby cargo container and looking a lot angrier than Tonks had seen him yet.

"I don't know," Harry said with a shrug of his shoulders. "That I can't find any memory of. But this man walked through their camp, he saw their numbers for himself." He looked over at Rias. "This man and the others were supposed to hide after setting up the truck and then to infiltrate further into Kuoh while the battle was going on. They were supposed to find Gasper and capture him; they have holy crosses and other things of that nature to control a vampire. Wait, do those even work? Wizards don't use them since we have spells designed to deal with the undead mosquitos."

"It depends on the religion of the vampire before he was turned," Rias said thoughtfully, while Akeno giggled at Harry's dig at the vampire race. "So they really are trying to restart a war here. That's, that's dangerous. And I don't like that they know about Gaspar's Sacred Gear. That implies a lot of penetration on their part."

Setting that aside, Rias checked the time then scowled. "Harry, I think you need to start creating the illusion of that explosion if we're still thinking about going through with our plan?" She asked. Rias didn't want to admit it, but the idea of facing several thousand Fallen and one of the leaders of the Grigori, even with their wards in place, was a little daunting. On top of that, with the information they now had, they might be able to turn the Grigori against Kokabiel. If that is, he really is working on his own, and the majority of them haven't turned against Azazel and his peace policies.

Harry however simply nodded firmly. "We trick them in, and then we crush them," he said with a thin, cold smile that again sent shivers up Akeno's spine. "No one threatens me and mine without paying the price."

"Should we bring in the two exorcists, on this now?" Issei asked hesitantly holding up a hand. He knew that they were going to face an enemy that vastly outnumbered them and he still didn't quite have a handle on how the defenses of the area could even the odds that much so he thought the idea of bringing into others, especially two who wouldn't have the disadvantages the Devils would when faced against Light magic, was a good idea. The fact the others didn't seem worried was weird to him, but he supposed with all their defensive planning and Tiamat in reserve, simple numbers didn't matter much to the more experienced members.

Rias growled but nodded. "Go and find them," she ordered. "We don't have much time left though so we need to finish bringing in the Onmyouji and get everything else set up. Sona and Tsubaki can expand the dimensional bubble while Akeno exempts the arriving Onmyouji from the wards. Harry, you'll have to add the explosion on the fly once the bubble's expanded and then push down the wards until the enemy is inside." Deactivating the wards was no longer possible, but Harry or one of the other pillars could suppress their ability to act if they wanted to. "I'll set up my teleportation array when the bubble's been expanded.

As they flew to Kuoh Academy, Sona was shaking her head. "I don't understand it! How do they think they'll be able to hide all of this from the nonmagicals within Kuoh? Even someone like this Kokabiel fellow has to understand how dangerous it is for nonmagicals to be aware of the Three Factions at the very least! The amount of chaos that would cause…"

"I think you're confusing this Kokabiel fellow with someone who is sane," Montoya said from one side as he raced alongside them on some kind of enchanted cloud thing which he and a few of the other, older Monkey Youkai seemed to have. As the older Monkey Youkai spoke his voice was both world-weary and dust dry. "Don't. The man is a warmonger of the first degree. He wants blood, he wants carnage. The more witnesses the better because that will simply spread the carnage."

"We're going to have to deal with that though," Harry said, suddenly realizing a flaw in their plans. "After all, there are thousands of people inside and outside the district that will see or hear such an explosion."

"Don't worry, Rias and I already thought of that. The explosion will occur deeper in our Kuoh, so deep that most people outside of it won't be able to see where it occurs, other than the smoke in the sky. A simple spell to create that both within and above the bubble, and then another spell to create the sound of a distant explosion to anyone outside the bubble and we will be good to go, I think. But after the battle is joined, Rias and I will assign our familiars to make certain that no one is taking too much interest in what happens in Kuoh for a time, like reporters or police, just in case."

"That works," Harry said with a nod, as they saw the outer wall of the Academy in front of them. They flew over it, heading down into the Student Council room, where the small almost snow globe of the dimensional bubble was being kept on a shelf.

Sona grabbed it in her hands, lifting it up with some difficulty, the magic in it almost adding a physical weight to the thing, before turning and setting it on the ground, holding her hands above it. The bubble swiftly expanded, covering the interior of the room between one breath in the next, then moved on, enveloping everyone there, and then pushing out words.

OOOOOOO

The two exorcists felt the magic shifting somewhere nearby and looked around warily. "Do you think it's some kind of ambush from the Devils?" Irina asked Xenovia. She didn't really think so, certainly not with Issei on their side. But even so, they were Devils, such things were their stock in trade.

"I don't think so," Xenovia said slowly. "This feels like a dimensional bubble, like the ones we create in order to fight someone without the public being able to see us do it. But it's a big one and it's coming our way!"

They turned just in time to see the bubble hit them, then blinked as nothing around them seemed to change. That was until Tomoe alighted in front of them, along with Issei, dropping the young boy to land on his feet before settling down herself, her Devil wings flapping once before fading away. While he was now able to hover somewhat, Issei had yet to do much more with his Devil wings.

Neither Devil made any move to erase the memories of those nearby and the two exorcists gaped at them. "What's going on? What was the point of that dimensional bubble? And why are you not worried about…"

"We don't have time for this," Tomoe said barking the words. "Listen, our territory is under attack. What you see around you is a dimensional bubble, yes, but it's filled with the illusion of daily life to trick our enemy into attacking despite the fact that our wards are still up. Do you want to be involved in this fight? Or would you rather claim diplomatic immunity, and we could help you escape out of Kuoh once we discover from which direction the assault is coming."

"Are you trying to be insulting?" Xenovia asked tartly, putting aside her anger at not being told about this and pulling out her sword as Irina did the same. "Who are we fighting?"

The Fallen apparently," Tomoe replied, gesturing the two humans to follow her. Since they couldn't fly, they had to run across the rooftops, but soon enough they were once more with the rest of Sona and Rias' peerages at the train station. Many of the other Youkai who hadn't been directly involved in capturing the first round of attackers were there already. A group of sixteen Onmyouji was also arriving as they did, the first of the reinforcements to come, though getting them into Kuoh was tough at the moment given they couldn't use magic to get there until after Harry suppressed the wards.

The two exorcists gaped at the gathering, stiffening at the sight of all of the Youkai and Devils who were now openly showing their origins, while the Onmyouji simply nodded to everyone, but kept to themselves, awaiting further instruction from master Husukai. Tonks tromped over to them, waving at Tomoe, who turned back to the exorcists.

"You will be taking orders from us, specifically Rias-Buchou. She's going to be our overall organizer and controller," she said, pulling out a bag and starting to hand out headsets to everyone. This had been Sona's inclusion on the strategic side of things, headsets which they could all use to communicate with one another and a larger, central device for Rias. "Will you be able to deal with that?"

"Yes," Irina replied easily with a smile.

Xenovia took it a step further smiling tightly. "To kill Fallen, those who rejected God's word knowingly would be even better than killing Devils like you who reject God simply by existing."

"My word you really do want to become a martyr don't you?" Akeno muttered from nearby. She had been talking to another, an older woman with a bust that looked a tiny bit larger than even Akeno's although that could be her choice of clothing, the same type of Shinto priestess outfit Akeno was wearing but with even more of her oppai exposed to Issei's gaze. He had not stopped gaping at since arriving, something that had instantly caused Irina to start pinching him, her grip increasing until he finally looked away.

"I would never aspire to reach so high," Xenovia actually smiled a little but shook her head. "Myself and Irina have imposed on you so horribly before this, what is one more measly word added to the tally?"

"Oh my, is there some kind of sense of humor there under your holier than thou attitude trying to peek out?" Akeno quipped

Whatever Xenovia would've said in reply, was drowned out by a booming roar of thunder from somewhere else in Kuoh, as the illusion of the explosion Harry created went off.

OOOOOOO

"YES!" Kokabiel roared, holding up a fist above his head, as his followers all around them roared in approval as they saw the explosion in the distance. "Only one of them though, the Devils and their allies did a better job than I had hoped, but the number of attacks we launched won through, as I knew they would have to."

He turned to his fellows, pointing towards the distant explosion. "There, there is our pyre, there is our signal for the resumption of the war we have been craving forever! Azazel, those who thought as he did, they tossed away our advantage centuries ago, but we are still the strongest Faction, we are still the true inheritors of the Earth. Now, go forth and with the blood of our enemies start the war that will lead to our ascension!"

With that, he held up his hands up above his head, and summoned into existence his spears of light, both of them looking like massive broadswords. With one held above his head, he pointed the other towards Kuoh, where they could see a bit of smoke, hazy on the horizon. "Go!"

With a flap of wings that created a clap of thunder in the air to match the distant explosion, four thousand Fallen Angels rose into the air, following him forward, all of them hidden under an illusion of their own. More than one person down below looked up and saw the flapping of hundreds of pigeons and crows and wondered what was going on, but no one really took any interest one way or the other. Who knew how many pigeons or other birds there were in a city after all?

Kokabiel and his fellows hit the edge of Kuoh and the dimensional bubble and pushed right through not even noticing. Almost instantly afterward, however, Kokabiel paused, his senses telling him something was wrong.

While the strength of the wards was not quite as powerful in this pocket dimension, they were still there. And four thousand magic users of various strength had just entered their territory. The wards took note, they watched, and despite Harry suppressing them, they began to gather power. This was noticeable to those who had trained their senses enough to notice such things.

Kokabiel and more than a few of his chief lieutenants frowned staring around them and slowing their flight towards the academy, looking around them in surprise. "The wards are still up? They feel a little weaker than I expected my Lord but that might be all..." one of them said with a scowl on his handsome, regal features. It was the rare Fallen who was anything less than physical perfection, and this man was no exception.

"Perhaps a redundancy system built into the wards?" Kokabiel asked himself, frowning. "Or perhaps I was wrong, you have to destroy two pillars rather than just one to cause a full failure in them? Regardless, they are not strong enough to turn the tide."

"They might deal with many of our weaker brethren my Lord," said another Fallen angel, a grizzled veteran.

"If our objectives are taken, any blood spent in the pursuit will be worth it. In one fell swoop, we will have restarted the war, and taken two extremely powerful weapons from the Devils. We'll even have wounded the church, killing two of their precious exorcists, adding their Holy Swords to our own collection. Move forward," Kokabiel ordered, his voice brooking no argument.

Two blocks flight later, however, Kokabiel began to wonder if perhaps he should have been more concerned about feeling the wards up then he had been.

He saw several dozen people down below, turning and staring towards the explosion shouting excitedly and pulling out those idiotic cellphones that the humans were becoming so enamored with and laughed maliciously. "Kill them all, the more dead the better!"

He dived down and his swords flashed, decapitating several, only to pause as his swords went through the target like it wasn't even there. Then he turned as the boom of heavy magical warfare reached him, well before his people could have hit the academy. An instant later he heard several screams, abruptly cut off, and almost physically felt his troops recoiling all around him as his magic attempted to explode in his hand forcing him to let his Light swords go for a moment. "An illusion, they, they knew we were coming and blocked our initial assault entirely, then tricked us to attack anyway, the wards are working at full power! It's a trap!"

OOOOOOO

While Kokabiel was starting to understand the depth of his folly, Rias had teleported several long-range attackers towards the outer edge of the Fallen Angels formation. This consisted of ten of the local Onmyouji, Akeno and the surprise addition of Suzaku Himejima, here ostensibly in an effort to show the Onmyodo that their family was ending its isolationist policies, but in reality here to help her young niece.

This had come as a bit of a shock to Akeno of course.

Flashback:

Akeno smiled politely as the second group of Onmyouji arrived. They had begun arriving quickly, with Tonks handing them off to her to be read into the wards for a limited amount of time. This was somewhat tedious work, but it was still necessary. Her tedium was interrupted as a woman's voice shouted out her name. A voice moreover, that she had only recently heard for the first time in years. She turned and her eyes widened as Suzaku Himejima led a group of six Shinsengumi towards her. "Suzaku-neesama, what are you doing here?"

Forgoing the normal demure attitude expected of traditional Japanese women in public, which she was dressed as and Akeno knew she had been trained to be, the new head of the Himejima clan crossed the intervening distance quickly, hugging Akeno tightly. Akeno hesitantly returned the hug, ignoring the looks they were getting from the crowd of Shinsengumi around them as she did. "Why wouldn't I be here when you and your allies ask the Onmyodo government for help? I'm here to help you Akeno-chan, as I should always have been."

That made Akeno's normal polite smile morph into a real one and her hug around the older woman's waist tightened. "Thank you nee-sama."

Suzaku pulled back from their hug, gesturing to the men behind her. "These men are Himejima members. Tell us what you want us to do and we will see it done. Though I must say, I'm surprised that you and your man, Mr. Potter, opted for such an aggressive response. And don't give me any of that nonsense about this being a purely defensive act. You could have warned these attackers off, whoever they are, or called in Rias-chan's older brother to deal with it. Instead, you're suckering them into the attack to crush them as much as you can. That is extremely aggressive."

"Hmm, perhaps, but I wasn't going to protest the label, Suzaku-neesama, I rather enjoy the idea of such aggressiveness," Akeno said, and the two Himejima women exchanged a smile that sent shivers down the spines of practically everyone around them. Then Akeno shook her head. "But nee-sama, I thought I said when we met at the New Year's celebration that Harry-san and I are no longer a couple. We broke up several months back."

"Hmmm…," Suzaku said but didn't reply more to that instead of turning her attention to the men around them, and in particular Loup, the large werewolf looking back at her and Akeno, watching them before she caught his gaze and looked away. "Well, never-mind that, for now, who is that rather large fellow over there?"

End flashback

Now those same Himejima men joined the other Shinsengumi companies that had been sent to their aid. The Shinsengumi had also learned from the attacks on the various Khaos Brigade bases and had learned to overcome their lack of raw power when dealing with Fallen or other magical beings. They worked in squads of three, with two of them creating one spell based around talismans. The talismans floated in a moving circle in front of the third while that worthy's fingers were flying in a series of gestures as he or she intoned, a spell. The one nearest Akeno was currently nearly finished his spell. "Fire ignites from the Earth, fed by the air, controlled by the soul of steel, Arcing Blaze!"

The spell launched a fireball into the center of the spinning circle of talismans and grew tremendously, before being launched forward. It grew and spread its wings becoming a bird of fire and heat that was about the size of a building. It wasn't all that impressive in terms of impact or power, but it certainly was a decent size, and it at least served to scatter the Fallen.

In contrast, Tonks was a sniper. She and Husukai and a group of other Shinsengumi were nearby somewhere, and Tonks was using the direct attack magic of the European school of magic to devastating effect. Her spells lashed out at ranges none of the attackers could match, extremely well-aimed cutting spells, piercing spells, and two spells Akeno hadn't seen before all of them flying faster than any of the Shinsengumi spells as she raced around the current battlefield, never still. First was an area effect spell that made the wings of the Fallen become immobile for a second, sending them plummeting to the ground. The second was a blasting spell, one that exploded the target rather than merely hit him with an explosion, a slight difference. Though they demoralized the Fallen, that spell and many of the others faltered against the Fallen's natural magical resistance, but the cutting and piercing spells were able to punch through, bringing more magic to a smaller area.

As these attacks continued, Akeno turned back to face Suzaku, throwing her shoulders back and nodding firmly, putting aside her concerns about using this spell in a real battle for the first time and shutting away her growing arousal at the amount of pained screams in the distance and the idea of causing more of her own. If my friends and our allies and our allies are doing so much, I cannot do any less! Clad in priestess robes they began chanting the spell, their hands flashing through the symbols for god, lightning, air, soul and back again, repeating the lightning symbol again and again . "Watashi-tachi no jōmyaku no chi ni yotte, watashi-tachi no tamashī no chikara ni yotte, watashi-tachi no kotoba o nikkō ni sarasa reta ten ni tassuru yō ni, Watashitachi no teki o uchi makasu Ikari no Raijin! (By the blood in our veins, by the power of our souls, let the covenant be acted upon and let our words reach the sundered heavens! Fury of Raijin descend and smite our enemies!)"

A giant ball of lightning about four blocks across exploded in the center of the Fallen angel formation, scattering them and electrocuting over a dozen in one go. But even running didn't save those around from it. When the lightning struck, it then simply bounced on to others, up to ten times before dissipating. And these attacks were deadly, the power of the divine, Light Magic, mixed in with the lightning making it deadly against the Fallen as it would any Youkai or Devil.

With the losses already sustained most human formations might have recoiled. But the Fallen were not taking this attack lying down. Hundreds of them closed, raising their hands and creating their holy blades as they tried to get in close while others hurled out their holy blades like spears or dozens of arrows or hurled swords. That was one aspect of the magnificence of Holy Magic. In the hands of a Fallen or an Angel, it could be any weapon that the user could imagine into existence. Sort of like Fragarach only in energy form and not quite as individually powerful.

But it was magic. Magic used in Kuoh by people who were not read into the wards. And Harry had stopped suppressing the wards the moment Sona had started her attack.

The results, for those who had seen the wards in action already, was predictable. For the Fallen using their Holy Spears, the results ranged from intense sudden flares of light in their faces if they were strong enough to still control the magic as it went haywire. If they weren't skilled enough, it was just a little below apocalyptic. Their own magic attacked them, blasting open hands up to shoulders, searing away fingers, or simply exploding, sending the people who attempted to use them crashing down to the rooftops below.

"What in the world is happening!" Shouted one Fallen, who was still holding onto his holy sword, clenching his hand and controlling the magic with difficulty. He had six wings and was the first of such that Akeno had seen.

She smiled viciously, raising a hand, then lashing out with a fire spell that she had learned from Harry. "Incendio!" The man squawked and blocked it, his holy weapon becoming a shield, but this opened him up for another attack from the nearby teams of Onmyouji. They peppered the enemy army with their own attacks spells: dragons made of fire, lightning, and wind in the form of a giant bird or other elemental attacks shaped like other, even more fantastical beasts, smashing into and through Fallen.

But that group was soon encircled as Kokabiel and his lieutenants got control of their fellows, and Kokabiel himself came forward to engage these defenders, flying up towards them from where he had previously landed, his swords growing so large they looked the size of buildings, his wings so black they sucked in the light.

Akeno was leading this group and barked into her receiver. "Rias, get us out of here!"

An instant later, she and the other locals found themselves disappearing, Rias teleporting them away. Another attack soon hit the Fallen Angels from behind, but this one was composed of Sona, Tsubaki, and Harry.

The two Devils gathered their magical powers and hurled out massive attacks, trying to catch as much of the enemy formation as they could before it finished spreading out. Sona's attacks were mostly based on her family's water magic. her Queen, in contrast, used a wide variety of direct attack spells. None were as dangerous as Sona's attacks, but they made up for being just a bit more lethal, able to punch through her victim's magical endurance.

At the same time, Harry gathered himself, and created a massive fire elemental, hurling it towards the attackers shaped in the form of a giant dragon. It seared through their ranks on that side for a time before the spells were dissipated by Kokabiel.

At that sight, a part of Harry felt an urge to challenge Kokabiel right now, but he was still somewhat leery about where he stacked up in terms of power to such an experienced and strong Fallen. Plus there are still way too many of them around, we need to cut down their numbers more before cutting the head off.

The Fallen were now spreading out, not allowing themselves to get bunched up again after Harry's attack had wiped out more than a hundred in one attack. More than half of their numbers were gone now thanks to the wards and the continued attacks. But the survivors were strong enough to overcome the impact on of the wards on their own magic or had enough self-control.

As he watched this new group of attackers disappear Kokabiel roared aloud in anger as he stared around at his now depleted Legion, shaking his head. He'd had an opportunity as the wards activated to use his magical power to blast through them, shatter them and then try to find one of the pillars to make that destruction permanent. But he'd decided against it after seeing the fact the wards had already done their deadly business. And now seeing the number of magic users on the other side he knew that had been the right decision.

Hmm, Onmyouji and wizards and Youkai, the Devils have certainly gathered some interesting allies. I may need all my power later on. Not that any of them could truly be a threat to a ten-winged Fallen like myself. Kokabiel was arrogant and a warmonger, that didn't mean he was entirely insane.

"We were wrong, these are not children who stumbled upon some old knowledge on warding; there are combat veterans among them. Let's get organized," he said tersely. "Whatever happens, these Devils and their allies will not live through the day!"

OOOOOOO

At the top of the pocket dimension Mittelt and Kalawarner were hidden under yet another illusion, this one much like the one their former brethren had used before they hit the outer edge of the dimensional bubble: that of a flock of birds. They were waiting there now, far higher than most of the Fallen Legion attacking their new home, waiting for a signal. Around them were the four Tengu and two Qilin.

Those were a kind of dragon-like Youkai with the heads of Asian dragons paired with lion-like heads and a single, horn with multiple prongs rising from the back of it' head. It had hooves instead of paws or claws and seemed to prance through the air like a horse, but the Qilin was just as intelligent as most humans and would provide the air corps? some lightning-based artillery of their own. Yasaka had chosen very, very well when considering what kind of Youkai would be sent into Kuoh to aid their allies, and these two, Li Yun, and Shu Singh, seemed to hate the Khaos Brigade, something that came through clearly despite Kala having known them barely half a day before the ball went up.

If not for Rias and her teleportation powers and Sona's headsets, I'd be a lot more worried about our coordination, but as it is, I think their numbers are the only major issue we're going to deal with here. Well, that and Kokabiel. He is not going to be a pushover, Kala thought, idly flipping her Light spear in her hands one to the other and back. Still, I bet that between them, Harry and the other heavy hitters can take him. Kala knew she certainly wasn't a heavy hitter, not yet. Although if her research into enchanted armor and certain ancient Chinese magic worked out, that might change.

Next to her Mittelt was looking oddly introspective for her as they awaited the signal to attack, flipping Light Spears in both glove-covered hands. She was dressed in a red goth loli outfit, white and red the deep color of blood, matching the occasion perfectly in her opinion. "Hey."

"What?" Kalawarner asked, not looking away from where she was staring down at the attackers. She was dressed, strangely enough in an outfit that Mittelt hadn't seen her wear in a long while: the long dark purple trench coat with the long v-neck and barely there skirt underneath. It had been her normal, everyday suit for decades before they had come to Kuoh, but Kalawarner hadn't worn it since she had been moved in with the Devils in the then-Gremory house.

"Do you think it was Kokabiel who sent us here all along? Not Azazel? I mean, there's nothing we could do to change that anymore, I can't go back from being a Devil after all. But still, I always thought we were, you know sold out by the big GG, not the War Crow." Mittelt said, scowling.

"I couldn't' care less." Kalawarner laughed harshly. "Azazel, Kokabiel, whoever sent me here I don't care. I'll thank them right before I punch them in the face! That whole situation was awful, but seriously Mittelt, when you think about it, aren't our lives far better now than they were when we were with the Grigori? I know mine is."

"Heh, I guess you've got a point, although I would say you and your whole 'kitchen marm' attitude was a surprise. I knew you could cook but the rest of it?" Mittelt cackled. "And then there's me, general purpose atelier, left to laze about instead when they need me to make something for them… or play football, one of the two. Yeah, I guess you're right, our lives are better among humans, werewolves, and Devils than our own kind. What does that say about them?"

Kalawarner shrugged. "That we've been given a chance at redemption and honest happiness?"

"Ugh, now that was a mood killer," Mittelt grumped. She lightened back up however as Rias's voice spoke into their ear, telling them to launch their attack.

The two of them dove down, flinging their Light Spears ahead of them, summoning up further spears and firing those off in a massive rain of spears. The Tengu also dove down, their wing tips glowing for a brief moment before they shot out in one of their race's basic magical attacks.

Of course, their enemies were veterans in aerial combat, a vast difference from the time when Mittelt used this kind of attack on Riser and Yubelluna. Many of them dodged, racing up towards Kalawarner and the others with them. Indeed, a second later one of them, with three wings showing over each shoulder zoomed past Kala, who barely dodged his Light Spear. As she did, the man summoned up another spear, which took a Tengu through the stomach impaling him and sending him out of the sky. "Traitors! I, Tokarel, will take great enjoyment in…"

That was as far as he got before Kala turned, thrusting out her hand, as she used a spell she had learned from Harry. "Reducto!" the man howled and fell away and Kala dove after him, her hands flashing as she launched Light Spears after him, small things that more resembled knives than anything else. "Dance you bastard, dance! I remember you, you asshole, always looking down on me and the other two wingers, lording it over us whenever you could during training and plucking our feathers when we lost! I'll fucking gut you!"

Mittelt looked after her, grinning a bit. "Ah, there's the old Kalawarner, I'd wondered if hanging out with Asia and cooking for Potter had spoiled her."

"Oh, you have time to worry about others in battle Mittelt, how you have grown…oh wait, you haven't." Said a drawling female voice from one side.

Slowly Mittelt turned, glaring at the person who had spoken. She was an older looking Fallen woman, built somewhat like Kalawarner, only shorter by a full head, and bustier by an inch or so. She was also dressed in skintight wraps around her chest and lower regions, an obscene version of the simple clothing they had all worn up in heaven.

She sent a smirk Mittlet's way and then screamed as one of the Tengu's clubs slammed into a wing. Darting in, Mittelt's spear took the woman high in the chest, causing blood to burst out in a geyser as the woman stared at Mittelt in shock. "Stupid cunt, this is a battle, not a fucking brawl! What is it with us Fallen that makes it impossible for us to fight and not taunt one another?"

Turning back down towards the main fight she barely dodged another Light spear as several dozen four-winged Fallen flew up towards them. None of them said a word other than a wordless battle cry, and she scowled, dodging this way and that. "Damn it, now I want the taunting back, geep!" she yelped as a spear nearly took her in the forehead, the touch of the side of the Light Spear causing her a lot of pain, showing the downside of being a Devil to Mittelt once again. But then she twisted around and launched not one but four Light Spears at one of them while using a wide area Stupefy on two more.

Against Fallen, who like Devils had natural magical defenses, the Stupefy barely made the four she caught like that falter, but that was enough for the Tengu to close, letting Mittelt finish off the one she'd targeted her own light spears on. With that done, and seeing Kalawarner above them launching another attack downward, she climbed for altitude again, shrieking out an order to the Tengu. "Fall back you beaky fuckers! We need to get space!" she then spoke into her headset, shouting, "Rias, we need to get out of here, we're close to being overwhelmed."

The instant the survivors of their group were together, she called in again, and Rias's teleportation power reached out, dragging them and their wounded away. A second later the Fallen who had gained the same height as the defenders had were wiped out by a shouted spell from Harry. "Mico Ignis (flash fire)!"

OOOOOOO

At Harry's orders, the heavy hitters had split up after the initial attacks rather than stay and hit the attackers again, anticipating the fact the Fallen legion would use their numbers to break apart and try to spread the defenders too thin to support one another. Each team was then assigned a different area of the city where they were teleported and once in their new position, they began once more to lob long-range attack spells at the attackers.

Harry's consisted of several long-range Bombarda, Reducto and several spells from both the Onmyodo and European skills, as well as simpler ones: Wide angle Stupefy and Expeliarmus. Since they could at least discomfort the attackers, halting them in place or smacking them around in the air slightly, this let them in a weakened position for the Onmyouji and various Youkai who had long-range attacks, including a few Monkey Youkai archers Montoya had brought with him. He concentrated on clearing the upper air of their attackers, in the hopes of keeping the Fallen from continuing to use their natural advantages in numbers and air power together.

The two queens worked together for a time with Suzaku at the same objective, knocking the Fallen out of the sky as much as possible. Lightning, Fire, and direct attack spells flew across the sky, killing dozens of Fallen then hundreds as the Fallen struggled to deal with the shock of their enemies hitting them and then teleporting away so quickly to just attack again from somewhere else, This was on top of the ongoing attrition caused by the wards which continued to take the less powerful among them or the unwary, those unable to feel their Light Spear spells suddenly getting away from them.

Sona, on the other hand, concentrated her efforts on the western side of the city. This area was the oldest section of Kuoh and the portion of the district nearest the temple. There were lots of small roads and double story houses there, but those alleyways could, eventually, lead someone who entered the area toward the academy and of course to the temple, though there was nothing there for them now. Those streets were soon flooded by Sona's magic, first slowing, then drowning and breaking walls and houses before being flash steamed with gouts of intensely hot fires, conjured into being thanks to spells she had learned from Harry.

Dozens of Fallen were cooked alive in the resultant steam explosion, and the few survivors quickly retreated back east as Sona cackled in her head. Let's hear it for human science you black-feathered bitches! Of course, none of these thoughts showed on her face, Sona had a reputation to uphold and it wouldn't do to let people know she was a science otaku with a pronounced enjoyment of scientifically created explosions.

At the same time, the expanding Fallen assault started to run into the traps Harry and the others had set up. From small crystals set into the rooftops of a few buildings, Power of Destruction blasts flashed into the sky as the Fallen Angels flew over them. Elsewhere buildings exploded outwards, smashing a few Fallen attempting to get to the ground out of the sky. Manhole covers blasted up and out like rockets on gouts of water which quickly froze. While the Fallen's ability to fly impacted the various traps' efficacy at first, this did not continue as more and more of them attempted to try and seek out their enemies at street level. Here and there, dozens of talismans exploded or created other effects, freezing those within, electrocuting them impaling them with spears of stone while hidden pits opened or lamp posts transfigured and attacked as the Fallen came near.

While this was going on, Yubelluna and Sona's bishops got into the action at midrange, attacking the Fallen in planned ambushes at different points throughout the territory. Reya worked with the two exorcists and Issei for a time, while Momo, with her long-ranged magic, worked solo, with a Nue, a large Youkai that looked almost like a lion, ape, and tiger mixed, for close protection just in case. This proved needed, as, while her aim and breath of spells were better than Reya's – indeed, she had added almost as many spells to her repertoire as Tsubaki – Momo wasn't quick to react and lacked situational awareness when using magic.

For her part, Yubelluna was teleported to a park nearest the ongoing action. But despite that, she saw no way to use her newfound bandrui powers at first. So she just fell back on her old standby, her Sacred Gear, Bombardier. Her Sacred Gear translated her magic into explosive energy which she could then target in many ways or use even when in hand to hand combat.

This was the power that gave Yubelluna the hated moniker of the 'Bomb Queen'. But hatred for that nickname made her power no less deadly. Explosions abounded through the air as Fallen fell to her, then as they landed, they found the trees and even the grass beneath them turning against them. The grass grew, wrapping around their legs, the trees moved, smashing limbs into them. And then the explosions would hit, ending their worries forever.

At first, the attackers were able to completely disrupt the attackers like this. As experienced as most of these Fallen were, the wards had badly disrupted the attack, killing the weak almost instantly and continuing to kill the unwary among them. The wards would be an issue throughout the fight, but after dealing with such destruction right off the bat, the wards were slowly losing their stored offensive power.

Further, the Fallen Angels were used to facing Devils or Angels, where most combats came down to hand to hand, direct engagements, the equivalent of dueling machine guns at six paces. The attackers weren't playing that game for now, with Kiba, Koneko and their counterparts only hitting them here and there in small groups in aid of their allies, then retreating via Rias's teleportation powers. Instead, everywhere the Fallen turned, they were assailed by magic. Water dragons rose from the streams and sewers to assail them. Giant fists of concrete and stone rose from a few buildings to slam into them. Firebirds flew through the sky, targeting one Fallen, then flying on to more under the command of Harry and the Onmyouji. And everywhere they went, Harry's transfigured beasts leaped out of hiding behind Yasaka's illusions to devastate them until destroyed.

But as the battle dragged on, the remaining Fallen were able to adapt under Kokabiel. He started to create clear zones in the city, blasting apart whole blocks and letting his forces fall back and regroup. From that starting point, the Fallen swiftly sorted themselves out into teams of four, two shielding, the others launching their Light Spears as long-range attacks. These squads would then work with four other such teams and began to move through the battle in a more coordinated movement.

The shift from disorganized to coordinated caught a team of Youkai by surprise, and they were encircled and speared to death before Rias could pull them out. Two Onymouji also lost their lives in Akeno's team, but their fellows retreated after proving that Light-based shields didn't stop area-of-effect spells.

Even the rest of the defenders got into trouble, starting with Issei, Ruruko and the two Exorcists, although in their case, it was a simple case of biting off more than they could chew. Rias had held them back at first but now sent them in to help a group of Onmyouji who had been forced to take cover inside a warehouse.

"Right!" Irina shouted as she raced over the rooftops. "The Devils can't be allowed to have all the honor of dealing with our Fallen foes! Oh Lord God, please guide my hand and give my arm the strength to smite your foes, to send your debased children to the reward their betrayal has earned them!"

Stumbling at the use of the g-word, Issei stared after her, grumbling as Ruruko helped him up. Xenovia of all people shrugged in an apology at him as she raced past, a two-handed sword over her shoulder. Her own prayers were under her breath, but no less fervent for that.

Even as he raced after her, Issei muttered, "Huh, it kind of looks like Irina was gipped. I mean, Xenovia's got that huge blade and it's explosion powers, but all she's got is a katana?"

Irina was indeed using a long, twohanded katana with a gold guard but Issei's thoughts on that score did not last longer than their first clash against the Fallen attacking the warehouse where their allies had gone to ground. Irina's blade shifted, and suddenly there were dozens of Irina all running at the Fallen at once. Then she was in among them and the sword was back in her hands, the copies disappearing before her sword morphed again into a spear, then two swords, then a much larger broadsword. "Excalibur Mimic," the brunette girl said gleefully. "Feel the power of our Lord sinners!"

In contrast, the power of Xenovia's sword was more straight forward but far more devasting. "Excalibur Destruction!" Xenovia cried as the impact point of her sword against the Light Spear of a Fallen was a resounding explosion, which utterly vaporized the Fallen in question and the two nearest behind him where they had bunched up after Irina's attack.

But now the Fallen spread out quickly, more arriving as they got over their surprise at being attacked from behind. Issei started to launch low-powered cutting spells, which he had learned from Harry, at the attackers. Beside him his girlfriend too kept her distance, launching playing cards of all things. But each playing card then came alive in the air, multiplying and then cutting into the Fallen, or coming alive with the king or whatever image was on the card reaching out with mace and sword.

Their attacks were pinpricks though, and the Fallen had quickly rallied against the two exorcists, who by getting mixed up among the Fallen had forced Issei to forgo his personal spells. Not that I wouldn't like to see them naked, it's just this is obviously not the time for it. Darn it, I knew I should have worked on conjuration more, that way I could have my fun and act all gallantly afterward!

One of the Fallen was an older man with eight wings and a wide scar on his face covering his eye, cheek and down to below his jaw. He wielded a sword that looked like a long dagger of some kind with an odd diamond shape cut out of the center. He engaged Xenovia, his blade against her sword, somehow blocking it and forcing the explosions away when they occurred, other times just dodging so fast he seemed to leave an after image. Irina was dealing with a quartet of Fallen with four wings, who worked as a unit, seemingly telepathically so fast and quick they were able to deal with her sword's special powers.

"I suppose we should thank you for bringing your Excalibur fragments out to us like this," The older man said conversationally, his one remaining eye glimmering with something like glee. "They will be useful in the days to come, much like my own sword, Rapidly. It's a copy of course, but it still works well enough, don't you think? We don't have many copies of them yet, but it's only a matter of time. Both that and claiming that sword of yours, girl."

Xenovia grimaced angrily, attacking harder and harder, even as the Onmyouji broke out and started to retreat physically, Rias's attention elsewhere at the moment on pulling back Akeno's team and then bringing in more help Sona's, who had suddenly found themselves facing a highly organized phalanx of flyers and the danger of Kokabiel appearing again. The fact he could disappear like that from her senses was very worrisome and keeping a lookout for him was taking a lot of her mental ability.

"We're clear!" shouted the oldest of the Onmyouji, his combat robes marked by a white chevron on one shoulder denoting his rank as a squad leader. "Fall back!"

Instead of obeying though, both Xenovia and Irina kept fighting, forcing Issei and Ruruko to stay and support them. Xenovia got under her attacker's guard, smashing the street beneath him then lashing out with a thrust for the first time, catching the man in the chest as he had leaped into the air to avoid the initial explosion. Her blade blasted him into pieces, but this opened her up to a slash to the shoulder from another Fallen. Irina was performing little better, the quartet facing her keeping her in position and overwhelming her ability to use mimic.

Still, the two of them were doing alright, but several Fallen had moved around them to attack Ruruko and Issei. Issei dodged and rolled, attacking with his cutting spells as he idly thanked all the 'training' Akeno, Harry and Tonks had given him on just dodging. Then his eyes widened and he suddenly leaped, kicking off a trashcan set to one side on the road and then going sideways, tackling Ruruko in the side. This saved her life as instead of taking her in the back, the spear launched her way took her in the shoulder.

But it was a Light Spear, a Holy weapon and Ruruko a single, relatively newly made pawn. "AGGGHHH!" she screamed, and Issei, quickly cast a Protego over them both, blocking the next few spear thrusts.

At that scream, Irina and Xenovia finally turned away from their own fights and realized what was going on. They both twisted, coming back towards their allies despite Irina still being pursued by the quartet of Fallen she had been facing until Xenovia caught them in one of her explosions. They weren't injured but by the time the smoke cleared, the two Exorcists were by their Devil allies and a second later, they disappeared, teleported away by Rias.

OOOOOOO

In the gym that she had turned into her central command and teleportation center, Rias grimaced slightly, concentrating through her teleportation array as she teleported a group of close combat Youkai into the portion of the battle which had just nearly overrun her pawn as the Onmyouji he had helped rescue turned back to offer their aid. The battle turned against the Fallen thanks to Montoya and their allied Youkai quickly and she turned her attention briefly to the world directly around her to glare at the pile of Issei, the two exorcists and the injured Ruruko which had just appeared before her.

As they realized they were safe and elsewhere than where they had been a moment before, she caught their eyes, first smiling encouragingly at the two pawns before glaring at Irina and Xenovia. "If you two could refrain from any more idiocy, that would be delightful. This is hard enough as it is. Honestly, you weren't even supposed to join the battle yet for Maou's sake! And this after you said you'd be fine taking orders from us. So much for the word of an exorcist."

Both exorcists twitched and looked guilty at having become overconfident. Rias saw this and was well pleased. She gestured to the side of the academy's gym, where Asia was standing by, the new Phoenix empowered version of Twilight Healing glowing red, silver and gold on the forefingers of either hand. "Now go get healed and I'll send you all out as soon as possible. Although I am splitting you lot up. I'll stick you two from now on with Master Husukai, maybe he can keep you both under control. Issei, I'll send you to Harry or Sona. Ruruko… stay here, for now, okay?" she added softly, looking at Sona's young pawn.

The younger girl just nodded, looking a little shell-shocked from her brush with real death. No amount of training could prepare you for that, that was for certain.

She bit at her ahoge, gnawing at the bit of hair as she turned her attention back to feeling out where her allies were, as well as imagining the general battlefield positions. Keeping all this in her head was taking all her training in the high-end mathematics and visualization necessary for teleportation to a whole new level, and it remained to be seen if she could keep it up. Darn it, we didn't think there would be so many Fallen left after the wards went into action! Worse I, I think the wards are weakening. We knew they could be overcome by power, but this is more like someone trying to stuff a raging river with so many pebbles and succeeding!

"Rias, we're ready to go again," Akeno's voice said over the intercom, her normal formality while in public gone under the pressure of the battle. Instead, her tone was a mix of sadistic pleasure and eagerness, something like battle lust only not quite. She was perhaps enjoying this a lot more than she should be, but the Sadist Queen was still in control.

That little pre-battle chat Harry had with her seems to be holding. Rias had barely seen that as everyone came together for a final pre-battle meeting, but it seemed to have done the trick. Although why Suzaku was looking at Harry with such approval at that point was something she didn't understand or have time to care about right now.

"Roger that, Akeno. I'm going to teleport you to West and Houshen," Rias replied, naming the intersection of two streets. "You'll be by a group of around forty Fallen who are trying to break out from around Harry and Sona's position to circle in from that side."

"Roger, really? Getting into this whole army tactics and communication thing a bit too much aren't you, Rias-chan?" Akeno teased.

With a thought and a single snap of her fingers, Rias created a teleportation circle underneath Akeno and the ten Onmyouji with her where they had previously been standing on the roof of a clothing store. They reappeared where she sent them and she moved on, bringing in two more groups of Youkai on another angle of the attack. Another group of Fallen had taken to the streets in an effort to avoid Mittelt and Kalawarner's attacks and had nearly surrounded another group of Onmyouji who she barely teleported away before they were overrun, and still, they lost three of their number.

Another group, this time of Youkai, came face to face with Kokabiel and were mostly slaughtered before she could teleport the two survivors away. After he killed his last victim, she felt Kokabiel be hit by one of her POD crystals which slammed him into a girl's clothing store of all things, but did little damage, as did the resulting explosion from dozens of explosive talisman within the store. Every store and building had those talismans or their equivalent, the Onmyouji and Harry having been generous with them.

Yet the ten-winged Fallen's magical endurance was too much for these traps to overcome. And while his attack was the worst reversal they were currently facing, it was only one of a handful.

I, I don't know how long I can keep this up, Rias thought, biting through her ahoge and into her lip, slowly drawing blood. Darn it, the battle's almost too big for me to keep track of. I'm in danger of losing the bubble here. We need to bring the rest of our forces forward, fast!

As she thought this, Tiamat stood up from where she had been watching Rias, using her own magical senses to try and follow the battle. She sensed a dozen Fallen coming towards the school from the north, having just bypassed a Youkai hardpoint to do it.

With Rias seemingly unaware, she calmly walked outside and turned in that direction, opening her mouth, wider and wider and then blasting out a gigantic torrent of flame towards them. It seared through everything it touched, even melting concrete before impacting the Fallen and then seemingly spreading one to another like Akeno and Suzaku's ball lightning. Job done, she turned back inside the gym, smirking at the awed and terrified faces of the wounded or those waiting to be sent out again.

"No one will touch this place as long as I am here." She said calmly. "Keep it together Rias Gremory, do your part, and trust to everyone else to do theirs."

Face firming, Rias nodded and redoubled her efforts. If my father could do this during the Civil War, then so can I! We're going to win this Maou damn it!

OOOOOOO

Harry could too feel the tide of the fight trying to turn against them. The Fallen still had a numbers advantage, he estimated about a thousand of them were still alive and fighting, and their light spears, while limited in power and scope, were very versatile and paired well with the greater experience each Fallen Angel brought to the battle. But despite that, we've been able to mostly knock them out of the sky from what I can see. Time to change tactics.

"Rias, we need to change our attack patterns," he barked into his headset. All Onmyouji pull back, switch to aerial combat and help Mittelt and Kala clear the skies then divebomb any large groups you can! Yubelluna, Akeno, Tonks, go with them. Rias, direct the close combatants forward. Time to get it stuck in for real."

He barely heard their affirmatives before he had disappeared, whisked away to stand by Kiba several streets over. The Knight's normally urbane, gracious air still in place if somewhat frayed by the look of excitement in his eyes. Seconds later they were joined by Tomoe and Issei while elsewhere Montoya led the rest of the close combatants into attack another group of Fallen. "Shall we?"

Harry nodded, gesturing down at the nearest group of sixteen squads of four each he could see. "We shall. Issei, you disrupt them, then we close."

Gulping, the perverted pawn nodded and then gathered his magical power. Strangely enough, in terms of his magical power, Issei had made progress in leaps and bounds both before and after the Rating Game against Riser. But that and dating Ruruko hadn't done anything for his basic sense of decency. There were six very good-looking female Fallen there and he had been frustrated earlier thanks to Irina and Xenovia so it should have come to no surprise what his first spell was. "Hyoudou Secret Art, Weapon Breaker!"

Not against the Fallen Angel's Light Spears, of course. These weapons were solely Light-based and thus resistant to all Devil magic, and their wielders could also reform them almost instantly. And none of the remaining Fallen were inexperienced or without self-control enough to be bothered by their weapons being targeted like that, else the wards would have killed them off by now. Indeed, the wards were still causing them issues, occasionally causing their weapons to dissipate or implode in tiny blasts of magical power. But Issei's spell wasn't intended to disarm them, no it was intended to do what it had done in the Rating Battle against Riser: destroy their clothing.

One moment the group of Fallen was moving down the street, two squads on overwatch, another two on the roofs and two on the streets. The next, a wide-angle blast of near-invisible magic struck them from the side, catching one of the flying teams and both of the teams traversing the roofs. Their clothing disintegrated and they shouted or screamed in shock.

To Issei's dismay, few of them tried to cover themselves, they instead had simply been startled by the sudden loss of their clothing. These were Fallen Angels after all, and while only a few might have Fallen initially for the Sin of Lust, it was the rare Fallen who had any sense of body modesty.

But still, that was enough for Kiba to close with the afflicted and start slicing into them. "Sword Birth, Holy Eraser!" Using his Sacred Gear and his speed Kiba was in among the Fallen, his Demonic blade literally eating their weapons. Seven Fallen fell to his blade before the others realized they couldn't match him in hand to hand combat and tried to retreat. Kiba's chosen weapon made him almost unassailable in close like this.

For his part, Harry stayed where he was and struck the second flying team with an overpowered Reducto, smashing through their shields and splattering them all across the streets and rooftops. Then Loup, in his full werewolf body charged in, closing with the survivors. Like Kiba, he could overwhelm the Fallen if he could close with them like this, and his werewolf durability made their Light magic weapons less than useful.

Embracing this kind of close combat was a marked difference to how they had been fighting and it brought in attention from more than a dozen other teams of similar size, led by a group of twenty flyers who had stayed in the air under the command of a Fallen with four pairs of wings. But as they dove down on Harry and Kiba, they were engaged by the newly reinforced Mittelt and Kalawarner. Akeno, in particular, engaged the leader in an aerial game of tag, breaking their coordination.

The Shinsengumi could not fly like Harry and the other devils could, but while Harry would say that in terms of attack magic the Europeans were ahead of the Onmyouji, the Onmyouji were well-skilled at using talismans or enchanted items to give them an edge, as evinced by the teamwork of their attack squads earlier. This was shown once more when they fell back.

Beyond Husukai, who used a floating oar of all things, the Shinsengumi all pulled out small origami cranes from their pockets, enlarging them. Then the teams of three stood around them, chanting a spell and the cranes or other birds came alive, flapping their wings like the real thing. These cranes quickly proved strong enough to actually lift all three of the Shinsengumi involved in the enchantment. They weren't agile in the air by any means, but they had long-range firepower and could keep the range open in the air too, allowing the Tengu, Kala, and Mittelt keep the Fallen away from them.

Back on the ground, Issei grimaced, dodging behind an air conditioner or something on one of the roofs despite the fact the Fallen seemed content to ignore him, concentrating their attacks on Loup, Kiba, and Harry. "Ignore me, will you?" He growled, then smiled evilly as he saw that Harry and Kiba had retreated down into an alleyway for a second, leaving six groups of Fallen on the rooftops in plain sight from his hiding place. Gathering his magic, he leaped out again and shouted, "Hyoudou Secret Art, Rectal Destruction!"

At the shout, more than one Fallen turned and hurled their light spears toward him on general principle. But Issei ducked backward, avoiding the spears by the skin of his teeth, eeping in fear as one of them punched right through the cowling of the air condition to quiver to a halt a bare centimeter from his gut.

However, the damage to the Fallen had been done. All of them screamed in agony and grabbed at their rears as the gates opened, so to speak, their magical resistance doing nothing against this spell. They were still dealing with that when a fireball from above slammed into them, ending their pain. Two Onmyouji flew over to Issei with Mittelt in the lead, and the tiny terror scowled at him, ignoring the blood staining her clothes as she shook her light spear at him. "Issei, I'm only going to say this once. That spell might be damn useful and sort of scary, but if you catch me in it, I swear once it runs its course, I'm going to shove my light spear down your throat so hard you'll feel the pain you've just caused those Fallen. Understand?"

Gulping, Issei nodded, and a second later was whisked away along with the three flyers by Rias's spell. The Flyers regrouped with all the other flying teams before being sent out en-masse to attack the same group of Fallen flyers they had just dealt with from a different angle.

Behind them, Harry and Kiba also fell back, physically this time. It was important, Harry knew, to always fall back even if Kiba and he could have stayed and fought where they were. Until the chance came to take out Kokabiel, they had to show the Fallen that they were making progress, pushing the defenders back. If Kokabiel could get away, then this fight was next to meaningless. A part of him wanted to just have Rias teleport him right to the bastard and end it, but he knew that her power didn't work quite like that. Until someone else got an eye on him and survived long enough for Rias to react and teleport him in, Kokabiel could still move around like the other Fallen.

Still, for now, the reinforcements of the close combat specialists gave the defenders an edge again. The defenders would strike, stay and draw in more Fallen, then, when the numbers turned against them retreat. Even though the Fallen were slowly becoming more organized and starting to work together in larger and better-prepared teams, Rias's teleportation powers, coupled with the fact the defenders had the air advantage now, let them wipe out whole groups of Fallen.

Harry could almost feel the enemy becoming desperate, frantic, and worried. They couldn't' tell how the battle as a whole was going, but they could tell it wasn't going well, and that hampered their morale badly. Harry could almost feel the enemy becoming desperate, frantic, and worried. They couldn't tell how the battle as a whole was going in any detail, but they could sense it wasn't going well, and that hampered their combat ability. Better, the wards were still disrupting their magic at times as the wards slowly regained their power after their initial exertion.

However, while the battle as a whole was going their way slowly but surely, they still had to deal with Kokabiel…

OOOOOOO

As Montoya led one attack group and Harry another, Saji was with Koneko were paired with a group of Youkai, attacking one side of a group of sixty or so Fallen who had taken to the streets, skirting around the growing battlefield in an effort to avoid contact with any of the defenders and then race to the school. It was a decent enough plan given the lack of information the Fallen Angels had on their opponent's numbers and the sheer chaos of the battlefield, which had now spread halfway across the district. Furthermore, it was being led by one of the two Fallen among the attackers who had eight wings they had seen in this fight.

Still, just because the plan was a good one didn't mean it was going to work. Rias had put Saji and Koneko's group in a position to ambush the group, as they moved between two large apartment complexes. Each complex had an outer wall separating it from the street, and four of the Youkai had been stationed up in the buildings, two to a side. Several others were waiting hidden inside a few of the apartments along the second floor, ready to leap down. Saji was there with them, while Koneko was outside on her own.

From her vantage point, Koneko smirked evilly - she was a Devil, Koneko figured she was allowed to smirk at the destruction of her enemies even if she wasn't going to go full Sadist Mode like Akeno - as she saw the group approaching. That and her battle lust was up, and this was going to be the largest clash she had yet been involved in.

Currently, the Nekoshuu was hidden under an illusion spell that covered her body with the image of her familiar, little Shirou, to anyone looking at her. It was a spell that she had learned from Harry and was one of only a few that she had been able to perform. Like Kiba, she had found that most of her magical reserves and natural ability with magic were bound up in her Rook classification, making it difficult to learn spells which didn't in some way help her durability or defenses. But she wasn't very bitter about that. After all, she had Ddraig, the Boosted Gear on her arm and there been so many other positive changes since Harry had come into their lives that missing out on learning how to do more magic was a small price to pay in comparison.

While waiting for the enemy to enter the ambush area, Koneko thought about Harry now for a moment, how she had accidentally called him Father during those training sessions with Sirzechs, how he smiled at her, gave her head pats, and how he treated Koneko as well as he treated Lily. But as those thoughts continued, they shifted focus without any input from her conscious brain. They became not so much about how important he had become to her, but how he smelled, how his arms felt around her, how she liked the feel of his chest against her own.

Her eyes widened under her disguise, and Koneko swiftly shook her head. No! It can't be that time again! She pouted ferociously with no one to see, counting off weeks on her finger. Darn it, it is. I will have to need to remember to take my pills again. But they taste so awful! Ugh, and to think about Harry like that is just… ugh! I mean, yes, he's the most powerful male I know, and his eyes are dreamy and oh god I'm doing it again!

Just then the group of Fallen angels that they were there to ambush came into view, having taken to the streets to avoid a magical assault from Tsubaki's long-range tornado assaults. Grateful for this distraction from her thoughts, Koneko leaped out from her hiding place without even signaling the others to get ready. To the eyes of the Fallen below it looked as if her form shifted from that of a tiny almost unassuming little kitten into the Nekoshou right before barreled into the first few Fallen angels, getting in among them before they could bring their Light Spears to bear, and when they did, using Ddraig to smash them into pieces. The rest of the Fallen quickly encircled her, and would no doubt have eventually cut her down, but Koneko wasn't alone, and before the eight-winged leader of this group could shout a warning, the rest of the ambush struck.

"Absorption line!" Saji shouted, pushing himself halfway out the window to aim down at the leader and a few of his fellows. From his tiny draconic gauntlet shot a beam of blue light, which separated into several dozen smaller beams, impacting an equal number of the attacking Fallen angels. Three of them, each of them with four wings gasped, clutching at their chests where the absorption lines hit, swaying on their feet. The leader was able to take this attack with only a bit of dizziness, but this had given Koneko the opening she needed to get close to him. He looked up from trying to shatter the absorbing line with his Light Spears only to see a large red gauntlet coming towards his face.

"BOOST!" Koneko and Ddraig roared as one, and the blow caught the Fallen angel in the chest, hurling him back through his fellows knocking them down like ninepins and shattering his ribs. The Light spears of his own men cut into him from behind, finishing the job before they could turn them aside.

"Hahahaha, nice one partner!" Ddraig crowed in Koneko's mind. "Now, isn't it the most satisfying feeling in the world to smash your enemies in the face like that? I always enjoyed it when I was alive."

"Mmm, very fun," Koneko replied, before dodging away as several of the other Fallen that hadn't become a giant pile at the end of the street hurled their light spears at her. But then the other Youkai attacked from every side. Two Nue leaped down, one from each apartment complex. They were more animalistic than most Youkai, and roared and clawed at their enemies.

Above them, however, the Monkey Youkai took the attacking Fallen under fire from above with bow and arrows. Those bows looked like green wood almost instead of the supple worked wood a bow should be. But they were lined with Chinese writing, each mark blazing with magic, and where their hands gripped was a talisman, the marks on it made by the Monkey Youkai's own blood. Each arrow they fired became six, homed in on their targets, or exploded as the Monkey Youkai launching the arrow ordered it, and they could fire them almost as fast as a man could fire a pistol.

With the Nue came a weretiger Youkai, who very deliberately sniffed the air and then winked at Koneko as he neared her before joining the fight in earnest alongside her. At any other time Koneko would not have even noticed this bit of flirtation, or if she had would have been annoyed by it. Now however she flushed and had to fight her body's instincts. To her surprise Ddraig helped, shouting into her mind, "Focus on the battle girl! Time enough to get your pill or whatever after this is all over. Don't let your body's cycles control your actions."

"Right," Koneko replied, smashing a Fallen in the crotch with a vicious hit from her other fist, then spinning into a kick that caught another in the side of the head. Nearby, the Nue were tearing up the Fallen. Their hides were now peppered with dozens of cuts, but each cut only served to enrage them further, and while they suffered some of the same weakness to Light Magic that Devils did, it wasn't enough to slow them down in their berserker states. And despite his flirty attitude the weretiger seemed to be an incredibly capable fighter, easily up to Koneko's level in hand to hand.

The Fallen are falling like so many feathers from a plucked bird, Koneko thought as she ducked under a thrust of a Light Spear that had been shaped like a glaive, which would have taken her head off. Another hit to the crotch followed, causing the weretiger to wince and back away from Koneko slightly even as her thoughts shifted to the overall engagement. We seem to have this battle well in hand. I'll have to get in touch with Buchou soon and warn her though to keep the Nue back and to let Asia have a look at them. We don't want someone to die because they were too stubborn to take a minute to heal.

Ddraig groaned. "Why did you have to tempt fate like that?"

Koneko blinked at that and then there was a shout from above her. One of the Monkey Youkai had taken a chance to look up as a shadow passed by his balcony perch and shouted a warning. "Incoming!"

From above came several more Fallen had appeared. Most of them had six wings, but they were being led by one man who had just calmly slid a short sword into a scabbard on his back, the scabbard hung sideways on his belt, the weapon almost invisible there along with one other sword, the hilt of that one peeking out behind his back on the other side. He wore a voluminous black robe over tight-fitting black cloth clothing and had ten wings spreading from his back, the most wings that Koneko had yet seen. Worse, she recognized his face, his long, pointed ears, and almost glowing red eyes set into a sallow, sharply angular face which could never pass for human.

"Kokabiel's here!" she shouted, only to realize her headset had been damaged at some point during the fight, the microphone arm sliced away.

Saji had also recognized the man from the description they'd heard of him and grabbed at his own headset.

But even as he did, two of those Fallen angels peeled off, closing with the archers from above before they could get away. The two monkey Youkai though responded with the skill of veterans. Their bows dropped from their hands and they grabbed at twin daggers from their waists, launching themselves upwards at the fallen, bouncing up and off the side of the building their blades glowing green.

Their blades stopped the spears of the fallen, and one of the three-winged Fallen fell, his throat open by a neat little twist as he had been pulled off balance by an adroit grab from a monkey Youkai's tail. The two Monkey Youkai looped tails and flipped in midair, hurling one another to separate buildings, bouncing off the walls and lashing out all around them into the Fallen.

But then Kokabiel closed through the mid-air melee. His Light Spear lashed out almost languidly, cutting one Monkey Youkai in two. His other hand grabbed the last one's tail and hurled him so hard against a building the Youkai Monkey actually splattered against the other wall. He sneered at his fellows shaking his head patronizingly. "Really, you had such trouble with mere beasts? Pathetic." His tone changed abruptly, his tone now sending a shiver down their spines. "Do better, or I'll kill you all myself."

At the same time, this was going on more of the Fallen stayed clear of the Monkey Youkai and launched large globes of glass containing a liquid of some kind down at the walk at the fight going on below. One of them nearly splashed Saji, forcing him to duck away with a yelp. The glass shattered, splashing the contents everywhere, and it was only when a bit of it hit his hand and started to burn like acid that he realized it was holy water.

As a decently powerful Devil who had taken five pawns to turn into a Devil in the first place, Saji could power through the pain of this and his body would heal from it quickly unless he got any in his face, but he was distracted long enough that he didn't see the fate of those below or even have time to think about them before a large broadsword of yellow energy sliced down at him from above. He felt it coming at the last second and dodged backward, landing on his rear such was his haste.

Saji then watched as the tip of that broadsword stabbed into the floor of the balcony he had just been standing on, cutting straight through. Then he was forced to scramble away as that same sword came up and around in a wicked arc, cutting through the walls of the apartment he was now hiding in, slashing through glass and concrete with equal ease.

"A, Absorption line!" he shouted frantically, thrusting his gauntlet-clad hand forward and shooting out another line of power like the one he'd used earlier.

But the blade of his opponent caught it, cutting through his attack, and Saji scrambled away again getting to his feet and lurching towards the door heading deeper into the apartment complex, hoping the man would come after him, which would trigger the talisman within to explode. To his chagrin, the man didn't try to follow, but that feeling only lasted an instant before a blast of white and yellow magic engulfed the apartment from his former position on down. He tumbled through the rubble for a few seconds before he and a bit of rubble that had just hit him, disappeared, teleported back to the academy's gym.

With one nuisance dealt with, Kokabiel waved a hand and sent hundreds of feathers from his ten wings down towards a building to one side, having seen a Devil girl and a weretiger retreat into it to get away from his follower's assault. The feathers hardened the instant they left his wings into something harder and denser than steel, and when they hit, they slammed like so many miniature cannonballs into the façade of the apartment. Such was the damage the attack caused that the entire face of the apartment facing him sloughed off towards the streets below, where it buried their corpses along with that of the two Nue and the Monkey Youkai.

As the ceiling above her caved in Koneko shouted "Boost!" along with Ddraig once more, bringing up her gauntleted form with all of her Rook based strength, smashing aside the rubble coming towards her and bursting back out of the complex. She was about to turn around and see if the weretiger had followed her out, but then was forced to dodge hundreds of feathers sent her way by Kokabiel.

She was doing well at that, her natural agility and speed as a Nekoshuu serving her well. But that just made Kokabiel grin viciously. Cackling in laughter, he raised his hand above his shoulder, letting his Light Magic gather there, creating a hundred large Light Spears. He then gestured down, the spears crashing down towards Koneko with all the force of a tsunami.

She met this assault, however, howling out "Boost! Acceleration!" Her words accompanied by the near roar of her gauntlet shouting in unison. The first few Light spears to hit were smashed away from her fist. The rest struck, but Koneko still was dodging around so fast, as fast as a Knight now. Only one out of every ten spears hit and thanks to her Rook durability, further enhanced by Ddraig, they weren't enough to kill her, though they were painful to an extreme degree thanks to the Light Magic that created them.

"We can't keep running forever," Ddriag said, his tone indicating he was scowling as another spear nearly took Koneko in the chest, scrapping across her side and slicing through her shirt. "Eventually his Light magic is going to break through our defenses. You need to go on the attack. We might not have a chance to really hurt them, but we can at least hold them here until one of the others arrives. I'd wager anything that's why the Gremory girl hasn't pulled us away yet."

Agreeing with this plan, Koneko twisted, so that she kicked off of the building whose door she had been rushing towards, then back up onto the side of the wall of the first apartment she had been crouching on when their attack began, which was as yet standing relatively unscathed. From there, however, she was slammed into the side of the wall, creating a dent there as a blast of unformed Light magic hit her, driving her back down toward the earth.

Yet even then, Koneko wasn't done. She thrust her hand forward into the assault shouting "Balance Breaker!" At that command the gauntlet seemed to grow, moving up her arm until it hit her shoulder, then it continued to grow in every direction until it had covered her from head to toe with red metal scales. Gold and green highlights gleamed in the sun, particularly two green marks on her and two larger emerald-like bits set on the backs of her hands, hands which ended in long, catlike claws which she used to batter her way out from the behind the beam of Light magic.

She then closed through the air, throwing out punches and kicks at Kokabiel, who calmly pulled out a copy of Excalibur Rapidly. "Ah, I see, so, you'd be the one bonded to the Boosted Gear this time? Bah! Give you another few months and maybe you'd be a threat Nekomata. As it is, you are not." With that he attacked the armored Koneko just as fast and as powerfully as Koneko was attacking him, cackling. "I'll peel you out of that armor and take your Sacred Gear for myself, as I always should have. I should never have trusted that task to weaklings like Raynare and her coterie!"

For all Koneko's growing skill and power when using Ddraig, Kokabiel was able to keep up with her easily, blocking her punches and kicks even as her gauntlet shouted "Boost, Boost, Boost," adding to her destructive ability. The only time she landed a real strike was with her tail as she twisted in place, its prehensile nature catching Kokabiel by surprise and cutting open his lower leg. The wound healed quickly though, and he just laughed at her, moving faster all the while, his attacks accurate, his blows flowing from one to another in a show of experience and training she couldn't match.

In response, Koneko blasted out her own magical assault from the gauntlet, "Nekoshuu's Fiery Blaster!" While the name was a work in progress, the blast of magic was much like the one she had used to tag Sirzechs with when they were training.

But the man just dodged it at the last instant, faster than even Sirzechs had been or perhaps he had just read her body better, she didn't know. What she knew was that in her attempt to hit him had caused Koneko to overextend. The image of Kokabiel in front of her faded to be replaced by the real Fallen leader grabbing her arm right behind the elbow holding her in place. A palm strike to her head sent a flash of Light magic into her head like a cannon round, sending Koneko flying down into the building.

As she crashed into the building she looked up to see a massive blast of light magic following her down. She gasped and put her arms up above her head, but couldn't get out of the way as the massive blast of power slammed down into the building and her, sending her deep down into the building and collapsing it on top of her to seemingly join Saji in being buried alive.

Or at least, that was what Kokabiel had thought. An instant later he was disabused of this notion, as the same boy, he thought he had already dealt with shouted out "Black Magma Flame!" from a rooftop to one side.

Kokabiel barely had time to turn before a blast of black fire came towards him, and he roared, thrusting out his both his hands and sending a blast of his own light-based magic against it. "That's it, that's what I want to see, fight, strive, despair! Show me your will to live, show me your blood is worthy of being spilled by my blades! This is what war is all about!" But to his surprise, even as his Light Magic cut through the fires, the fire that it wasn't touching spread to either side, trying to encircle Kokabiel in a sphere of fire as he flew there.

But to Saji's dismay, a single flap from his powerful wings sent the flames skittering away, and he dove through them cackling as he raised his light-based broadsword again, racing towards his attacker faster than Saji could track, far faster. "Oh, that was very dangerous! Still, you'll have to do better than that!" Before he could cut the younger man in two though, Saji disappeared again, teleported back to headquarters once more by Rias's teleportation powers.

Scowling, Kokabiel looked around him. He saw that six of his followers remained, with none of them coming from the force that had been ambushed here. Just as well, I'd have slaughtered them myself for walking into this obvious trap. Still, these Devils and their allies fight like demons, and their magical assaults were well beyond what I anticipated. Wizards and Onmyouji working with Devils and Youkai, and of course at least two traitors. And did I see that bastard Barquiel's daughter flying around earlier?

He sneered at that thought, then his eyes began to glow even more brightly. Heh, if so, I think I know my next target. "We're done here. I think it's time we reclaim control of the skies."

Unfortunately for Kokabiel's plans, Rias had not only teleported Koneko and Saji out of the area. At his request, she had teleported Harry in. A younger Harry might have announced his arrival by a quip of some kind, but after hearing the report of how Koneko had been pulled back by Rias a bare second before the apartment complex could finish burying her alive, he was in no mood to bandy words with the soon-to-be-dead man.

Instead, he opened his assault by simply slamming a blast of lightning into the man as he came out from behind his mist of invisibility. Then he waved his other hand and reaching out to the rubble all around them grabbing at the metal within with his magic. "Kinzoku (metal)!" with that spell he took control of the metal all around, hurling it like so much shrapnel towards Kokabiel.

Yet despite being staggered by the blast of lightning, Kokabiel's magical resistance was enough to take that assault. Then seeing the metal beast lunging towards him, Kokabiel leaped into the air his wings flapping twice to send him zooming into the air faster than the beast could track.

The fact this attack tore through the three more Fallen who were still in the area was immaterial. Kokabiel was his target and when the Fallen Angel was about forty feet off the ground, the ten-winged Fallen simply blasted the approaching metal shards into smaller pieces. But since this was elemental control magic from the Onmyouji school those pieces reformed. The ten-winged Fallen scowled, before continually blasting away at the smaller pieces, stopping it from reforming as he reached once more behind him to the small of his back, pulling out the Excalibur Rapidly.

Harry was still able to get behind the ten-winged Fallen and launched another series of attacks towards him. These were direct assault spells, intended more to test out Kokabiel's speed and magical durability more than anything else while he prepared a more powerful spell.

But even though he was still somewhat off-balance Kokabiel twisted around faster than Harry had thought he could move, bringing up his hand and creating a shield of light magic which blocked most of Harry's spells. But one of them still got through, tearing into one of his wings, and sending him down to the top of an office building below them. He roared in anger, landing lightly on his feet and then blasting up towards where Harry was standing in midair. "Damn you, you'll pay for that!"

But instead of pulling back as he had expected, Harry shifted into his werewolf form, and met the charge head-on, with Fragarach in one hand in the shape of a longsword patterned after its original form of the old, battered but still sharp blade with Celtic runes down its length. Their blades met, and it was Kokabiel's which shattered in midair, somewhat like what had happened to the weapons of many of his followers thanks to the wards, although Kokabiel had been able to deal with it almost without thought. So he blinked in surprise now, but still recovered quickly enough that Harry couldn't take advantage of it, his Light spear reforming at his barest mental command.

He parried Harry sword away, then as his sword reformed again he smacked Fragarach to one side with his second blade, Excalibur Rapidly, opening the way to the werewolf's body as even as he created another Light magic sword in his other hand, thrusting it forward. The copied Excalibur fragment was able to do that and remain in one piece, but it still shook in Kokabiel's hand, and he could see a chip in the blade. Whatever sword this werewolf is wielding it is a powerful offensive artifact. Excellent, it will be mine when this is over too, just like the Boosted Gear and the Forbidden Balor View.

Harry blocked the Fallen's attack with a Protego cast around his arm, sending the light sword skittering to one side but then shot a point-blank cutting spell at Kokabiel's throat with that same hand. His opponent somehow felt that coming and dodged but couldn't get out of the way when Fragarach changed forms into a double-headed spear, the new end of which slipped under Kokabiel's guard and clipped one of his wings lightly. This threw his balance off just enough for a blast of fire-based magic to slam into his chest and hurl him backward.

Grimacing, Kokabiel felt that his chest, the burn marks there already slowly receding, while the wounds to his wings had yet to heal, something he noticed, but which only served to make his battle lust grow all the greater. Like most high-powered Devils and Angels, Fallen Angels had something of a healing ability to go with their high magical resistance. But the werewolf's attacks had gotten through his magical durability and that fire blast had stung something fierce.

"Who are you? What is a human wizard doing involving himself in our affairs?" He asked, using the right term for someone using European style spells, which surprised Harry a bit, and when the gaunt, crazy looking Fallen went on, that surprise grew. "I had thought all of you pathetic wand-wavers had retreated behind those notice-me-not arrays of yours and would have to be dug out like so many rats in their holes."

"I am Harry Potter, and I live here asshole. Of course, I'm going to take it personally when you attack me and mine," With his lips pulled back in a lupine snarl as he spoke Harry moved forward, his speed allowing him to almost get the drop on Kokabiel despite his use of Rapidly. Spell after spell lashed out from one hand while he used Fragarach to batter aside Kokabiel's Light Spear looking to end this fight quickly.

But Kokabiel replied with a similar fighting style. His Light Spear wasn't up to taking more than one clash against Fragarach and Rapidly was too important to waste, forcing him to block the ever-changing weapon with his own. But he would simply reform it instantly afterward, sometimes changing its shape or composition in response to Fragarach's changing forms. And while he lacked the number of spells Harry possessed, he had a lot of magical power, which he lashed out with barely formed waves of magical energy which was just as effective against Harry as his own attacks seemed to be proving.

Seeing surprise on Harry's lupine features now Kokabiel laughed harshly, his laugh like that of a carrion crow seeing a feast. "You think you are the first wizard I've fought? Do you think you are the first demigod I have faced? I flew with the legions of Light before Father named you weak, simpering humans as his favored children! I helped bring down gods before this, and I can do the same to a jumped-up upstart like you!"

Harry used an earth, or body type spell for a brief second, flashing sideways and around Kokabiel's guard. He couldn't keep this spell up for long, the duration of the original spell was supposed to be short lest the user rip out his own tendons, and though Harry didn't have to worry about that aspect the spell wasn't very compatible with his werewolf form for some reason, the inhuman nature of his body fighting it.

But it was enough for him to get in a solid stab which Kokabiel was forced to block, and he still got a nick across his arm for a second, although the wound healed very quickly. "I'm hearing a lot of words, not seeing a lot of action, you fucking Mad Crow!" Harry goaded, intending to try and rile Kokabiel up so that the bastard couldn't think straight.

"Heheheheh, mad crow, that's a good one, I haven't heard that in at least, oh a week! The last person who called me that was another Fallen, and I couldn't punish him for it. You on the other hand you're fair game! I wonder what color blood you have, and how much I can extract before you stop being fun." Kokabiel taunted, losing himself more and more as the fight went on.

At those words, Kokabiel's light spear shifted from one hand to the other stabbing out from around the form of Rapidly and he stabbed forward, nearly catching Harry in the chest, opening up a long gash along his side. It closed instantly, even faster than the ten-winged Fallen's regeneration and Kokabiel's his eyes widened at the sight before he laughed. "Oh my, what fun we'll have!"

Cursing, Harry was forced to retreat as Kokabiel came on, both hands now filled with Light magic that started to shine a disturbing silver, his speed such Harry could barely tag him with one spell out of three, his skill level incredible. Despite his seeming insanity, Kokabiel was a veteran beyond anything Harry had ever fought. He seemed to anticipate Harry's every move, reading his body language with an ease that was scary. He moved faster and faster as they clashed, and seemed to almost have a sixth sense for danger. Taking him on hand to hand isn't going to work, time to fight as a wizard instead of a werewolf then.

With that thought, Harry used a Bombarda at his own feet to blow the two of them apart, even as he gathered the mist that had once been the Cloak of Invisibility around him. Before Kokabiel could close the distance once again, Harry was gone, invisible to his senses.

But rather than being dismayed, Kokabiel simply laughed again as he dodged a few spells, roaring aloud, "You think just disappearing like that is enough to confuse me!? How stupid are you human! I don't need to see you to kill you!"

With that, he began to chant. "I am Kokabiel, the Angel of the Stars!" He shouted, his voice changing timbre and tone as he shifted to a language that was as much felt as heard. "From the darkness beyond the stars was I made, my soul as empty as the night. To fight in war eternal was my purpose, my bloodlust never sated! It is I who took the greatest prize of all, I who became the son who killed the Father!" As he chanted his Light Magic began gathering around him in pulses waves, the dimensional bubble seeming to shiver around them such was the power of his growing wrath.

Well, cock, this is not going the way I thought it might, Harry thought ruefully while he prepared a heavy assault spell. He launched it into the air, revealing himself just as Kokabiel did the same, blasting down towards the ground with an almost raw mass of Light magic the size of a gas station. The two attacks exploded against one another, an insanely overpowered Reducto slamming into the Light Magic spell and creating a concussive force that lashed out in every direction as for just a moment a second sun appeared in the dimensional bubble.

OOOOOOO

As this was going on, Rias was sensing all of this, and wishing desperately that she could pull someone else in to help Harry. But not only did she know that this would have been a bad move, but with Kokabiel so tied up now, the attacking Fallen had lost the last hint of their overall cohesion, and with that, the defender's advantages became insurmountable. Grimly she sent a prayer her lover's way that he could pin Kokabiel down long enough for them to finish off the rest of his forces, and they could all take him down together. Odd, before Harry came into my life the idea of me and my peerage being able to fight a ten-winged Fallen would have been a ludicrous thought. Now, with him there and all of us together, I know we can win. Now to make certain none of the rest of these Fallen survive attacking our home!

Sona's voice rang in her headphones. "Rias, are you seeing what I am seeing out here?"

"Not so much seeing as sensing, but yes," Rias replied with a grunt of effort as she concentrated on both her work and the conversation. "But I agree, with Kokabiel tied down and who knows how many of his lieutenants gone, we've got every advantage in communication, organization, and mobility. Let's finish this."

"Send me back," Koneko said, moving through the massive teleportation circle painted onto the floor of the gym. She was still wearing her Boosted Gear Armor, though it looked mussed and dented, and the normally almost unemotional girl sounded angry. "Send me back. I will help Fa, I will help Harry."

As a massive attack went on elsewhere in Kuoh, Rias winced, feeling the magic reverberate in the ether of the dimensional bubble. "No, I don't think that's a good idea. I think Harry's got Kokabiel covered, at least for now. We need to concentrate on the battle as a whole. Which means I'm going to send you against the largest remaining groups of Fallen." She said, biting on her lip to keep from smiling as she realized what Koneko seemed to have wanted to call Harry there. Now was not the time for such thoughts.

"Mm…umu," Koneko said, nodding her helmeted head gravely. "Then let's do this and then we will all pile on that ten-winged crow!"

She held out a hand, and Rias slapped it with her own, grinning now, elation filling her. Oh yes, we're winning this!

Over the next thirty minutes as Harry and Kokabiel shifted from their hand to hand duel to throwing out the magic that demolished whole blocks, Rias, with the aid of Tonks, Montoya, and Sona, slowly turned the battle into a complete rout for the attackers. Despite the ongoing drain on her mental reserves causing her a nasty headache, Rias continued to teleport their forces around bringing overwhelming force down to eradicate the few remaining large groups one after another. With a newly healed Koneko leading the way in her Balance Breaker form and with a rage on for having been beaten so easily, these fights were short and nasty, for the Fallen at least.

Fallen were not, generally speaking, fools. Few of them even among this group of warmongers were so lost to battle lust that they didn't know they were losing this fight. Seeing Koneko literally tearing their fellows apart and with their leader embroiled in his own personal battle, unable to bring his influence or will to bear, the Fallen angels broke Groups of them quickly began trying to escape the dimensional bubble, but they were being hunted down by Mittelt and most of the Onmyouji, all of whom were now flying using their Origami Beasts.

Kalawarner, Montoya, Tonks, Husukai, and Yubelluna lead hit and run attacks against the one remaining large group that still had any willingness to fight. As that group tried to split its attention between all the different attacks, Rias then sent Akeno along with Sona and Tsubaki straight in to kill the last Fallen who they had seen which had eight wings and seemed to be any sort of leader.

And even as the overall battle started to come to an end, two things happened. One, someone arrived outside the dimensional bubble and smashed their way into it with all the grace of an axe through a door. And two, the battle between Harry and Kokabiel came to an end in a rather abrupt fashion.

OOOOOOO

Often in battles or even war, it is not the side which fights the best or is the strongest or better led. It sometimes comes down to endurance and the ability to take a hit and keep on coming. Thus it was with the battle between Kokabiel and Harry.

Twice Harry had attempted to disappear behind his invisibility. Kokabiel responded by zooming into the sky faster than Harry could track thanks to Excalibur Rapidly, then blasting out area effect spells, forcing Harry to either teleport away or counter, revealing himself. Several times he tried to use his own apparition ability, but Kokabiel's skill with his Light Magic allowed him to shift one Light Magic blade into a shield with the speed of thought. Tranfiguration worked to distract, but no beast he called into being could really hurt Kokabiel and his attemtps to use transfigured needles or swords as artillery hadn't worked, Kokabiel simply smashing them to peices or ignoring the wounds they caused, which healed an instant later.

Worse for Harry, Kokabiel had somehow added something to his Light Magic that caused it to sear into Harry's body like silver. He could overcome the pain of it, but it was causing him more pain than he had felt sparring with Sirzechs, making him barely able to formulate spells at times, let alone tactics.

His Light Magic also seemed able to just overwhelm Harry's low and mid-grade magic and he knew enough about Wizard-type magic to know when to dodge his more powerful attacks, up to and including Fiendfyre. The result of one such spellcasting was dancing merrily alongside Harry's current position, burning everything down to the bedrock of the ground beneath them as they continually clashed in the air above a series of offices and restaurants. And whenever Harry attempted illusion magic, Kokabiel would also disappear into his own invisibility, flummoxing Harry until another wide area attack spell flew out of nowhere to nearly blast Harry into pieces.

This wasn't to say, however, that Harry wasn't having any luck, and he seemed to be wearing Kokabiel down slowly, tagging him more often as the fight continued. Kokabiel's magical endurance was slowly being ground away. He had also, through the haze of his agony, noticed a pattern. For all his seeming insanity, it was Kokabiel's experience that was really letting him keep up with Harry. And when Harry did something he couldn't anticipate, his defense faltered.

The instant that thought occurred to him, Harry dropped all pretense of defending himself and flung himself towards Kokabiel as he came out from behind his invisibility once more. This allowed the Light magic blade and a few barely formed spells to hit him, but Harry endured the agony to take the offensive physically for the first time in this battle as he closed with Kokabiel through the Fallen's attacks, shielding only his face and chest. "AGGGHHHH!" Harry screamed in pain, even as he kept moving forward, bearing through the agony to keep his attention on creating a series of magical spells at the back of his mind to let loose in a massive spell-chain.

This seemed to throw Kokabiel aback, but then, just as he was recovering and looked to be regaining his equilibrium, Harry stopped and shifted entirely to the defensive for a brief moment, backing away and out of the way of a series of slashing attacks that would have finished him. Conjuring up a Protego in front of himself he shouted "Kinzouku Arashi (Metal Storm)!"

Once more from all around them bits and pieces of metal among the rubble flew into the air towards Kokabiel, and since the two of them had added to that rubble a lot, so this assault was far bigger than the one Harry had used to start the fight. He still redirected or simply melted most of them, but it took him aback. This let Harry land an actual clean hit, although the spell he used was anything but clean. In fact, if you asked a lot of people, certainly those who had been hit by it, this spell was rather Dark, for all you didn't need to feel hate or anger to use it. "Sectumsempra!"

The spell smashed into Kokabiel's hastily raised hand and splintered against his magical aura, his visible sign of his magical resistance only to keep it's cutting 'form', the magic splinters of it slicing into Kokabiel like hundreds of thrown daggers, shredding his clothing and a goodly portion of the skin underneath, as well as the Fallen's raised arm. Hissing in agony even as his healing ability went to work, Kokabiel stopped grinning his mad grin for the first time in this fight, his red eyes narrowing in his thin, sallow face.

He blocked Harry's follow up spell chain but was blasted back, nearly losing his foot and then crying out in real pain after he deflected one spell. The next spell-chain was aimed not at Kokabiel, but the weapon in his hand, the clone of Excalibur Transparency.

This was the only successful copy of that particular Excalibur fragment which Valper Galilei had been able to create for his master. Kokabiel had, of course, wielded it himself, and his use of it had flummoxed Rias's initial attempts at finding him, allowing him to move around the battlefield at will. The series of overpowered Bombarda and Reducto acid and rust creating spells smashed into the blade and the Light Magic surrounding it, blasting through into the blade. An instant later the copy of Excalibur Transparency exploded itself, it's bits and pieces melting into nothingness as it did.

At the same time, Harry tossed four talisman to the other side of Kokabiel, catching him by surprise even as he shielded his body from further direct attack with that hand. The talisman ignited in a single explosion, sending Kokabiel sideways while Harry prepared a more powerful spell, deciding to use Fiendfyre again. Only a wide area blast of his Light Magic saved Kokabiel, smashing out toward Harry and forcing him to cancel that spell in favor of a hastily raised shield.

When the smoke from the explosion cleared, Kokabiel stood there, his shirt and jacket gone, one of his wings a flaming mess of scorched feathers and a glare on his face that had sent lesser enemies screaming. He hefted two massive Light spears I the form of broadswords, crossing them in front of him as he glared death at Harry. "No more of your insults, wizard!"

He launched himself forward, cleaving, but Harry was not where he had thought, having used that moment to once more disappear under his mist, leaving behind an illusion. He sliced through the apparition in front of him only for it to disappear and for him to step on some kind of talisman. From the talisman below his feet came dozens of water tentacles, which tried to bind him in place.

From behind him, Harry struck before Kokabiel could recover again, getting in a single clean cutting spell which sliced off one wing from Kokabiel's back before he turned, smashing the next few magical spells to flinders, getting cut in turn as more than one had been the same Dark-aligned spell as before but also nearly cutting Harry in two. But Harry cast a shield in front of him, then caused it to light up in a blast of searing purple light.

When Kokabiel's eyes cleared, his enemy was gone, hidden under another illusion and Kokabiel screamed in frustration. "Damn you, wizard! I will have your blood for this!" With that last word, Kokabiel flew into the air, blasting his dwindling magic in every direction again sphere of smashing magic that impacted the rubble beneath them and shattered buildings, crushing them one into another for blocks all around. Only this time this attack caught Harry up in it, crushing his leg and hurling him backward with a cry of pain, the pain of it causing Harry to release his grip on Fragarach.

Instantly Kokabiel was on him, Excalibur Rapidly once more in one hand giving him an immense burst in speed. His silver-tinged Light Spear stabbed into Harry's side as he tried to roll away. But Harry's leg was trapped in the rubble that Kokabiel's latest attack had caused and he couldn't get away as Kokabiel carved his blade deeper into Harry's side. "Die mortal!" Kokabiel shrieked making to bring another blade down.

With the excruciating pain baring down on him Harry barely had a moment to think. He somehow created a Protego around his hand and reached up, catching the descending blade in his hand, grasping it there. This quickly became a contest of strength which Harry seemingly threw his whole body into it as Kokabiel did the same. But while Kokabiel was grinning viciously down at him, anticipating the time when Harry's Protego would fail and his hand cut in twain, while also working the spear already in Harry's side, Harry reached out mentally to Fragarach.

It wasn't after all, just a weapon, it was part of him, with its physical body only a representation of the image in his head. With a roar he thrust up with the hand blocking Kokabiel's downward strike, pushing himself off the rubble for just a second, his other hand up and aiming. "Grahhh!"

Even from so close Kokabiel somehow had time to react thanks to Excalibur Rapidly. He canceled both his attacks and leaped into the air to dodge over the attack, but it didn't come. Instead, Harry had faked that attack, then reached out with another magic spell and he shouted, "Crucio!"

This Dark spell was one Harry had no wish to ever use in front of anyone else outside the wizarding community, and indeed wouldn't have used it now, but he was angry and in a hell of a lot of pain himself, the wound in his side only slowly healing thanks to the silver element Kokabiel had somehow added to his blades. It targeted the soul, causing direct pain, agony in fact, to the target's soul, something that even most Devils or Fallen would have felt too vile to contemplate. Most magicals, wizard, Onmyouji, Youkai or of the Three Factions could not protect their souls from a direct assault like this, only the higher ranking among them knew to do so or had the power to.

Kokabiel had both, but as Harry had known when he launched his initial crazy attack, Kokabiel's magical endurance had been very close to breaking, whatever the Fallen might have thought himself. So while his magical resistance did block a lot of the spell, enough came through to cause him to scream in agony, his body spasming in in a rictus as if he had just been electrocuted, his wings no longer able to keep him in the air.

He crashed to the ground and as the pain faded, he dazedly took note of a streaking blue white form racing towards him in the distance coming towards them. Then, before he could push through the lingering agony Harry was above him.

Even as he looked up at the human through bleary, pain-filled red eyes, Fragarach slammed down towards him in spear form. "Peirce through, Fragarach." Harry intoned, his voice almost calm as he dealt what he knew would be the final blow with one arm while the other held his still horribly wounded side.

Desperately Kokabiel gathered his energies in an effort to block the blow head-on, having no chance to roll clear even if his tortured body would have allowed that. But as he had feared throughout the battle, this proved useless now.

The power of Fragarach was such that it could overcome any defense if the wielder so willed it as Sirzechs and Riser had found out before this. Now the leaf-shaped head of the magical spear of Manannan mac Lir punched straight through Kokabiel's hastily raised Light shield, piercing the Fallen Angel of the Stars right through the neck and out the other side.

OOOOOOO

The artificial dimension's edge nearly shattered as Vali Lucifer slammed into it, almost popping it like a bubble it resembled. Then he hit the wards, which while painful didn't slow him down much, being badly depleted by the battle that had already occurred.

He neared the sight where he could sense the last of the Fallen Angels dying, and scowled pouring on more speed. But before he could get there, several Power of Destruction blasts flashed towards him from nowhere, little teleportation circles appearing in midair and then disappearing an instant later.

"Divine Dividing!" Vali shouted, slamming his fist into them one after another grinning as his powers halved, then halved again the destructive potential of the attack. What remained hit him, but barely knocked him backward in the air. But it did slow him down. Despite his speed, he barely arrived within sight of Kokabiel and his opponent in time to shout, "Stop!" Even as he launched a blast of magical power from one hand he knew it would arrive too late to stop Kokabiel's killer.

But Harry would not have listened even if Vali had been able to explain why killing Kokabiel was a bad idea. After all, Harry certainly didn't think it was. He simply continued his attack, the spear slamming into Kokabiel right through the neck. An instant later he tore the spearpoint out to the side, almost decapitating the former Angel of the Stars and dodged to the side as Vali's attack passed through where he had been standing.

As Vali stared at this sight, he felt excitement rising within him. Kokabiel's death could be bad news in terms of the Grigori and their reaction perhaps, to say nothing of the fact he couldn't sense more than a handful of lesser Fallen alive in the area. But this was what he wanted, what he wanted to see, violence, carnage, a challenge.

He twisted around though as a Devil suddenly appeared to one side glaring at him. Then others appeared one after another, all the survivors of the fight gathering, more than a hundred local Onmyouji, more than two dozen Youkai, and the peerages of both Gremory and Sitri heirs. Several of them, the Gremory girl and an armored form in gleaming crimson and red, moved to stand directly with the man who had just killed Kokabiel despite their seeming exhaustion, followed by many of the others while the rest moved to encircle him in concentric spheres, around and above.

The Onmyouji had brought more than two hundred men into this fight. Thanks to Rias teleporting them away from danger and Asia's improved Twilight Healing, more than a hundred and seventy were still alive. The Youkai had brought seventy men and women into the fight, and though their losses were worse for the side of their force, still more than forty were still alive.

But even that wouldn't have been enough to turn Vali's battle lust away. Even Harry turning towards him, his spear still black with the blood of his Fallen opponent wouldn't have bothered him, if anything it would've made him more excited to challenge the man in front of him. The sight of the Boosted Gear in Balance Breaker form on one of the locals was the cherry on top.

But then, another woman shifted to stand with them, one with blue skin and multi-colored blue hair, with a blue dragon tail lashing out this way and that behind her. She flew through the air hovering several feet off the rubble-strewn battlefield, her eyes blazing with power, an aura of blue-flecked flame around her as she glared angrily at Vali.

At the sight of her and the aura, she was putting out Albion started to shout a warning from where it was on the Vali's back. While DDraig was a gauntlet, Albion's Sacred Gear form was two white metallic-looking wings. Blue energy membranes in formed the wings, five to a side where they poked up and out from either of Vali's shoulders. "Goddamnit Albion I'm busy, what's wrong!?" Vali growled mentally, his pulse racing, his eyes dilating in near ecstasy.

"We're not fighting here," Albion said bluntly. "This is one fight I do not want to pick."

"What! They're weakened! We could take them. I might not have agreed with why Kokabiel wanted to restart the fight, but here they are, strong opponents for me! And you want me to back away!" Vali replied, incredulous.

We could beat her alone yes, maybe. We might beat that wizard alone yes, though he doesn't feel all that weakened magically to me, despite his wounds. But I've never dealt with an angry woman before who didn't have a power multiplied by a factor of fifty thanks to her rage. But they would no doubt work together and with everyone else here. This is not a fight we should be picking, not now."

For a moment Vali didn't understand why Albion was calling the spear wielder a wizard. Surely that was some kind of Sacred Gear, perhaps one of the Longinus?

But then Sona Sitri growled out, "What are you doing here Vali, son of Azazel?" pushing her glasses up her weary, sweat-streaked face as she glared at him. "Has the Governor-General joined with Kokabiel in his madness and sent you to help them? You're a little late if so," she said, her tone turning dry as she gestured towards the battlefield all around them.

"No," Vali said, holding up his hands peaceably, conquering his desire to challenge himself against tough opponents with a considerable amount of difficulty. "No," he said again. We learned of Kokabiel's attack on you almost the instant it occurred, and I was sent to take him into custody."

"Just him?" Mittelt taunted, gesturing around her at the battlefield as Sona had a moment ago. "Really? The lives of his Legion don't matter at all to the Great Pervert?"

"I believe he felt that if I captured the king, his pawns would surrender. Evidently, that is… no longer an issue." Vali looked around, carefully taking in all of the different groups and people that had taken part in this fight, shaking his head as he considered what this was telling him. Whether they had intended to or not, Rias, Sona, and Potter had created an entirely new power block here, one that his employer needed to be told about. Both my employer's I think. I doubt that even Ophis knows about the true strength of this group.

In this, he was entirely wrong. Ophis had a very good idea of that. This was why Kuroka had snuck into the area and observed bits and pieces of the fight, including Harry and Kokabiel's showdown. She was currently nearby watching all of this with interest, hidden under her cat transformation and salivating, both physically and mentally, at the power Harry had shown her. Despite that, she had a little timer in her mind and was going to get the heck out of there before the scary wards recovered.

"What is it with you people and your obsession with chess?" Harry muttered shaking his head. The younger man in front of him was giving off very dangerous vibes, but Harry had dealt with such people his entire life, he wasn't about to back away now. "But you would be correct in that. I take it that your employer expects us to believe that you all just misplaced a full Legion?"

"Believe it or not, but four thousand Fallen Angels can slowly be pulled away from their various jobs worldwide and then gathered again without anyone really realizing why for a time. We're a very disorganized spread out group," Vali replied dryly.

"Then perhaps Azazel should be doing something about that?" Tiamat replied tartly. She had not taken her eyes away from Albion on Vali's arm, and the apprehension Albion was feeling at her presence was throwing Vali off.

"Lord Azazel will not be pleased with what happened here. Whatever his provocations towards you, Kokabiel was high up in our ranks. I was meant to take them back and try him under our laws." Vali said coolly.

"Why should we care about your laws when his offense was against us?" Rias asked tartly.

Sona nodded at that, gesturing at Husukai and then Rias and Harry. "Indeed. Further, what sovereign nation would turn over a mass murderer and attempted terrorist to his home country after he committed crimes on that nation's soil?"

"Because killing him could restart the war just as much as this attack could have if it had succeeded," the White Dragon Emperor stated. He didn't particularly care, but he thought that this one would. She smelled like a peacemonger to him. "There will be repercussions for this."

"We merely defended ourselves as anyone attacked could." Sona retorted. The fact that this attack would well have been overwhelming, almost utterly unstoppable without Harry Potter and everything that had shifted with his arrival and involvement with them, was niggling at the back of Sona's head, and making her blunter then she would normally be.

Rias nodded sharp agreement with her friend, adding, "Besides, this isn't the first time we've had to clean up your faction's messes! Do a better job of policing yourselves before pointing fingers at us. You can tell that old pervert that and remember that in the future if you attack us here, we won't be pulling any punches whatever the repercussions afterward."

At that Vali Lucifer grinned, which elicited a growl from Tiamat, causing Divine Dividing to pull him away backwards and causing him to stop grinning instantly. "I will remember that and relay your comments," he said calmly and. "But Lord Azazel would still like to know what exactly happened here."

"We can give you a memory of the battle from the perspective of one of the combatants, and his head," Harry said decisively. "Beyond that, this Azazael cock will just have to be happy for the fact that we do believe Kokabiel acted on his own and thus don't intend to demand reparations."

"I will convey that to Lord Azazel," Vali said bowing his head again. He then turned, moving over to the body and efficiently finishing the job Harry had begun chopping the head off with a single strike of his armored forearm. He dumped it into a bag at his side before turning to stare at the armor clad Koneko, though he could only vaguely make out the fact she was a female underneath the armor let alone her identity. "And you, you and I will meet again soon my destined rival. Grow stronger, it would give me no pleasure to crush a weakling."

"Fuck off psycho," Koneko retorted, her deadpan tone sounding almost sepulchral in her armor, aided by being amplified by Ddraig's power. "You might like fighting but that doesn't mean I want to become your enabler. Get your fix somewhere else." In her head Ddraig began to laugh loudly and Harry and Rias, who had both been about to move to defend her, stopped and laughed too.

Vali, however, just smirked. "So you have spirit at least, good! But no one can fight their destiny woman. As inheritors of the two Dragon Emperors, our fate is to meet in battle. Embrace it, or else you'll never survive." With that, he turned away from them, sprouting wings and flying off.

"Well that just happened," Issei muttered, touching his throat and shuddering as he stared to where Kokabiel's body lay.

"Could we have won against him if he'd fought us here and now, do you think?" Rias asked looking over at Harry.

Harry though looked over to the multicolored Dragon, who nodded. "He is strong, powerful, and Divine Dividing gives him an edge, but I think given our numbers, and the disparate types of magic and abilities we all could bring to bear yes we could've won. I personally have fought Albion to a standstill once or twice myself. Not often, mind you, but it can be done. This Vali though, he feels dangerous. I do not know enough about him, or his bond with the White Dragon Emperor to tell you."

Anyone wielding one of the Longinus type Sacred Gears was dangerous, deadly beyond all reason whatever his personal power before he awakened those weapons. But if Vali himself was strong as Tiamat was saying, that made him even more dangerous.

"Well," Sona said with a sigh. "Now that that is cleared up…" She looked over to Rias, who nodded, and gestured the two exorcists over to them. "I take it you've gathered your swords?"

Both of them nodded, but Xenovia said, "Indeed, we've claimed all the heathen copies of Excalibur Rapidly, all fifty of them." Those had been deadly in the hands of their Fallen wielders, but later in the battle, they had also been treated as magical items wielded against the defenders by the wards and more than one of them had simply melted, the magic in them going haywire when the wards slowly regained their power. We still don't know where this scientist or the human faction that was part of Kokabiel's legion is hidden, however."

"That is your business. They are not inside our territory, which means finding them is your job." Sona said coolly. "I trust however that neither of you harbors any concerns on our having been the ones to steal them now?"

Irina nodded, holding two holy swords before placing them into her special pouch and grinning. "Nope. And now that we've recovered them, we can even call home and ask for help in pursuing Valper Gallelei without being disgraced."

"How nice for you," Sona said rolling her eyes slightly. "Please do so as you are leaving our Kuoh. You have finished your objective, and to put it bluntly, despite the fact that you helped in this fight and seems to have mellowed, you have not made friends here." Her lips quirked. "In other words, your welcome here is over, get off our lawn."

As Sona finished speaking Rias sent Kiba a wink, something that calmed him down from where he was going to protest letting the two Exorcists alone try to find Valper and anyone else who might have helped Kokabiel in the background. No, Rias well knew that they needed someone along with the two bull-in-a-China-shop Exorcists on this search. But before that, they wanted these two exorcists out of their hair, and they would have to deal with the rest of the aftermath of this fight. Only after that was over would Kiba and a few others be allowed to hunt this Valper fellow down.

None of them, not even Vali, noticed the small black cat racing away through the shadows towards the edge of the dimensional bubble. Kuroka had a plan now to make contact with Harry Potter, it only remained to be seen if her read of the man was accurate.

End Chapter

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The Fight between Kokabiel and Harry was tough, but I feel that Kokabiel's experience, adaptability and his use of the Excalibur fragments would actually pair better against Harry's style than someone who uses overwhelming force Like Sirzechs. The battle was really in doubt numerous times, and it came down to who could bear the pain better.

I also gave numerous hints on how the overall plot is going to go, hope that most of you at least noticed those LOL, as well as Kala getting together with Harry and Yubelluna's worship-based powers.

As always if you liked the chapter, please leave a review.