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.

17. Chapter 17

I don't own DxD nor am I a British matron.

This story won the small story poll in February, but I couldn't finish it then. And since, well… let's just say that first I didn't finish it as fast as I should have, but also due to the whole COVID thing, my editor didn't get it back until this past week. In other news, ATP should be back to me soon, and Stallion of the Line won this month's small story poll, while Sword, Bow, and Horse (Lords Marksman and Vanadis X Ranma crossover) will be updated (finished, sent off to the editor) over on patty on.

This has been looked over by Nad Destroyer and myself via Grammarly. I don't doubt that there will be grammar issues, I just hope they don't take too much of the pleasure of reading the chapter away from you all.

Key: Bold – emphasis. Italics – thoughts. Underline – names of spells or movies or things being read by the characters.

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Chapter 17: Travelus Interruptus

When their pilot said they would be stopping in at Hawaii for refueling, Harry was somewhat confused, while Tonks was annoyed, muttering about the MACUSA, or as she called them, "The Anti-Fun Stuck-ups. They better not make trouble for us there, or else I swear I'm gonna start cursin' 'em."

"Ignoring Tonks and her issues with MACUSA, is there a reason why we're going the long way? I mean, the trip from Tokyo to London is what, thirteen hours if we go west over Russia. Whereas if we fly the other way, it's… what, a full day?"

"True, but there is a reason for it. You see, this plane is known to be used by a front for my family and our allies when traveling in the human world, even if the attendants and pilots don't know it. It's sort of an open secret. And as such, I couldn't get passage through Russian Air space." This did nothing for Harry's confusion and Rias chuckled wryly, while Lily hopped to her feet the instant the seatbelts sign disappeared on the little screen on her chair's arm. "I know you've mentioned that the magical side of Russia is um… disjointed. But the spiritual side isn't. The Eastern Orthodox church is quite powerful behind the scenes and has infiltrated the government down to the municipal level."

"And they supply a lot of exorcists, exorcists who are among the most virulently anti-demon exorcists in the world. Exorcists who don't care about borders or anything else that gets in their way," Yubelluna cut in. "Mihae and I ran into them once on a mission to a Phenex holding in Latvia. We had to fight our way out and though we killed most of the exorcists, they had already slaughtered the majority of our clients."

"I heard about that incident when I was researching Riser and his peerage. It was the only one in a two-year span, but it was particularly bloody, as most meetings with Russian exorcists are. I often think the Eastern Orthodox Church in Russia is so violent in its pursuit of demons to offset having never been more than a mouthpiece to in the Tsarist eras and then next to useless in the communist era, but there you are."

"I thought that kind of thing wasn't supposed to be allowed," Tonks asked. "What with the whole cold war thing the Three Factions had going on."

Yubelluna chuckled dryly. "Heh, no that just meant there were few pitched battles. This was more of a skirmish. And the Eastern Orthodox has always been the quickest to disavow exorcists caught in actions like that. It doesn't stop them though. So I completely understand why we'd just as soon avoid the matter altogether."

"Exactly. So we had to go the long way. Sorry," Rias apologized.

"I was just making an observation, not an objection, love. Although I think that means we should be trying to wear out the little monster if we want any peace for the rest of this trip," Harry replied wryly as he hopped to his own feet, moving toward Koneko and Lily. There was enough space in the center of the sitting area to roughhouse a bit after all.

This activity went on for a few hours before Lily had exercised enough to be able to sit down in one of the admittedly very comfortable seats in front of a large TV that completely dominated one of the plane's interior bulkheads. From there Harry, Tonks, Lily, Rias, Mittelt, and Koneko watched an anime movie for a time before the group broke up.

But at that point, Rias lost her bid on what to watch next. She had no interest in live-action Disney movies, even such classics like the 'Swiss Family Robinson', which Lily had been insistent about watching the moment she saw it was on offer. "After all Daddy, if we crash I'd like to have an idea of what to expect from living my life out on a deserted island."

To everyone's surprise, Mittelt agreed with her, earning a betrayed look from Rias. "What?" the Devil-Fallen huffed. "Just because I'm almost as into anime as you are, doesn't mean that I can't watch other things. Besides, I remember when that movie first came out. I can still remember thinking Macarthur was dreamy."

"Hmmph, well if you'll excuse me and Harry then, I'd like to talk to him for a bit, if that's alright with everyone. We'll be in the aft section if anyone needs us," Rias replied, standing up after kissing Lily on the side of her head.

"'Talk' huh?" Tonks teased. "Right, pull the other one, it's got bells on." Even Loup, easily the least talkative of the lot, was smirking at that, to which Rias did not reply. She did look over at Yubelluna, who simply smiled back, shrugging her shoulders.

Harry spent a few minutes talking to the three flight attendants to make certain they knew not to give Lily any sugar before following Rias into the aft segment of the plane. Keeping Lily cooped up inside a plane even now that she had been tired out a bit would be enough of a chore without that, despite having Koneko around to help bleed off some of her energy. However, with Koneko, Tonks and the others there, Harry didn't think he needed to be there to watch her at all times.

The aft portion of the private jet was smaller than the main area and was set up more like a traditional first-class area on a commercial flight. It had large chairs facing one another, with enough space next to one another so that each could be tilted back into beds. It also was separated from the rest by a blind over the two aisles leading forward and back into the attendant's area. That was about as much Harry took in before Rias grabbed his attention sitting down and facing him, her legs crossed languidly as she eyed him.

Like Tonks had insinuated, while Harry and Rias had indeed started talking about what they would be doing in London, this had led into an argument which had segued into makeup sex, as Harry had covered them both with Muffilatio spells along with a series of illusions. Later, as the flight attendants moved through that segment of the plane, the two of them just looked as if they were sleeping cuddling together in one chair.

After they were finished the two laid there for a moment, gasping lightly as their sweat started to cool on their bare forms. "I wholeheartedly agree with my daughter's assessment of who shall be planning any trips for our little family from now on," Harry murmured, tightening his grip around Rias, as he shifted slightly pulling his still hard shaft slowly out of her, despite her whimper of wordless protest. It might not have been what most people would have thought of as a mile high club experience, Harry thought complacently, as his fingers wove tenderly through Rias's long crimson locks, but, it as an experience at least. "Well? Was it worth that special name?"

"Hmm… well while I can't see the point to call it a special name, the mile high club indeed, it was certainly fun in many ways. Hehehe," Rias finished with a dirty sounding chortle as she leaned her head on Harry's shoulder, feeling her breasts pillowing out very slightly against his hard, muscled chest before leaning up kissing his jaw and neck, feeling him shiver under her. "But then again, whenever you and I make love it's special, my husband~~."

She purred the last word in such a way that would have gotten her an instant smack from Koneko yet also had an altogether different reaction from Harry below the waistline and she had to bite back another moan as Harry's length ground against her clit and then along her drenched lower lips. "Enough of that," she forced out, although her voice was deep and husky as she said it. "We don't want to be away from Lily for much longer."

Harry sighed glancing at a nearby clock while he took a last, deep, heady breath of Rias's neck before leaning back, her scent still in his nose. For some reason even when she was all sweaty and sticky, Rias smelled like soap, dragonfruit, and lychees. "Probably not. The movie should be done soon, which means that Lily at least will be looking for something else to do soon."

"Maybe a bit of DDR to help tire her out again? Koneko's really good at that game, and I'd like to see what Yube can do with it too." And maybe forcing her and Harry to dance against one another will push her over the edge to joining him in his bed. If not me, darn it. First thing I swear, the very first thing we're going to do once we return is to go on a group date with Yasaka, Rias thought, before shaking off the habitual frustration that thought evoked. It was all too familiar after all.

Harry nodded, indicating that he thought that was a good idea while staring down at her, his eyes taking in Rias' slightly sweaty, gloriously naked form from top to bottom. Even with her back covered by a blanket and her front pressed against his chest, the view was just magnificent.

"What?" Rias asked, cocking her head to one side slightly, causing her hair to shift against his shoulder.

"Just wondering if I'll ever get over just looking at you," Harry said with a laugh. "You and all the others, each of you is just so damn gorgeous, I…"

Rias interrupted him with a kiss on the lips that quickly turned ardent, before pulling away slightly and the two spent a few moments just hugging one another, with Harry making no further move to lift her up and then slide up into her once more. Rias was right, after all, they didn't have time for another lovemaking session before Lily became bored.

But that was what it always was with Rias. Even if she tried to call it fucking afterward for some reason, Rias was much more of a sensual then sultry woman. She loved long slow lovemaking sessions most of all, and their current session had basically run for more than an hour and a half now.

For her part, Rias had missed this. She had missed this a lot. Not the lovemaking as much as simply a being around Harry and their family. Now, lying on top of him like this, having ridden him sitting upright cowboy style, which was her favorite position, Rias could feel her body reacting again despite her best efforts. It wanted more, a lot more. But she was able to override her Greed and her Lust once more. Those aspects of her always wanted more, ever more of his affection. Despite that Rias was determined to show she was more than her Sins and she overcame those aspects of herself, pulling away from Harry a bit.

They still had to talk about what they'd been arguing before after all. "So you're all right now with me handling everything with Gringotts?"

Harry sighed, but then nodded firmly. "I am," he said conviction in his voice. "Your argument convinced me, even before you started to flash me Rias, which was just plain dirty pool."

"Good," Rias giggled, before going on more seriously. "I wanted to make sure well that it wasn't just…" she gestured down between them, and Harry laughed.

"Ah that head might have some impact on how I spend my time darling, but it certainly doesn't make my choices for me. No, you've proven time and time again that you are by far the best of the two of us when it comes to handling money matters." Harry ignored her mumble of 'that wasn't exactly hard' as he went on. "If you're certain of your facts, then I just have a simple question: what do you need from me?"

Rias bit her lip, looking up at Harry with admiration and love plain in her eyes, fighting the urge to lean up and kiss him again. While it wasn't nearly as big a deal as when Harry started to trust her with Lily, the fact he respected her opinions and trusted her to act in his stead in this area just made Rias love him more. Magic might have jumped the gun, but I can't argue with the outcome of our becoming a married couple like this.

"Your vault key, and…" Rias paused thinking. "I think I'll take Asia with me, she'll discommode the goblins, unless what little information I have on them is wrong they don't do well with religious types. Her, Loup, he'll provide an enemy they know to take seriously and Yubelluna, who they won't realize they should take seriously at all. If that's all right?"

Harry nodded but was also looking at her questioningly and Rias sighed. "I'm certain Harry. The Khaos Brigade is getting their money from somewhere. Magic can't create food and it can't create the money they are tossing around either."

Oddly enough that was one rule across the board in the supernatural communities: creating money magically was a big no-no. If it worked at all it seemed to bring with it a major curse of bad luck. Rias had heard her brother mention something about the original gods of Akkad, the ancient Sumerian Empire, having created a spell that encompassed the entire magosphere of Earth, but even that was just a guess as to the reason. What was known was that magic users could create bronze, copper, even small amounts of diamonds and jewels. But not any kind of money, nor gold if you were going to use the gold as money.

Not even wizard-style alchemy and alchemists like Nicolas Flamel could get around that despite rumors to the contrary, something that Harry had been told by Albus Dumbledore at one point. The moment you tried to use the gold to purchase anything or tried to change it into coinage, the gold would turn back to whatever it had been before being transmuted. The So-called Law of Monetary Conservation was very odd like that.

The food was easier to understand. Wizards could use magic to cook and even create simple foods, but they could not create the nutrients, the proteins or anything else that the body needed to sustain itself. Lots of witches had gone on the 'magi-diet' occasionally, but you couldn't stay on it. And Devils, Fallen and other supernatural types couldn't even do that much: their ability to transfigure or conjure was far less developed than wizard-kind, and even among wizards, the European style that dominated the Wizarding World was better than any other.

"There is too much gold in the markets, gold from nowhere being used to buy agents, being used to buy out various companies. The bank of Gringotts might not be backing the Khaos Brigade, but they're doing something for certain with that money. They are being cautious, but it is still noticeable, and is just very slightly impacting the world's gold market."

Once Rias had access to her family's worldwide interests, she had become suspicious of some backroom deals and odd market reports coming out of Europe and the Americas. The Gremory clan not only had several thousand clients scattered across the world, but they had even more interests in various businesses, small ones, large ones, massive ones the world over bar China.

The giggling she'd done when she'd her learned that Will Grates, owner, and president of the tech giant Orange, was one of their clients had been long and evil. So much so her father had looked a little terrified.

They also had connections to banks scattered in Europe and the Americas. None outside Japan in Asia though, and they, like all of Devilkind, did not have any clients or contacts in China. The Middle East and Italy were other blank zones.

Yet despite that lack, Rias, through contacting several other Devils and working with her father, had been able to figure out that there was something weird going on with the economy of the world. It wasn't quite moving the way it should and companies and corporations that they knew were being used as a front for the Khaos brigade's information network were getting their money from somewhere else. Goods and services were also being provided for the Khaos brigade, without seemingly being paid for which just didn't work on this scale in this day and age. The higher-ups might be able to get by with simply being threatened to do something without being paid for it, but their businesses would go bankrupt quickly if they couldn't make their shareholders happy or pay their personnel.

Most of that the Devils had known before Rias had come into it although she had figured out a bit more on that side of things than the Devil government's professional business analysts, a fact her father was no doubt still crowing about. But Rias had the other side of that mystery: the knowledge that the economy of the Wizarding World ran on gold, on goblin-protected gold to be precise, and that those goblins also had tenuous connections to the non-magical world.

The only question on Rias's mind at this point was whether or not they were backing the Khaos Brigade willingly knowing something of the group's goals, or unwillingly, being threatened. Or, a third option, playing their own games. Frankly, Rias believed that one was the most likely, and what from what he knew about goblins Harry had been forced to agree with her. That all had been straightforward.

What had not been so straightforward was that Rias wanted to be the one to confront them. To confront them as a businesswoman, rather than just going in and threatening to massacre their entire civilization as Harry had wanted to. After all, the Khaos Brigade was a clear and present danger to the peace of the world, and therefore his family. If he could make life difficult for them by simply removing their monetary backers, he was all for it. But Rias had talked them into letting her handle it. "The goblins are businessmen and bankers, they're not little monsters who steal children any longer, at least judging by what you've told me about the personalities of the few you've dealt with. And in that realm, there's always deals to be made. After all, shutting down that funding isn't nearly as important as figuring out the movements of the Khaos Brigade, now is it?"

That had been enough to sell Harry, and he had subsided, his own arguments having proven far too bloodthirsty even to his ears.

Outside, Yubelluna had been dragged from her quiet music and reading by the movie that the youngsters had been watching. Now she watched in some amusement as Lily hopped up, and moved towards the TV, began to look around the couch-like chair, wondering, "Hmm, where did the flicker go?"

"Ah, the age-old question," Yubelluna teased, before looking over at Koneko who was looking past them all towards the distant entrance to the area where Yubelluna was quite certain, Rias and Harry were making up for the redhead's weeklong absence from Harry's bed. Of course, a week wasn't all that long, but for all of her maturity of body and mind, in some ways, Rias was still just a 19-year-old woman. And Harry was still in his 20s. For people at that age, a week could indeed seem to be a lifetime.

Surprisingly, Yubelluna wasn't at all jealous about the fact the two of them were going at it so close. In another lifetime she might have resented it, but not this one. She had known about Rias and Harry's relationship almost the moment that she had seen the two of them together in the ORC club room when her former King had called for his peerage in an effort to overawe Rias and her own. That coupled with Yubelluna's own reluctance to go further then, admittedly amazing, make-out sessions with Harry at this point made her feel quite sanguine that someone else was helping him take the edge off. Several someone's, she thought now, giggling as she remembered the exhausted, extremely satisfied look Kala had after their day out.

Actually, I quite like Rias and the others as people, and as, I suppose we could call it harem sisters? Although that feels quite wrong as a term now that I try to use it. The only ones she ever had problems with were Kala and Akeno, and those problems were always centered on the fact that they were living together in the same house. Yasaka was a practical darling if one with a salacious sense of humor, and Yubelluna adored the kids, even if she wasn't quite as comfortable as Rias and Yasaka in mothering them. Yep, I've got a pretty darn good life right now, she thought complacently.

That was the point where the plane was rocked from a blast of something hitting it from the side. There was a giant ripping noise and the side of the plane's main section was torn open as the captain's scream of shock blared through the intercom before being abruptly cut off.

Rias had not, of course, simply assumed that because they were traveling in a non-magical fashion they wouldn't face threats if one of their hidden enemies became aware they had moved out from behind their wards in Kuoh. So beyond choosing a route to take her away from one threat, Rias had covered the ship with protective spells the evening before their scheduled departure. But those spells shattered under the power of the attack, and the wing was sheared away as the fuselage opened. So sudden was this attack that Lily, Koneko, Mittelt, and Yubelluna were all pulled out into the air beyond.

Koneko instantly grabbed at Lily, her Devil wings appearing as she did. At the same time, Mittelt and Yubelluna also used their own powers, black-feathered wings and levitation respectively to regain control of themselves. Mittelt called on her wings a bit too quick, and one wing clipped a piece of the plane's fuselage, causing her to curse and lose altitude before she could regain control of herself, but they were both soon out into the air.

Most of the attendants too were not buckled in and they all screamed as they were pulled towards the gaping hole in the plane. Loup, who was still buckled in, was able to grab one before she could get past him, pulling her gently but inexorably to him against the force of the screaming wind.

Nearby Asia, who had also been buckled in, gasped in shock. But she quickly used a featherlight charm on both the attendant Loup had grabbed and one other, pulling the older woman into her lap, where she clung with desperate strength. "Don't worry!" she shouted, her voice ripped away by the air being pulled out of the rapidly plummeting plane. "We can get you all through this. Whatever this is!"

Harry and Rias had also been sent tumbling first into the air of the plane then out through the rent in the plane's side, not being buckled in themselves despite being in a chair. Both of them too regained control of themselves, although both were still naked at the moment they did so.

Even at a moment like this, Yubelluna could not stop herself from taking both of them in and going "Damn!" She was in no way bisexual, but even so, she could admit that Rias was one hell – punt intended - of a fine figure of a woman, and Harry… You know what, suddenly I'm not so certain I'm willing to take this slow.

She shook those thoughts off quickly, however, turning her attention to more important matters, i.e., the hundreds of magicians floating in midair all around them, a massive magic circle connecting them all disappearing as the family recovered from the sudden assault. They were accompanied by several hundred Bikou hair clones and more than two dozen Devils who either were strays given their deformed bodies or simply mutated beyond the norm. As she watched one of the Bikou clones, all of whom had been staring in shock, pulled out hundreds of hairs from his tail and hurled them around, creating still more to obscure the original from view for a moment, while they all attacked.

Harry's thoughts were more pertinent of course, if somewhat disjointed due to how he and Rias had been interrupted. Oh thank goodness, Koneko has Lily! Dammit! Is my being interrupting while having sex going to become a thing?! Someone attacked us, I had anticipated something like that once we were in the UK, but not midair like this. Wait, where's Asia? Oh, there she is good. I need to get used to the fact that a lot of other supernatural people can fly as easily as they can walk.

All these thoughts were pushed out by a last, far angrier thought. Someone just put my kids in danger. Wankers're gonna die!"

With a few hand waves, Harry and Rias were dressed as well as furious as they glared around them. "I'll see to the civilians, you're on offense!" Harry shouted, turning back to the now rapidly plummeting plane.

Rias instantly began blasting out beams of Power of Destruction, the power that she had been born with coming to her far more easily than any of the actual spells that she had learned since. And offensively, it was far better too. This forced the magicians and Bikou clones, and no doubt Bikou himself, to dodge and spread out, losing several dozen of their number even as they renewed their own attack.

She was instantly joined by Tonks, who had decided to start the fight with lethal spells. Difindos Bombardas and medium scale element-type spells returned fire on the magicians as she flew, looking clumsy with her devil wings. This forced her to use Protego to defend herself rather than simply dodging, and she scowled as the magicians broke into smaller two-man teams to launch paired spells at the defenders rather than the large scale ritual-type attack they'd used the first time around.

Yubelluna and Mittelt also replied to this attack as well as they could, which was very good indeed from the two most experienced aerial combatants. Mittelt instantly gained altitude and then attacked from above, shouting out "Eat Holy Spear you fashion rejects! I mean seriously, red cloaks and bright orange hoods? And you, monkey bitch with all your clones, what the hell you think you are a dattebayo-shouting wannabe ninja!?" She had to take a brief second to pull out her protective gloves before using her Holy power, but even that didn't save her first victims; a few of the devils at the front of the enemy encirclement. Those she didn't bother wasting words on.

In contrast to the pint-sized former Fallen, Yubelluna was all business despite the slasher smile she was currently wearing. She gestured around her creating floating cubes of marked out space which immediately exploded, acting something like a bunch of grenades launched into the air. "Bomb Bursts Barrage!" Yet the magicians were able to move around in the air as mobile as any of the defenders, and her attack only killed two of the devils in contrast to three devils and one magician along with a single Bikou clone losing it's 'life' against Mittelt's attack.

"Spread out in turn!" Rias shouted, while Koneko took Lily and began to back away even as the Boosted Gear appeared on her arm. One devil tried to close with her, but Koneko, carrying Lily under one arm, twisted in midair, rolling almost entirely around the devil's assault that looked like a purple-colored stream of fog or something.

Her return blow was a barely controlled wave of magic as she punched forward with the Boosted Gear. "GRAAHHH!" the magic blasted into and through the devil, disintegrating everything but one hoofed foot, which fell to the ocean far below.

"We need to work on your verbalization of attacks. It's tradition, and adds to their power a bit too," Ddraig's voice rang out in her head. Despite that joking tease, there was nothing but rage in his mental voice. Like the others, Ddraig was positively furious at this assault. As a dragon, he disdained anything but frontal assaults and positively detested ambushes. As Ddraig the individual, he hated the Attack on his two current wielders and the one who migth become one of his strongest given time.

Pulling out from his mokeskin pouch his Firebolt, Harry hurled it through the rent in the falling plane's side like a spear towards Loup. The werewolf caught it, then pulled the girl he'd saved onto the Firebolt with him then out through the shattered side of the plane.

Asia, with the attendant she had saved in her arms, followed quickly, having had to knock out the poor girl before using another Wingardium Leviosa on their bodies so that they could hover there in midair for a time. Unfortunately, this did make them something of a sitting duck and spell-fire crashed down on them, stopped by a hasty shield.

At the same time, Harry flew down to the dipping front of the plane, shattering it with a blast of magic and then grabbing the pilot and co-pilot out, neither of whom had been able to free themselves from their seatbelts for some reason. With them hovering behind him, Harry then looked around for the two remaining stewards, finding them a surprisingly far distance from their current position. Thinking quickly, Harry pulled out his two remaining brooms, then conjured a carpet, laying it between the two floating broomsticks, hardening it in a second with another spell before dumping the two pilots on it and racing after the others.

By the time Harry returned to the area where the battle was taking place, the battle had spread out tremendously. The magicians had pulled back as far as they could and still target Rias and the others with their spells, showing they had experience fighting other, more physically powerful foes. The devils among them closed in, but this was quickly proving to be a mistake. It allowed Loup to get involved, while at the same time Koneko went on the offense after she dropped Lily off with Asia.

Asia already had a protective shield around herself but canceled it quickly as Koneko and Lily came towards her. She took the younger girl in her arms, then covered the two of them in her spell once more, maintaining the spell rather than simply casting it.

The difference between the two magical states was that when a spell was cast it was finished. You simply formed then shot the spell out and the spell, the original shape to the magic, would do the rest, without any further connection to your magical core. But if a magic-user was maintaining a spell, then if someone tried to break that spell, like Asia's shield, they would have to overcome her magical strength.

Asia's magical strength wasn't much in comparison to the others in the Potter/Gremory clan, but it was still head, shoulders, and waist above where she'd been as the Holy Maiden of the church. The magicians nearby found that to their cost when their spells, mostly element-based magic around lightning and ice, simply dissipated against it, and she scowled at them. "It says something about your general nature that you would attack non-combatants in a fight like this. I would also warn you that you should probably look around."

Her words were nearly lost in the thunder of magic against magic caused by the attacks. But a few of the magicians still looked around, if too late to change their fate.

"GRRR!" Koneko snarled, as she was suddenly in among the magicians. They'd lost sight of her for a few moments thanks to some Senjutsu spells that she had begun to use of late thanks to the continued training with the Youkai Association which released as she was within their formation, such as it was. Fists and feet flashed out with Rook-given strength and each blow which landed shattered bones or pulped her opponents, hurling them away.

She found herself checked however by a staff made of redwood of some kind that blocked her blow. "Sorry bout this little cat, but a job's a job, you know?" Bikou then twisted around, bringing it around in a lighting fast blow. Koneko ducked but the blow still hit her on the top of her head, and she was flung spinning through the air. Bikou then attacked once more, his staff flashing around in a series of stabs and hammer strikes. Koneko was on the back foot, and unable to launch an attack. Her training thus far had worked to bring her agility up to a degree that meant she would normally have bounced rings around Bikou, but that was on the ground. Her agility in the air wasn't nearly as good. Grrr, I just need one good shot, just one! She yowled internally, even as she dodged and leaped over Bikou's strikes.

Despite the fact that his part of the battle was going somewhat well and his initial banter though, Bikou was not a happy camper at the moment. What the fuck is going on here!? I thought I was attacking some Youkai bigwigs on the way to recruit some locals in South America. Instead, I'm fighting the fucking Kuoh Alliance!? Damn it, if we all had teleportation ability I would be so out of here right now!

While he might have been led into this mission through false pretenses, Bikou wasn't about to leave his allies behind. Not until they died anyway, which they no doubt would against enemies like this very quickly. Fuck me sideways Vali, but when I get back you and I are going to have words!

OOOOOOO

Vali raced through the air at the head of a dozen lesser Fallen out from the Marshall Islands, heading north as fast as their wings could carry them. The Marshall Islands were Fallen Angel territory, and they had used it as a starting point for this mission.

Of course, if this was simply a combat mission, the fact that these others were here at all would have been superfluous. All of them combined couldn't even give Vali a good warmup, let alone make him actually sweat. No, they were there so that the individuals they would hopefully be meeting shortly would understand that this was an official mission, and therefore trust the Fallen Angels were there to help the Gremory/Potter alliance.

Grigori had learned of the attack via one of Azazel's newest inventions, which the old man called an 'Underlying magosphere Indexer'. The debate on the name was still ongoing, but what it did, in some fashion Vali didn't quite understand, was to detect any magic in a specific area. While not unusual, most wards could tell you the same thing after all, what set this device apart was that it worked like radar, radiating out and away from itself, rather than being confined to an area.

The Islands was one of three places he was trying it out, leery of whether or not it's signal could be detected in turn by other magic users. The Marshall Islands were not administrated by MACUSA and had no local supernatural population. Indeed, the closest known magical population were a band of extremely insular local monsters on Easter Island. It made for a great place for the Fallen to hide things, conduct training exercises, and even Azazel's experiments.

With this device, they had learned that several people were throwing around a lot of magic to the north of the islands. On the route that planes took from Japan to Hawaii.

Realizing that someone being attacked so nearby could be bad for the Grigori, Azazel had figured out who was being attacked by the simple expedient of seeing what planes should have been in the area. Once he learned that it was a private jet the belonged to the company the Gremory Clan owned, Azazel had put two and two together and moved quickly, hoping to win back some points with Rias and the others who would be seeing to the security of Kuoh during the upcoming peace conference.

Vali didn't really agree with that, but then again, he didn't see the point of the peace talks in the first place. In fact, he disdained them entirely. They were a threat to what he wanted to see happen: challenges, conflict, the ability to fight anyone and everyone who he thought could possibly be a match for him, to challenge those monsters he knew were above him in order to get stronger. Still, he could understand Azazel's reasoning. He could even understand why Vali was sent, to apologize in person for his actions after Kokabiel's assault.

No, the mission he was on for Azazel wasn't why Vali was in a bad mood. It was the attack itself that utterly infuriated Vali. Because he hadn't known it was being launched. And considering that one of the individuals involved, Bikou, was part of his so-called team, the group of people who looked to him for leadership in the Khaos Brigade, he should have. How the hell did Cao-Cao get Bikou to agree on a mission without him even informing me?! Or was it him at all? Did Ophis actually order this on her own?

When that thought occurred to him, Vali spent a few seconds looking at it from every angle before dismissing it. Like Vali, Ophis had met Potter personally and she had an understanding of the power he could bring to bear. No way would an attack like this, even with Bikou involved, would ever work. That didn't even consider the fact that going by the reports, he was traveling with Rias, the Princess of Destruction who had, apparently been one of the reasons why Kokabiel's attack on Kuoh had gone so disastrously wrong. And several of their friends, including the Nekomata, Kuroka's little sister, who was apparently carrying the Boosted Gear.

While Vali was perfectly willing to challenge Koneko or Potter, he just couldn't see this attack working. At all. No, instead Cao-Cao had sacrificed Bikou to weaken Team Vali. There could be no other explanation. Even if I can somehow contrive to let Bikou go my position in the Khaos Brigade is going to take a major hit. And if I can't, Bikou being captured will hurt the Brigade as a whole, and that will be on my head too since he's a member of my team. Damn Cao-Cao! What the fuck am I supposed to do about all this?

OOOOOOO

Once he dropped off the last two flight attendants, Harry hid via his Invisibility Cloak, although it was a fog rather than a cloak thanks to his absorbing the Hallows. He then zoomed up high above the taking it all in. Bikou and his doubles were, making no move to retreat oddly enough. Half of them were helping the Devils while a large majority of the others attempted to keep Mittelt occupied and the rest spread out, trying to muddy the waters. With her Light-based powers, Mittelt was deadly to the Devils among the attackers, who were of more use attempting to pin down Loup and Yubelluna. Bikou himself, Harry supposed anyway it was impossible to tell a Bikou clone from the real thing even in a fight, was keeping Koneko busy, pushing her away from her allies. Not that any of us beyond Yubelluna has really been a team player at this point. Surprise and distance has cut into everyone's ability to work together.

But the attackers had nothing that could even slow down Rias, who was blasting out Power of Destruction beams like they were going out of style. Only the fact numerous Bikou clones were keeping her engaged in dodging and flying away from her attacks was allowing the attackers to stay in the game to this point and the fact that despite a few months of weekly training sessions, Mittelt and Yubelluna were the only ones who were really experienced in aerial combat. Loup especially was a liability up here, and only his werewolf given durability and limited spells were keeping him in the fight.

On the other hand, Asia is doing magnificently! Harry thought in some delight. Her shield showed no sign of failing, and she, Lily and the men and women from the plane were safe behind it.

Unengaged as he was, Harry had time to think of what he wanted in order to end this fight. Figuring out which Bikou is real is crucial to ending this fight. The Magicians are no match for Rias and Yubelluna so long as you remove the Bikou clones. The Devils are no threat, not with Mittelt engaging them. Even as he watched, Mittelt soared through the air at speed, leaving a Light Spear embedded in the side of one of the Devils even as she dodged through their magic, cackling all the while.

With that in mind, Harry began to conjure up a spell, aiming around the entire battlefield. No way is Bikou going to just teleport away this time! I want my pound of flesh you bastard! This anti-teleportation spell was as all-encompassing as he could make it, and he hoped that it would stop Bikou from using the same kind of portkey-like enchantment that he had used the last time over Mount Huaguo. Harry had modified the spell with Yasaka and Tiamat's help, so he was confident it would work.

This task done, Harry made his presence known, throwing off his invisibility and sending out cutting spells. Small scale these wouldn't hurt Loup, Rias or Koneko if they dodged into them in the chaos of battle but were enough to dissipate Bikou's hair clones. This took everyone below by surprise, and Harry zoomed down as Rias fell through the air for a bit before righting herself and launching Power of Destruction blasts up at the Magicians. Without many of their Bikou clones and now being attacked from below, many of the magicians were wiped out, and the remaining started to fall back, putting further distance between them and the Devils behind.

Mittelt, having come up level with Harry, cackled once more and launched herself back down. "Damn Daddy-man, that was awesome!"

"Daddy-man? Really?" Harry muttered before he flew behind the now retreating Bikou. "Ah, so you're the real one! Gotta tell you Bikou, attacking us again was a right cockup, especially for you. Was barely escaping with your hide intact before not enough for you, wanted to play Russian Roulette again?"

The monkey man's eyes widened, scowling angrily. "I knew it! It was you. Why can't I remember how I escaped from you anyway!?"

"Magic boyo," Harry teased as he hammered out a spell that would have neatly decapitated the Bikou if he hadn't blocked it. The magic dissipated on his staff, and Harry had to give the thing credit. It wasn't just enchanted to expand, it had some actual anti-magical powers on it. No wonder Yasaka said the thing was a treasure of his people. However, that didn't mean he was going to be able to singlehandedly turn the tide of this battle.

Bikou knew it too, and as he spun his staff to dissipate another spell with one hand he raised his other hand to his earing, which he had replaced in the weeks since the battle over Mount Huaguo. He pulled it apart, breaking the loop, but nothing happened.

A second later as he realized it hadn't worked Bikou's eyes widened, and Harry chuckled darkly. "Did you think I'd let you get away like that after the last time? I put up anti-teleport spells first thing. I will have my revenge you shit-flinging cock!"

Bikou now tried to fly up and away from them but he found himself boxed in. Rias had finished with the magicians, and the last of the Devils was being chased down right now by Mittelt. Even the last few Bikou clones had been dealt with, knocked out by stunning spells from Asia or just punched into nonexistence by Loup or smashed to ribbons of smoke by Tonks. Yubelluna too joined them from above. Even trying to make a clone cloud to hide his retreat wouldn't work with that many eyes on him from every direction.

Wanting to end this quickly, Harry feigned a slight retreat, as if a blow he had dodged had actually caught his head, then as Bikou ducked under a blow from a Koneko and tried to dive and away Harry pulled out Fragarach from within his soul. "Fragarach chain mode!"

Guided by his will, Fragarach showed up in a massive chain with a weight on the end. He then whipped it forward and watched as it swung around Bikou at waist height, capturing one of his arms against his side. "Shi-argh!"

Bikou didn't even have time to finish his curse before a blow from Koneko caught him. She had been gathering her Boosted magic for a while now and released it in that punch. Thankfully for Bikou's continued existence, it wasn't let loose in a Booster Gear style attack. Rather she released it via one of the few spells that Koneko could do, a Stupefy spell that blasted into Bikou when her punch caught him. The spell not only knocked him out, it was so powerful it acted like a high-powered Expeliarmus, sending Bikou ass over kettle even while the flying cloud stayed under him for some reason. It didn't matter though, as the man was now unconscious, extremely so.

"Nice one Koneko!" Harry said, giving the girl a fond head rub, which caused her to purr happily and lean into his side. Harry then leaned down and whispered, "And thank you for watching out for Lily." Koneko just nodded, purring even more as Harry guided the two of them over to their captive.

OOOOOOO

The wielder of Divine Dividing continued to fly towards the sound of distant battle, his thoughts a whirl. But by the time he came within sight however it was obvious to Vali the fight was petering out already, and he cursed valuably. "Late again!"

One of the Fallen with him scowled pointing to one side of the battlefield. "That's a Fallen Angel over there!" Vali looked and saw the one called Mittelt hovering there, her hands filled with Holy Spears, as she finished decapitating one of the attackers, a devil of some kind.

"Douse your Spears," Vali ordered. The fallen around him looked at him askance, and he glared back at them. "Remember what Azazel, your Governor-General said. "We're not here to fight these people, we're here to try and stop this attack from happening. Now that we're too late, we will make our intention of peace known."

Every cell in Vali's body was fighting what he was saying of course, and the sound of his teeth grinding actually won a smirk form the nearest Fallen. There was nothing more that Vali wanted than to rush forward and challenge Harry Potter, Koneko, or even the Gremory girl. And if he had ordered it, the fallen around him would have done so in an instant.

But he didn't. If I do that, there's no going back to the Grigori, and Ophis might well kill me for acting out like that when she's preparing the Khaos Brigade for the attack on the peace talks. Especially for no return. Yes, I might, might be able to beat Potter. But not with the others joining in, and they would for sure. The Fallen with me would only slow them down.

"Good to hear that you're thinking things through now. I certainly don't think this fight favors us at the moment either," Albion's voice erupted in his mind. "And that's without Ophis having told you explicitly to lie low for a while."

"Shut up. I know I screwed up last time, but damn it my blood was up at then. My priorities are different this time." As Albion snorted in derision in his mind Vali finally came within hailing distance with the other Fallen.

OOOOOOO

By this point, Harry and the others had seen the Fallen coming and had formed up to meet them. Koneko and Harry were in the center of their formation, with Mittelt flying above them, Rias below, and Yubelluna to one side. Loup was on the Firebolt to one side, but how much help he would be in an aerial battle was up in the air. Behind them, Asia, the prisoners – two magicians and three Bikous, two of whom were clones, which had been Immobilized via spells rather than dispelled – and the noncombatants had pulled back and away from the fighters.

To their surprise though, Vali held his hands held up peaceably. "I come in peace or whatever. Can anyone tell me what happened here?"

Harry turned to him, cocking his head to one side thoughtfully. "Not going to launch an attack at me this time?"

"I apologized for that at the time, I was under orders to retrieve Kokabiel. I'm still under orders now to help you all if need be. Or else I'd be challenging you," Vali finished, unable to stop himself as he turned to where Koneko held out the Boosted Gear on her arm. "I really do want to see what fighting the Boosted Gear paired with the power of a high-tier Rook would be like."

The younger Nekoshu glared at him, then held up a finger, the middle one to be precise. "Said it before. I will say it again. Go get your fix somewhere else shura hentai (fighting pervert). You probably get off on being punched too."

Vali twitched, shaking his head as Albion's draconic laugh and a warning went through his mind. "I'm not a pervert or anything like that. Sex doesn't interest me all that much. But yeah, I'm a combat junky. I live to fight, to challenge myself, to push to become stronger, to become as strong as I possibly can. That's the point of life. Don't you do the same? You have the Boosted Gear. You have to know it's our destiny to grow, to become stronger and challenge one another."

"I train and fight, but not to get stronger. Only to protect my friends. Getting stronger doesn't matter on its own. And there are more ways to get stronger than impersonating a manga character," Koneko retorted, her normally cute if unexpressive face wrinkled into a scowl. "I am master of my own fate. I won't fight you just because you want me to, baka."

"Well said," Harry interjected, placing a hand on Koneko's head, ruffling her ears very gently. She instantly starting purring, leaning into his side as Harry let that hand fall behind her head for a second.

"… so it isn't just because you don't like fighting, but that you prefer to fight for a cause other than gaining strength. And that you believe in making your own destiny," Vali mused, then he smiled. "I can understand that. I don't agree with the first, but I at least have always believed in self-determination. I still would like to fight you or Potter, but I won't. Not like this. Not when it would go against my foster father's orders, don't worry."

"While I'm happy to hear that, I have to ask why of all of the Governor General's troubleshooters you were the one sent to meet us?" Rias asked tartly.

"To make amends Father demands that I show repentance and that we can be trusted," Vali replied instantly. It was the truth after all, as far as his foster father's reasoning went anyway.

"Bah, I still say that after they slaughtered so many of us, it should be the other way around," groused one of the fallen.

"Oh like anyone really cared about Kokabiel," Mittelt said lazily. "We feared him sure, but only Raynare, that psycho, was so crazy as to actually follow him because she thought he was anything but a war-crazy freak."

"That might've been the case, but what about his legion?!" shot back one of the Fallen. "Some of those weren't combat crazy. I mean, a few of us had friends among them."

"Hah, friends huh? Since when have the majority of Fallen actually thought in those terms? I don't remember anything like that," Mittelt shot back. "And can any of you actually name any friends among those retards?"

"Re, retards!? Those are your fellow Fallen!" shouted one more Fallen woman, one with four wing pairs, while the others ignored Mittelt's question. "Don't you have any loyalty to your race!?"

"Race? Are we really a race? And loyalty!?" Mittelt laughter was harsh and cold as she laughed. "We're all only loyal to one another among the Grigori because we have to be. I showed the Grigori and my fellow Fallen just as much loyalty as they showed me. Which was scant little unless I had a skill or something else the rest of you all wanted."

This caused many shouts but a lot more grumbles along the lines of 'brat's got a point'. To this Mittelt shouted back, "Hey, it ain't my fault I look like this you little dickhead! I'm probably just as old as you are!"

The others had been quiet as this tableau began, but since it seemed to just be a shouting match by this point, they turned back to their own conversation, visibly wiping their hands of it. "At any rate, I was told to apologize for my actions back in Kuoh and offer to take any prisoners or people off your hands. We can also provide you transport to Hawaii in the form of a few magic carpets for those who want them."

Vali very carefully kept any hope off his face as he said this. He couldn't care less about the civilians, he wasn't a bleeding heart like that. But if these devils and Potter could be convinced to hand over Bikou, he could perhaps salvage something from this debacle.

Rias stared at him thoughtfully, then looked over to Harry. "Excuse us a moment." She pulled Harry away, whispering urgently to him, and Harry nodded seriously to what she was saying, then began to shake his head as Rias went on, the two of them seemingly having an argument. In so doing they shifted so that half of their bodies were invisible from the newcomers.

Still using Senjutsu to heighten her senses so she could cast her own illusions, only Koneko could sense that something else is going on as the two of them were subtly covered by an illusion of some kind. And even she couldn't see through them.

He's gotten a lot better at those. I know he trained extensively with Yasaka and even used illusions against Sirzechs-sama in our joint training, so even if he's not very fast with them, Tou-san's full-sensory illusions are really powerful. But what are they doing? she thought, then her attention was drawn away from the ongoing duplicitous use of magic, to where Mittelt, who had continued her confrontation with her former fellows, had just flown into the face of one of the fallen.

"Hell yes, I took her offer! I was sick to death of being stuck on the low end of the totem pole, sick to death of being used my so-called leaders, sick to death of the teasing, the catcalls, the comments behind my back! I am stronger now than I was before, who cares if I had to become a Devil to do it," Mittelt roared.

"And so you turn traitor?!" This seemed to be a serious point of contention with her fellows, although Koneko couldn't see why.

Mittelt's reply put her own thoughts on that matter plain. "Aren't we all traitors already, the moment we Fall? No matter the reason, we turned against Heaven and His words after all." Unlike Kalawarner, Mittelt had not discovered a new-found faith in the word of God since interacting with Asia or love with Harry. Indeed in many ways, Mittelt was the least changed of all of them from who she was before she had joined the Potter-Gremory clan. She was still sarcastic, snarky, and ill-tempered on a near-daily basis. She'd mellowed somewhat thanks to Rias and having access to all the fashion accessories she could want, but not a lot.

All of the Fallen Angels flinched back at that accusation, but one of them quickly retorted, a Holy Spear appearing in his hand, the point thrust out towards Mittelt. "Take that back! God betrayed us, not the other way around!"

Mittelt cackled, looking down at her body, and as she twisted around shaking her rear at the man. "Well, He certainly didn't do me any favors, but I can't really call that betraying me. Just a sign of his uncaring nature. And considering the leaders we all have followed as Fallen, it's not like we were able to find any that would do be any better." She then sobered. "That's my point, Kokabiel didn't care about his people. All of those followers that died with him were psychos! They wanted to start the war up again. They didn't even care if we won or lost, they just wanted blood. Look me in the eye and tell me that that's a good idea. And as for the rest… Bah! Azazel disavowed our being there, told the Devils they could do whatever they wanted to Kala and me. Does that sound like someone I should still feel any loyalty to?"

Of the twenty Fallen with Vali, eighteen looked away, scowling or, in the case of a few, looking thoughtful. One of the remaining crossed his arms, glaring at her. "That still doesn't mean that you should have joined the demons."

"My body my choice!" Mittelt quipped, grinning at her own choice of words which caused many an eye-roll.

The last Fallen just kept glaring and had to be restrained by two of his fellows. The one who had been talking about Mittelt joining the demons looked at him, then Vali who was watching them all coldly and then back to Mittelt. "Just don't ever expect to be welcomed among us again."

Mittelt cackled again. "As if I'd ever want ta…"

Here her attempts to keep provoking her former fellows was put to a halt by the heretofore silent Yubelluna clamped a hand over the shorter Mittelt's mouth. "Could you please be quiet?" She asked, rhetorically. "I rather think we've all had enough action for the day."

Mittelt flailed in her grip, but the taller, older woman was also stronger. With one arm around Mittelt's upper arms, she pinned the shorter girl's arms and wings to her before flying Mittelt away from the fallen towards Asia and the other noncombatants, with Loup flying beside her.

That little drama finished, Koneko turned her attention back to where Harry was handing over their prisoner and his two hair clones to Vali. But then, what was with all the spellwork?

The others watched with something like shock as Harry and Rias did this. None of them protested though, not in front of the Fallen and Vali as he thanked them. "I'll turn him over to Azazel the instant we get back. If he really is a high up lieutenant of the Khaos Brigade, these no doubt there's a lot of information we can get out of him."

Harry just nodded, looking mulish as if he had been convinced against his better judgment to do this, while Rias smiled grimly. "I expect that in the interests of keeping the ongoing peace talks going that your Governor-General will share whatever he learns, anything else would be most… undiplomatic."

Vali just nodded, then looked over at Koneko. He was about to say something then just blinked as she peeled off the Boosted Gear gauntlet, tossing it to Harry. "I'm tired." She said glibly, smirking at him.

This caused Vali to blink several times in something approaching shock, but Albion's soothing words in his mind and the fact he'd already gotten the best he could possibly get out of this made him hold his tongue. "F, fine. I won't ask for a spar. Next time though I might not take no for an answer."

"…if you don't want me to call you a combat-pervert you shouldn't say phrases like that, Hentai," Koneko growled, now moving rapidly away, her devil wings flapping.

Rias, Tonks and several of the Fallen Angels burst out laughing at that and the face Vali made at the comment, while Harry honestly looked as if he was now wondering if he should challenge Vali in turn. Yet after that last barb, Vali found he had just about lost any desire to fight today. He just sighed and then turned around and gestured the others to follow him.

A few of them handed over two large flying carpets, and then took possession of the flight attendants and pilots. When Rias and Harry both declined the offer of a place to put down, Vali and the Fallen Angels with him flew back toward the Marshall Islands, leaving the Potter-Gremory group to go on their way.

For a moment as Lily, Tonks, and Loup were installed on their carpets along with Asia and the regular humans the adults were silent. Lily, in contrast, began to excitedly give a running commentary of the battle, which was the first aerial battle she'd ever seen. Like all young people anywhere she had a remarkable ability to roll with the punches, and as a Potter was about as fearless as a near to eight-year-old could be.

"Why did you do that?" Yubelluna asked, at last, her tone far harsher than she normally talk with Harry or Rias. "That was a monumental mistake. Even if we take Vali not being an enemy at face value we don't know who among the fallen have Khaos Brigade leanings, we can't assume that all of them died with Kokabiel. And it wouldn't have been much of a hardship for us to keep him under until we reach Hawaii.

"True," Harry laughed. "But who says we handed our real prize over?"

"We couldn't argue jurisdiction since we are in Fallen Angel airspace even if we were attacked. We're not a diplomatic delegation or ambassadors after all," Rias explained. "And the reasoning for Vali having been sent was a good one if we believe that the Governor-General really does mean to make peace, something we wanted to test. However, that doesn't mean we had to be stupid."

"What do you mean?" Yubelluna asked calming down slightly.

"Would the real Bikou please stand up?" With that Harry waved a hand. In an instant, as Koneko had almost expected, the real Bikou appeared, having been hidden under Harry's invisibility as Harry explained the trick. "Darn glad we didn't pop those clones or else this plan might not have worked. Your confrontation with the other Fallen was great Mittelt. I barely had to use illusions at all to hide what I was doing, switching out the real Bikou with a fake and placing a sensor talisman on the clone."

"O, of course! It was all part of my plan to help!" Mittelt blustered, trying to wipe the stupefied expression off her face. Mittelt hadn't realized that Harry's illusion-based magic was so subtle and powerful it could fool even someone like Vali and hadn't noticed anything at all herself.

Lily giggled. "Liar."

"Oh shut up chibi." Mittelt flushed, looking away.

"So unless he can tell one hair clone from the original, we should be good. If Vali can do that, that's an entirely different issue. But so long as we're out of their territory fast enough all they can do is complain about being tricked."

But Tonks after an initial moment of elation was frowning again. And not at how poorly she'd done in the past battle. She had been on the back foot for most of it despite the strength and speed of her spells thanks to the aerial nature of the battlefield. "You realize though that this could cause trouble? Politically I mean. We were in their territory, and that kind of thing is really important right, so…"

"Not really," Yubelluna disagreed. "Yes, we might get in trouble, but it will be with Maou Lucifer-sama. And after all the issues caused by Azazel's lack of leadership, this can be called a question of trust. Put in that light, our keeping Bikou looks like a shrewd move instead of a simple straight-up lie."

"Okay, so what are we going to do with him?" Mittelt asked, eager to push past the fact she'd kind of made a fool of herself, even if doing so had helped Harry and Rias's plans.

"We hand Bikou over to my brother as Yubelluna said," Rias said simply, looking over at the prisoner, who was still very much unconscious. Getting a point-blank stunning spell from Harry was going to keep him under for a while despite his Monkey Youkai magical resistance. "It will be up to my Nii-sama to get whatever information we can out of him."

"Torture?" Loup asked, frowning.

Rias shook her head. "No, not torture. Simply holding him, then calling in his great great great grandfather, and letting Son Wukong get what we want out of him."

"If we can at all. If the information is magically protected inside his head, I don't know if there's any way to break that kind of thing," Tonks warned.

"A Fidelius spell or the equivalent?" Rias asked frowning. "I can't think of a way to get around that kind of thing off the top of my head but that doesn't mean anything really. I would wager my brother can, or Ajuka-sama," She then smiled and leaned over to kiss Harry on the lips. "It was a brilliant plan. Have I told you lately that I find your brilliant, tactical mind is sexy as all hell?" She whispered heatedly against his lips. She wasn't as bad about it as Sona, but Rias too was turned on by intelligence.

Harry laughed but turned away one arm going around her shoulders as he looked down at the distant ocean. "There's one aspect of recovering from this attack we need to do before we move on, however. Our luggage and that of the plane's personnel. Accio luggage!"

The others who knew the spell began to join in, and the group spent about an hour pulling up their luggage and that of the attendants from the ocean. Once that was done, and with the flight personnel still unconscious, the group continued on towards Hawaii on the back of the Fallen's flying carpets.

OOOOOOO

When the clone for Bikou woke up, he found himself manacled, but still corporeal, and with Vali in front of him glaring at him through a set of bars. "What the fuck do you think you were doing!?" Vali hissed, looking around before leaning in a little. "Why the fuck were you involved in that fight? What was the point of attacking Potter and them with such a small force!?"

The hair clones of Bikou were not only able to talk, but they had his personality, and after the day he'd had, Bikou was in no mood for this shit. "What the fuck do you mean what I was thinking!?" Bikou asked angrily. "You're the one that told me to become involved in it. You said you had to show that you were willing to work with Cao-Cao and the Devil Team."

"What the fuck are you talking about I didn't give you any orders!"

"You damn well did," Bikou jeered, "you gave my original…"

"Wait original?" Vali interrupted, his eyes widening. "You're not…"

"No, I'm a hair clone. A double. So don't try to hit me the instant you do I'll disappear."

Vali snarled, sounding almost like a dragon, his face becoming a rictus of fury. "Dammit, Potter and the others tricked me. You, the real you must still be in Potter's hands." "Albion, why didn't you warn me!"

"How was I supposed to know!? I don't enhance your senses like that!. If I had seen something I would have told you. But I can only help you break the illusion if you realize there is one there in the first place."

"Then did they already have that illusion up before we came into sight or, we, we didn't even notice them putting it up!?" Vali didn't know if he was surprised or just plain horrified.

"Potter's power of illusion is truly formidable for us to not see any shift or change," Albion mused, his voice shifting to introspective now.

Vali shook his head. "In that case, we know what we're going to be training on in the future. I refuse to be tricked like that in a fight damn it! If Potter thinks he can get away with tricking me again he's going to be very surprised!"

As Vali and Albion were snarling at one another internally the Bikou double shrugged at Vali's last audible words. He wasn't permanently linked to the original, that wasn't how Bikou's clones worked. They could last a long time, but they would only know what the original knew at the time of their creation and couldn't pass on information to the original or vice versa.

Regaining his control Vali turned back to the Bikou clone. "Let's move back to what you just said before. You said I told you about this mission? What was the goal? And when did 'I' speak to you?" he asked. "And before you say anything, that wasn't me. I don't remember talking to you since the last time you, me and Arthur sparred."

"Shit…" Bikou scowled, but as a Monkey Youkai well understood the powers of illusions and trickery and calmed down considerably. "Okay, I was made after that obviously, so I can tell you how this debacle started at least. I talked to you Saturday morning. You said we were going to attack a plane containing a few Youkai Association diplomats heading to South America to try and set up a meeting with a few of the local monsters to bring them into the peace talks. You said the Shinra clan had passed it on. It made sense, so I didn't question it, even though being told I would be working with members from both the other 'teams' was a little weird."

"I didn't give you any reason to suspect anything? You didn't think it weird I'd ask you to work with a group of magicians that Cao-Cao recommended?" Vali questioned, his lips twitching into a sneer.

"No, not for something small like this. As for anything unusual, no. Your voice was the same, you glare the same, the scowl, everything. I don't have a sense of smell strong enough to tell if there's anything unusual there."

Grunting in response to that Vali had to concede both points. "So why didn't your original retreat the instant he recognized Potter?"

"Ugh, I tried, but they'd already flung up some kind of anti-teleportation field. I saw it, it even blocked the original's emergency device, the one Ophis had charged," the Bikou clone groused. "Freaking Potter. The rest were tough enough we were losing badly already, but once he got into the act the fight turned into a farce."

Vali was about to ask for more details on the fight when he heard a set of lazy footsteps coming towards them. He turned away from the prisoner and nodded as Azazel turned the corner to this section of the jails. These were normal jail cells, not the unbearable madness-inducing Cocytus, but it was still quite large. "Commander."

"Already questioning him, Vali?" Azazel asked easily, slouching forward and staring into the jail cell as he idly held up a circlet of some kind that was trailing wires. "I hope we can get a lot of info out of him. And to make sure we do, I brought this 'truth babbler prototype…" Azazel's eyes suddenly sharpened. "Wait, what in the world?"

"What's wrong?" Vali asked.

"Hmm, I suppose you can't tell. When you get to be my age, you can sometimes see auras around other supernatural beings. I can't sense any aura from him, so he's some kind of clone, we were warned about them." Azazel flicked out a tiny pinprick of a Light Spear, and the body double disappeared, and Azazel looked as if he was torn between laughing or scowling. "Damn. He didn't leave your sight or wake up before now did he?"

"No, I made certain he was out when I took him from Potter. He said that he'd placed a spell on the Monkey Youkai, that would keep him unconscious."

"Hmm… I can't imagine a trick like this would fool a wizard like Potter or little Rias. I'd wager they played a trick on you lad." Azazel chuckled. "A test I bet. They wanted to see if you let them loose."

"See?" Vali asked, frowning.

Azazel bent to pick up a piece of paper that Vali hadn't noticed, glancing as he frowned in thought. "Interesting, Onmyodo style runes, but a rune array I've not seen before. Some kind of sensory spell."

"So they were listening in?" Vali asked, a concerned feeling welling up within him. Shit, this just goes from bad to worse!

"I don't think so. Oh I think it was, but it wouldn't have worked across dimensions anyway, and then it was killed when you entered our headquarters. I'm not exactly a novice with wards you know?" He pocketed the paper, smiling. "Interesting idea though. I wonder if I could duplicate it, ooh, that would be all kinds of amazing, a way to spy magically like nonmagicals can with technology. Yes!"

"So what does this all mean?" Vali asked interrupting her his father before he could get going. While he hated his father's politics and general stance towards peace, he did respect the man is a scientist and would normally have let him go on. But there were was a time and place for such things and when Vali was very worried about what all this meant both for Bikou, a person Vali could call an ally, and for Vali's own position in the Khaos Brigade, was not it.

"Well, I reckon that all this was a test of you personally, Vali and for me too. They wanted to see where your loyalties really lie. And if I stay silent about our having him until Sirzechs asks me about him, I'll take a hit to my credibility. Again," Azazel added ruefully.

"They thought I would release Bikou," Vali said with a nod. The thought had actually crossed his mind at one point, but he had decided against it because he figured he could initiate a jailbreak at some distant future point without perjuring himself.

"Beyond that, I wager that Sirzechs will pass on any information he learns. Potter and little Rias get to feel better about themselves, I get a good laugh, and no real harm is done."

Vali nodded, while internally wondering how this was going to play out, and feeling very, very worried. After all, while the Devils probably wouldn't torture Bikou, the fact was there were a lot of magical ways to get information out of someone without using torture, and if he was asked the right questions. I need to get in touch with Kuroka.

A few hours later Vali was alone in his room in the Grigori's headquarters, where he instantly opened the communications device that would connect him, through hundreds of cutouts to Kuroka.

The Nekoshou answered it at the third beep and Vali instantly spoke, cutting off her usual flirtatious response. While he enjoyed her banter at times in person, he was not interested in the girl at all, and now was definitely not a time for them to waste time on it.

OOOOOOO

Once Vali explained what it happened, Kuroka blinked slowly, frowning as she bit at one finger. She had decided to ally herself with Vali almost from the start, not trusting Cao-Cao and not being interested in any of the Devils or other groups that had made up the Khaos Brigade at the time. Despite the fact that several more powerful Devils had been added in recently, including Rivezim Lucifer, who had just agreed to show up to talk to Ophis, rather than be hunted down, that hadn't changed. They were powerful enough to give her strong sons and daughters as she wanted, but she hated their personalities.

Now she was having second thoughts about that and even this whole Khaos Brigade business. Boo, it's going to get so boring around here without my buddy Bikou or Arthur to bug and Le Fay to tease. Shaking those thoughts off she said, "This isn't good, nyaa. You're going to look like an idiot, even if there is some kind of magic that can tell Ophis that you are telling the truth."

"Tell Ophis I'll submit to whatever truth-telling spells she can come up with. And find out how it happened! It has to be Cao-Cao, he's found someone with the Sacred Gear that allows him to imitate people or something. And maybe something else to confound people?"

"Well, wizards have spells like that last bit and potions to do the first. I don't suppose you've noticed a few hairs missing nyaa?" When Vali told her to be serious, Kuroka pouted. "I was, nyaa. You seriously need to learn more about some of the wizard-type abilities. Their potions are sort of cool nyaa."

She then frowned. "On the other hand, Bikou should have been able to ignore a spell from any normal mage. And he's more than smart enough to notice you your mannerisms and whatever doesn't match up, so even Polyjuice potion wouldn't have been enough. Hmm, well whatever, I'll look into it," Kuroka promised. "But you're going to have to be prepared for a grilling the next time you can get away and don't expect anything right away from me, nyaa."

As Vali grunted and hung up, Kuroka wondered how Cao-Cao had actually done this, how he had found someone with that kind of skill set. The wizards she thought to herself, with some concern. The wizards are the only ones with that kind of ability at the very least even if they don't have the power to use any spells on Bikou. Still, it's a place to start. The rest, the mannerism and getting the Devils involved, those I can figure out after I narrow down my suspects. It's time to see if my shape change can fool them.

She could of course just go to Ophis and tell the loli-dragon her suspicions. While Ophis wouldn't care so much about all of the internal politics of the Khaos Brigade; she did draw the line at the factions actually attacking one another. If it could be proven that some of the new wizards had sided with Cao-Cao in his continued attempts to undermine Vali, that would be something Ophis wouldn't ignore. Indeed, she would be annoyed to lose someone as versatile as Bikou.

But wait, Cao-Cao would know that too, so he wouldn't do something that could be traced back to him at all. And Ophis does have ways to learn if someone is lying to her. So who benefits from this? From the attack on Koneko-chan and the other hangers-on? From Vali losing one of his team members and all of us getting a little more suspicious of Cao-Cao?

"You look confused. Not that it isn't a good look for you Miss Kuroka, with that body and those ears any expression would look good on you," said a voice, and Kuroka looked up to find she was about to walk into another woman.

She had started to walk through the corridors of the Khaos Brigade's main base, as she was thinking about what to tell Ophis if anything. So engrossed in her thoughts was she that Kuroka hadn't realized that anyone was nearby until the woman spoke, and she now blinked, her ears twitching and her tail swishing behind her. "Sorry, I didn't see you there, nyaa."

The woman smiled. She was a very fit middle-aged woman who stood about eight inches taller than Kuroka, with tanned, almost copper-colored skin, short-cropped black hair, and decent looking features, for a human woman anyway, Kuroka thought anyway. She had a long, regal looking neck, high cheekbones, or perhaps just a thin face, it was kind of hard to tell at first glance, and an aquiline nose, paired with deep, dark brown eyes and thin, black painted lips

"Not a problem," she said waving one hand. "I was just actually looking for one of the female higher-ups of the Khaos Brigade myself, hence why I was here looking for you Lady Kuroka. Or should I say Kuroka-sama as you are Japanese?"

"I'm not all that formal, nyaa!" Kuroka said with a laugh and a swish of her tail. "But you were looking for me?

"I'm a wizard, or as the correct term is witch, and I was wondering if I could get a room to myself. There aren't as many ladies such as me among the wizard and witches who have moved in here for us to automatically be assigned our own dorm hall, but this place is large enough for it so…"

Kuroka nodded he eagerly, gesturing down the core door behind her. "Sure, come on, I can show you a few rooms. How many of you do think will want to move out?"

"There are a few couples that would like their own rooms, but that's not exactly a priority. There are four or five of us, our own little coven you might say," she said with a light laugh. "We'd be perfectly fine sharing a room between the five of us or with others. We just don't want to share one of the larger dormitories with boys and men. Especially werewolves, you hear stories about them and there are a couple of Wizard vampires who came in recently too. Although a few of us single ladies wouldn't complain if the vampires wanted to share a bite. Or even the werewolves, so long as their nails are clipped and muzzled. Hehehe."

"I never understood that," Kuroka said with a shake of her head even though she also grinned at the older woman's down to earth sense of humor. "Oh the werewolf thing sure, werewolves are known for their endurance and the whole changing you into one of them thing, nyaa. But why do people have such a fascination with vampires? They're just giant mosquitoes!"

The woman laughed and held out a hand. "Oh, I'm sorry, I don't think I've introduced myself I'm Titi Varai."

"Titi, well I'm Kuroka just Kuroka, no sama or Lady necessary," Kuroka said with a nod.

The woman smiled as they shook hands, and the then gestured down the corridor. "Well, this is going to be unusual, addressing a sacred Nekomata so cavalierly. But tell me, you looked in deep thought just then, anything you wish to get off your chest? It's such a big one after all."

Kuroka giggled, teasingly asking "Was that jealousy I heard?"

"Oh please, I like my back the shape it is right now thank you," Titi rolled her eyes. "Seriously though, if you want to talk, I am here. I've noticed we women are the very small minority here, so it behooves us to watch each other's back."

Kuroka stared at the older woman, feeling her out with her Senjutsu powers, which gave her a certain level of aura reading, telling truth from lies and seeing through as well as casting a few illusions. She couldn't sense anything unusual from the older woman, save perhaps a hint of greater age than her looks let on, which was normal for wizards, and maybe a hint of heat? Weird, but not important. "Tell me, after your introduction, have you noticed any of your fellow wizards hanging around Cao-Cao?"

Titi paused, cocking her head to one side. "Why do you ask?" she asked, in an obvious attempt to buy time.

"Some orders seem to have been changed somehow," Kuroka began, not wanting to hint at the massive division between team Vali and team Cao-Cao. "I'm wondering why, and who did it, nyaa."

However, that was enough as Titi seemed to already know about the various teams. "I presume this has caused problems between the various factions. And you think someone among the wizards helped those orders be changed?"

Kuroka nodded again, and Titi frowned. "Well, I haven't seen any of the wizards making that kind of choice as to who they wanted to ally with, although, I have seen a lot of the Sacred Gear users choose one or the other. And a lot of the magicians that came in just recently did the same, didn't they?"

"That's true," Kuroka mused, annoyed that she had forgotten that. So perhaps it really wasn't Cao-Cao, maybe it was one of the Devils trying to make a power play? And a good one too, she thought morbidly. With Arthur and Le Fay away, and Vali having to stay with the Grigori so often, that leaves only me… "Well… that's not good, nyaa…"

Kuroka scowled, wondering if they should try to convince Ophis to take more of a leadership role. She'd stepped forward in a few ways since January: doing the initial interviews, being more profligate with her blessings. She had also actively participated in the hunt through the wilds of the Underworld to find Rizevim Lucifer forcing him to join up with them – on pain of death - when he might well have backed away from the entire thing given what had happened with his emissary.

But Ophis just didn't have enough knowledge, let alone the personality needed in a leader. Everything she did was to gather more power, to help her against the Great Red and to breach the dimensional gap. The second aspect of that was taking much of her time these days since the first had paused for a time as plans were laid to grab the artifacts she felt contained or could be used to find Evil Dragons. Kuroka wasn't all that certain which it was really. Still, if we couch this internecine fighting as a source of weakness I bet I could get her to do something about it.

"Tell me," Titi asked interrupting Kuroka's musings. "Have you ever been to Egypt? I'm from there, you see, and I've been hearing some weird rumors in the past few weeks. Very strange, very odd rumors. And, well, to put it bluntly, a catgirl like you would be so popular there, it's not even funny."

Kuroka laughed at that, shaking her head. "I've seen pictures of what you Egyptians called cats, sad furless little creatures. Still, we've been getting weird reports out of Egypt too." And if it gets me out of the crosshairs for a day or two before Vali can return and we can back one another up, that's all to the good too.

As Kuroka continued to lead the older woman down a hall of the underground fortress, she didn't see Titi's small smile turn almost vindictive, as she stared at the catgirl, her teeth practically grinding together for a moment in something like envy before her face shifted back into her normal placid face. Soon, she thought to herself, soon.

OOOOOOO

Covered by Illusions, the group flew on until the Hawaiian Islands came into view. With that, Rias called her brother telling him what had happened and asking him where to meet them. He told them where to meet him, a house on the coast of Honolulu owned by a client of the Bael Clan. He waved at them from the shore, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks shouting, "Oy over here!"

"Oh my god, Rias, I want to kill your brother's shirt with fire," Mittelt groused as she hopped off the carpet. Even she and Rias had joined the others on the carpet, unwilling to fly that far with their own wings.

"It's actually the fashion around here, I'm afraid." Rias sighed with a put upon look on her face.

She led the way out of the air and then was grabbed up by her brother before she could even get her feet under her. "Rias-chan, oh my god if I had known you would be attacked the instant you left Kuoh I would never have let you go alone!" the sis-con Lucifer shouted, rubbing his head against Rias's chest as he held her in the air.

"Gaaahhh, Nii-sama, stop it that's so creepy!" Rias's voice fell on dead ears until she started to noogie him as hard as she could, forcing him to release her.

"How did you beat us here?" Harry asked. "I thought Hawaii was neutral territory."

"Most of the islands are, but that just means anyone can teleport up here any time via one of the Gremory clan dimensional jump points. We created it, the Fallen control the hotel it's set in and the Church has an equivalent system in one of their local churches." Sirzechs pouted at his sister, then looked around at the others as well as the human civilians, and then to the prisoner, who was still unconscious and tied up to boot. "Alright, now that you're all here, let's get into the details."

While the others told Sirzechs about the short surprise attack that had been woefully underpowered to actually do anything, Harry and Tonks left them to it. Tonks moved around the area putting up Notice-Me-Not spells and other warding spells, while Harry headed into the house with Loup to check the kitchen and change.

When the story was finished, Lucifer looked somewhat pleased. "Your little trick might cause me a bit of flak, but that's fine. Having a prisoner like Bikou is more than enough to pay for that annoyance. I'll also be looking into how they knew you would be taking that plane out from Tokyo, it isn't like we don't have those planes moving all around the world after all."

The redheaded man shook his head. "Regardless, it'll take a few hours to get one of our other planes here for you, but I'll see to the men and women who had manned the one we sent to you. Have you already modified their memories?"

"We have," Rias said with a nod. "I handled that on the way here."

"Good, but I'll need to connect a paper trail, make it seem as if the plane had engine trouble or something and they never took off from Tokyo where I'll dump them. Hmm…" Sirzechs looked around hefting the massive. "It's just pushing afternoon, it'll take a few hours for us to get the flight permits and everything else filled out and get the plane here, the nearest one is in California, which means you have practically the entire day to spend here in sunny Hawaii. I think that I'll drop off Bikou with Levi-tan, she'll be able to keep an eye on him, then I'll return here with Grayfia and Milicas."

At that point, Lily and Koneko's stomachs grumbled from where they had been looking around in awe at the scenery nearby, soon accompanied by the basso profundo noise of Loup's and Harry laughed. "Well, I suppose that we should make the best of it."

After Lucifer left, the remaining girls went inside into the house to start changing, while Loup started to dig out up a pit to cook some fish in, and Harry started to fish using a conjured fishing pole and line. Tonks volunteered to head into town to grab them some beers, and without thinking, Harry agreed, although he pointed sternly at the three younger girls "But none for you three."

Lily looked appalled at the very idea, while Koneko pouted, and Asia just nodded. "'Beware the fruit of the vine,'" she quoted and then giggled as Koneko began to tickle her sides.

When Harry had fished out several different types of fish, Loup took over, smacking Harry's hands when he was about to reach down to descale the fish. "Mine. Unless you've cooked over an open fire before?"

Harry shook his head and stood away as Loup began to bark out orders, quite unlike his normal laid-back, nigh silent presence. He called Tonks with a list of things to buy and had Harry use magic to change the size of the cooking pit and then conjure up a few sticks to use for the fish.

"And where did you learn all this?" Harry asked as he laid out beside the open-fire gourmand as he began to work on the fish.

Loup shrugged. "My dad was a major camp enthusiast, took me all over Japan camping out, always in the wilds as much as possible. Up in Hokkaido was best, didn't have anyone else nearby up there.

"He was part of the Youkai Association, right?"

Part of the werewolf pack that is part of the Youkai Association yeah. Loup said with a nod. "We call ourselves the pack, although the association calls us a clan because that's what everyone else is."

"But you were allowed to travel all over without a pack?"

Loup nodded. "My dad was a bit of a maverick in marrying a non-werewolf. Most of the Youkai clans marry within their communities or with other Youkai. With werewolves, it's somewhat less open with the only new blood being those who were turned. It doesn't happen often, but when it does the person who did it has to take responsibility you know?"

Harry understood, although his own form of lycanthropy had changed dramatically since becoming a Demigod. Now unless he wanted to Harry couldn't pass on his lycanthropy, that portion of the curse having been negated by his demigod status. But even before then he hadn't ever had that trouble thanks to the unique way he bonded with his curse.

"That's interesting, is that a law or a custom?"

"Both. If we want to keep getting help from the rest of the Association, we have to keep to their rules, and it just looks wrong not to look after those you've hurt. Everyone benefits." Loup then looked at Harry closely. What's the difference between nonmagical werewolves or my clan, and your Europeans?"

"Most of the differences I can see are caused because European wizards don't accept even turned werewolves as human any longer, even if they were wizards before they turned. That pushes them to the outskirts of our society. I tried to push for better rights, used my name and money, but got nowhere. That kind of prejudice is too deeply set in their minds." Harry scowled, and then moved on trying to not get bogged down in bitter feelings.

"Most packs stay to their own territories and never interact with one another if they can help it. There are a lot of feuds and various issues between the packs in the United Kingdom. Some go back decades, generations even. For another, most of them are magicals as I said. They don't prey on people save for a few criminal types, which propagate the stereotype. But they also look down on non-magicals just as much as wizards do. The idea of cooperating, with other nonmagical werewolves wouldn't occur to them."

At that Harry sighed, setting aside the issue about werewolves for now. "Never mind about that. Tell me about your travels with your father. You've only mentioned him a few times before."

For a time the two of them exchanged tales, while Rias and Tonks played with the kids in the water, and Mittelt and Yubelluna soaked in the sun. Harry simply took in the view, of Rias and Yubelluna in swimsuits, biting his lip occasionally and thanking the powers that be for both the girls in his life and specifically swimsuits.

In contrast to the kind of clothing she wore in bed, Rias's swimsuit was actually quite modest. It was a one-piece swimsuit which was mostly black in color with little curly bits of white and gold mixed in here and there. On her form though, it became stunning pressing her large chest up and out, while hugging her thin side and perky rear, while also letting her somewhat thicker than normal thighs in full view. For some reason, the sight was almost but not quite as titillating as seeing Rias in some of her tight negligee.

Yubelluna's was also somewhat less in your face sexy than most might have assumed. It was a bikini in light blue and gold, but it covered all of her assets up top and more than enough down below. Although again, given the body it was on, it became the height of fashion. Her legs were noticeably thinner than Rias, but her chest was a bit smaller, and her breasts drooped a bit more too, although not nearly as much as they should have given their size, which was more than respectable for any human woman. Indeed the slight droop somehow made them more alluring.

The three girls were all in simple swimsuits. Lily wore a cute little full-body swimsuit done in dark pink and white, while Koneko wore a white bikini, it's cut very plain in comparison to the others. Tonks wore a more daring bikini of purple and black, made of very little material even if the two bits of the bikini were connected along her back by a cross of cloth.

But for sheer design, Mittelt's suit took the cake. It was a bikini as well but it was one built for her body, not very sexy and covering everything up top along with a larger bottom portion that covered everything it needed to and a bit more. But from there, frills had been added along the top, white on black, and the bottom portion also had frills, looking almost like a very frilly and extremely short skirt.

Mittelt was making notes about something in a magazine while Yubelluna was reading a mystery novel. Koneko was not swimming with Rias, Asia, and Lily though. Instead, she was laid out nearby purring as she napped in the sun.

About forty minutes after Tonks returned, Sirzechs arrived back after turning over Bikou to his peerage, dragging his wife Grayfia while their son walked beside them. Milicas laughed and smiled, racing ahead as he saw Lily. "Lily!"

"Hey," Lily said with a nod, and a wave of the hand but nowhere near an equal level of enthusiasm as she went back to playing around with Asia and Koneko. This did not seem to put off the younger devil, who simply smiled at her, and then over at Asia before looking around them, taking in the view with delight. "My dad actually convinced my mom that we could take a day off, me from lessons and the two of them from work."

"Half-day," Grayfia intoned, her face stern even as a small smile appeared on her face lips.

Then she looked at Rias and all urge to smile faded. The two of them had not talked, not even to exchange a brief word since the debacle after Riser's defeat. Even when Rias and Harry had come down to the underworld to discuss Riser's fate, they hadn't talked. The contempt and the cold note of contempt Rias spoke to her with still rang in Grayfia's mind, and she had lacked the inclination to try to make amends until she was literally forced to come here by Sirzechs.

Now her husband pushed her in the lower back towards Rias then turned and raced towards the shoreline, passing their son. "The last one in is a rotten egg!"

"Gah, get back here Father!" Milicas shouted.

Having caught what Sirzechs was doing Harry decided to follow I the older man's footsteps, racing off after him, pulling Tonks with him. She laughed but went along with things, and with Yubelluna and Mittelt having already started sunbathing nearby and swimming, that left Rias and Grayfia alone.

The two of them were silent for a moment, then Grayfia resolutely decided to bite the proverbial bullet. Straightening her shoulders, she turned to Rias and asked, "Would you mind taking a brief moment to talk to me please?"

Rias nodded, and the two of them started to walk away from the others.

The kids continued to play in the sand as Sirzechs and Harry joined them. Mittelt eventually fell asleep with Tonks joining her as Yubelluna luxuriated in the sun and in the glances Harry occasionally sent her way even as he played with the kids.

Grayfia and Rias returned as the fish finished cooking to Loup's satisfaction, and he shouted out "Foods done!" in a loud almost thunderous voice.

Lily and Asia charged out of the water, leaving behind a spluttering Rias, who they had just dunked using a pincer attack, but the redhead was up and after them quickly. "Grr, get back here you two!"

Her wrath was interrupted as Harry caught her around the waist, laughingly popping a piece of fish into Rias's mouth. She chewed for a moment, then nodded approval before looking at Lily who grinned puckishly up at her. "You live for now Lily, but I will have my revenge."

Harry joined his daughter in laughing at Rias, then he conjured up beach chairs for them all and they sat down to the meal.

After the meal, while Sirzechs was forcing Grayfia to swim with him and their son, Harry and Rias laid out against a nearby rock, while Loup and Koneko started a game of volleyball. Asia didn't play instead acting as the referee. This left Tonks and Koneko facing off against Lily and Loup. Yubelluna had yet to look up from her book save to eat. And, admittedly, return some of the heated glances Harry had sent her way.

"I want to call home," Rias murmured as she lay against Harry's bare shoulder and neck, her hair a bright crimson cascade against his chest. "I want to tell Akeno and the others what happened before Grayfia and my Nii-sama can pass it on if they even think about doing so. Although the long-distance is going to be a killer."

"Long-distance fees? What are those?" Harry asked, his eyes twinkling teasingly.

She groaned, and slapped his side playfully, even as she smiled, feeling his arms around her, one hand gently holding her breast from below, then moving down her side, to cup her rear. Despite the feeling that gentle touch evoked, Rias kept her mind on target and held up the phone. "Let's do a video call. I prefer to see who I'm talking to."

The phone rang for a few moments, then Akeno appeared on the tiny screen. She blinked, a wide, almost joyful smile appearing on her face as she saw Harry. "Hello, Harry! I…" she then paused as she took in the fact that he was shirtless, and she giggled, a blush appearing on her face. "Ara ara~, While I am grateful for the view, might I ask why you are calling? Surely you should only have just arrived in London, shouldn't you?"

"Unfortunately, we're only in Hawaii at the moment. We were forced to make an unexpected stop."

"That doesn't surprise me at all," the black-haired beauty said dryly, but she was still wearing that small giddy looking smile, and Harry asked "Before we get into that though can I ask you why you're so happy? I'm not saying that you shouldn't be, obviously, but did something good happen?"

"N, no, not at all," Akeno said, blushing hotly at her giddiness having been noticed.

Rias got it instantly, laughing and reaching upwards to wave at Akeno without actually putting herself in the pickup of the video recorder on Harry's phone. "It's nothing like that Harry, it's your calling her in the first place. She's getting her first call from her boyfriend. It's part of the whole dating thing you two didn't do before and Akeno's really weak for that kind of thing."

"While I would argue with the word 'boyfriend' as it seems to blasé and ephemeral if you want me to call you more often Akeno all you have to do is ask," Harry laughed winking at her. "Especially in a video call like this. Seeing you every day like this is not exactly the same thing is in person, but I'll take what I can get."

Akeno bit her lip overcome by a bout of sudden shyness and Rias snickered. Her friend had a very distinct cute side to her that sometimes came out which made her seem as young as she actually was rather than the mature beauty that Akeno normally acted. The fact that she was willing to show that to Harry now rather than try to act in a more mature manner for him, to attract him in other words, as she had the first time around, was a very good sign in her opinion. The fact that Harry was taking it in stride, and actually seemed to enjoy it was another one.

Yep, I think this time they're going to make a permanent thing of it. She thought, giddily happy for her friend and husband both.

Akeno became serious after a moment. "Hmm, if whatever happened to you all is serious, perhaps he should make this a conference call rather than just a video call. After all, Yasaka and the others would be interested in hearing too."

"I'll turn the phone over to Rias then. I can use a computer, I can use the Internet, my own cell phone though, that is still a mystery to me," Harry joked.

"Barbarian," Rias and Akeno said as one, before giggling.

It turned out that Yasaka and Kala were in Kyoto, and it took a while to get them on the phone. Akeno spent the time explaining what had been going on in the half-day since Harry and Rias left, which wasn't actually all that much, thankfully. Issei and his girlfriend had broken up, but that was about the only drama happening. Momo and Suzaku had apparently been talking and might be close to agreeing to share Loup, a fact that made the werewolf take notice of the conversation, his tail metaphorically wagging as a beaming smile appeared on his normally stoic face. The fact this let Koneko brain him with the volleyball made the whole beach erupt in laughter.

"However," she said worriedly. "There was something in the news recently, you mentioned Harry that Lucifer asked you to look into things in Greece and Egypt?"

"Correct," Harry said with a nod.

"Well, perhaps you should look into watching the news at some point, and perhaps prioritize Egypt. There was talk of a mysterious fog in Al Bawiti. And by mysterious fog, I mean a mysterious fog that appeared midday on a sunny day, and which brought with it the sound of groaning, mysterious animal noises, and other things. The police are looking at it like it's a major hoax but…"

"This was reported in the news!?" Harry asked intently, his eyes narrowing. She nodded, and he frowned. "That's not a good sign. If it was reported in the news, that means that the Obliviator teams were unable to get there in time to do anything."

"Would they normally be able to do something about a citywide phenomenon?" Rias asked, frowning as she made a note to pass that on to her brother when he tired of being dunked by Grayfia and Milicas.

"Yes," Harry said firmly.

"It isn't really talked about, but the Obliviator division is at least four times the size of the actual police force," Tonks said from nearby, the volleyball game having ended for a moment. She did not look happy as she said that, her hair turning from its normal effervescent pink to a mousy sort of brown. "And Egypt is part of the Magical UK… sort of. It's complicated. I mean, we oversee some of the cities, but not the desert and the rest."

"Right. Egypt after we're done in the UK and Ireland. So much for this beat being a nice calm vacation with only you know a few small goals here and there," Harry said with a sigh.

"Figuring out more of your godhood is a small goal?" Akeno asked, while Rias just laughed.

"It's all about perspective," Harry said primly, tickling Rias unmercifully for a few minutes until Lily joined in, turning the older redhead into a twitching pile of mush, much to Sirzechs frowning censure.

She was saved from further torture by Yasaka and Kala joining the conference call. Just their faces for some reason, but they both looked happy to see Harry if confused at why they were seeing Harry after only basically ten hours after he had left. "You know you don't have to call us when you arrive there right? I expect lots of pictures but not the interior of an airport Harry-han," Yasaka said with a chittering laugh.

"Agreed, although I do approve of the eye candy," Kala added, eyeing Harry up and down with a smile that seemed somewhat mischievous. "But for some reason I've always assumed that the United Kingdom at this time of year was, you know, cold. So why exactly are you in a swimsuit Harry?"

Rias and Harry filled the three of them in, with Rias ordering Akeno to pass it on to the others. The news of their testing Vali to see if he was working with the Khaos Brigade and if Azazel was also involved with the Khaos Brigade would be devastating to the Grigori's position at the peace talks if they were right about it, but it didn't matter much to them. "Unless," Harry cautioned "Divine Dividing can be somehow used against the wards."

"If they can I'd wager that would be the only thing he would be able to do with it at the time, which would leave him open for more direct methods," Akeno said, her eyes going from calculating to gleeful and ecstatic in one moment. She had excused herself from the image for a moment, for some reason as had Kala, but she was back now, and now she too was only showing her face to the pickup. "Beyond that, I think… well, there is something odd about all this."

"Me too," Rias said with a nod. Yasaka and the others all looked confused, and Rias exchanged a smile with her Queen. "Think about it. That attack wasn't nearly strong enough to take us on. Not really. The surprise of it was one thing, but that was it. They lacked the, the striking power?" She looked at Akeno who nodded agreement with the wording and Rias turned, twisting her body just enough to press her chest more against Harry's side, as she continued. "That initial attack was good, but not much, and once the battle became more general, only Bikou's clones and the need to secure the noncombatants made it at all tough."

Harry's eyes widened and he looked up at Tonks, who shrugged her shoulders while Harry's hands went to Rias's thigh, caressing it lightly. "I don't get it."

"The Khaos Brigade might not be as monolithic as we think," Sirzechs supplied, biting his lip almost to the point of making it bleed to keep from commenting on Rias and Harry's closeness in front of him.

The two wizards still looked confused and Rias asked, "Surely your enemies had factions and such like?"

"No, they didn't. All of them feared Riddle equally. A whole lot of equal opportunity torture will do that to ya," Tonks said with a grin.

Harry agreed with that but then looked down at Rias before into his phone at Akeno and the others. "Still, I think I get it. So you're saying that Bikou might have been set up?"

"Or even Vali and the Fallen. Bikou could be a pawn used to make us even leerier of betrayal from them," Sirzechs replied.

"Does this matter right now?" Yasaka asked. "I understand it could be important, but we're in no position to use that information at this point." She waited for the others to nod in reply to her rather obvious point, and then went on. As to Bikou though, I'll send word to Sun Wukong. With him there you should be able to get a lot of information out of Bikou without the need to resort to magic or other means, which would be a major problem on the Youkai side of things. But keep a wary eye on him, hmm? Bikou's supposed ta be a very slippery character. Don't take any shit from him ey?"

While Harry winced and Rias and the others who knew about the Huaguo debacle broke down into giggles at that, Kala stuck to the most important thing in her mind. "That's all well and good, but you can't really believe you're going to be able to see to both the issues in Greek and Egypt and research your demigod powers and everything in Ireland and Britain in just two weeks. So are you all going to not show up at school or what? I'd like to know now so we can start planning how to cover your absences."

Now it was Sirzechs time to wince, and he did so, but he was also thinking quickly as he once more butted into the conversation. "As I said, I would really appreciate it if you looked into what's going on in Greece. From what little I can tell, I think it's where the Khaos Brigade first started to make inroads into the Wizarding World, and if you cut that off, the WW should be able to then be left on its own."

"And from what Akeno told us earlier Egypt is just as important. In fact, it might be more so, and it's closer to our stomping grounds anyway given the Magical UK's involvement there," Tonks argued back.

Harry held up a hand to forestall anyone else speaking. He looked down at Rias, one eyebrow cocked, and she frowned, then nodded. "We'll deal with both," She said for the two of them, causing him to smile. "We will be seeing to Ireland and the UK issues first Nii-sama. That is non-negotiable." She felt Harry's approval in the light squeeze he gave her thigh and went on briskly. "Now lets set that aside for now unless you have more information to share?" When Sirzechs didn't reply she turned and asked Yasaka what Kunou was up to.

Taking this cue, Sirzechs retreated, pouting at how his Rias-chan was being mean to him. The conversation continued for a few moments after that as he retreated to play with his son and force his wife away from her book for a moment. Tonks left too, joining Lily, Asia, and Koneko in building a series of giant, warring sandcastles.

Harry might well have decided to join them even with Rias laying against him as she was but Yasaka arrested his attention, by saying "By the way Harry, pictures can go both ways."

He cocked his head, looking at her in confusion. "Okay I obviously understand that. I've gotten pictures and messages before and I'm looking at you right now. Why is that suddenly important?"

"Well, given that you have been giving us some eye candy, I thought we should return the favor." The kitsune chittered in laughter and sent Harry an image.

Harry opened it with some difficulty not wanting to end the conference call and then blushed, while Rias felt Harry's wizard staff start to respond next to her arm.

The image was of all three ladies that Harry had left behind. That alone would not have been an issue. However, all three of them were in aprons. Just aprons. Aprons that said, 'kiss the cook', 'feel up the cook', and 'feed the cook' as the three of them sat in a row on the main dining table in Harry and Rias's house.

Akeno was astonishingly blushing, fidgeting slightly in the image while Kala was more brazen, sitting there looking sardonically amused, one hand playing with the bottom of the apron trailing it up to reveal the area beneath. Yasaka was in the center, her arms out over the shoulders of the other women. Her chest was thrust out, and a beaming grin was on her face. "Well, what do you think, Harry-han?"

"I wish I could head back home and do unspeakable things to all three of you," Harry replied, his voice deepening and becoming almost a growl before pausing as if in thought. "Consecutively to start off with. Then all at once with Rias tossed, perhaps literally, into the mix."

While Rias giggled and looked at the picture herself with a blush, Yasaka leaned forward while the other two ladies also acted interested, Akeno's blush went away a bit and she looked at the other two askance. Yasaka didn't seem to notice, too busy licking her lips. "Oh, tell me more~~."

That blush returned in a few month minutes, at Harry's descriptive and extremely detailed response. Words involving whipped cream, strawberries, walls, kitchen tables, chocolate and other things of that nature appeared more than once. Rias was blushing, her legs shifting together as she listened, staring from Harry to the picture on the phone. Luckily Harry had the presence of mind before he began his audible sensual assault on the girls, so only Rias was able to hear it, although her blush and the movements of her legs had made Tonks at least grin, understanding something dirty was going on.

Yasaka was chattering, gleeful and actually asking about different types of chocolates that could be used, while Akeno was a blushing, giggling blushing mess, her face so red it looked as if didn't have any blood elsewhere in her body. Kala, on the other hand, simply smirked, waving one hand in the air. "Hmm, I'll give it a seven out of ten. I've heard better, you reuse the terms a bit too often, and there's only so much whip cream that I can ever eat in one session."

"I'll try harder next time," Harry said, giving the word 'harder' a certain edge, which finally won a blush from Kala and he pumped his fist. "Yes, I win!"

"I think we all win," Akeno giggled. But then Yasaka seemed to realize Harry was getting restless for an entirely different reason than their outfits. "See you when you get back Harry," she said, with a sigh and a smile. The others followed suit and the conversation soon came to an end. He and Rias then got up, and after a bit of subtle rearrangement in the trouser area, Harry joined the kids in the creation of what was now looking like it would be the warring city-states of sand.

"Did you have a nice chat?" Tonks asked, grinning impishly at Harry.

He nodded without giving any other reply and Tonks giggled before deciding to drop it in front of the kids. Instead, she gestured over to where Loup was making more food, having caught another fish while Harry wasn't looking. "Did Sirzechs tell us what time we should head to the airport?"

Rias shouted over to her brother who was at the other side of another growing sand city-state, and after a brief look down at his watch, Sirzechs replied, "You have about three more hours before the plane actually arrives. We'll be called at that point and told when it'll be ready."

"Gotcha," Tonks said.

Harry looked over the kids. "Well, that means that those three will at least be able to finish their little castle here."

"It's not a castle daddy!" Lily said, gesturing with all the pomp and ceremony she could manage. "It's a city!"

Harry looked at it closer and could see that there were actually lots of smaller buildings built on a cliff. "That's actually quite nice, lovey," Harry praised. Lily beamed at this, as did Koneko and Asia. "And let me guess," he went on, leaning over Lily to tap one building in particular. "This was Asia's contribution?"

She blushed but nodded as Harry pointed out a few more. "That one and this one and these three were Koneko's."

"How do you know?" Koneko asked, her eyes slightly wide and startled.

Harry shrugged. "I can sort of pick out your different styles. Lily's builds larger and more open areas, Asia uses her memory and her religious inclination to build in detail. And you're a little more militant and you also build even bigger."

With that Harry kissed Koneko on the top of her head and was about to comment on the small soldiers and army units they had also been carving out facing Sirzechs and his family's own city-state, when Tonks suddenly hissed her eyes having tracked around the edge of the property at a bit of movement there. "Rias, you covered this place with illusions, right?"

"Both Demonic style and wizard-style Notice-me-Not's," Rias replied, looking up from where she had just sat down next to her nephew. "Why?"

The question answered itself when she turned, however, and Rias joined the other adults in scowling at the sight of several dozen people all milling about outside of the property. "Erm, Nii-sama, are any of those the owners of this house?"

"No, I would recognize them if they were. The Lepizwalds are only here two months out of twelve anyway, this being their holiday home rather than their main one. None of those people looked like anyone I've ever seen," Sirzechs mused, while Grayfia pushed Milicas behind her.

"Could they have rented the house out without you knowing?" Rias asked.

"No." Was Sirzechs' simple reply.

Throughout this discussion neither Tonks nor Harry had said anything and just looked at the interlopers. The others had also been silent, with Yube kicking Mittelt awake where the two of them had been laid out nearby. Now Harry's voice brought the redhead's attention back to him as he calmly asked a question of his Metamorph cousin. "Tonks, these blokes mean more to you than just a group of idlers walking around, right?"

"I recognize five of them," the now black and orange-haired Tonks said glaring at the five. "They're with the MACUSA."

"Rias can you make it so that we can hear what they're saying without them knowing? The rest of us should get ready just in case. Koneko, take Asia and Lily and hide behind that city of yours. Mittelt, Loup, Lady Yubelluna if you could spread out?"

Sirzechs watched somewhat bemused as Harry took control and Rias made no protest, complying quickly. An instant later, the voices of the people gathered outside their spells were heard.

"I'm telling you, it was Nymphadora Tonks! That Metamorph has to be here, whatever our minds are trying to tell us for God's sake."

Rias and the other devils, even Mittelt winced at the use of the G-word but kept listening as another man spoke up, making calming gestures to the first one. "If she's back in MACUSA territory we'll arrest her, but if this is some kind of false alarm you're going to take it on the chin Ben. And I still don't see anything. Heck, this property looks about as uninteresting as anything I've ever seen on the islands."

"How can you say that?! Look at the magical signal! No, despite that, that weird overlay we're getting in her thaumaturgical signal, there's something going on here, something illegal, something unlawful!" The way this third man spoke he made unlawful seem as if it was a cardinal sin.

"Agreed," another, older man said, scowling as he tried to keep his eyes on the property the Devils and their friends were staying in. "I mean seriously, all of us thinking this place is boring and we should be heading home? It's a powerful Notice-Me-Not, it's got to be."

Harry shook his head. "There was a reason I traveled the non-magical way across America. Bloody paranoid bureaucrats."

"You'll get no arguments from me," Tonks growled, her fingers flexing in preparation to use spells.

Several of the others began to be able to discern the impact of the Notice-Me-Not spells and began to agree with the man who had said that there was something going on here. They started to split into

"What should we do?" Rias asked, looking over at Harry. This was a tactical situation, and she had learned that in this area Harry's experience made him a much better leader than her. Even Sirzechs looked at Harry in question, although in his case it was because these were wizards and thus Harry's purview. For her part Grayfia was just glaring, her fingers twitching like Tonks.

"Funny thing. The sample we have for the Metamorph is saying she's in there, but not the one we took of her son. He's still reading as 'out of area'. I wonder why the half-were beast isn't with his mother. From how protective she was of him I didn't think she'd be the kind to leave him behind while Nymphadora went off to have fun," The man Tonks recognized muttered.

There was a second of almost intense silence at the words of the local idiots. Then Loup of all people broke it, smacking his hand against his forehead muttering "They didn't really just say that, did they?"

He looked over at Tonks, who was now going through several different shades of colored hair. In fact, her entire skin was changing color, going from black to deep brown, and all the way up to an intense ice searing violet, before settling on a red the color of the sun going supernova. That phrase came to his mind quite quickly, given how intense Harry and Tonks could be about protecting their kids.

"They did," Harry said with a sigh. He reached over and took him Tonks's hands, squeezing gently looking over at Sirzechs. "Do you think we can…"

Sirzechs however already had his cell phone out and was calling someone. "Don't worry, I can have them hold the plane for a bit on arrival."

With that done, Harry asked Tonks. "How do you want to play this?"

"What I want to do is smash these MACUSA cocks to ribbons then salt the ground they've been standing on before I piss on their graves to write out the message 'Don't mess with the Tonks!" Tonks breathed in, then slowly exhaled, her way of trying to regain some self-control. "However, that would not be appropriate."

"Indeed not," Yubelluna interjected, shaking her head. "You wouldn't be able to kill them all nearly quickly enough for us to have any time to do anything else on this trip."

The others looked at her, and she shrugged. "What? It's true. Did you expect me to be the voice of calm reason? Wrong. Very, very wrong. They need to learn about the real balance of power here, and that's not even considering…" the glanced over at Sirzechs and Grayfia.

The Maou chuckled. "Oh don't mind us, this looks to be a wizarding world type problem. You all go and have fun."

Harry smirked at that, nodding his head agreeably, and then looked over at Tonks his face becoming serious. "First objective find the samples of you and Teddy. Second objective, make certain that these people understand that just because they can rule the magical world in America with their socialist-style iron fist does not mean that they can spread that rule elsewhere."

"Actually, I think we should take it a little further." But before Rias could explain her plan, the words of the local wizards around the edge of their own magically separated area caught their attention once more.

"Are we all ready? Mass Finite Incantatum in three two, one!"

The spell was shouted by fifty voices as one. This wizard style spell canceled out all magic. It didn't really matter what school type of magic was being canceled if the individual casting it was stronger than the magic that they were targeting, that magic got canceled. The spell acted almost like someone eating the magic, biting away at it in large chunks, each chunk the size of the individual's magic that he poured into the spell.

Even combined fifty mages were no match for Rias in an actual contest of strength but their spells did work on the passive Notice-Me-Not that she had flung. The spell came down, and the wizards stared at the individuals revealed within, pausing only a second before they began to fling spells.

However, that split-second was enough for the group around Harry.

Asia again cast a massive Protego around herself and Lily while Loup charged forward from the flank of the attacking group, having moved around the house to do so. Koneko and Mittelt did the same from the sea-side of the battlefield, and Harry, Yubelluna, and Rias began to launch spells. Before they did though, Harry shouted: "Wizard spells only!"

While this was going on, Sirzechs sighed and concentrated for a very brief instant, creating a large bounded field that washed out from his position beside his son and wife. It caught the entire property and quite a bit beyond in it, copying the area and dumping the people within into the pocket dimension, unable to interact with the real world. This would keep the resulting battle from being seen. But that was all he did, and indeed Sirzechs stopped his wife from joining in. "They don't need us for this, let's just see what they can do.

Harry's orders greatly diminished what Yubelluna, Koneko, and Mittelt could do. While Yubelluna had a few wizard-style spells, Mittelt only had two. The Disillusion charm, which she used almost every week to get into shops and such without having people looking around for her parents and Protego. She used the latter to help cover Loup until he crashed into several of the wizards bodily. Yubelluna used stunning spells while Koneko, like Loup, looked to close with the enemy, dodging and leaping this way and that, showing off how fast she could move before she slipped behind a bush at the edge of the beach, where she Mittelt hit her with a Disillusion spell

Rias, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as bothered. By this point, Rias was almost as proficient as a trained Auror with the wizard type spells. Wide-angle Stupefies, Immobulus spells, and various transfiguration spells flew in each direction, the locals attempting at first to take the offensive but that quickly ended when seven of them went down in less than that in seconds. Several of them turned to try and contain Loup, using Transfiguration and conjuration to shoot out silver needles and spears at him, causing him to back away. But they were ambushed in turn by Koneko who got in close to the wizards engaging Loup.

With Rias dancing backward and providing long-range fire, Tonks and Harry moved forward, working as a pair, shifting from defense to offense, twisting around one another, launching spells quickly, easily and without even the need to talk to one another. Their teamwork was a thing of beauty to watch if one had the time to do so anyway.

As Sirzechs did and he whistled as Harry used a barely formed magic bolt to dissipate a stupefy, leaving the man who cast it flatfooted to the Expeliarmus of Tonks which sent him and two men nearby flying. Then Harry was creating giant sand lions which charged forward, destroyed by their enemies before Tonks sent large Immobulus spells at their enemies, switching back to defense, then offense again the two of them moving so swiftly and coordinated it was amazing.

For their part, the locals were caught flatfooted by the speed of the defense, as well as its extreme efficacy. Within two minutes more than a third of them were down and a few began to panic. Two attempts to Apparate away were halted by an Anti-Apparition spell Sirzechs had put up and one of them shouted out "They've tried to trap us here! Switch to lethal spells, take them down!"

That was the last mistake that one made, as he found himself suddenly faced with a giant fist coming towards his face. Koneko appeared out of midair, having used some of her own illusion spells to act like a little cat for a second to close. The locals had been concentrating so much on the wild dervish of Tonks and Harry for a moment that they hadn't really considered anything else for a brief second. And that kind of lack of attention was deadly in a battle between wizards.

The man went down, concussed at the very least, and she lashed out with kicks in two different directions, using his head as a springboard, before Mittelt's Protego guarded her for a second and she was away, hiding among the bushes at the back of the beach. That this, and Loup's own position, cut the wizards off from actually fleeing, was not lost on them.

But every time someone tried to take command of the locals, Rias Harry or Tonks would target him before he could get the order out fully. But even as they switch to lethal spells, Harry and the others didn't. They didn't want a bloodbath after all.

Soon there were only fifteen of the attackers still upright, and one of them shouted: "Exfiltrate!" With that, he slammed a hand onto his chest, where a medallion hung. Harry had noticed all of them had those medallions and had idly wondered what they were before this. Now they appeared to have been portkeys, but that was a spell that Sirzechs knew about, and knew how to block, which he had done at the beginning of the fight, throwing up an anti-portkey ward.

By the time they all realized that wasn't working, the individual the person who had shouted that order was down, as well as six more of his fellows. Loup now finished them off, coming in close with Koneko once more. The two of them literally just smashed heads together, sending the wizards down to the ground.

Tonks and Harry were on them an instant, searching the bodies quickly for anything that could be tied to anything like the watches Harry had crafted for himself and Yasaka, a magical health monitor. Occasionally Aurors heading into serious combat missions would have something like that on them, so that the head office would know to either send help or that someone had been killed. None of these people did, and she shook her head. "Seriously? Bloody amateur hour."

Harry, however, wasn't searching them for just that kind of item. He was searching the ones who had attempted to give out orders, especially the one who had been giving out orders at the start of the fight. That one he searched very thoroughly, and found a few magical items on them, with spells he recognized, although none of them were health monitoring spells or anything that would tell anyone what it happened here. That's good, Tonks will have the element of surprise when we move on to infiltrating these idiots.

He then looked over at Loup and Koneko. "Would you mind helping me lining them up?" he asked politely, "I think we might need to borrow their faces for a bit. Tonks, this is your operation now. How do you want to run it?"

Tonks scowled, looking at the one who had been giving up the orders, and then around at the others before she pointed at the one that she recognized as having been the one who dealt with her before and the man in charge. "That one and that one. Stand them up, I'll need their faces. And everything else too," she said grimly, flicking her wand into her hand.

"Wait," Rias said frowning and thinking. "We can't just take revenge for this alone. Not if it's endemic of a larger problem. Did you have in writing that they would destroy the hair you gave them from Teddy?"

Tonks nodded, and then hurried over to her luggage, where she began to pull out several pieces of paper from the trunk there. Within them, she found the agreement and handed over to Rias. Rias read quickly and then handing it over to Yubelluna for her opinion.

The nearest thing they had to a lawyer if only of Devil law, the purple-haired woman looked it over slowly but somewhat expertly. "It gave his name here, and yes, it looks completely legal. However, it doesn't have any kind of magical binding on it that I can sense."

Tonks immediately grabbed it back, feeling out the paper with her limited magical senses scowling. "Damn it, she's right, this isn't a magically binding contract. How the hell did they get that past me!?"

"A mild Confounding charm maybe?" Harry guessed.

"So this is a sign of something far larger. Yes, you're being in their files permanently I can understand Tonks, even from what little I have seen of your transfiguration powers I know they are dangerous. But your son? He doesn't have nearly enough werewolf in him to be a threat or even dangerous to anyone. So why would they bother?" Rias asked.

"Heh, we've been asking ourselves that question a lot today. Still, at least this one we can figure out the answer to." Harry looked over at Tonks, who nodded and quickly reentered the prisoner's mind, pulling out an instant later.

"It was standard procedure, apparently, up to and including his lying to me," Tonks snarled her teeth gritted in anger as they became sharper, longer, showing her anger in no uncertain terms. "They take samples of everyone who comes into their territory, regardless of nationality or anything else. They promise them whatever they need to, and then take the samples and keep them on file anyway."

Rias groaned. "That is what I was afraid of."

"What would the International Confederation of Wizards do they found that out?" Loup asked. As a 'dangerous beast', he had a vested interest in the answer.

"It would depend on a lot of factors, in particular evidence, and whose samples they had stolen. Teddy? No one would care. Me, there'd be a lot of uproar about it from the UK and even some popular protests, but I'm not exactly a political powerhouse so I doubt anything would actually happen." Harry grimaced, remembering the one time he tried to enter politics and the massive failure and headache it had been.

"Heh, how much do you want to bet honestly important people have been tagged," Mittelt asked from where she was once more lounging on a chair she'd pulled over to the line of prisoners, making air quotes around the word 'important'. "International Confederacy of Wizard leaders, business people, well-known diplomats..."

"That would be a major blow, yeah. The ICW might actually take action directly against the MACUSA for that," Tonks replied for the two wizards.

Mittelt nodded firmly. "Yeah, I can see that, but, that means that we need to do something to get that proof. Without proof, no one is going to believe it. We also need a way to get the word out of that proof to the respective parties."

"One last question from me," Sirzechs cut in looking at the two wizards. "Devil and Fallen magic isn't as good at controlling other people long term, influencing and stealing memories yes, but not outright control. But I've watched a lot of movies, and I know about rituals and enchantments. If they have pieces of people like that, can they control them?"

"…Not other magicals, not without a dedicated, powerful ritual. But non-magicals are more vulnerable to that kind of Law of Contagion type spell. Are we thinking that might be the case here?"

Rias sighed. "Now that Nii-sama has pointed it out, I don't think we can overlook it. It might just be seen as a security precaution, something that could help them shut down anything that could break the Statute of Secrecy, but even so, it's a ticking time bomb that we need to bring to the attention of the people who can do something about it."

Harry looked over at Tonks. "Do your thing," he said quietly, and she grinned pulling out her wand.

She didn't always need it, of course. One of the reasons why she had been so good as an Auror was that she didn't actually need her wand to cast a lot of her combat spells. And she had gotten better at wandless magic since coming to Kuoh. But this one was a little finicky even with her natural talent at it.

Harry smirked, and looked over at the others who were looking a little quizzical. Grayfia of all people voiced the questions on everyone's minds: "That first individual said something about tracking Tonks-san magically, so how will she be able to take the identity of someone else?"

"Hehe, that's a common misconception. But there is a reason why a Metamorph like Tonks is rightly feared by a lot of people and governments the world over," Harry said with a smirk. "One that hasn't changed since Tonks became a Devil. We checked." He added, his smirk becoming something more vicious for a moment.

One of the things that made Tonks so dangerous wasn't based on just her ability to look like someone, but that she could become that person. Within moments she was standing directly in front of one of the men, her body having taken his form from her hands to her feet. A second later, her clothing began to shift to match the man's too, an extension of her Metamorph powers.

"Won't they know that he's fake? If they have her on file…" Yubelluna began, backing up Grayfia's comment.

"One of the things that most people don't know is that Metamorphs like me actually change on the genetic level. With enough training, we can change even our magical signature. We can't be tracked like that if we know someone's trying to do so," Tonks answered, her tone still grim. "That's something actually very few magicals know about as Full-body Metamorphs are so bloody rare. As long as I'm careful about it, and not actually seen changing, I can fool practically anyone."

"That is freaking terrifying," Sirzechs said after a few seconds of wide-eyed silence, changing what he was about to say thanks to an ice-cold glare from his wife. No reason to talk about certain fantasies I've had about two Grayfias or a few of the Gundam girls. "A heh, but, um, there's still a lot more to really becoming someone else. Especially when you're going to be interacting with people who know the person in question."

"Ahah! But what about the way he talks, what about the way he moves, what about any friends he has, will they notice anything different? Well dear audience, we're not done just yet!" Tonks said, acting almost like she was trying to sell a product for a moment, as 'he' stood in front of the man. Then Tonks' eyes glinted dangerously as she stared at the man who had said they were tracking both herself and her son. "Wake him up, Harry."

Harry nodded, ending the spell on the man. He gasped, looked around and then wildly shouted, "You're all under…"

Then Tonks was pointing her wand right between his eyes. "I warned you, wanker! I warned you what I'd do if I heard or found out that you kept my son's information on file. I don't really care about you keeping me on file, that's just common sense, considering I'm not a citizen of MACUSA and I'm a Metamorph. Keeping my son on file? No, there goes my ability to give any utter fucks about holding back."

"You can't do this. My government will…" the man babbled.

"Your government will do nothing. Because they will have no proof of anything that happened here," Rias said coldly. "Whatever you're going to do Tonks, do it. I'll modify their memories then you can get on with your day."

"I've already done it," Tonks said to everyone but Harry's surprise. The fact she spoke now with the man's voice just made creepier. "His name is Frederick Johansen, he's married with two kids both young teens, and has been having an affair with his secretary for several months on the premise that he was going to leave the wife and the brats, his words. Naughty naughty."

The so-named Frederick gaped, his complexion turning white. "What, how did…"

At that point, Harry knocked the man out, and everyone else's eyes turned to Tonks as she continued to recite information, shifting her posture this way and that as if she was getting a handle on how to move. "One of the things that sets me apart from other Metamorphs that we very very firmly have never shared with anyone, hell, not even my own superiors in the Aurors knew about it except for Shacklebolt, is that besides being a Metamorph, I am also a master Legilimens. As he was busy staring at my wand I was staring into his mind." She shook her head. "And what a filthy little mind it was too. On the other hand, however, they apparently don't know much about Occlumency or Legilimency here either, too dark was the only thing I could get out of his mind that had anything to do with them."

Harry shook his head with a sigh. "The most powerful magical country in the world and they are ruled by what? Fear? A fierce isolationist policy?"

"No *sigh* it's worse, they're ruled by bureaucrats, who have taken mediocrity and everyone being equal to assume that everyone should be held at the lowest denominator, rather than shoot for the highest. I now know more about the magical society of America than I ever wish to," Tonks replied with a wince. "What the hell happened to these people?"

"I think Harry was closer, I think it's fear. Someone took a revolution too far, and by the time the dust settled, they had this," Sirzechs murmured. "I remember a time when MACUSA was a growing power on the magical side of things, so much so that people in the Three Factions were wondering if we should reach out to them before they found out about us on their own. Now? All that progressiveness seems to have disappeared as they tried to deal with the aftermath of World War Two and the massive influx of refugees and various nationalities from all over the world. I know they were dealing with a major crime wave and five competing Dark Lords at the time, but I never learned more than that."

"While the history lesson is nice, I think we need to get a move on." With that Harry looked at Tonks who moved over to another man and began to do the same thing to him, pulling out from his mind the same kind of thing that she'd gotten the first man. With that, she began to explain her plan, while Asia and Loup took Lily into the house. Mittelt and Yubelluna convinced the two wizards knew what they were doing, also backed away, as did Rias and her brother after offering his magically shielded phone to Harry. Only Koneko protested that she could come with them, using her Senjutsu illusions and shape change spells.

But Harry refused. She wasn't trained in espionage like this, and despite Tonks's snarky comments to the contrary, Harry had actually run some successful espionage operations during the war against Death Eaters. With Tonks nearby, and the information she had on the man he was pretending to be, they could get away with this.

With Rias and the Devil's help, they created mental illusions in the minds of the other men, and all of them did what the two men who Tonks had mind probed told them was normal: they all went home to the base of operations of MACUSA here in Hawaii, and then split off into groups of three to write up the reports. Even if nothing had happened, there would have to be reports, filled out in triplicate and everything. The reports that Tonks had seen in the men's minds were enough to make her turn to drink, and she was eagerly looking forward to getting rid of all this information later in the time-honored fashion.

Leaving behind their fellows, Harry and Tonks, with Harry hidden under an extremely detailed illusion, followed them, grumbling under their breath. The building they were heading towards was a simple business tower among many with nothing to mark it out as anything special. However, when they entered, they found themselves in a long corridor, with a security guard sitting behind what looked like glass, but which was probably transfigured stone. The man there hailed the two of them, instantly while Tonks, as Johansson, passed her hand over a runic array on the doorway.

"Hey Johansson, anything happen on that Metamorph case?" a guard hailed him.

"Ugh, false alarm entirely, apparently she and a few of those Japanese magicals are passing through, and their non-magical plane had some engine trouble or something, so they decided to stay at the beach at a friend's house." 'Franklin' replied.

"They had the paperwork and forms for their traveling through our territory, and had thrown up a Notice-Me-Not ward to cover their cooking on the beach," Harry dutifully held some conjured paperwork up in the air, shaking his head with a sigh and a chuckle as Tonks had said would be appropriate at this point. "We read them the riot act, fined them on the spot, and then replaced their Notice-Me-Not wards with our own. So we know whatever they're up to, but the nonmagicals don't have a freaking clue as usual."

The man laughed and nodded, smiling at them both. "Good, and you didn't let on that we still have her hair on file?"

"Nope," Tonks said with a shake of her head. "There was no need to, the Metamorph was giving them the riot act already when we arrived, saying they were being too loud with their magic and telling them about our laws. She really didn't want to deal with the paperwork again."

The other man grunted, then nodded, gesturing down the hallway as a sound went *ping* in the background. "Better go fill in your forms then, and did you get their names? What'm I sayin', of course, you got their names. Did you get samples?"

"For everyone but the child," Tonks said with a nod. "The parents refused to let us take that one and I did not deem it serious enough to start a fight with two Japanese Aurors, even if they were retired. I didn't want to bring back body bags, and both of the parents were looking jumpy enough at that point. Regardless I doubt that they'll ever come back to America, nonmagical or magical."

The other man grunted, shaking his head. "Well, I suppose that's good enough. Freaking slant eyes, swear our parents should have done a better job of destroying them during World War II."

Harry dutifully chuckled at that, while Tonks rolled her eyes. It had turned out that while he was a cheater and a liar, the man who had lied to her all those months ago wasn't actually all that evil, just banal and a firm proponent of the rule of the many, many, many, many laws of the MACUSA. "Now don't be like that you two," she remonstrated, precisely as the man she had become would. "You know we would've lost a lot more men too if we tried to do more, and what's it matter what other magicals do around the world so long as the statute is kept in place and our laws are followed here in America?"

"Right I suppose, although… we've been hearing some rumors. The ICW is going to be demanding an explanation of the United Kingdom for what's been going on in Egypt," the other man leaned forward, whispering.

"What has been going on?" Harry asked, once again having been coached by Tonks that his current character never listened to rumor or cared about news most of the time.

"Of course you wouldn't know about the rumors," the man muttered shaking his head. 'Whatever, I'll tell you about it over some drinks tonight. Same place as usual?"

"Sure," Tonks said for them both, "I'll meet you outside the Rose and Anchor, but I'll have to stop in to stock up on more Breath Assure."

The man chuckled at that. "That's right, can't have your Missus realize something's up."

Tonks chuckled too, and she and Harry moved on.

Harry nodded at her, or rather him at the moment. "Well?" he murmured.

Tonks nodded, and the two continued on.

At one point, they entered the office which resembled cubicle hell and Tonks gestured with a finger, a tiny movement that you would have to be watching to see. She gestured twice and then once to each corner before her fingers flicked up toward the ceiling where what looked like a sprinkler system was situated. Except around this were other runic arrays.

Harry nodded, and returned the gesture, before making it look as if he was cutting something with his fingers a movement hidden by his side. Tonks shook her head, then shrugged indicating she didn't know. Harry responded with a shrug of his own and the gesture indicating Tonks was the lead in this operation.

With that Tonks and Harry began to fill in the forms they had to add another level of security to their cover. Then as Tonks finished, she left, well ahead from Harry, stating 'he' was going to the bathroom and would meet Harry by the portkey. Harry caught up with Tonks just as planned a few moments later, where Tonks bent down as if her shoelaces been untied, which they had been, thanks to an adroit spell from Harry as she left the previous room.

She went to work on it, as he continued on his way, passing another man, as Tonks twitched her head at him. A quick stupefy spell hit the man, who slumped, just as the two of them were passing an empty office.

Harry grabbed the man and was within the office within seconds. Tonks followed and left moments later wearing the man's face, while Harry went back the way he'd come, as the man behind them stood up, and made his own way backward.

His mind was no longer his own, completely dominated by Harry's Imperio for a few moments. After that, he would forget anything had happened and just go on his day.

Three changes like that later, and three more victims found them a man who was leaving the building on an errand they could use. They erased his memory of the last few minutes, then sent him on his way, following after under Harry's invisibility magic, Tonks having left her alter persona in a random bathroom stall. The two of them entered the room where the local MACUSA Aurors stored various portkeys, which would carry them back to the states and MACUSA proper.

These portkeys came in the form of wide hula-hoops. The young man they were following and several others touched the hoop, as did the unseen hands of Tonks and Harry, though this was the most dangerous moment of the infiltration so far, touching the hoop without touching any of the other potrkey users. But they managed it and in a blinding flash, found themselves elsewhere.

On the other side on the other side of the portkey Harry and Tonks found themselves in what looked like a park of some kind which mixed a natural forest and dozens of different kinds of seats here and there scattered haphazardly among the trees as if they too were natural. Adding to this were posters on the trees of various Quadpod teams, a few Quidditch teams and oddly numerous American style football, which Harry had an internal scoff at. It isn't as tough as rugby.

Nearby where they landed, from the portkey there was a four foot metal pole, around which the man they were following put the hula hoop they'd used as a portkey. Then he joined several other people jawing with them for a time, while the two infiltrators followed along as they moved through the forest and found themselves on the edge of a town. The town was built into the side of a hill, which led up into a very sheer mountain face. Into that sheer mountain face was carved several dozen little homes, big and small, and one larger entrance leading deeper inside. There were several hundred wizards and witches moving around outside, playing walking, sitting.

Good grief it's so sedentary and wholesome looking it makes my teeth hurt. So much for the idea of MACUSA being an unfeeling bureaucratic monster. At least an open one.

The two invisible magic users followed their chosen wizard through the town, and up to the large entrance, while Harry took a brief moment to step behind an oak tree. There he pulled some of his magic into his eyes, activating the Mage Sight spell before he and Tonks moved on. The two of them caught up with their Imperioused victim as he crossed the threshold of the entrance into the mountain. I wonder where we…are… wow. Much as I might hate their paranoia, can't deny that these yanks build big. Although… from what I'm seeing I have to wonder how long this all took them.

Inside, the mountain was hollowed out, the entrance abutting directly onto what was the main thoroughfare of a fair-sized town, built into the hollow, with several dozen stories of buildings built into the side of the hollow, and a few apartment complexes rising from the center in large stalactites. Above, the sun shone through what was obviously an area transfigured much like the main hall of Hogwarts. Harry could even see a few people up near the top on wide wooden platforms. Not like they were living there or anything, just lazing about on the platforms like Harry and the others had been doing earlier that day in Hawaii. And there were thousands of wizards and witches all around them. It was easily the largest Wizarding World community Harry had ever seen.

But while Tonks was gaping all around them, what really caught Harry's attention was what he was seeing via his Magic Sight. Using it gave him a bit of a headache over time, but Harry felt it was worth it because Harry could tell something about the crowd around them. With mage sight he was able to see not only colors, which allowed him to tell what supernatural race he was looking at, he had also begun to think that the brightness of the aura also could tell him how strong a person was. Sirzechs was so strong Harry could barely look at him. Issei and Loup were the weakest individuals, magically speaking, among the Potter-Gremory clan.

But they were a LOT stronger than the wizards around Harry and Tonks now. He had been expecting that, on a surface level, having been told over and over that wizards and witches were weaker than other supernatural entities. But the wizards around them were even weaker, in terms of the strength of their auras anyway, than the Onmyouji Harry had used his mage sight on in the past.

Very weak. Like Crabbe and Goyle kind of weak. Weird.

Shaking that minor mystery off, Harry and Tonks followed their patsy along as he moved to his apartment. There, Harry knocked him out and the two of them set it up so that it looked as if he had fallen asleep, with Tonks implanting the memory in his mind just like the Obliviators would have. Then Tonks once more became the man, one Stephen Brand, and exited the building heading to drop off some paperwork in the main building of the MACUSA, which was called the Magic Regulation and Direction Building.

This building was built at the far back of the hollowed-out area in the mountain and was marked out by a series of poles flying two American flags, or rather the MACUSA equivalent. There was only one giant star on the blue background, around which hovered wands, brooms, and other magical items in white like the star. The stripes were the same red and white though.

Inside, Tonks passed through a security zone marked by a man to one side behind another transfigured rock wall. He waved back, asking, "Doing your boss's work for him again Stevie?"

"Heh, Magic forbid that Mr. Charles does his own footwork or filing. I swear I think he's just scared of portkeys, he never leaves Hawaii if he can help it. Not even in summer." Tonks shot back, causing the man to laugh as they passed through into the rest of the building.

The interior of the building was ultramodern, metal and wood walls, decent paneling, lighting, the works. In fact, Harry didn't see much magic around the place at all, except security-wise, a few of the personal lights in some of the rooms they passed, and in the staircases. He didn't see any sign of the use of house-elves, or anything else either. Damn, they barely use magic for filing?! Ugh, that is just wrong.

Inside Tonks was greeted by more men and women who seemed to know Stephen quite well and liked him too. Tonks played the role perfectly, jawing it up here and there, smiling and laughing just like the man would have in her place. Later she would transfer the memories of this to Stephen, so even he wouldn't know anything had happened.

Watching her, Harry had to shake his head, hidden as he was by his cloak now. He occasionally had a tougher time of it than Tonks, given the need to dodge running into people who didn't realize he was there. But that only made his thoughts on Tonks' ability to spy like this even more pointed. Damn bad move to become Tonks' enemy. Bad, bad move. MACUSA should be bleeding grateful we're here for espionage reasons instead of sabotage.

Soon though they were away from the more used areas of the building, heading into a filing storage area.

Two people went past, with Tonks in her persona nodding to them, her Legilimency attack flashing out unseen via mere eye contact. She let them go, and then when they passed a third person, indicated they'd found a good target by reaching up to scratch at her neck. Harry made a light tapping noise by her head and then turned to follow the man deeper into the building, leaving Tonks alone to drop off her cover files. What she would do after that Harry didn't know. Now it was up to him to find the Vault where they were keeping Tonks' hair sample on file. Tonks would remain in the area searching for more information on MACUSA as best she could without arousing suspicion and keeping in character.

OOOOOOO

At the same time that Harry and Tonks were splitting up, Cao-Cao was leaving a meeting with Ophis about that day's debacle. He was feeling drained, somewhat violated, and very annoyed. Luckily, he had also cleared his name. Ophis was now convinced that it had not been Cao-Cao who had given the orders for Bikou and the others to attack Potter and the Gremory girl. She would now be questioning the others, as, while the loss of Bikou didn't actually do much to their overall power, it did hinder their plan in a myriad of other ways.

Cao-Cao was incensed about it too. While he was fully willing to weaken Team Vali in any way he could, actually removing Bikou entirely this early in the game was not something he had wanted.

Nearby, hidden behind a few spells that occluded his presence, the wizard who had given his name as Jason Maagh smiled thinly at the confused anger on Cao-Cao face. The investigation that Ophis, Cao-Cao, and Kuroka had launched would lead to a group of Sacred Gear users who had a confrontation with Bikou a few days ago. Their powers were nothing to sneeze at, but all of them were arrogant, along with several stray Devils and a band of magicians that they had gathered around themselves.

Jason had targeted them for two reasons. One, one of the Sacred Gear users had the power called Mirror Mine, which allowed them to take on the form of any individual he wanted for a short amount of time. That kind of power was far too close to his own for him to allow it to exist, and Jason had worked several days with the being, using extremely subtle memory charms on him constantly to set him up, even actually using him to impersonate Vali in front of Bikou. Second, the magicians of that group had been working on a series of sensing-type spells, which would have been disastrous for his current activities.

The group would be wiped out after questioning and, which was fine by Jason. Even with their destruction, there would be still more distrust and animosity between the various teams. With that, the combat potential of the Khaos Brigade would diminish, and my ability to use the chaos they create for my own ends will grow. The best minds of the Khaos Brigade will be so concentrated on internal issues, gaining strength to better disrupt upcoming supernatural world peace, runs, that they will never even notice my own moves or that of my wife. Not until it is far too late. My so-called allies will be pleased as well, Jason thought, as he swirled away in a rather neat teleportation spell all his own.

He appeared in his room, and not a minute later opened the door at Cao-Cao's knocking, a few of his fellow wizards looking up from where they had been bunking down asleep until Jason canceled the spell over them. "There has been an incident," Cao-Cao said without preamble. "I require three wizards, randomly chosen. Jason, you are one of them, and Kuroka and Ophis will be by to pick up one each from the other barracks. You will be checking over each other's work and helping Kuroka in an investigation."

So it begins, Jason thought to himself as Cao-Cao continued to speak. In chaos, opportunity. It's just not going to be you, oh mighty Sacred Gear users, Devils, Fallen and Dragon alike! No, it will be I and my allies who will be standing on the top of the pyramid when the war ends.

OOOOOOO

With the power of the invisibility cloak around him, Harry was the next best thing to invisible, moving through the massive complex completely unseen. And as he went, he looked for information on what Tonks had called 'The Vault.'"

About an hour and a half after the infiltration had started; Harry found what they wanted.

It turned out that to access the Vault you either had to be dropping a sample off or be part of the Red Guard. Now searching for those specific people, Harry left Tonks, who moved off, her current persona not having the clearance to be near the Vault.

From the exterior, the Vault seemed just a massive bank door. It looked like it could fit into any bank heist movie Harry had ever seen it was so normal. But what wasn't normal was the fact it glowed with magic, had no apparent controls and had two wizards standing in front of it with what looked like wizards staffs in their hands. Those staffs practically shone with magic far more so than the Red Guard who held them.

Going by the conversations Harry overheard they weren't actually called that. They were called the Custodians, but they wore red cloaks, red helmets, and red-painted magically enhanced body armor. It was the first kind of body armor that Harry had seen, and although the coloring was decorative, the actual body armor was quite good, although Harry suspected the spells on it were far less so than the ones Kala was playing around with.

Moreover, whatever spells were on their staves, and why they used staves preloaded like that rather than their own wands Harry had no idea, they had nothing that could help them in seeing Harry. His invisibility fog bank/cloak worked on the basic presumption that it had to hide whatever and whoever Harry put under it from anyone that could possibly mean him harm. With his sound and smell also dealt with, he simply passed between the two guards, waiting there as he examined the doorway, wondering if he would have to break in somehow. I don't know if I'd be able to do that quietly though. Blast it.

Luckily he didn't have to as several people came towards him. These were dressed like businesspeople, like most of the MACUSA wizards he'd seen before their portkey trip, something Harry figured was the MACUSA version of a uniform. Like the FBI or MI5, I guess.

Two of them were carrying small sample bags, in which Harry could see a few hairs. The one in the lead nodded as Harry watched towards the two red guards. "Got a few more samples for the Vault."

"What section?" of the guards said turning to place his hand on the doorway.

"Diplomatic, and business. These fine Italian fellows wanted to open up a new chain of restaurants in America. Heh, it turns out that their food tastes magical for a reason."

The two guards laughed at that, somewhat hollow noise inside their masks and after whispering words too quick and too low for Harry to make out, there was a pulse of magic from the door. The door opened slowly to show a massively wide hallway, with no doors leading off it. "Pass through then."

Harry looked down at the floor, which was glowing, and then at the doorway as the two men moved through it. Yeah, no. I wasn't born yesterday yanks. Then he slowly levitated himself into the air, slowly, because he wanted to make certain that his use of that spell wouldn't set off any alarms or dispel his invisibility cloak. It hadn't, but the glow on the floor remained to his sight, and he kept on flying after the two men only to stop, staring as the opposing wall opened.

The long hallway had just dropped them off into a hallway, moving right and left from where they entered, where before them Harry could see the hallway was one of many, the corridor having no far wall, only a low safety railing. This let Harry look into what was a gigantic underground area that looked like it was the size of two missile silos combined. There were at least forty stories going up and down from where he entered, with the central area being empty save for where a few large, red cubes hovered in the air slowly floating up and down the interior of the silo-like structure.

As Harry turned away, he saw that the outer wall of the hallway were hundreds of boxes. They ran from the floor of the hall to the ceiling and were all about the same size, a bit larger to a side than Harry's hand. The front of them was glass or looked like it at first. And as Harry flew slowly behind the two men he could see several of them had names. On the floor were letters, starting from A in the direction the two men moved, while behind them Harry could see a Z on the other side of the doorway where they had entered.

Okay, Rias and Mittelt were right. They might not be using all of these samples, but… he shook his head shivering a little. Whatever was going on here, they needed evidence, and the ability to stop it. Someone's taken suspicion to an entirely unhealthy level here.

As Harry watched the two men approached a blank cube and pressed the sample into it. The glass seemed to morph and twist as if it had become water absorbing the item thus given. In this case, it was a piece of hair. As Harry watched, the people who had carried it into the Vault intoned two Italian names he'd never heard before.

Instantly, a location appeared low that, in yellow for some reason. 'On a plane over Georgia'.

Looking around, Harry noticed a few other yellow icons, and moving over he saw several of them used the word 'in transit'. Many of them said 'in transit' while many of the ones in sight said, 'unknown out of area'. Those were all gray boxes.

This discovery made him quite a bit happier about everything that he had found in this place. At least they aren't able to track anyone outside the United States he thought to himself.

He continued to follow the two other men for a time until he realized they were heading back to the entrance. Then, using his ability to fly, he exited the walkway to the side, then flew up and around, taking pictures as he went, trying to get a handle on how this place was organized in order to find where Tonks's sample could've been. Under T obviously, but which section?

As Harry moved away from the two men through the air in the middle of the Vault noticed a few that were glowing red. The locations showed the 'owner' of the box being in the United States and using magic. Others were in green and showing in the USA too.

After some searching, Harry found the sample for Tonks and her son Teddy. And as he had predicted once Tonks took on an entirely different form, Tonks's was indeed still marked as being in Hawaii. It didn't say N/A or the equivalent, as Harry had thought it might once she took on an entirely new form. They were able to keep track of her even after she became a Devil but didn't track her when she shifted into a different person? I didn't think they would be able to, but even so, it's good to know for a fact.

Regardless, he knew what he had to do. He put a hand on the block, as he had seen the men do before, and his hands passed through it like water until he grasped the sample, dropping off a new one at the same time with his other hand. That one had been made by Tonks, as she took on the form of one of the teachers back in Kuoh Academy. He watched for a moment as he removed his hand, and then smiled as the plaque shifted from showing Honolulu Hawaii to 'unknown out of area'. Perfect. And even the color doesn't change if someone is magical or not. Good.

He did the same thing to Teddy, and then with that job done Harry began to take pictures of everything. Thank goodness Sirzechs gave me his phone! After fiddling with the controls of the phone he was able to use the zoom function and did so to take pictures of a few names from the ICW that he recognized, including the leader of magical Bulgaria, magical Sweden, magical Italy, and a few others he'd been forced to shake hands with in the past after he killed Voldemort.

After about an hour or so another pair of people came in to add a new sample this one glowed green, showing a location in the United States. They were also teeth, and Harry wondered if this was some kind of rite of passage thing for Americans: to give up a bit of themselves so their government could track them.

Then he nearly lost it completely, having to actually muffle his mouth with both hands. Oh my god, Bahahaha, the Rotfang, the Rotfang conspiracy! The Quibbler was right! Oh, I have got to tell Luna! She's going to have kittens.

After a time, Harry regained control of himself. He then followed the two stuffed shirts out, past the two Red Guard on duty outside, and beyond.

From there, he retraced his steps until he came upon a man leaning against the wall reading from a menu out in the main town. He looked like many of the other people around them, however, there was one tiny oddity for anyone who might have been looking. One of the shoelaces on his left shoe was dyed purple. This little splash of color was the signal that this was Tonks, something the two of them had come up with when they did been infiltrating Death Eater recruitment sites back during the war.

Reaching out, Harry tapped the wall directly beside the younger man's had, creating a sound. The sound was 'shave in a haircut two bits', from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Tonks's favorite movie of all time. Not that I can't see the appeal, it has a sexy redhead in it, though Rias puts what's her face to shame, Harry mused, as alter-ego-Tonks finally seemed to make a decision of what each he was going to eat, and tucked the menu under one elbow, before heading away out into the forest towards the portkey area.

Once they were alone with just the trees of the park for company, she asked, "Well?" in a normal tone. Whispers tended to carry farther than most people would think.

"Found them," Harry replied, before falling silent as more people moved around them. Tonks waved and nodded at a few, joking and joshing with the man's friends, taking some good-natured ribbing for being assigned to Hawaii for the next few hours, which was why she had chosen this young man. He was actually due to leave for another hour, but no one would notice him leaving early. Indeed, most would think he had just gone for a walk, then returned to his apartment for a few seconds before leaving once more, which would be what he would remember too.

As soon as those people moved off once more moving directly through the woods towards the portkey area, Harry covered Tonks with his invisibility magic, the cloak he had been wearing becoming the fog of its original shape when Manannán Mac Lir used it, hiding both of them and then disappearing from anyone else's senses. They waited by the Hawaii teleportation portkey, then reached out and touched it as several men including the man that Tonks had been impersonating a moment ago teleported through it.

From there, they made their way out of the MACUSA Hawaii building out into the streets of Honolulu. There they put several dozen blocks between them and the building before Harry removed his cloak from around the two of them. There Harry offered Tonks his elbow, and she, in the form of a native Hawaiian complete with tanned skin and dark black hair, linked arms with him, and the two of them move down the streets. From there, Harry explained in the low tone what he had discovered before he asked, "What about you? You didn't run into yourself again?"

"Geez, it happens once to a girl and what does her friend do? Keeps on harping on about it," Tonks muttered.

"It did nearly get us both killed at the time," Harry retorted, a wry smile twisting his lips.

"But it didn't, else we wouldn't be standing here talking to one another." Tonks then sighed, becoming serious. "I found a library and researched as much of MACUSA's history that they make public. It's pretty much what Sirzechs said. After World War 2, MACUSA suddenly was faced with five homegrown Dark Lords like Sirzechs said, all of them rampaging over the place. None of them were wishful to bother the nonmagicals, so the ICW didn't get involved. Although reading between the lines I don't think any of them were on a level with Riddle in terms of power or charisma. They still all gathered followers though. They weren't able to find who was who, couldn't track them, couldn't find them or their followers which was the main problem, just like the UK's was with Riddle and his Death Nibblers."

"So to fight that MACUSA figured out a way to at least track people via its local Voodoo traditions, and even certain spells as we do with the Taboo." That had been the first victory for Neville's political party, made when the rest of the Wizengamot were still scrambling to figure out the new power structure. They had used the Taboo Curse, placing it on the Killing Curse. The instant anyone in the UK spoke the spell, the location of where it was spoken would be known by the magical government.

"The dual tracking system let them regain the initiative and after about ten years, they lasted longer but did less damage than Riddle, the Six Lords of Darkness were dealt with. The locals though basically decided they had to figure out a way to track everyone, regardless of who they were or what they were doing in order to stop a Dark Lord from gaining power in the first place. That started up the Vault project then and haven't looked back since."

"The fact it's an invasion of privacy and breaks international law for one magical government to take samples like that of the citizens of another doesn't seem to really register to the common man."

Tonks looked at the pictures on the phone he'd handed to her, then handed it back sighing faintly. "Damn that thing looks grand. And all that magic and magical engineering is used to track their citizens. Cocking Nora."

After a moment she shook her head. "I found out a few other things. For one thing, mental magics are almost completely unknown. They don't teach them in schools, and they don't allow much in the way of private instruction. With that, I felt I could get away with probing a few more minds. I found a few people who believe that there are plans in place for them to take over the minds of specific government officials in the US and a few more in the UN if need be to control their actions and policies. It's looked at like a just in case thing, but it's a widely held belief and no one seems to have an issue with it. Nonmagicals aren't derided or feared exactly, but they are seen as different and lesser. That seems to be enough."

Harry frowned, but then nodded. "That just sounds like a minor step up from what Obliviation squads do."

"Not exactly. I mean, a lot of people think they have plans in place to take over people's minds, not just Obliviate specific memories to keep magic a secret. And it's not just to keep magic a secret either, but 'just in case' MACUSA needs something. Like more space near one of their hidden towns or more resources, or, or wants to make certain that the regular American government acts in a way they want for some other reason. I couldn't find anything specific in the people I interacted with but since it's such a widespread belief…"

"Okay, that makes it a lot worse. Cock. Still, I got enough pictures and such to serve as evidence we can hand this off to someone anonymously at the ICW. Preferably someone who's name I noticed down there." Harry stopped at an intersection and hailed down a cab, then asked. "So is that all you did?"

"Heh, not exactly. You remember me saying that the wanker I first impersonated, Franklin something, the one who lied to me about their destroying me bairn's sample, was having an affair? The bloke we followed through the portkey knew about it and felt mighty guilty about the fact judging by a few of his memories. So I decided to do a good deed and alleviate him of some of that guilt. I had him bump into Franky's wife, and drop a bit of a hint before I went back to his apartment and implanted the memory. It wasn't much of a hint, just something subtle, but since the gal's a news reporter herself, I think I can leave it in her capable hands to do something about it…" Tonks replied, snickering wickedly.

The two of them were still laughing when the tax pulled up. As they sat down Harry shoved Tonks' shoulder playfully. "Never change Tonks."

"By the Seven hell's why'd I want ta mess with perfection?" Tonks said with a laugh.

Soon they met up with Lily, Rias and the others at the airport in a receiving area reserved for the owners of private jets. Grayfia was still there, although Sirzechs and his son were not. Considering that they were no longer on the beach, Milicas not being there was not a surprise, although why Grayfia had decided to stay instead of Sirzechs would have been a surprise if not for Harry's understanding of their very different characters. This wasn't something that involved his sister's direct safety, and so he had dumped this on his wife. I hope you had a mountain of paperwork waiting for you, you sis-con arse.

After Harry had thrown up an extra Muffilatio and the two wizards explained what they had found, both Grayfia and Rias were frowning at the implications. "So beyond the six Dark Lords, there really wasn't a reason for it? They just kept on doing it?"

"Yep," Harry said Harry and Tonks as one, and Rias groaned.

"All right, well in that case maybe letting out their dirty secret to the ICW is actually going to be a good thing for them too. They seem to have fallen into a type of fortressed mindset, and that's never a good thing in the long term."

"Maybe, maybe not. Whatever happens there I will let in the hands of more politically savvy people. Regardless, I switched out Tonks and Teddy's samples. It worked thankfully, there weren't any security measures on the vault itself, all that was on the entrance."

Grayfia interjected at this point. "You have pictures you say, of a lot of the names there?"

Harry nodded. "I took more than a hundred pictures, and then about two dozen specific ones of names I thought I recognized. Wizarding World businesspeople, politicians, leaders, a few magical Aurors I know from various nations. None of them are what I would call acquaintances, let alone friends. But I at least recognized their names. The rest are just random."

I will want a copy of the random pictures," Grayfia said holding up her cellphone. "I will go over them and see if any of them match up to known non-magical politicians. If there is then the seriousness of this issue goes up."

"Isn't that kind of long-term magical interference in the non-magical world illegal for wizards?" Rias asked. "I know it would be in Japan but…"

"The ICW frowns very much on that kind of thing," Tonks said. "Despite the number of corrupt arses that have risen to the top in local circles, the ICW has had its head screwed on straight most of the time. The relevant law goes something like 'No country recognized as a member state of the International Confederacy of Wizards can be allowed to be found using magic to influence non-magical society in cases not directly associated with keeping magic secret without severe repercussions up to and including annexation or war. While observation is allowed, manipulation of high government officials is not, and indeed, lanes of communication should be kept open between discrete members of the non-magical community, and the local magical police.'"

"I know that the UK Prime Minister knows about magicals, although his knowledge is sealed under a Fidelius spell. I'm thinking that's the normal way of doing things. Having one, maybe two or three policy makers know about magic in order to cover for anything that the Obliviators can't deal with quickly enough," Harry said.

"If that is the case and they are in fact found to be violating that law, on top of keeping illegal checks on men and women from other nationalities without their consent, the magical society for America is going to have a very bad time of it, correct?"

Tonks and Harry exchanged a look and then nodded. They thought so but weren't certain what would actually happen there. "I think I might hand it all to Neville, see what he, or his wife anyway, thinks about it. Or I might just sit on it for now. Then if MACUSA causes trouble, or your contacts notice people behaving oddly, we can share it then."

Transferring the video files and pictures Harry had taken took a while, there were so many of them but eventually, it was done, and Grayfia nodded her head farewell to all of them without another word. Only the fact she and Rias exchanged a smile indicated anything had changed between them, but that was enough for now. At least they weren't tense and ignoring one another.

Soon after that, Rias called the captain of their new plane and told him that they were ready to go. They had to wait another fifty minutes to get a clear takeoff zone, but they had transferred to the plane in that time, and all of them were strapped in and ready to go as the plane began to taxi off down the landing pad.

"Well, that was an interesting first half of our trip," Harry quipped, his tone droll.

"Harry," Rias said, her fingers digging into his side from one side as Yubelluna did the same from the other and Lily turned to give him a look. "Don't say anything, anything at all. In fact, let's all be silent for a time. Better that, then tempting fate with your Potter Luck."

Harry snickered, but obeyed, pulling Lily down against his chest as the plane took off.

End Chapter

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I could have called this chapter 'the Quibbler was right' but felt it might have been too big a hint as to what the chapter was about LOL. So Europe doesn't have a monopoly on stupidity, and in fact, a lot of various groups are behaving very badly.

In the main, however, I wanted to use this chapter to show something I noticed in DxD: the characters, whoever they are, have a lot of issues with conspiracies and hidden enemies. But that, in a way, is the specialty of wizards. So when the two mix, there are issues. I also wanted to set up the future problems in Egypt, how they tie into the main plot of DxD, and also remove Bikou from the field. while showing that even supposed good guys might have conspiracies in play. As for Bikou, I felt his abilities, backed by Ophis's magic, could get away once. Not twice, and he was the obvious choice for a midair assault. He's also one of the better Khaos Brigade members and getting him away from the hot mess that group is becoming is also important.

At any rate, hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Stay safe, stay well and read more fanfics, and look forward to the next chapter. Also, be on the lookout for the poll for April to be posted soon.