Chapter Four: Bureaucracy is a Pain
Sona Sitri pushed up her glasses as the door to the student council room opened presenting a rather uncommon visitor.
"Uh, hi." Kawakami Sora waved. "Wasn't sure if I needed an appointment or something. I had some questions…" His eyes quickly shot around the room, making note of everyone there, it was only Student Council members aka her Peerage, "Of the more supernatural variety."
She gave him an annoyed look. "If you ask me how all these squares make a circle one more time…"
He gave a wry smile. "I'm actually here for something serious. I want to know about politics."
On reflex, Sona triggered a spell, and the door slammed shut behind Sora. A few more slams echoed throughout the room as windows closed. A series of clicks went off as every door and window in and out of the room locked and was then covered by magic seals.
Saji activated his Sacred Gear, as did Tsubaki. Everyone readied weapons and got into combat stances.
Saji didn't even hesitate, his Gear, absorption line, wrapped around Sora. "Got him!"
"H-Hey, the hell guys!?" he shouted.
Sona raised her hand, the most powerful and lethal water spell she had at her disposal at the ready. "Who the hell are you and what did you do with our friend!"
Sora looked at her stupefied for a few seconds before deadpanning at her. "I am a shape-shifting alien from the planet LV-426, and I am here to eat your brains." He then made a wiggling motion and then made some 80s alien music sounds.
Everyone leveled a stare of annoyance at him.
"It's him." Saji released his Sacred Gear.
Tsubaki rubbed the bridge of her nose in frustration. "Of all the ridiculous things…"
Sona sighed. "False alarm."
She flicked her hand and the magic seal deactivated, the doors and windows were unlocked.
He gave a somewhat smug look. "Well, it's nice to know you all care."
"Tch." Sona's face dusted red, then she shook her head. Sora, even when he was human, came through for them quite a few times when they needed it most. He may have had his head in the clouds, and was an idiot that didn't take things seriously, but he was reliable. The friendship between Sora and the Student Council was a strange one, but it was one that she treasured… not that she'd ever admit it outloud. It helped that he made the best sweets she'd ever had. "What would you like to know?"
His face carried a seriousness that she'd never seen from him before. "The laws concerning the treaty between the Three Factions."
Her brows scrunched together. "The Treaty Laws? Yes, I am well-versed in them and I do have a printed copy of the laws. But why come to me for this? I expected that Rias should've explained these things to you."
"Tried. All I got were 'maybes' and vague answers, she loves playing the politician when she's trying to protect me from something." He pulled out a sizable white box used by his family's bakery for catering orders. "I brought brownies." He opened the box showing just how many were in there as well as letting the delectable scent flow throughout the room. "More than enough for everyone."
She felt her mouth water, and idly rescheduled the rest of the day cause she knew from experience that those brownies were to die for, but one thing he said caught her attention. "Protect you?"
"Ah, hell yeah, Kawakami-senpai!" Saji cheered, unwittingly cutting her off, as he grabbed a napkin and plucked two from the box for himself.
The rest of the Peerage helped themselves to the fresh oven baked goods, and soon went back to their tasks, mostly paperwork. Tsubaki began brewing a fresh pot of tea.
Sona turned back to Sora. "How about we discuss this over a game of chess."
There was a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "I'd love to."
With a wave of her hand, the desk was cleared of all paperwork and a chessboard, pieces and all. "What color do you play?"
"I prefer white." He said.
Wonderful, he wanted to go first. This would actually be their first time playing together. She liked using chess as a way to get to know someone, the way someone plays reflects who they are. Rias did say he was quite good but… this was Sora of all people. He was a good artist (she had read a few chapters of his manga), and an amazing baker… but someone good enough to challenge Rias in chess? Unlikely.
"Alright…" He picked up the pawn in front of his king. "Pawn to E4. My favorite starting move."
It was an aggressive starting move for sure. Uncharacteristic of Sora too. She figured him as a more defensive player, especially since he was the kind of person to avoid conflict or resolve it with words if possible. It's usually how he wormed Issei out of getting his rightful beating after being caught peeping on the girls in the changing rooms.
"Interesting," She said absentmindedly and she moved a pawn, "So, Kawakami-san, how do you like being a devil so far?"
"Oh, it's been fun so far. Honestly, I still can't help but think of myself as human, you know, just with cool magic powers." He smiled brightly before moving a piece. "Flying for the first time was some of the best fun I've had in a while."
Sona gave a ghost of a smile, that was usually what new reincarnated devils loved most. She moved another piece. "How about contracts?"
He gave a laugh. "I met a few… interesting characters, but I haven't failed a contract yet."
It might have been a little mean spirited of her, but she didn't expect that winning streak of contracts to last very long. Though it was nice to hear that he was dutiful in his duties as a devil.
Sora had a pensive expression, as he moved his next piece. "Kaichou-san, I don't want to sound invasive but… have any of your regular contractors gone dark in the past few weeks?"
Sona raised an eyebrow. "I… Yes, actually. Why do you ask?"
He sighed. "Rias never told you the circumstances of my reincarnation, did she?"
Sona leveled her stare at Sora. "I assumed she asked you if you wanted to become a devil." It would be about time too. She'd had constant anxiety over what his reaction would be if he found out she was a devil.
Though his face remained expressionless, his fingers twitched before he moved his knight. "Around two weeks ago I was murdered." Sona froze, she felt like a bucket of ice water was poured over her. The whole room went silent, everyone staring at Sora in shock. "Do you know some crazy stray priest named Freed Sellzen?"
Her eyes went wide. Did she know Freed Sellzen? Who in the Underworld didn't know him would've been a better question. He was one of the most infamous individuals in recent history. Sadism beyond measure, ruthless and merciless, and 100% batshit crazy. He'd killed many high-class devils before, butchering entire Peerages with disturbing amounts of revelry.
He was here. In Kuoh. In their territory. And Rias hadn't told her for two weeks!
The chess game was completely forgotten. "Tell me everything now."
There was no smile on his face anymore. "Two weeks ago, on my way home, I got knocked out, crucified, stabbed with many sharp implements, and left to bleed out and die. My body wasn't found until the following night."
Saji gulped. "...That's messed up."
"Then there are the fallen angels that popped up two days ago." He noted half-heartedly.
Sona felt her eye twitch. "Fallen too? How… lovely."
Sora raised an eyebrow. "That's an odd way to say that you hate it with every fiber of your being, but okay."
Sona took a deep breath. This was their territory. It wasn't exclusively Rias's, it wasn't exclusively hers either. It was theirs. And not only did one of their friends get killed, but contractors too, innocent people were being targeted… for two weeks and she had no idea.
"And what exactly has Rias been doing to remedy the situation?" She asked with practiced calmness.
"From what I can tell," That alone told her much; Sora wasn't privy to anything they did relating to Freed after his untimely death, "They've been patrolling the city. Apparently I skipped flier duty and got thrown headfirst into keeping up their contracts while they searched for Freed. Obviously, that hasn't happened yet, but some of them do look a little roughed up when they come back. So, they've obviously encountered him and been given the slip."
Well at least they'd been doing something. "Anything else?"
"You know my friend, Hyoudou Issei, and how he was balls to the walls ecstatic about getting a girlfriend a few days ago?"
Saji crossed his arms. "Yeah, how did he score a cutie like that anyway?"
"Turned out she was a Fallen Angel and would've killed my friend if I hadn't been tailing them all day."
Sona stared at him for a good few seconds. "Why exactly were you tailing Hyoudou-san?"
"Honestly, I wanted to see how he'd crash and burn on his date. Goodness, how she didn't kill him out of boredom I'll never know cause he took her out on the most vanilla date I'd ever seen." Sora sighed in exasperation. "Come on, seriously, take her to the club or something at least, God - ow - damn."
She felt a slight headache at the mention of the Lord, but let it slide. "And she tried to kill him?"
He nodded. "Yeah, good thing I was able to master transmutation magic before shit hit the fan. It could've gone so much worse."
Sona blinked. He'd only been a devil for two weeks. "Sora, you can't master magic that complex in just two weeks."
She'd know. She herself had dabbled a little in the art of transmutation, but never really got the hang of it. The technique required such a precise level of focus and precision that she could never quite get down.
Sora snapped his fingers, and a red orb with magic sigils swirling inside of it appeared. On closer inspection, it looked almost like countless magic circles intersecting and melding with each other continuously. He reached his hand into it, and before their eyes, Sora had pulled out one of the biggest guns she'd even seen.
"This is the Denel NTW 20, it's an anti-material rifle. It fires a point fifty caliber, and is powerful enough to turn the head of anything made of flesh and bone to a fine red mist."
Sona stared in shock at both the orb and at the gun. "How?"
Something this complex would've taken masters of transmutation hours if not days to create. Don't even get her started on how all of the individual parts would've complicated things further.
He gave her an infuriatingly smug look. "I cheated." He motioned towards the orb. "This is a 3D magic circle, or a magic sphere. It's basically a super computer in magic form. I can put in a blueprint for whatever I want, and it makes the precise calculations needed for me. I just need to supply it with my demonic energy as fuel and it can turn raw materials like scrap metal or concrete or whatever I feed it into anything I want. I have it hooked up to a small-scale pocket dimension I made that's filled to the brim with raw materials for transmutation. It also connects to the internet."
Sona ran what he had said through her head several times. It was utterly ingenious! She would've never thought of such a thing before. Something that could perfect the calculations for the caster for a 100% success rate, something that scholars since the dawn of magic have been trying to figure out… and here, Mr. Head-In-The-Clouds Sora figured it out.
Once again she asked. "How…?"
"Devils have a magic system based around imagination, yet you all have no imagination at all. I'll never understand how Hell didn't absolutely curbstomp the Grigori and Heaven with such a bullshit ability. " Sora shook his head. "I've never seen a race so overpowered yet so blind to their own potential. Read some manga, watch an anime, maybe some fantasy books. Gets some ideas rolling," He threw his hands up, "Christ - ow - something!"
Sona let the insult slide, he was stressed, incredibly so. Which wasn't surprising considering his manner of death. "You're speaking far more bluntly than usual, Kawakami-kun."
"Koneko helped me loosen up. Listen, it doesn't matter, I've got more info that'll be useful."
"Go on."
"I shot the fallen that was with Issei with a multi-function tracking spell. I know where they're hiding out, their numbers, and I've been using it to eavesdrop on them too. We're in some serious shit if half of what they're saying is true."
"There are four fallen angels, and thirty-two exorcists - including Freed - in total. The exorcists going around killing contractors as a distraction for us while they get shit done. Issei was targeted because apparently the higher ups suspected him to be a Longinus host."
Sona's eyebrows shot up to her forehead. What he had said was one of the most ridiculous things she'd ever heard. "Hyoudou Issei, a Longinus host?"
"Don't diss my homie… that's my job," he said. "Now, does the name Asia Argento mean anything to you?"
"Do you mean the Holy Maiden, Asia Argento?"
Who didn't know about the Vatican's Holy Maiden? She was basically one of the biggest pillars of their military. Someone with the Sacred Gear Twilight Healing, she was able to heal virtually any wound, even those one would consider fatal. Her importance to the Vatican couldn't be understated, her discovery practically threw their organization into a whole new renaissance of believers. With her the faith in the Vatican and their number of believers were at an all time high.
He nodded. "The very same. Apparently the poor girl's been excommunicated for healing a devil."
Sona shook her head. "That's… so utterly foolish. Throwing away such a useful asset like that."
"You're telling me. I guess it's not just the Devils handicapping themselves with stupidity. I'm surprised they went public with it instead of just brushing it under the rug and keeping a tight lip about the situation. In any case, I didn't bring her up for no reason. The Grigori picked her up and she's heading to Kouh to reconvene with the fallen currently stationed here."
Sona paled as she ran various scenarios in her mind and none of them ended well. Depending on the power of these fallen it could just end up being a battle of attrition neither her Peerage nor Rias's was ready for. Throw in Freed into the equation and he'd be unkillable, and considering he'd been able to slip past Rias's fingers at every turn, he had the skills to get out of nearly any situation. It would be a slaughter.
She calmed herself as much as she could. "Do you have a plan?"
She was stuck, she couldn't see a way out.
"Two ideas. One: You can call your overpowered sister and ask for help cause we are all way out of our league here."
Sona bit her lip to stop herself from shouting 'no'. Sora was being practical, but the thought of relying on her sister ate at her pride… that and the sheer embarrassment to follow if she did ask her for help. As much as she hated to admit it, calling in Serafall to help would be the easiest way to deal with things.
"...And your second idea?"
"Okay, you see, I've been listening in on their conversations. They're all absolutely clueless. They have no idea whose territory this is, they've been killing civilians, and they have possession of a Sacred Gear Extractor." Sora leaned in, a dark glint in his eyes, he moved one of his chess pieces as he plucked a brownie from the box. "And considering that the fallen are targeting Gear hosts, I don't think things fare well for Miss Argento."
She didn't quite see where he was going with this. "Go on."
"Asia's fifteen, turning sixteen soon. Given what I know about the Vatican in my short time as a devil and on the supernatural version of the internet, she's probably super sheltered, naive, been isolated most of her life due to her status, and the dumbasses in silly hats expect all of her social, emotional, and mental problems to all be fixed by the grace of Big G. The Fallen are far too lax, they're expecting her to come to them, I say we pick her up at the airport and put her under our protection." He bit into his brownie. "We have her in our hands, we can force them to fight us on our terms and where we want."
"And they'd just let her fall into our hands?"
He smirked. "Sona, they're idiots. One's a lazy fedora tipper, the second is a walking hooker joke waiting to happen, the third is a lolita jailbait that cares more about her nails than fighting, and their ring leader, the one that tried to kill Issei, is a power starved maniac. We've got this in the bag. Oh, and another thing. No killing."
Sona blinked. "No killing? Why?"
"To make us look better mostly. I assume at least some laws in the treaty must have been violated, and that the Three Factions have something resembling the Geneva Convention? So, tell me, Kaichou-san, how much political trouble would they be in?"
She took a brownie as her mind worked out all the laws she knew and… illegally entering well-known territory without notice and proper invitation from the lords, killing civilians without any justified cause was a big no-no, not even the Vatican in all its zealous nonsense would get away with 'doing the Lord's work' in the eyes of even Heaven. Considering how famous Asia Argento is, up there in the same league as Dulio Gesualdo and Vasco Strada with how well known she was… it could be seen as sending a WMD to Kuoh. Hell, Sacred Gear Extractors were banned by pretty much every supernatural faction out there due to how inhumane they were, just possessing one would land someone in a lot of hot water.
"That look on your face tells me I'm very right and they fucked up big time." Sora leaned back, blue eyes glowed with demonic energy, showing his excitement, the smile on his face made all of Akeno's sadism look like kid's stuff. "It's possible we could use this plus gathering all of the evidence against them to… I don't know, make them pay out of their souls for damages and to make sure this information doesn't reach the ears of their allies, staining the absolute hell out of their reputation and then some?"
A very similar smile made its way onto Sona's face. "That sounds absolutely wonderful." She took a bite of her brownie, it was warm fudgy, and as always, baked to perfection.
The rest of the student council looked on in horror and morbid fascination as Sona and Sora ironed out their plan to fuck over the Grigori as hard as possible.
"Oh, I do believe that's checkmate." Sora said with a shit eating grin.
Sona blinked, then looked at the board. He had her completely trapped. Her Queen had been taken, most of her pieces had been taken. He had promoted three of his Pawns to Queen, and surrounded her King.
Even her Peerage stopped and gawked at the sight before them. Sona was beaten in a game of chess. The stack of papers in Tsubaki's hands slipped from her fingers.
"I... what?"
"My grandfather is a retired national chess master. Learned everything I know from him."
"I... didn't know that." Sona admitted. "I honestly didn't take you as one to be so skilled at chess."
"That's because we rarely hang out outside of my short visits." He chuckled. "Rias got so pissed that one time I got a seven in a row win streak against her. She wouldn't talk to me for two days, and just kept pouting every time she saw me."
Sona, like Rias currently, once had a fiancé. She was able to easily convince the idiot to settle the matter of their marriage in a game of chess, to which she handily won. She claimed that she'd marry no one who wasn't her equal or smarter than her.
He had met her criteria... but that was something she didn't exactly have the tell him. Just not yet.
Looking back on the past events, she realized something rather startling. Sora had complete and utter control of the situation. He used his own death, Rias withholding information from her, and his quite honestly bullshit achievements in magic to shock her again and again. Completely throwing her off her guard, making her play sloppily since she was more focused on him rather than game, and if she was remembering right, even a few white lies. It was manipulative, if it was anyone else she'd call it sinister how easily he manipulated her to agreeing to his plans.
Sona steeled her expression. "Kawakami-san... what about Freed."
Almost immediately the room felt like it had dropped a few degrees. The look on his face made her flinch. It wasn't some face of indescribable fury. No, it was cold, frigid, an anger behind his eyes restrained with unnatural ease. He was almost unrecognizable.
"...You leave him to me." It was curt, blunt, and left no room for argument.
Masks weren't something new to her, everyone had a mask in devil society, Rias's whole Peerage couldn't even be themselves around each other most of the time. And now it was Sora's turn apparently, but unlike them when they caught themselves, Sora didn't put back up his jolly mask. He wanted her to know. To know just how much what Freed did affected him.
Sona came to a very disturbing realization. That the kind, goofy, teddy bear of a man known as Sora had suffered a slow, painful, and unjust death. When Rias reincarnated him, he did not come back the same man. She doubted they'd ever get him back.
"Shall we go for a second round?" She offered.
He smiled, it didn't reach his eyes. "Sure."
Chapter End
