Amakusa Church
[ACMI2: Revelation]
GV waited quietly as his body knit itself back together. As soon as he was able, he crawled to his knees and then leaned up against the bridge's railings to stand. Members of the mage group were standing now too and shaking their heads.
When some of them saw him, they took stances as if they'd fight him but when they saw how injured he was, they seemed to move from anger to wariness.
Finally their big-haired boss strolled over to him and asked the question they had probably all been thinking.
"Why are you here?"
...Well. GV had honestly expected something a little different. He'd been expecting something like "Who are you?"
GV shifted from where he was leaning, to try and stand up. He prefered to not look so weak next to the man. Even so he stumbled slightly. The man offered a hand to stop him from falling over but he repeated the question again.
"Why are you here? I'd thought you'd gone home."
"You know me?" GV asked and the man nodded, though he still looked to be waiting for his answer. GV sighed "Because I figured that Touma was in danger and I owe him. Not that it did much. Who was that guy?"
Instead of answering though, the man just asked another question.
"How did you know Touma was in danger?"
"Itsuwa said she was guarding Touma, that guy- Acqua right?" The man nodded at GV's question and GV continued "Well, he seemed dangerous. And he was heading back towards you. I made a quick guess. If I'd been wrong I would have only lost a bit of time."
The man sighed and scratched his head "You damn kid, well, what do you intend to do now?"
Another question, but GV was quick to answer it "I'm going to stop him. Acqua might believe that my debt was repaid by this attempt but I disagree."
"You don't stand a chance kid."
"And yet I remained standing longer than any of you."
"He could have beaten you at any time."
"Not like that he couldn't." GV noted "I left myself open. I won't make that mistake again."
The man was quiet for a while before shaking his head.
"Kid, it doesn't work like that. He's a saint. You might have a powerful ability but that doesn't mean you aren't human. He's beyond humans."
GV snorted "By that same messure, are you all going to give up then? You all lost to him in this situation."
"We have other ways to fight."
"As do I."
The man scratched his head "Let us handle this. We're trained for this. We have ways we can fight better. We even have a saint of our own who's on the way down here. Given any luck Touma will be safe."
"If there is any chance at all that I could increase the chance that Touma will make it to tomorrow, I want to help." GV made his intentions clear in the face of the man's objections.
The problem for the mages was simply they didn't have a good way to make GV leave. Even if they escaped him, he'd likely stay around here while looking to help Touma. Actually knocking GV out and dragging him away would use up manpower that might be needed against Acqua.
The man sighed.
"Fine, you can come and help. But if I tell you to take Touma and go, you go. Understand."
"Clear." GV nodded.
As everyone recovered, they began to move. GV jogging along beside them. They were all incredibly fit, or at least they were more fit than most of the people GV knew. They could easily keep up with him.
They needed to check on Touma and to make sure he was okay after they'd all been ambushed. As they ran, the man introduced them.
"We are the Amakusa Church. Itsuwa is one of our members. We all owe Touma for some help he gave us in the past."
GV nodded "Understandable really."
The man snorted before continuing "I am Tatemiya Saiji, the Substitute Supreme Pontiff. You've met our Priestess and saint before- Kanzaki?"
GV remembered the woman, the last he'd seen of her though was when he and Joule had shared their stories. She seemed to be a friend of Touma though so he trusted her.
"I have." He agreed and Tatemiya nodded.
"Well then, allow me to fill you in on the man who just beat you up. His name is Acqua of the rear, a member of the right seat of god."
"Like Vento?" GV asked, making a guess.
Tatemiya confirmed that with another nod before going on "He left a message that he was going after Touma and since our priestess would rather he not die..."
"Makes sense, so what was he doing earlier? That sliding around thing and his burst of speed and strength?"
There was a moment of silence as the substitute pontiff thought about it.
"The first is probably a movement spell of some sort. The problem is he shouldn't be able to use magic. As a member of the right seat of god, human magic should be unavailable to him. His traits of superhuman strength and speed are a product of his sainthood."
"Sir?" One of the other members called out "I saw him doing something during the fight. I think he was drawing runes."
Tatemiya sighed "And that's another count of human magic he shouldn't be able to use. Well, that means its likely a fact that we'll need to work around."
GV nodded but before he asked anything else, the group stopped. They'd reached a bridge.
Itsuwa was kneeling on the bridge, her face shocked. Tatemiya broke into a dash to talk with her, asking her about what happened. After her quiet reply he instantly spun on the rest and pointed down into the water.
"Go! Kamijou is down there somewhere, don't let him drown!"
And so the night turned bad. They got Touma out of there but he wasn't in good shape.
Now where could they go to get him checked out? And where would Itsuwa be able to calm down enough to tell them all what had happened?
End of chapter
Reminder: If you're a guest, I can't respond to you directly. Now that's said though, I saw there was a review that asked why I didn't upload last week. I did. I reuploaded the previous chapter with a new version which you would have known had you read those author notes.
Also, I realised when reading my notes over that I messed up the arc. I was meant to finish the poker card arc first before jumping in to Acqua. I'm just going to be reversing the order and hoping that doesn't cause issues later.
In other notes, the site I normally get my anime from was a bit buggy when I was writing this. I hope it doesn't stay that way. Not that it mattered mutch for this chapter but it will likely matter more in the future.