"Are you sure we should leave that guy behind?" Irina comnted as they made their way to the school yard. "I an, that has to be one of those monts we should be ganging up on Lyle Wallner so that we have one less problem to deal with."
"Normally I would agree with you, but this is sothing far bigger than a schoolyard fight." Griselda reminded her of that fact. "If we spend too much ti on one person, we won't be able to stop the ritual on ti."
"Besides…" She paused as they neared their destination. "It is rather obvious that Lyle Wallner wishes to have an audience with Shirou Emiya alone. The lot of you who have gained Sacred Gears or the few of us able to use the Holy Swords naturally or from the experints may not understand it, but those who lived their lives in those heinous experints tend to be confused about many things. He is currently showing the sa pattern as those before him by seeking soone who is similar to him, and right now the boy is that focus."
Ise could only frown as he listened to them talking. He had comnted about the exorcist's behavior being similar to Shirou's, but that was hardly a good description; he had seen first-hand the manner in which they fought with their individual styles, both against them and each other. There was a certain edge to their fighting styles that made it apparent that they were both used for sothing besides real fighting. The way Kiba described it, it was more for dealing with tougher opponents, or sothing that required a fight to the death, with zero regards to their own lives. It was suicidal at the best and yet extrely effective.
And that led to the second point. He had been in enough of Shirou's spars and fights, not to ntion getting lots of explanations from so of the others, to note the sowhat odd transformation that Shirou undergoes during their odd jobs of hunting down Stray Devils. It was sowhat alarming seeing how a guy who seed so nice and helpful could turn into soone so ruthless and cold, like a switch flipped inside him that made him into so killer robot gone primal. There was no other way to describe the type of ferocity he used in his fights.
Yet despite all that, Shirou seed sowhat conflicted and, dare he say it, bored after so of the missions, as though the hunts were unsatisfying to him. And that one ti he went with the others to find Shirou in the midst of what looked to be a hell of a fight with Regeis, seeing him covered in blood with a mangled corpse nearby, a part of him actually feared Shirou at that point.
And now soone similar to him showed up and started going for him specifically. How would this turn out?
"We are here!" Rias's voice broke his thoughts and he idly wondered how fast they moved to get to the courtyard so quickly. He shook his head to clear the unnecessary thoughts from his head. He had to get his head into the ga and stop the ritual, then he can help deal with that Lyle fellow.
"What the?!" Tsubasa yelled out as she stopped in her tracks to take note of the scene in front of her. Now that they were at the actual site, Ise could finally see the size of the column of light that was coming out of the ground. The amount of power exuding from it was making his skin crawl in an unnatural manner.
"Hello everybody! To tonight's entertainnt!" Everyone turned to find the second rogue exorcist walking towards them with his arms wide open and a smile as though he was hosting a TV program. "I hope you can enjoy our little fun-ti!"
"Creed Diskenth!" Griselda hissed as the others got into position.
"Oh hello there Griselda, looking hot as always." Creed widened his eyes in mock surprise. "But I am not the host for today, rely a participant. Here's the man with the plan, Mister Galilei Valper!" At that, the glow from the column of light diminished to reveal an old man in priest clothing standing in the middle of a magic circle with five swords hovering around him.
"You!" This ti Ise flinched at the amount of venom that was evident in Griselda's tone. He only knew a little about this old man from their discussions, but considering the manner the elder exorcist was glaring at him in an eerily calm manner, it spoke volus of the amount of rage against him.
"Hello there, Lady Griselda. It has been quite a while." Galilei gave a mock bow while giving a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Forgive that I cannot give you a proper reception but I am rather busy combing the swords into one form." Before anyone could comnt, Creed butted in with an even bigger smile.
"And to the main guest of this show, the Big B himself, The Angel of Fallen Stars and the King of Bloody Carnage, Kokabiel!" He gestured with his arms to a figure that they only just noticed was looking down at them while sitting on a chair and with the moon in the background. His eyes glead darkly as he watched them from above with one leg crossed with the other.
"So, the church saw fit to send one senior exorcist and two apprentices to back up a bunch of filthy devils? I am almost amused if it was not so insulting to ." The fallen angel narrowed his eyes as he looked at them with contempt. "Honestly, the nerve of those people if they think this is enough to challenge ."
Ise nervously swallowed as he looked at the fallen angel before him, his throat feeling extrely dry to the point of thinking he had swallowed sand instead. He was not sure of it, but sothing about this dude was making alarm bells scream in his head. One thing was clear: this guy was bad news.
Not knowing his thoughts, the fallen angel spoke again. "Considering this group is here, it seems your prodigy did nothing to stop them. However…" He paused as he moved his eyes around them. "It seems there is soone missing from this group."
"You are right. Damn it, that Lyle keeps getting the magician! I wanted to fight that guy!" Creed clenched his fists in mock anger as he glared at them.
"No matter, Galilei…" Kokabiel directed his eyes at the old priest, "how much longer?"
"Five minutes, my lord." Galilei replied back with a hint of trepidation, as though he was fearful of getting the fallen angel's wrath. "It will be done within that ti."
"I see, well I guess I can wait." Kokabiel drawled as he looked back at them "Perhaps so entertainnt is in order? But I wonder if these creatures could even give a minute to spare from my boredom?"
"You! What have you done with my knight?!" Rias stepped forward with her hair flowing in all directions and her eyes seemingly turning a crimson red while a dark aura appeared around her.
"Knight?" Galilei tilted his head as he gave a mocking impression of recollecting his thoughts before letting out a disturbing smile. "Ah you an subject 3026? Ah don't worry my dear, he is fine. He is just helping with a little experint."
"…"
Ise was not sure what the problem was, but sothing about the entire situation was making the hair on his neck stand up. Shirou had beaten this type of response into him during the training camp to act as a secondary sensory to 'feel' for any danger aid for him, and as much as he hated to admit it, it had helped him a couple of tis during the Phenex match and his brief fight with the exorcists. Now he was getting a very strong vibe.
And it was getting stronger…
"He is not so test subject! He is my cute knight and I demand you return him this instant!" Rias stomped her foot on the ground in agitation, creating a crater with cracks extending from it.
"Well, I guess we could let her et him, after all it is a while since she last seen him, right old man?" Creed shrugged with a smile that made the danger response even stronger in Ise.
"Yes that is true, perhaps a little reassurance will be ideal." Galilei smiled a little eerily as he looked to Rias. "If you wish to see your knight, he is already here in this area."
The feeling of danger went further up as Ise watched his friends looked around to find the knight.
"In fact, he is really close by." Creed added on with a full-blown smirk.
The feeling just skyrocketed and it was coming from behind Rias!
"Watch out Buchou!" Ise threw his arms around her and tackled her roughly just as a sword edge barely grazed her skin and cut his cheek. With a loud thump, they hit the ground hard, bruised but alive.
"Sorry about that Buchou!" Ise quickly got up and apologized to her quickly before turning to punch the living daylights of the attacker. But he stopped short of yelling at the person while his eyes widened in shock.
"Yuuto!" Rias gasped as the devil knight slowly stood up from the crouch he was in and turned to face them. It was like a reenactnt of a horror flick, what with the odd contraption that was bolted to his body painfully and the lack of light in his eyes. It was oddly disconnecting from the usual manner Kiba would face them. Looks like Shirou was right again, this was really bad.
"What have you done to him?!" Rias directed her attention at Galilei with her anger renewed from the sight of her knight.
"Oh I am just using him for a side project I have planned based from this." Galilei replied easily. "Indeed it is so hard to find a suitable candidate for my experints, so it was good fortune that soone who used to participate in my experints ca right back into my hands."
"You fiend, you will hand him over this instant!" Rias summoned a ball of her energy in her hand and threw it at him, only to be blocked by a wall of swords summoned by Kiba.
"Ah that might be a problem with that." Galilei gave a mocking shake of his head. "It has been so long since my last experint and it is hard to find good guinea pigs. I think I will hang on to him for a while longer."
"Why you!"
"BOOM!"
Whatever Rias was about to call Galilei, she ended up getting cut off by an explosion that destroyed part of the main building and rocked the entire area they were in, causing many to fall to the ground.
...
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