DXD SI : Chapter 65 : Seeing Misla, Pathing Path to Healing & MOVING! (Patreon)

Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters appearing in High School DXD or the Anime or the manga whatsoever.

Sparring Ring, Oppai Club

–Magdaran Bael–

“So,” Serafall began, after having come back from some sort of urgent meeting, “I think the team should be ready soon. Do you have anything to pack or anyone to meet before you have to go? I assume you will not be returning soon after this.”

He gave her a look at the absolutely not subtle line of questioning, but answered nonetheless, “I have everything I need on me already. As for meeting someone….” his words trailed off, as he was once again reminded of the whole reason he had been thrust into the limelight ahead of time, which set forth into motion this roller coaster of emotions that eventually led to today.

Having killed his birth father, the one partially responsible for the death of the first person who loved him unconditionally, and now moving his Garden to a far more secure space, he could honestly say that he was fine with how things had evolved so far.

Sure, if he could nitpick and portray himself as some absolutely perfect being who could do no wrong, make no mistake, then sure, he would have loved to go back in time and do many things differently with a different mindset, but there was no point in blaming his past self who was all but drowning under his own mind, doing all he could with what he had.

His decision made, he looked at Serafall, “Yes. There are two individuals I would like to meet before I leave. Also, I need you to make sure they remain safe and secure as well.”

Serafall looked at him with narrowed eyes, “Who?”

___xx__

After he locked down the Garden and made sure the team wouldn’t be able to so much as walk inside without his permission, he teleported to this place.

The outskirts of the Bael Territory, just outside the Compound walls. Sure, technically, it was the outskirts, but it was very much liveable, nothing like the actual barren lands that the Bael House sat on, with no sign of life or signs of civilization anywhere around them.

He saw the small house in the distance, along with obvious guards, hidden and visible both, bearing the mark of House Vapula.

He was surprised to see that, as the Bael House was basically the epitome of arrogance, and they would never ever allow guards from other Houses to ever enter their territory and stay there semi permanently, all to guard a member of House Bael, for Misla was still a part of House Bael, even if she was no longer the Main Wife.

It was impressive to think that Lord Vapula was able to get his guards in place. Zerkam must have allowed it, knowing full well that the Sleeping Sickness was not something that would heal in time or needed repetitive applications of.  The fact that Sirzechs was involved in this somewhere must have helped as well.

As he walked towards the house, making his approach extremely visible in case they did not want him here, he looked at the guards and realised that the only reason they did not stop him was because Serafall was behind him as well. 

Sometimes, he forgot that the New Satans, flawed and deeply criticised as they might be, still held a hero worship like status in the Underworld, even in the Houses that were technically rivals to the New Satan government or whose House Lords did not like them one bit. 

In that department, the PR of the New Stan government was top notch.

The moment his feet crossed the main gate, the one that marked the boundary of the ward network around the house, he felt it. Two presences inside the house, with one of them sickly and weak, with the other moving straight towards the door.

No sign of Sairaorg anywhere, which was not alarming as everyone seemed to be calm enough. 

The door opened on its own before he could knock, revealing the face of the butler from the last time he was here to meet Sai and his mother. Just like last time, the man had a neutral look on his face, but this time, he bowed lightly, hand behind his back, before asking him, “What can I do for you, Magdaran-sama?”

He hesitated about telling him anything about the whole healing thing, especially since he still wasn’t sure what the exact mechanics of the Sleeping Sickness was and if he could heal Misla or not, but he needed to atleast see her before leaving.

Once the Garden was done, he could always come back if he was sure he could heal her.

With that in mind, he made his request, “I want to see her.”

“Please, come in.” The butler opened the door and led him to the large bedroom in the corner. 

And there she was, appearing as if she was just asleep, if one could ignore all the medical equipment around the room, beeping continuously in some sort of rhythm.

The butler stayed in the room, likely to keep an eye on him, which was fine since, anyway, with Serfall just outside, he was not going to risk casting any kind of spell on her. Hell, he wouldn't risk using his healing on her, even if her particular type of sickness was probably easy to heal using his power, as all he had to do was destroy whatever it was that had latched onto her.

It was not like he had to heal deep genetic damage done to her. This was artificial, and it was plausible that his powers would read the entire disease as just a single thing to be destroyed.

But even then, he was not going to start with her. Sure, he would have loved to take an initial reading today itself, but it was clearly not possible. Maybe once a few days had passed, and things had settled down, he could come back and take an initial reading. Once that was done, he would have to find other similar cases, do his research there, find out if his power worked on similar diseases, and then come back to heal her.

After all, it would be the height of cruelty to give Sairaorg false hope that his mother could be healed. He would probably gain his eternal enmity then.

“She has been the same since then. No change in her condition. We have consulted the best doctors, even Belzebub-sama himself diagnosed her, but he could not wake her up.” The butler began unprompted, which seemed like a breach in how butlers usually behaved, especially in the presence of nobility, but it was not like he was a stickler for that type of outdated rules.

He remained silent as the butler told him of everything that had been done to wake her up, and how even young Sai seemed to have given up on someone else doing it, and had resolved to grow so strong that he could force the world’s best to heal and wake her up.

That seemed to be exactly the kind of thing that a child could come up with. After all, what else could Sai do right now, aside from hope that things would work out with hard work and time, the only two things he had right now.

Shaking his head, he felt his mood dim at the situation as he got out of the house, crossed the ward boundary, looked Serafall in the eye before teleporting back to his garden.

He reached the Garden, hesitated only for a moment, before waving his hand, shattering the wards over the Garden, the ones he had created to protect the Garden from intruders.

Serafall appeared behind him a moment later, as the team that had been lounging in a temporary tent that was spatially expanded on the inside came out and began doing their work.

Well, most of it was already done. All that was left was activation of the ward nodes installed in the Garden to protect it and make sure everything worked properly before they could whisk his garden away.

……And that’s exactly what they did.

Under his watchful eyes, the team did their jobs, as the Garden glitched for a moment, the combined magic of over a dozen devils enveloping the entire Garden, the protection nodes lighting up with a purple glow, before the Garden disappeared from his vision.

He felt Serafall’s hand land over his shoulder as they both disappeared from the Bael Compound, appearing in a snow covered area, looking at a pre-prepared plot of land that had been dug up, to make sure his Garden could fit into it properly. 

It was dark outside, as they both stood side by side, waiting for the most important cargo of his life to arrive. As time went on, more than once, he questioned himself why he didn’t go with the Garden itself, and every time, he was reminded of the explanation that even a single Devil’s magic can add so much extra strain to the spell that it wasn’t even worth trying.

It went unsaid that it was particularly impossible for him to do the same, as the amount of Demonic Energy he had within him would exhaust the team before they could even get to the Garden.

His fists remained clenched, his body and mind tense as all he could do was count the seconds until they arrived, his mind continuously supplying him with all the worst case–

His eyes widened as he felt the first magical tremor in the area, before a bright flash heralded the arrival of his Garden. 

As soon as the glow of the spell died down, Serafall moved to secure some of the members of the team who began stumbling around due to weakness, and he moved into the garden, ready to use his power to heal everything, but to his relief, nothing was wrong.

The Mother Tree was fine. The root networks were fine. The Sitri Soil patch was fine, as were the other smaller trees. Even the small space under the Mother Tree was fine.

He relaxed, barely stopping himself from collapsing on the spot, as he concluded that the Tree was safe and secure.

Turning to Serafall and the team, which had already begun heading home, he spoke from the bottom of his heart, “Thank you for this.”

Serafall smiled at him, “Thank you for agreeing.”

He smiled and walked around the Garden, making sure that the hole was fine, the conditions were just right, and he was making a show of beginning the work of creating wards around the whole place.

After all, Serafall did not know that this was not the final location of the Garden. 

Turning around as he felt Serafall approach him, he shook her offered hand, “Thank you for this. The situation is still developing as we speak, so I cannot actually give you a definite timeline, but I will do all I can so that you can come back soon.”

He shrugged, “That’s fine. I will be busy here for a long time, anyway.”

She nodded, “Yes. Congratulations on gaining freedom from Zekram, by the way. Not many Devils can boast of doing that.”

He just nodded, as Serafall stayed silent for a moment before she left as well, leaving him alone, in the middle of a snowy clearing, in front of a Garden full of Demonic Trees.

…..Damn. It still felt surreal to him.

But it was not the time to celebrate just yet. The final step was yet to be taken. To that end…

He just spoke up, despite not knowing where exactly he was, “Are you coming out or what?”

There was silence all around him, the snow doing an excellent job of absorbing any echo that might have been created, as he turned around to find Odin himself standing in his full golden armour, with Gungnir in his hands, looking at the Mother Tree with great interest.