Me? Human? : Chapter 37 : Dreams of Great War[Evaporated Away] (Patreon)

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

–Kokabiel–

FUCK!

He cursed himself repeatedly for allowing this to come to pass, as he pushed himself to his limit, churning out Light Spear after Light Spear, imbued with his innate powers, all so he could keep the demon kid at bay.

He’d heard about the test from some of the other Cadres and was curious as to why Azazel insisted on doing such a long-term test instead of just admitting people based on their Sacred Gear, after a quick mental session. After all, even if some of the humans did not have the right mindset, Mind Magic did exist for a reason. And experience was one hell of a teacher. 

It would not take long to push the human kids, as they were, to act a certain way in a predetermined situation, and mold them to the required mindset. It was certainly done before and was a tried and tested method.

Which is why he had volunteered, for the first time, to conduct this test, and now, he was already regretting it.

At first, he was just slightly curious about this new thing, since he had to lie low for a while after having come very close to getting ambushed by Penemue and her band, who would not lose a chance to kill him, even if Azazel himself was too much of a coward to actually put him down. If Azazel actually did that, he would actually respect the man more as their leader.

But as things stood, he had to lay low, lest he actually push Azazel into action, and despite his views on the man’s cowardice when it came to taking concrete steps for their faction, he would never deny the man’s strength. Azazel was more than capable of outright killing him with a single blow, if he so wished.

Then, after a few weeks went by, he actually was invested in just how far he could push the human brat. When they began, the brat was barely above Middle class in terms of his physique, and had nothing in the way of magic, as far as he could see. 

Then, things began to change. He’d been surprised to sense Light from the boy at first, only for him to surprise him even further when he somehow, in the middle of the fight, evolved that rudimentary form of Light Magic into a veritable masterpiece of Light Armour. From what he could gleam, the Armour increased all his base stats, allowed him to glide, but not fly, and stick to all surfaces without any reduction in speed or strength. 

That alone should have been enough for the boy to compete with any Six Winged Fallen Angel on his own, but things evolved so much after that. As was expected, he increased the pressure on the boy as he improved in real time.

As the days went by, the boy’s power became clear to him. The boy had some sort of hidden wellspring of power, likely as a result of being a Hero Spirit reincarnation, and only needed relatively minute amounts of training and physical stimuli to unlock that strength, as it was not being cultivated from the ground up.

The regeneration and the food were something of an anomaly, but he rationalised it because there was no single repository of old heroes who had marvelous abilities of their own. Maybe the Hero Spirit within the boy had Regeneration as their speciality, and only needed food to heal from the most grievous of wounds.

And that was what he witnessed. Even when the boy was crawling towards the food, his limbs barely connected to his body, he healed after eating a lot of food. Then, he noticed something else.

The same attacks did not quite work on the boy. Not just of the same power level, but of the same variety. The same attack that almost severed his hands from his body, because of the exceptionally sharp shrapnel his spell created, outright did not work the next time. It barely even drew blood the second time, and by the third, the shrapnel just bounced off the boy’s body, without even the boy himself noticing it.

Then came the real shocker. Even when he tried to communicate with the boy, it was as if the boy did not hear him, or was ignoring him. He tried to punish the boy for that slight, only to watch as the boy exhausted himself dodging his attacks, shambled towards him with that blank look in his eyes, instinctively prompting him to summon the food, then watch as the boy ate all the food before the entire process repeated itself.

It had unnerved him more than he cared to admit, and yet, he could not stop. Something inside of him told him that if he stopped, something bad would happen, which is why he continued attacking the boy.

He continued attacking the boy even when he withstood attacks that would have vaporised a Six Winged Fallen on the spot. He continued to attack the boy with attacks that would have killed or at least severely injured an Eight Winged Fallen as well.

He continued to attack the boy even when that did not have any effect. He continued to attack the boy, then switched to his innate ability, and while that did have some effect, the result was not to his liking.

So far, he had grown used to using the brightness of the Boy’s Light Armour to gauge his energy levels and to taper off the intensity of his attacks when the boy inevitable began to weaken, but by the point he had noticed something amiss, he was already neck deep in the attack and could not back out without being injured for it.

His pride as a Cadre of the Fallen refused to allow that, especially since he would be running from a boy that was, up until a month ago, an ant to him.

Once more, he cursed himself for crushing the comms channel between him and Penemue, when she was right in telling him to stop, as even if he wanted to right now, he couldn't stop. At least he took solace in the fact that Penemue was one of the very few smart enough to recognise what was happening from a distance and call Azazel because realistically, he was the only one who could—

A horrible tearing sound entered his ears from behind as he turned his neck partially to check what was happening, only to curse out loud when he saw Penemue forcibly entering the Exam Chamber, and then sealing it shut behind her.

Renewing his focus on the kid in front of him, he bellowed, “You Fool! You’ve only come here to die. Go call Aza—”

“He can’t come!” She shouted hysterically, standing right next to him, her eyes on a swivel as the boy was all but invisible to most senses, having drowned in his Light Spears. The glimmering of the Stars definitely did not help as the boy used his White Armour to hide in the sea of his attacks.

Or, at least he thought the boy did it consciously, because the last time he was able to look into the boy’s eyes, he did not see much in the way of conscious planning and intelligence.

“He’s stuck in an important meeting. He has only told me to make sure the boy survives.” She informed him in a much calmer tone, presumably because she thought that he had things under control.

HE DID NOT!

He was currently in a frantic struggle against his own power, as he tried to do everything in his power to make sure the Light Spears did not explode against the boy, as exploding them would mean that he would have to create newer ones and he did not have that kind of juice within him, and then have enough in the tank to defend himself from the almost certainly feral boy.

He was sure that whatever mind was left inside that boy was not going to be capable of rational thought, and he did not want to be the first Cadre in centuries to die from a Human who did not even have a Sacred Gear of his own.

Penemue, after almost a minute of staying silent and looking at the small white star flying about the attacks, said, almost reverently, “He’s absorbing the Light from the Light Spears to strengthen himself.”

He glared at her, gritting his teeth as he had to replace a dozen spears that finally broke because the boy bashed into them one too many times. “No shit.” It took her a minute to come up with that?

“Can you make yourself useful in any other way here?” He finally had to ask her, his pride wounded, but if things went as he thought they were going to go, he would not have a life to be worried about his pride.

“I’m thinking,” She snapped at him, her gaze still on the boy.

“Then why did you come here? You could have done that from behind the walls. Don’t expect me to protect you when the boy goes through my attack.” He snarled at her, panic rising up as he thought of ways to get through this without this whole thing becoming a giant Disaster for the Grigori.

He could try to escape the brat and the facility, and he would probably succeed, but that was just prolonging his death. The brat would inevitably kill Penemue and all the other staff here; that included other lower tier Fallen, but they were not really his concern right now.

His biggest concern was the location of this test.

Whoever had the bright idea of testing out new entrants to the Nephilim Institute, right under Azazel’s personal administrative building was a genius in its own right, because if he tried to flee right now, the boy would home in on him, follow him through the walls, and then when he finally left the boy behind, he would have hand delivered a building full of Fallen, who were all weaker than him, to a boy whose mind wasn’t all there anymore, all because he wanted to test just how far the boy could go.

He winced as the boy ran through another dozen of his Light Spears, shattering them entirely, forcing him to conjure new ones to halt his advance. He asked Penemue, whose eyes had glazed over, “A little help would be appreciated here!”

“I know! Either we stop him, or he damages the Grigori in a way no enemy of ours has managed in centuries.”

The ominous statement rang within his mind, as he felt his dreams of restarting the Great War and making sure that the Fallen came out on top of everyone else vanish into thin air the longer this whole farce went on.