Me? Human? : Chapter 43 : I dunno (Patreon)

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

Nephilim Institute

–Motohama Kenji–

Unknown to him, a grin had slipped onto his face, his body entangled in combat with Baraqiel, both of them a blur to everyone who might be witnessing the whole thing. In fact, to him, everything aside from Baraqiel had become a blur, irrelevant to the fight, as Baraqiel just took whatever he could throw at the Cadre and hit back that much harder.

And to think that guy hadn’t even used his Holy Lightning stuff that apparently only he could use out of all the Fallen Angels. Even if he was a human and not a Devil with the glaring weakness of anything related to Light, he was sure that getting hit by Lightning, amped up by the power of a Ten Winged Fallen, was going to hurt a lot.

The guy was apparently a lot more skilled than Kokabiel, atleast when it came to the other aspects of combat. Kokabiel seems to love using his Light Spears a lot, preferring them to close combat, which was fair considering that face that only a mother could love, and since all Angels came directly from God, he was pretty sure that no one could love that face unconditionally. After all, it made absolute sense that Kokabiel would avoid a form of combat in which all opponents were within punching distance of his face.

…..He giggled internally at his own joke, lamenting the fact that no one could appreciate his comedic genius, and ate a lightning imbued punch to the face, only tilting his head away at the last moment to lessen the blow, but even then, he was pushed back a couple of steps, as Baraqiel wasted no time to push on the offense. He struggled to push back, but even so, he regretted nothing about the joke.

Every punch was countered properly, even though he could see that Baraqiel was losing out on pure physical force. Instead, the Cadre had to roll with the punches, deflect where he could, and in the rare occasion that Baraqiel had to just take the punch, the Fallen Angel was pushed back, but instead of being blasted away, he managed to use his Wings to stop the movement and instead come back swinging without missing a beat.

Even the earlier surprised expression had all melded together into one focused frown as he did all he could to weather Baraquel's assault, just enjoying everything without pulling the Big Guns.

Big Guns, in this case, was the Light Spear he could manifest at will, made up of his Light, and something that could amplify his speed, power, everything really by some factor he hadn’t really counted yet, but it definitely boosted everything.

It was that spear that allowed him to punch Kokabiel and break his nose, which was just a favourite memory of his. Well, not really punching Kokabiel but watching himself punch Kokabiel. He wasn’t really conscious when he punched Kokabiel.

And once again, for that distraction, Baraqiel rewarded him with a punch in the gut. A gasp escaped his lips as he was somewhat folded in half as an explosion of Light occurred at the point of impact, blasting him further backwards.

His clothes were torn, but his skin was unmarked, as regular Light Attacks, even from Baraqiel, did nothing to his body now.

He pushed back once again, his Light Armour allowing him to gain even better grip than if he had just his feet, to punch Baraqiel, who did the same, the point of impact creating a shockwave that pushed both of them back, Baraqiel a little more, but that only gave Baraqiel a bigger space to just come back at full tilt.

And on and on, it went, as both of them punched the living daylights out of each other. At some point, Baraqiel began using his Lightning, which was extremely effective the first dozen or so times, as his muscles just locked up for a few seconds at first, but then only a split second later on, as Baraqiel used all his powers. Finally!

Even that split second was used masterfully by the Fallen Angel, exploiting that little gap to make sure his attacks landed in vital areas.

Fortunately, he had long since grown past vital areas, and could weather through his attacks with ease. 

He was so engrossed in his fight that it was only after the aftershock only hurt instead of actually affecting his response time, did he question about the lack of exhaustion, lack of hunger, lack of downtime as his body used up all the fuel to adapt to something, and he would think that adapting to something as complex and powerful as Holy Lightning would mean that he would have to empty and refill his tanks multiple times.

He was actually somewhat looking forward to eating that veritable feast while being completely exhausted. The same food tasted way better when he was absolutely famished.

But nope. Nothing of that sort happened. Even when he all but adapted away his weakness to Lightning, he did not feel an ounce of hunger.

Nothing. It was as if…

His moment of hesitation cost him as Baraqiel just hit him with a Lightning haymaker, making his bones creak in protest as he was launched back, this time directly into the ceiling. Even so, despite being surprised at the sudden jump in power output, he flipped himself and latched onto the ceiling, Spiderman Style, looking straight down at the now crackling form of Baraqiel, his entire form wreathed in Golden Lightning to the point that he couldn’t even see the man beneath.

Despite looking at what had to be the final, most powerful form of one of the strongest Fallen Angels in existence, he did not feel fear. Instead, looking at the same person that had just blasted him away and had made his bones rattle with a blow, he felt nothing but excitement.

Excitement at using the person in front of him, no matter how strong, as just a pedestal to further his own power.

It was a heady feeling, and he struggled to rein it in, even as his hands twitched to just blast down, and punch down with all his might, or better yet, summon his spear and just end this with a few dozen blows, but before he could do any of that, the entire area echoed with a loud siren.

One that was supposed to deafen people, as cold water, blasted out of nowhere, drenching him and Baraqiel in it. He was fine, as he had long since adapted to cold stuff, and so was Baraqiel, despite being wreathed in Lightning, but that was the signal for cutting things out, to stop the whole thing.

Which is why he let go of his Light Armour, the whole thing dissipating into motes of light as he landed on the ground, his knees not even bending as a huge thump resounded all around him. 

He looked at Baraqiel and the lightning around him, with no signs of that lightning travelling through the water around them and shocking him. He supposed that Magical Lightning was Magical for a reason.

Slowly, as if he was struggling to contain it all, Baraqiel switched off his equivalent of Super Saiyan Mode and looked at him intensely for a moment before just nodding, and moving out of the training area, barely stopping to nod at Azazel, who had entered the area at the last moment, before there was only him and Azazel in the training area.

“Had fun, did you?” Azazel commented when he walked towards the man, still drenched in cold water, which was not bothering him, aside from making all the clothing wet, which was a sensation that he did not like but did not consider a threat, which is why his power did not adapt to it.

As for Azazel’s question, “Yup. Would have had more if you hadn’t stopped us.”

Azazel shook his head; his hand landed on Motohama’s shoulder as he was suddenly completely dry. “I didn’t want to deal with the hassle that came with him being injured. He has quite a lot of jobs, you know.”

“I figured so.” he did not know what to say, other than that.

Azazel walked with him out of the training facility, this time the normal way, using an elevator instead of jumping down an elevator shaft and using his powers to slow down or risk breaking the floor of the training room just because of his landing.

Azaazel led him to the cafeteria, and while he wasn't famished on account of his power’s dynamic somewhat changing, he was still hungry enough to finish off quite the sizable portion of meat. Thankfully, this was not mystery meat, so that removed the distaste of finding out if the supernatural community ate some stuff that he would much rather never think of.

It was chicken and that suited him just fine.

Azazel, likely sensing his thoughts, said, “Don’t worry about the food. We make sure it is palatable to everyone, and the people behind the counter are trained on which species eats what food, and it is even organised that way to make sure you don’t find it unpalatable. In your case, since you are a human, they served you chicken since it is the most accepted form of meat for your species.”

He nodded, kinda interested in that. “Yup, chicken suits me just fine. There are many other people that find one particular type of meat unacceptable, and then there are even a few that find any meat unacceptable and outright disgusting to eat, but yeah, chicken was the best choice.”

After that, he finished everything off with some rice, and just as he was about to contemplate going after some sweets, Azazel asked him. “I assume you learned something interesting about yourself today?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yeah! I learned a ton today. I think that I still need a lot of combat training before I can call myself good at it, but aside from that, I think I am good, barring some minor things like thinking too much during the battle and my tendency to let myself get hit when I could have dodged.”

Azazel gave him a look at that before smiling that plasticky smile of his. “I mean more in regards to your power.”

He made an O face at that. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh. I assume you noticed something about that?”

He nodded, “Yup. I noticed that I don’t need food all that much anymore. I mean, not as much as I did during my test with Kokabiel atleast.”

“No. You needed no food this time. Care to explain why?”

He gave the man a suspicious look. “Are you asking or telling? Also, in what capacity? As Governor General of the Grigori or as Director of Nephilim Institute?”

“Does it matter?”

He shrugged, “No, not really.”

He decided to just rip the band aids off, now aware that he was some kind of hotshot, atleast when it came to personal power as well as the Grigori's inability to properly contain him if things fell out somehow. It was telling that Azazel himself had come for this and not some other powerful Fallen Angel, which meant they thought him dangerous enough for that.

“So, I think food was just fueling my power and somehow, now my power has some other source to fuel it, ergo I don’t need as much food as before.”

Azazel leaned forward at that, an excited gleam in his eyes. “And…what is your power?”

He looked at the man with interest before gulping down an entire glass of water, maintaining eye contact the entire time, raising the man’s interest before shrugging and replying,

“......Dunno.”