Me? Human? : Chapter 49 : A superheated Cloak of *Light* (Patreon)

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

Nephilim Institute

–Azazel–

The flash of white receded, showing them what he already knew. The sphere Lavinia used to show him her power’s activation was breached, but with it, the energy stored inside was also released, and Motohama was no match for that, freezing himself. Lavinia kept a close watch on the proceedings, as he felt her withdraw her hold over all the ice in the training room. The room’s protocols kicked in and began the cleanup process.

The temperature all over the combat room was increased, but the ice statue that was Motohama remained stationary. He knew that Lavinia was not supplying any energy to that statue, and seeing that Motohama remained stationary, she had some questions to ask him. Lavinia has always been the curious one amongst her group of misfits that somehow grew up to become the most powerful group he has under his command. Well, not under his command, as he was sure that none of them actually thought of him as a Supreme Leader like some Fallen do, but more akin to a respected uncle they felt obligated to help, as he had helped them throughout various stages of their own lives.

Which was fine for him, but not so for some of the more zealous members of his organisation, who would prefer to have everything under their command, more so for the premier combat entity in the periphery of the Grigori. They just didn’t understand that they were humans first and just didn't have the same mindset as the rest of the Fallen, on top of being quite willful and more than willing to disobey him if he told them to do something even remotely wrong, from their perspectives anyway. It was all a balancing act, and they didn’t understand that if he made a single misstep, he could find his image in their eyes lowered, something that would affect every mission in the future.

So, as much as he would have preferred the Slash Dog team to complete some of their more questionable missions, he could not do so, as that would have an impact on team morale, and he would much rather save them for flashy shows of power, as those were just as important as stealthy missions.

“Why isn’t he breaking out?” Lavinia asked him, the combat room in front of them slowly returning to its original appearance, sans the craters in the ground and the ceiling, which would take time as the boy had hit hard enough to disrupt some of the self repair enhancements and for safety purposes, if a single one was disrupted, the entire operation of self repair was halted until someone could come in and check everything, repair the broken stuff and restart the whole thing once more.

Lavinia had long since stopped supplying energy to the ice construct, but due to its supernatural nature, the ice would not melt with simple heat being applied to the room. But that was not her question.

“Because he has run out of energy, my dear.” He replied, as he snapped his fingers, summoning a dozen Light Spears in the command room, aimed directly at the boy still encased in ice.

“Wanna see a magic trick?” He asked Lavinia, smiling in that way he was told was creepy and scared children. Lavinia merely deadpanned at him, long since used to his antics.

Crossing her arms, she looked at the combat room. “You’re going to kill him, then? That’s your trick? Come on, old man, your standards have fallen.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo.” He smirked at her before he sent the spears hurtling towards the boy. The move served multiple purposes.

First of all, he could check if the boy could absorb light from Fallen attacks even when being knocked out and on the verge of dying. Second, he wanted to see what the conversion rate was and how fast his body could turn that light into usable fuel.

Thirdly, he wanted to see what Lavinia's reaction would be. Seeing her hands twitch, as if she was retraining herself from acting or summoning her Sacred Gear, told him that, as expected, Lavinia was simply not ready for the more clandestine operations. Just because of that, approaching any of the other members for a single person operation was made unviable, because Lavinia was an observant person and would ferret out anything from the rest of her teammates, leading to a massive loss of trust in him. It would look like he had simply gone around her, knowing that Lavinia would not approve of the mission, for the team as a whole or even for individual members.

Sure, the team’s official leader was Tobio, but that was mainly for combat applications or for training. For most of the other stuff, Lavinai was the one who called the shots. If she shot down a mission he recommended to them, then it was all but certain that the rest would say no as well. The unity in that team was a thing of wonder.

Satisfied with the answer he got about an important question, he turned to look at the frozen form of Motohama, with a Light Spear now stuck in his back, barely touching him. He raised an eyebrow as he lost control of that particular Light Spear, even though he could see it.

As expected, the boy was absorbing light. He was very interested in that, and also wanted to check if he could do the same with the Holy Light from Angels, or if he was just limited to Light, or if he could consume any magic? Now, that would be something. That would make him, in this world of magic, basically unstoppable.

Lavinia leaned forward as the Light Spear was slowly absorbed by the boy. He waited a minute after that to see if anything happened, but apparently, that single spear was not enough, so they sent in three more, with more force than strictly necessary. Even enough to throw him back, if not outright puncture his skin, but just like before, he instantly lost control over those Light Spears.

And this time, the spears were absorbed much faster as well.

“He’s absorbing the light spears. But for what?” Lavinia whispered to herself, but he continued ending them in batches of three. The spears were being absorbed rapidly now. Lavinia understood the assignment and hardened the ice shell around the boy, keeping only the three holes through which he could send the light spears.

After a dozen spears were absorbed, he saw a white flicker before a white second skin began appearing on the boy’s body, enveloping it entirely. He saw only a flash before Lavinia had her Sacred Gear summoned, using it to enforce the ice shell around the boy. The insides of that shell were fogged up, likely because the boy had superheated himself to the point that he had melted even the supernaturally tough ice that Lavinia created.

“What the hell?” Lavinia muttered, her voice sounding strained, as the magical output of the boy kept on increasing, likely in the form of heat, just to get out of the ice shell.

Even as the amount of magic being used threatened to surpass the limits of the combat room, he smiled. This just proved his theory, and he couldn't be happier. If he was right, and he mostly was, then Motohama was not some Spirit reincarnation who was rapidly regaining his strength through high stakes combat.

No, Motohama was an entirely different beast.

From what he could tell, Motohama was capable of adapting to things. He adapted to Kokabiel’s attacks, then adapted to the hunger that was borne out of the requirement of fuel for his power, adapted to Baraqiel’s attacks, adapted to Tobio’s attacks, and then finally ran into a wall in the form of Lavinia and her Sacred Gear.

Absolute Demise.

A Sacred Gear capable of freezing entire countries, something that Lavinia possessed the ability to do, but more importantly, she also had enough control to individually pick and choose areas in a countrywide area to freeze or not, provided she had the time to do so.

Her Sacred Gear created ice and, at its peak, was capable of slowing down even conceptual powers, like Light constructs. Her Sacred Gear could not provide energy to Motohama in any manner. Instead, Motohama had to expend energy to adapt to the ice around him, which Lavinia made sure to increase at fixed intervals, and tap into that pool of energy that was now limited.

The nature of that pool of energy told him that it was a new addition as well, which meant that it was entirely possible that should Motohama be exposed to some other form of energy, along with extreme forms of combat and desperation, his power could either create another pool of energy to hold that other form of energy, or empty the current pool and then take in the new type of energy.

Either way, he was extremely curious about that and couldn't wait for—

A bright flash of light, followed by the sound of something sizzling, hit him as he looked through the flashbang and saw Motohama, enveloped in a skin tight cloak of Light, floating in the air, with the very air around him warping due to the heat he was exuding.

Lavinia recovered instantly and used her Sacred Gear at the maximum possible output without activating her Balance Breaker, sending shards of sharp ice hurtling towards him at such speeds that even Penemue would be hard pressed to react to, let alone defend against. 

…..But in the face of that superheated air? He watched as the ice shards, made up of supernatural ice, melted long before, leaving behind nothing but vapour. Lavinia tried, she really did, but with strict orders not to use her Balance Breaker, this was all she could do. In her defence, all she could do without her Balance Breaker was enough to send even Kokabiel on the back foot if need be, but her true power was in the Balance Breaker, and he couldn't let that be unleashed in here.

So, for all intents and purposes, Lavinia…lost.

“I lost,” Lavinia said, but her expression was not one of sadness. Instead, she was just interested in Motohama and how he could do something as impossible as beating Lavinia, a trained Sacred Gear wielder, at high school age. Not to mention, Lavinia has had almost a decade of training with her Gear and has used it in hundreds of missions with varying levels of difficulty.

From what he could tell, the closest Motohama had come to actual danger was when he fought Raynare.

His eyes widened as he realised just how Motohama came into possession of that pool of Light energy, through which he manifested that Light Armour, then the Light Spear, and now this, the Light Cloak.

A superheated Cloak of Light.

He snapped his fingers, activating the cleanup feature of the room, speaking directly into Motohama’s ears, as the boy had laughable defenses against environmental magic, though it could be trained easily enough, he supposed.

“Alright! That is enough. Lavinia has forfeited the match. Congratulations, Motohama. You win.”

…..

….

When there was no response from the other side, and he was just floating in the air, with that air of heat around him, he tried once more, to no avail. Switching tactics, he said, “Alright, Motohama. Your mother is—”

His hand shot out, a Light shield appearing on the ceiling of the Combat room, as the boy had accurately deduced his location and had attached him with all he had, simply because he uttered the word, Mother.

Sigh.

Why couldn’t things be simple?

He had already lost hold of the outer 3 layers of the shield spell. Only about 24 were left as he was about to resort to finally calling the boy’s mother, only for the boy to back off at the last moment, his face becoming visible to them. The satisfied expression made him sigh, as he realised that the boy was just trying to figure out their location, something that he was unable to do previously while being stuck inside Lavinia’s Ice Blizzard.

His power at work, no doubt.

It would seem that he was going to host yet another volatile yet powerful human(or half human anyway) who was a battle maniac.

Well, atleast this one promised to be a never leading source of entertainment, if he truly could adapt to anything, all at the mere cost of fuel.

A/N - Edited out the part about MC blanking out under combat stress once more, as he already did that under Kokabiel, and adapted to it so there should be no reason that he would blank out once more.