(New Leaf) Canicular 7 (Patreon)

Sorry that I'm a day late with this twice in a row. I am so annoyed with myself. It was still missing a scene in the middle of the chapter and I was too busy with work to finish it yesterday, but I should at least have posted what I had and then edited in the changes/new scene today. But I'm an idiot, so I just left it until today.

Anyway, here it is.

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Koneko
(Monday, July 30th)

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Today 7:49 PM
9SageNaruto: still no sign of her at my place either.
9SageNaruto: oh well.
Koneko1123: we should put up some missing posters
9SageNaruto: nah its fine, street cat gonna street cat
9SageNaruto: she’ll show up when she wants
Koneko1123: if ur sure
9SageNaruto: if it comes to it we can always ask Yoru to help
Koneko1123: the twins were called back 2 kyoto a couple days ago tho
9SageNaruto: so?
9SageNaruto: they set up a shadow anchor at the arcade, we played yesterday while you patrolled
9SageNaruto: he can b here in liek 5 mints.
9SageNaruto: i mean minutes.
Koneko1123: makes sense, guess u need a practice partner to beat my score
Koneko1123: anyway gtg, just started my patrol
-------

I put my phone away and looked out over the edge of the roof. Kuro had gone missing from my apartment a few days ago, and while it wasn’t weird for the smart cat to disappear like that in the first place– since Naruto-kun always left a window open for her at his home– she usually came back a day or two later at most.

It’s been almost a week now. Five days.

I had to remind myself that the black cat was originally a stray, and a healthy one at that. Naruto-kun was right; she’d be fine on her own. After having her basically living with me for the week before, I’d gotten more closely attached to her than I expected, considering she wasn’t even mine.

Either way, I had a job to do.

It wasn’t quite yet dark out, but the sun was sitting pretty low on the horizon. Being the summer, people were staying out later than usual because of the longer days, but even with that it was beginning to get late, so most were already in for the night or in the process of heading home, especially since it was a Monday night.

Even with summer break having started a few days ago, most students still showed up for summer club activities, and adults still had work in the mornings. Further east into the red-light district and the more central areas close to the train station would be busier still, but I was only just entering central Kuoh from the south side, having just come from the old school building.

The sound of two teenage girls talking reached my ears as they took a shortcut through the shadowy wooded park across the road from me. Different from what most might expect from teenagers going home from summer clubs, these two were actually heading further south, back in the direction of the academy and a couple other student-attractions like the karaoke place.

My eyes shifted as I blinked, sending chakra to my head. Almost like turning on a mental zoom, my focus pierced through the gaps in tree coverage to spot the slightest shifting of leaves as the two girls’ unknowing follower snuck around behind them. It had crept closer and closer for the last minute as they meandered down the path, and was just about to pounce if I was reading it right, from its quickening heartbeat.

I could cross the distance in four steps. A hundred meters in two seconds, and the girls wouldn’t ever have to see a thing.

I waited.

Sure enough, the hidden devil’s patience didn’t last another five seconds before it jumped out from the trail’s bushy hedge line with an inhuman roar. A pair of knife-like claws rushed towards the girls’ backs, attached to the humanoid upper body of what looked like some sort of jaguar-centaur man.

The two girls side-stepped away from each other smoothly, only sort of turning their heads to watch as the Stray flew past, barely missing them.

It landed skidding on its side a dozen meters away, a deep gash at the chest and missing an arm, spilling blood that steamed as it poured out of the wound.

“Oh no!” The teen with the light-brown twintails exclaimed apologetically, even as she lowered the katana that had suddenly appeared from under her white cloak. “You almost dodged that? I didn’t want you to suffer too much, even though you’re a devil… let me end your pain, for the Lord’s mercy extends to all under His gaze.”

“Don’t bother.” The other one, a blue haired girl, said matter-of-factly. A long and thin wrapped up object was strapped over her own cloak across her back. “It’ll die on its own in the next minute anyway. If you want to waste your efforts being merciful to enemies of God, then let it cling to whatever time it has left instead. There’s only oblivion waiting for it either way.

The twintailed girl sighed with a nod, and they continued walking.

I watched as the katana shifted and shrank like a liquid until it wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet, before she tucked her arm back under the cloak. The aura of Holy Light that radiated off of it was smothered, suppressed by the cloak until I could barely feel it.

The two exorcists seemed to be heading toward the academy, so they were probably here for official business and were going to speak with Buchou.  

More importantly, that weapon set off all kinds of alarm bells.

There was a difference between the regular Light element and “Holy” Light. Light was extremely effective against “dark” type beings like devils and youkai, but nothing more than that, which was why most exorcist weapons and low-tier Fallen Angels could hurt even high-tier devils, but didn’t necessarily always kill. It was the Holy element that was poison to us, with even normally survivable wounds being fatal.

The cut the stray took wasn’t deep enough to be fatal if it was just a Light-type weapon. On top of that, there were plenty of weapons that could transform, legendary and not, but only Holy energy was confirmed to destroy the souls of devils killed by it, “sending them to oblivion.”

There was only one weapon I could think of that fit what I just saw and heard, one out of a group of infamous weapons that all sane devils had a healthy wariness of regardless of power; the Excaliburs.

Twintails brought Excalibur Mimicry to Kuoh.

I let out a resigned huff. ‘Better see what’s up.’

I summoned my wings to approach at a more casual speed.

I didn’t hide my presence as I flew down a bit on the other side of the Stray, right when they were about to reach it. Folding my wings back, I took out my phone to snap a picture of the unconscious soon-to-be carcass.

“Hiya! I’m Shidou Irina.” Twintails called out cheerfully.

‘Part Japanese?’ I wondered idly.

She smiled apologetically.

“Are you gonna attack us too, little Devil-chan?” She asked. “If you do, we’ll have to exorcise you, you know?”

I almost rolled my eyes while filling out a form for bounty collection, as Shidou’s partner blatantly shifted to be able to quickly grab the object on her back.

“No,” I answered blandly. “I’m Toujou Koneko, Rias Gremory’s [Rook]. Why’s the church in Kuoh?” I got straight to the point.

“We have business here. That’s all you need to know until we speak to the Gremory heiress,” the blue haired one said bluntly, not even offering her name.

‘Rude.’

“No need to be rude, Xenovia…” I heard the Japanese girl mutter sheepishly after a strained chuckle, unknowingly agreeing with me.

“Okay,” I said, unbothered by Xenovia’s attitude either way. Rude or not, I had things to do, areas to patrol. She was sort of right in a way, knowing why they were here wouldn’t affect my duties unless Buchou decided it would. “I’ll escort you to her. Gimme a second, arranging cleanup.”

I hit the submit button on the form, marking the GPS location for an agent in the town to come pick up the remains.

If the two girls asked, I’d offer them their rightful bounty money. If not, well, it’s not like they’d know they were missing out on anything. The amount of snack money I could pull out of my allowance from Buchou was limited, so it was always nice to keep my own personal funds topped off.

Just because the rudeness didn’t bother me, didn’t mean I wasn’t gonna be petty about it.

------

Naruto

After checking around my apartment one last time, just in case I missed the bundle of black fur hidden behind some furniture or in a shadowed corner somewhere, I decided to go out and take a walk around town– maybe do some people watching or hit up one of the wooded parks and feel the atmosphere. It had been a while since I went out without a goal or destination in mind, and I didn’t really have anything I wanted to do at home at the moment. This world was way more peaceful than the Elemental Nations, so it would be nice to just take it all in for a little bit

Wearing a pair of orange track pants and a black t-shirt, I threw one of my school blazers over my shoulders, strapped a slim kunai pouch to my thigh, and left the apartment complex with my cane-sword in hand, making my way towards the main roads with the sun on the horizon ahead of me.

By the time I made it to the downtown plaza, the sun had fully set and the sky was darkening, with streetlamps starting to turn on and light the sidewalks. Some adult men and women walked around, leaving stores and shops as they made their way towards their cars or bus-stops, while plenty of teens made their ways in and out of arcades and other entertainment places.

My idea of people watching was kinda a bust, because as nice as it was to see people peacefully going about their lives… I was bored as hell within just a few minutes. It was only slightly more interesting than cloud-watching with Shikamaru, and only because I could zone out and think about going to some of these places to hang out with Koneko and our other friends.

‘Ugh, how the hell does that lazy bum sit around for so long?’

The plaza’s atmosphere and walk here itself was still relaxing, so it wasn’t a total waste. I just decided to move on and find a park to walk through, though.

My phone dinged in my pocket as I moved away towards the plaza’s outskirts.

Pulling it out, I didn’t recognize the number on the notification.

-------
Today 8:17 PM
Agnt.Shinra.NPA: Where are you right now?
-------

It took me a second of staring in confusion, before I realized who it was.

‘That stalker got my number too?’ I deadpanned. ‘That’s not even on school records.’

Either way, I began typing out a response. The Shinra chick probably wanted to meet up somewhere to talk about a lead she found, which was fine with me.

“Oh, Uzumaki-kun?”

I looked up and to the side at the sound of Norika’s voice calling out to me as I walked past the corner of the block. My glasses-wearing classmate was moving down the sidewalk in my direction, carrying a satchel bag in her hand.

I smiled, hitting send on my text and pocketing the phone.

“Yo!” I greeted her with a little raised hand wave and a grin. “How’s your break been going?”

“It’s been good, if a bit boring. All I’ve done is spend time with Mitsuri at her family’s cafe, since she’s doing some part-time work with them during her break,” she replied with a small smile of her own as she came up next to me. “And yours?”

My phone dinged again, but I ignored it for now. I was talking to a friend right now, so it could wait.

“Eh.” I shrugged. “Still getting used to not having to get ready for school in the mornings again. I keep waking up before my alarm, and I don’t even have one set right now, heheh!” I normally forced myself to wake up sort of early to train anyway, but there was something seriously annoying about not being able to sleep in even without an alarm to wake me up. “Other than that, it’s been kinda all over the place, lot’s of-” I paused, twirling my cane for emphasis, drawing her eye. “-’stuff’ going on that’s kept me busy when I’m not training or hanging out with Koneko-chan, Himejima, or Kiba. I had some time with nothing to do just now, so I’m heading to one of the parks to take a walk.”

Completely different from Mitsuri’s usual funny reactions, Norika looked unfazed by my ‘subtle’ reference to my ninja’ing, as if it was completely normal and expected. Instead, her head tilted slightly in interest at the mention of a walk through a park, and I remembered that she’s mentioned enjoying going on walks with her family before.

“Want to join me for a bit?” I offered with a tilt of my head in the direction I was headed.

“That would be lovely.” She accepted with a warm smile.

My phone began ringing, but I shoved a hand into my pocket and fumbled around to hit the mute button.

Man, some people could be so damn nosy.

------

(A little later)

“It still surprises me sometimes.”

I glanced away from the little weasel I was watching play around with a berry a few dozen feet ahead of us, looking down at the smaller girl after she spoke. She was only a couple inches taller than Koneko-chan; not quite in the ‘late-elementary-school’ size category like the tiny cat girl, but definitely below average for her age.

“What does?” I asked curiously. We’d been walking along a paved trail through the closest park for a couple minutes, mostly just chatting about how each of our clubs chose to handle summer attendance.

“You do.”

The bluntness surprised me, coming from her. Norika had a habit of implying things without laying everything out directly, unconsciously leaving her full meaning up to interpretation in an innocently teasing sort of way whenever the rest of us roped her further into our dumb, funny, or weird conversations. She didn’t have any trouble directly involving herself in our friend group’s shenanigans, but she liked to pretend as if she was a third-party observer happily watching a train wreck happening in front of her whenever one of us (usually me or Mitsuri) made a fool of ourselves.

She continued.

“I wouldn’t have thought someone like you could be the way you are, before; at least, not until I got to actually know you.” She gave a light sigh with a shake of her head. “... I’m usually pretty good at judging people’s true character with a couple of looks, but with you? It’s like I’m blind.” She chuckled for some reason. “I thought you were a scary delinquent up until that day Mitsuri-chan introduced us, and even after that, I never would have guessed that a goofy, energetic boy like you would be the type to enjoy a quiet, night-time stroll through a park.”

She glanced up at me with a wry smile. “You just keep finding ways to surprise me, Uzumaki-kun.”

I chuckled. “I guess I still live up to my old nickname back home, Konoha’s most unpredictable knuckle-headed ninja.” I took a deep breath of the fresh air around us, watching as the marten stuffed the berry into its mouth and scampered onto the walkway in my path. “But you’re right, I didn’t use to have the patience to enjoy something like this. But one of my senseis made me learn how to sit still during my training, and I guess you could say that helped me take in and appreciate nature.” My lips curled in amusement at my little inside-joke, before I glanced back at my more normal friend. “You’ve never really seem all that surprised to me, though.

“There are plenty of strange things in the world, Uzumaki-kun…” She glanced at me with an amused look of her own. “I’m simply used to ignoring that side… of…”

She trailed off, and we paused, her oddly teasing expression shifting to one of confused wariness as her eyes were drawn to something ahead of us. The little marten at my feet, that didn’t pay any mind even as I stepped up within a foot of it, rose up on its hind legs and sniffed the air, before darting off into the brush.

I followed Norika’s gaze.

Nothing.

Just an empty pathway through the park, lit up by a few small street lamps.

Something was clearly here though.

“Maybe we should-” I saw her flinching back, her voice catching before she could finish what she was saying.

I reacted.

------

Koneko

“So what you’re telling me-” Buchou began, her face flat, “-is that the Church sent the two of you– Excalibur wielders– into my territory without any prior warning, and you want me to sit back and let you run amuck through my town while you look for three other Excaliburs that were stolen– almost certainly by Fallen– and tracked down to be in Kuoh, with the goal of either reclaiming or destroying them?”

It was currently just her and I in the ORC room, with everyone else out on assignments.

It was extremely lucky, in my opinion. Kiba and Asia were both victims of the Church not caring about its followers, and Xenovia was…

“Yes. If you get involved, you might choose to work with the perpetrators to take another two Excaliburs away from us, your mortal enemies,” Xenovia stated bluntly. “If you aren’t working with them, prove you’re innocent by staying out of this, Devil.”

… difficult, to put it charitably.

I’d give it even odds between her and Kiba for whichever one baited the other into a fight first, if he were here. I didn’t know the exact details, but I knew he hated the church more than most other things.

Shido face-palmed at the blue-haired girl’s lack of tact. “Why do I let her take the lead?” I heard her mutter.

“Hmm…” Rias’s head tilted, a considering expression on her face. “Are you an idiot?”

Xenovia’s eyes narrowed.

Buchou continued. “Because that might be the most asinine, delusional thing I’ve heard in months. If the Church had bothered to do even a little research into Kuoh at all, they would know that for the past month, we have had our hands full trying to contain and suppress multiple antagonistic factions and external elements causing problems with each other within the town, including a potentially rogue sub-faction of Fallen, and this is after yet another incident not even half a year ago involving a cell of disposable Fallen black ops attacking people under my protection.”

She stared at the short-haired exorcist, interlocking her fingers together on the desk in front of her. “In short, no. We are decidedly NOT working with the Fallen to steal your holy swords. If anything, we would be more inclined to work with you. It doesn’t matter whose hands they are in, a holy sword is still an existential threat to devils, and we would much prefer helping you destroy a couple rather than to leave them in the hands of the Fallen.”

Xenovia opened her mouth with a frown, but Shido stepped in front of her with forced cheer. “We’ll keep that in mind, Gremory-dono, but we’d like to try on our own before accepting your offer, to keep things simple. If we have any troubles, we’ll be sure to come back to it. Does that work for you?”

Rias pretended to think about it for a few seconds, before nodding, having already known her next move from the start.

“It does, on two conditions.” She held up one finger. “First, you tell us which Excaliburs were stolen and what you know of their abilities that aren’t already known outside of the Church. Even if we don’t try to interfere with your mission, that doesn’t mean the true thieves won’t try to interfere with my people, so we need to be prepared to protect ourselves.” She held up another finger while eyeing Xenovia– specifically, the wrapped bundle slung across her back. “Second, we need to know which Excalibur Xenovia-san holds, in case the enemy manages to defeat her and steal it as well. No need to elaborate on its abilities beyond the obvious if that’s too much, it’s enough to simply know which it is.”

Shido nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face. “That’s simple enough. We don’t personally know enough about the swords we don’t wield to be giving up too much information as far as our superiors would be concerned, and you would have found out about Xenovia’s pretty quickly, too be honest. Excalibur Destruction is about as subtle as she is.”

Xenovia huffed, but didn’t argue the point.

“The three stolen blades are Excalibur Nightmare, Rapidly, and Transparency.” Shido ticked off her fingers. “Neither of us know much about Nightmare to be honest, other than the fact that it looks sort of like a screw and can create illusions. Rapidly doesn’t just increase its wielder’s speed by a certain multiplier, it increases their top speed, acceleration, reflexes, momentum, and maybe even other things like healing speed and metabolism by a specific multiplier, no matter how strong the wielder already is. I don’t know what that multiplier is, but it’s not too crazy.”

She shrugged, before moving on to the last one.

“Transparency makes itself and its wielder invisible, but it can make just one or the other invisible too, it doesn’t have to be both. Though I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t just do both…” Shido put a finger to her chin in thought. “Oh yeah, it can also apparently make certain types of energy invisible too, but I don’t think any of its wielders have been magic users before, so we aren’t sure what the limits are for that. Most wielders have just used it to hide its Holy aura when sneaking around.”

I stiffened in my spot on the side of the room, my eyes widening as something clicked into place. I turned my head to stare at Buchou, just out of view of the exorcists, and my master shifted in her seat, leaning my way without looking directly at me, signaling she understood I had info for her.

“Thank you for that,” Rias nodded at Shido. “That’s useful info to know. In exchange, I’ll let my peerage and my other allies know not to interfere if possible. You’re free to investigate for now, though let me be clear; if you make too much of a mess on your own, we will step in regardless of your wishes. Was that all?”

“Yes, thank you for having us.” Shido gave a short but polite bow at the dismissal, while Xenovia just turned and began walking towards the door without another word.

When I shut the door behind them after they fully left the room, and I confirmed their footsteps were out of earshot even for a regular devil’s hearing, I turned to face my [King].

“Transparency is in Principal Clan territory.” I wasted no time explaining my thoughts. “The Fallen that attacked us when Naruto-kun and I went there, they left the sword there after making it turn invisible and hide its Holy aura. I only noticed it through Senjutsu, because even if it’s hidden, it’s still there for me to connect to.”

I could still be wrong, but it at least made a lot of sense in my mind.

“That’s…” Rias put her hand on her chin, looking down at nothing while thinking it over. “... not the worst thing I’ve heard today, but still potentially very annoying.” She looked up. “You said Uzumaki-kun and his new contact within the clans didn’t find anything when he was there last, right? And no word from his contact yet on finding it?”

I nodded.

“Text him then.” She gave an amused smirk. “Let’s see if he can get you in there for an hour to try and find an invisible sword that can’t be sensed normally. After all, we’re not interfering in the Church’s investigation, we’re just continuing our own.” Her amusement died down a moment later. “Besides, the last thing we need is one of their more fervent and religiously flexible members stumbling across it, and deciding that one of the Excaliburs is just the right weapon for their own aims.”

I pulled out my phone, sent a message, and waited.

And waited.

… He wasn’t answering as quickly as usual.

------

Naruto

I jumped in front of Norika, swinging my cane up in an instant with both hands, and an invisible force crashed into it with a heavy clang of metal on metal. The sheer force pushed me skidding back nearly a foot. My back smacked into Norika’s front and sent her stumbling backwards, but it was better than whatever this invisible thing was smashing into her directly.

“What the hell?!” I grunted. “Show yourself, you coward!”

I didn’t expect them to, but thought that maybe they’d be the type to get easily annoyed and make mistakes.

I almost thought about unsheathing my sword for a split second, but I caught a glimpse of the spot I caught the blow on; the dense metal sheath was partially cut through just from that one hit, exposing a sliver of the mirror-polished blade inside. Whatever weapon I was up against, my sheath wasn’t strong enough to withstand a blow on its own, and without being able to see our attacker, it was too risky to try deflecting blows instead of just blocking.

I strained my ears to listen for movement.

Woosh

I surged to my right while spinning to the left, swinging my cane up and around in an arc in front of me. I felt the impact vibrate down my arms, my sword not being particularly well designed for absorbing strong impacts, but I followed through on my swing, pushing the invisible weapon down into the ground where it bit into the pathway with a loud clang and a small scattering of broken concrete.

Reversing my off-hand’s grip with my cane pinning the invisible weapon to the ground, I lunged forward while unsheathing my sword in a quickdraw at the empty space in front of me, but a shaft of red Light burst into existence in the form of a spear to block my attack.

‘The Fallen!’

“Your left!” Norika called out in a panic.

Just as quickly as the spear appeared, it disappeared the moment most of the force from my attack was stopped, and as I stumbled forward I threw myself to the right with a twist to the left, both my sword and sheath held in front of my body in an x-shape. The invisible weapon slammed into my hasty guard and sent me tumbling, leaving our attacker between me and Norika.

My heart was pounding and I grit my teeth, my eyes flicking up to find my friend as I twisted my roll upright onto a knee, my sword already swinging and my sheath missing its upper half as I let it slip from my grasp. ‘If they go after her again–!’

A bolt of red Light flew at me, filling my vision.

I completed my pre-emptive swing, adjusting to knock aside the spear instead of trying to cut through a Fallen that wasn’t there, my other hand slipping a kunai from my thigh pouch and flinging it by the ring roughly where I thought the Fallen would be, but I was too late.

Norika had let out a gasp and was falling backwards from trying to backpedal, and even as I tried to launch myself into a desperate sprint to reach her, her face was aimed up in front of her at an enemy only she could see.

‘–I can’t make it in time!’

She wasn’t a fighter. This wasn’t like with Neji, someone sacrificing themselves to protect their comrades. This was someone targeting an innocent civilian, just because she could somehow see through their invisibility trick.

It seemed like my knife was moving through the air in slow motion as adrenaline rushed through my veins, my vision blurring at the edges as the image of my friend’s terrified expression seared itself into my brain. 

I felt the muscles in my legs tearing, a burning strain filling my body as I pushed myself as hard as could, having crossed a dozen feet in the time it took for my sheath to hit the ground. It still wasn’t enough, and an awful rage began to fill me.

A flash.

A clash of metal rang out, and an impractically long blade of polished metal slammed into an invisible wall and pushed it away, inches from Norika’s face, the tanto extending from deep in the woods. My kunai sliced through the empty space right beside her and sailed into the distance an instant later, a severed half of a raven feather popping into existence as it passed.

I didn’t have the time to feel relief and instead doubled my efforts, blurring forwards.

The extended blade raced upwards, and another clash of steel on steel rang out from a meter to the right of where the Fallen must have been before, so I adjusted, planting a foot, and pushing so hard off the ground that my ankle cracked, thrusting my sword at the only place the Fallen Angel could still be.

Another red spear shaft burst into existence in front of me… but the impossibly long tanto blade slashed down faster than the eye could follow, batting it down.

I felt my sword pierce through cloth and flesh and bone down to the hilt, before I crashed bodily into the invisible person with all my momentum, sending us both tumbling into the brush with a rustle of leaves.

I rolled with it, barely managing to keep hold of my weapon and yank it out of their body as we separated in the chaos, before my back slammed into a tree. I tried to regain my bearings while pushing myself back up into a ready stance, but it was with a struggle to put pressure on my left leg with the feeling of bone grinding on bone from my dislocated ankle.

The first thing I saw was the body.

Lying on the ground next to a bush, hand weakly pressing to his chest, was the indistinct form of a man with multiple crumpled wings laid out around him. His face was covered by a strange mask that wrapped around his head, leaving only his eyes and slightly pointed ears exposed. His clothes were as black as his wings except for a white, eight-pointed star on his torso, a star that was now soaked red with blood.

I cautiously took a step towards him, sword raised, and watched as his head lolled my way. For all I knew, he could be faking, pretending a regular flesh wound was worse than it actually was to catch me off guard.

“Why did you attack my friend?” It probably wasn’t worth asking the man, but it couldn’t hurt.

Like I expected, the man stayed silent aside from his labored breathing, his eyes staring up at me.

“He was after you.”

The Shinra girl from the warehouse walked into view on the other side of him, and I glanced up, seeing her step through the brush with her normal-length tanto in hand while Norika stood worryingly a bit behind her, out of view of the man and closer to the lit pathway.

I jerked my head to the side an instant later and let the Light spear fly past me, where it hit the tree behind me with a loud crack.

Shinra and I both raised our weapons ready for a fight, but it wasn’t necessary in the end.

The man was dead.

He’d used the last of his strength to try to take my head off at the slightest distraction, pulling the gaping wound in his chest further open in the process of throwing the spear from his prone position, and filling the area with a coppery smell as he slumped face down in the blood-soaked dirt. 

I walked over and bent down to check for a pulse, just in case.

Nothing.

Standing up, I looked past her to the other side of the trail bushes. “Are you alright Norika? He didn’t manage to hit you anywhere, did he?”

“N– Y-yes?” She stuttered with an unsure look, gripping her hands together tightly in front of her with a pale face. “I’m u-unhurt, Uzumaki-kun, just… a bit sh-shocked.”

“Are you-”

‘-sure?’ is what I wanted to say, but I cut myself off, biting the inside of my cheek to keep my own worry in check. She was clearly good enough to walk around, anything else could be addressed later, some time and place safer than right here and now. “Alright, that’s… I’m glad,” I said instead. “Just… don’t come any closer, yeah? This isn’t a sight you should see.”

A sick expression crossed her face and she nodded slowly, turning to face the other way.

I turned to face the Shinra girl again, who had crouched by the corpse herself now, studying the Fallen more closely. “You were saying before? Why was he after me?”

“Because you knew about that.” Her hand stretched out to the side without looking, pointing at the forest floor a couple meters away. “Or at least, he thought you might.”

Lying under a tree, with rays of moonlight breaking through the canopy to shine down on it, was a slim, one-handed and double-edged decorative longsword with such a perfect mirror polish that the mostly-full moon was reflecting clearly off of it for me to see, even from this distance.

“... A sword?”

It was a cool looking sword, sure– a little bit more plain than some of the crazy swords back home or the stuff Kiba could make with his Gear– but still.

“Not just any sword,” She said airily. “That’s Excalibur Transparency; one of the seven Holy Swords of Excalibur, and the reason the Fallen were at our warehouse in the first place.”

Something about her tone of voice set off an uneasy feeling in my chest.

“You guys were storing a holy sword in there?” I asked with raised eyebrows. I didn’t know a lot about holy swords, but I knew enough to understand that most of them belonged to the Church. If the Five Principals had one in their warehouse, and it was one with the ability to turn “invisible”, it would explain why Koneko could only sort of sense its aura of Light, and only through Senjutsu.

“We weren’t.” She rapped the back of her knuckles against the back of the dead man’s skull. “They were. He just went and retrieved it from us, to our staff’s confusion. I only realized what it was when I arrived too late and saw him turn invisible while flying off. Finally figured out what was wrong, just for it to not even matter anymore.”

She settled her tanto’s blade on the body’s neck before pausing as if in thought, then sheathing her weapon to instead grip the man by the back of his uniform and haul him over her shoulder as she stood, uncaring of the blood that began pouring down her body. His four limp wings dragged across the dirt as she began walking away into the forest without another word, a blank look in her eyes.

“... how many?” I called out quietly.

“Emptied the place out,” she called back in the same uncaring-sounding tone. She paused, her back still to me. “Keep that sword out of their hands for me, will you? I’ve already got mine full of ‘evidence’ right now, you see.” She continued walking.

I clenched my fists for a moment, before releasing them with an exhale. “Yeah. Sure. I can hold on to it for you, Himitsu.”

“We don’t want a damn thing to do with it,” she muttered darkly. “Never did in the first place.”

She waved over her shoulder with one of her “full” hands and began dashing through the trees with her carry-on disappearing within seconds.

I stepped out of the brush to stand beside Norika a minute or two later, my cane-sword as thoroughly wiped of blood as I could manage with the tiny cloth I kept in my kunai pouch for that purpose, the hooked handle hanging from my left elbow while I held the Excalibur with that same hand.

“Come on,” I said, laying a hand on my short friend’s shoulder. “Let’s get you somewhere safe for now.”

She nodded softly, uttering a quiet “Mm.”

We’d stop by the mansion for a while to calm Norika’s nerves before sending her home. Red or Kiba would probably know what to do with this damn sword, too.

I pulled out my phone to check the time and text the two of them, and it was like putting salt in the wound to see the missed texts from ‘Agnt.Shinra.NPA’ trying to warn me about the now-dead Fallen.

And one from Koneko, asking to meet with the very same agent.

With a sigh, I stomped my foot on the concrete just right, and snapped my ankle back into place with a wet-sounding click, getting a horrified flinch from Norika, who I then had to sheepishly assure her that I was fine (mostly) and that it really wasn’t as bad as it sounded (it was).

Tonight fucking sucked.