(New Leaf) Canicular 9 (Patreon)

Author's Note: It's 11:45 PM, no one can tell me I posted late this time, including myself! Ha, take that me!

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Koneko

I waited patiently in the main hallway for most of the others to filter out of the building when the meeting ended, making sure to keep a specific person within my senses. Xenovia impatiently waited in silence beside me with her eyes closed and arms crossed, while Asia shifted on her feet a bit uneasily.

This would basically be the ex-nun’s first real combat-expecting mission, the Rating Game not counting, so it was understandable that she was nervous. Even with the lessons Akeno had been giving her in magic for the past couple months, teaching her support spells to allow her to contribute even with her complete ineptitude for fighting, Asia would never be the type to find conflict easy. She was a kind girl.

Xenovia on the other hand, took to it like a fish took to water. 

‘Or maybe a dolphin,’ I thought with dry amusement. ‘Pretty to look at, but a complete brute on the inside.’

Her whole energy, while simple and maybe even a little innocent in its blunt straightforwardness, was an aura of barely restrained action. Xenovia wasn’t just some exorcist lucky enough to be capable of wielding Excalibur fragments; her very being seemed to want to jump into the coming fight. If Koneko was reading her right, it wasn’t even because she was particularly bloodthirsty. She just craved the simple certainty of the battlefield over the messiness of complicated social stuff she didn’t get.

The complicated feelings mixed with confusion I sensed coming from the brute a few moments ago– when she looked at Shidou happily reuniting with the perverted “heathenous Devil”, just for her to get irritated at herself and proceed to ignore the room– just proved to me that it wasn’t a fluke I felt earlier when something similar happened.

After Xenovia first recognized Asia as the former Holy Sister, when Asia made a reference to His teachings for the reason why she– a Devil– had offered to heal them– exorcists– Xenovia had offered to ‘purify’ her and send her to God since she was still a true believer. Completely without any malice or aggressive shifting in her aura.

In front of the majority of two peerages.

She didn’t care that the Devils in the room reacted poorly, she even expected it and actively ignored us when making the offer, knowing that we would object to her killing our friend. Her aura only turned frustrated and confused when even her own partner rebuked her for the insensitive comment.

If I had to guess, she probably believed someone who truly worshiped the big guy upstairs would accept it. In her mind, it might be a perfectly normal and reasonable offer to make.

I was just glad Kiba and Issei hadn’t arrived until some time after that. The two were the most protective of Asia out of everyone, and either one of them– if not both– might have started a fight on the spot.

So far as I could tell from my observations, she was earnest, serious, and hot-headed, with a lack of common sense. In other words, an idiot. She would have probably taken them up on it despite being surrounded by other Devils.

Luckily, that hadn’t actually happened, because whatever the hell her backup sword was, it was fucking dangerous. I could only feel tiny slivers of its power slipping through as it strained against the seal magically chained to her soul, like the Holy equivalent of some sort of bloodthirsty cursed-sword that had been locked away for safety, and it was enough to make the fur on my ears stiffen warily.

Despite the open disregard for us Devils and the clear (to me) danger of her sealed weapon, I chose her to be on my team. For a couple of reasons, that basically boiled down to ‘vibes’. I could read her aura pretty well compared to most people, Asia didn’t hold a grudge against her for her offer and still seemed to want to interact with the church girls, and Xenovia herself was a very to-the-point girl from my observations, something I could get behind. I felt we could get along fine, even if some of the others were iffy about my decision.

My target finally made to rise from their seat, stretching their arms and legs and wings, before they began to lazily float through towards us on their way to leave the living room.

Mittelt yawned into a fist as she bobbed past through the air, turning to go through a different doorway towards the kitchen instead of the exit.

I reached out, snagging her by the ankle.

“Huh?”

It took her a moment to even realize she’d stopped moving forward. But when she turned her head to look around and saw us next to her– two close range fighters and a non-combatant– and registered my loose grip around her limb… well, she assumed the worst and tried to make a break for it.

“No, no, no, let me go! Find someone else!” She practically cried like a baby while wiggling violently and flapping her wings for extra thrust. “I don’t wanna work hard, you can’t make me!”

She didn’t make it far.

Or anywhere, even, because my feet were rooted to the floor with chakra, and she was, put plainly, weak.

I began walking towards the front door to leave, Xenovia and Asia following behind me and radiating indifference and awkwardly earnest worry for the lolita respectively, as I pulled the Fallen along like a balloon.

-------

“Oof!” Mittelt exhaled sharply as she landed on her butt. “Fucking- I’m still on probation, and my minder disappeared isn’t picking up our calls! Sona said I’m not allowed to leave the Sitri property until this mess is handled.”

‘Huh.’ That was news to me.

“Can you contact Kalawarner?” I asked her bluntly, quickly changing plans. I had dropped her like a sack of potatoes on the front lawn. She had decided that if she couldn’t escape my grip, she might as well be a brat and go limp so that I had to carry her deadweight.

But she’s an idiot who forgot that I’m a [Rook], so all she accomplished was bumping her head a few times and messing up her dress as I dragged her outside.

“Huh?” Mittelt went from about to curse me out to looking at me like I was a weirdo. “That stupid bitch? What’s it to you?”

“She’s supposed to be under Grigori's watch,” I said bluntly. “The only Fallen here the past couple weeks are you, your handler, her, and Kokabiel’s followers. Do the math.”

I watched as Mittelt did in fact ‘do the math’ and her lips fell open slightly with a surprised expression.

“... Wow, I was just joking, but she really is a stupid bitch, if she fell in with those guys.”

“Naruto-kun followed her after you two met in the café, asked her some questions.” I tilted my head. “We think she probably didn’t have much say in her being here. She’s supposed to be on probation or whatever in Grigori territory, and she was super on edge when he questioned her about stuff.”

My cheeks warmed. Mentioning the rooftop incident unintentionally brought to mind my memory of Naruto-dressed-as-Fate sipping from the same straw as me. ‘Indirect kiss…’

I idly wondered what he was doing right now, if he’d gotten Norika to someplace safe yet.

“Yeah, that tracks,” Mittelt grunted in agreement as she stood up. I pulled my attention back to the present. “Kokabiel isn’t exactly known for being a pleasant guy, and no one really cares about the treatment of people on punishment duties. Especially not the guys who’re nominally in charge of them, but don’t have the kinda real power needed to go against people like the Fourth Watcher himself.”

“That’s…” Asia began softly, clasping her hands in front of her tightly. “How sad. Even those who’ve made mistakes deserve to be treated fairly.”

“Eh, it’s easier to keep your head down when the big shots are headhunting for a disposable asset, less chance your easy life gets caught in the crossfire.” Mittelt shrugged, sending a sympathetic look towards the other blonde. “It sucks, but we’re Fallen for a reason– a selfish reason in most cases. A lot of the others just don’t care at all about what happens to people they don’t know, especially if it might put themselves at risk.”

‘Implying that she’s different from the others,’ I noticed. I hadn’t seen much evidence of that, though. From what I’d overheard of the totally degenerate way she spent her free time, I couldn’t really imagine she was really mentally equipped to give a shit about people. Then again, maybe she had hidden depths to her since she was an angel at one point?

I mentally shrugged. ‘Eh, whatever.’

I didn’t really care, to be honest. 

“Enough,” Xenovia spoke up with her arms crossed, dragging me out of my musing. She was looking at the lolita with a frown. “You, Fallen, either contact this comrade of yours or tell us how to find them.” She turned to me seriously. “If this turns out to be a waste of time, Toujou Koneko, I’ll leave and complete my duty on my own.”

I glanced at her sharply, but it felt like she was being for real. Despite her and her partner having lost two Excalibur fragments while working together, she honestly believed she would be better off hunting them down to destroy on her own than working together if our leads led to dead ends.

Either she was suicidally zealous, wholly confident, or both.

“By yourself?” Mittelt snorted. “Didn’t you and Twintails already fmmbmph-?”

I clamped my hand to Mittelt’s mouth to shut her up. Whichever Xenovia was, I didn’t feel like antagonizing the exorcist with a holy weapon that put me on edge even while it was sealed away. The little idiot didn’t even notice the irony of her calling someone ‘Twintails’ as a dismissive nickname, let alone consider the possibility that an exorcist trusted with a mission like this, might just not give a fuck about tolerating a Fallen’s verbal jabs and move straight to violence instead.

Xenovia didn’t seem to me like the type of person to really care as long as you didn’t outright blaspheme or insult her faith, but I was still pretty new to sensing auras and didn’t want to chance it. I could just be misreading her.

“Fine,” I nodded to the blue-haired girl, before turning my head to face Mittelt. “Get us whatever info you can from Kalawarner, even small stuff. Locations, mentions of co-workers movements, anything. Be subtle, don’t let her know we’re onto them; don’t want Kokabiel’s men catching on if she notices and reacts.”

She cocked her hip and rested a hand on it. “Do you want me to be subtle, or for her to not notice something’s off?” Her other arm rose dramatically until it was parallel to the ground, a single index finger pointed up. “Pick one.”

I blinked, considering her point, before conceding with a sigh. “The second.”

“Can do, tiny boss lady~!” She did a little hop and lifted one foot behind her skirt, while winking and making a peace sign next to her face. She dropped the ‘kawaii’ pose to dig her phone out of her frilly dress’s neckline a moment later. Of course, it was a pink flip-phone with a Hello Kitty keychain attached to match her cutesy lolita persona. “Give me your number, I’ll call you later to pass on whatever I find out. You gals can go try to find those needles in the haystack, or whatever it is you were planning to do before you came to me for the job. Kala’s kind of a bitch, so this might take a bit to get her to cough up something useful. She might not even take my call.” She gave an amused smirk. “You know, because she’s a bitch like that.”

After trading phone numbers with the bratty angel, she headed back towards the house. Normally I would’ve thought she was just lazy, but she said it earlier; she’s still on probation. Even if she wanted to join a team and get her hands dirty, she literally wasn’t allowed to in case it spiraled into a political issue or whatever.

Asia, Xenovia, and I were about to head off, when Akeno stepped out through the front door right as the blonde Fallen opened it, her two pairs of wings already released and at rest behind her.

The blonde Fallen froze and Akeno glanced at her, before Mittelt scurried around the [Queen] and into the house with a muttered ‘excuse me’.

‘Looks like she’s still wary of Akeno-senpai.’ Whatever Akeno had done to her when she’d watched over the Fallen prisoners during the Asia Incident, it had left an impression on Mittelt.

Akeno’s eyes caught mine, and she approached.

“Koneko-chan,” she greeted with a nod. “Your team is about to move out, I take it?”

“Mm,” I nodded, raising an eyebrow as her Fallen and Devil wings shifted behind her in loose movements. “You too? Didn’t Buchou say we need to be in teams?”

“Not necessarily,” Akeno corrected with a half-smile. “Those of us going on the hunt must be part of a team. I’ve been tasked with taking a central position in the town’s sky, to act as a quick response reinforcement and mobile artillery unit as needed. After all, ‘artillery is the true god of the battlefield’.”

I deadpanned. “Youjo Senki was her binge-watch this weekend, wasn’t it.” It was more of a statement of fact than a question.

“It’s sound advice,” Akeno said simply, smile widening. She turned serious, looking between both me and Xenovia. “Both of you be careful, and don’t hesitate to call on me. With only two combatants, even two of the stronger ones, it could be dangerous if either one of you gets distracted for a moment against large numbers.” She nodded Asia’s way, the message clear. Even if Xenovia and I might survive a moment of distraction, our third was a squishy healer.

“Understood.” I nodded.

This wasn’t just a fetch quest, it was also an escort mission. Even though Asia was still keeping up with training her mobility and dodging… well, she still had a lot of ground to cover.

Pun intended.

“It won’t be a failure of ours that brings Argento-san harm, you have my word.” I almost snorted at Xenovia’s wording. She didn’t seem to realize that it could be taken the opposite way too, that Asia getting hurt would be intentional.

Asia bowed to Xenovia. “Thank you, I’ll be in your care.” She rose, and saw me in her field of view. “Ah! You too, Koneko-chan!” She squeaked, quickly bowing again my way with an embarrassed sound.

“That goes for you too, Koneko-chan.” Akeno’s lips quirked into a strange smile. “Uzumaki-kun will be upset if he finds out you got hurt when you could have called on me for help. It would be really unfair of you to make us worry like that, you know?”

I suppressed my urge to reflexively read her aura. “Mm.”

I already knew the faint tangle of hard-to-understand feelings I would see from her, and didn’t want to distract myself. The same mess that appeared whenever the three of us were together, ever since I had all but confessed to Naruto-kun and been more open with my affection. And things had been going so well, with our talks about our similar struggles with our heritages…

Akeno nodded, before stepping back, and lifting into the air with a flap from her wings. I watched her figure shrink into the distance as she flew off.

I shook off my own complicated thoughts and focused on the mission.

“Let’s get going too,” I said to my teammates. “We should start over by the abandoned church.”

I didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to shack up there again after the incident with Raynare and her crew, but it was best to check just in case.

“Yes.” Xenovia turned on her heel and started walking in the direction of the street.

I blinked at the immediate action.

“... How much do you wanna bet she doesn’t know where she’s going?” I asked Asia as Xenovia took a right off of the property. “I’ve got ten thousand yen in my pocket right now.” The exorcist was heading in the direction of Kuoh Academy.

The opposite direction from the church.

Asia gave a nervous giggle. “Please try to be nice, Koneko-chan...”

-------

It was a bit past midnight by the time we got to the church property, and it still had the same faint holy aura as it did the last time I’d been here; abandoned and weakened from what it might have been in the past, but still blanketing the area. The only difference this time was that I could sense it through my Senjutsu too, not just with my instincts as a Devil.

Crossing the threshold from the forest to the consecrated grounds with a slight twitch of my tail, I connected my chakra to the Holy energy– concentrating with closed eyes to make sure I kept that connection as separated from my physical body as I could– and tried mapping out the grounds.

“I don’t sense anything from the building,” I announced to the other two. “Let me check the-”

Basement, I would have said, but I paused and huffed when I sensed what Xenovia was doing.

She’d walked straight into the church without hesitation, hand held to the side and ready to unseal her sword at a moment's notice.

I gestured to Asia to follow me.

When we caught up to the exorcist, I spoke up. “We didn’t need to come inside. I was gonna scan the place from out there.”

“I do,” she denied, beginning to make her way down the exposed hidden staircase. “Likely or not, the possibility that you are secretly in league with the thieves and hiding it still exists, so it’s my duty to confirm for myself whether or not your judgement can be trusted.”

I rolled my eyes. ‘Then what’s the point in following my lead as a sensor in the first place?’

I could respect how seriously she took her duty, but if it was going to be like this for every place we checked, we’d be doing this for weeks before getting any closer to a real clue.

-------

Thankfully, it wasn’t like that for every place. As we made our way south from there, checking the various scattered homes and small businesses on our way towards the more densely populated center of town, we made much better time through the search route I picked.

A big part of our increased speed was Xenovia relenting and letting me carry her to fly past the periodic stretches of forest and otherwise unpopulated areas.

And by ‘carry her’, I meant ‘dangle below me’ with one of her hands gripping around my ankle while I flew low and close to the buildings and tree line, so that she had the option of letting go at any time just in case I attempted to fly high up and drop her from a lethal fall distance. If the Church wasn’t what it was, with the reputation it had, I would have thought she was being way too paranoid. Instead, I only thought she was being a little overly cautious.

Either way, progress was quick.

Apparently, while she wasn’t good with the church’s brand of magic and her senses weren’t very good compared to a devil’s, her instincts were spot on when it came to knowing when there was a demonic or holy presence in the area. She could tell instantly that I was telling the truth every time a building or residential block was free of any holy energy. Since the church had its own holy presence, she’d needed to make sure it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, since for all she knew, it could have been hiding something.

Luckily for me, none of the other homes and businesses in the relatively-rural north-Kuoh area had a trace of anything Holy, so we made good time towards Kuoh-proper without Asia and I having to deal with Xenovia breaking and entering some rando’s house in an attempt to make sure their consecrated bible-study room or whatever wasn’t hiding anything suspicious.

I didn’t know if she would actually do that, but I wouldn’t put it past her.

It was impressive she could hold on as long as she did though, especially since it was clear to me she was getting tired now that it was in the early hours of the next day. The sun would begin coming up in the next hour or two, and even the rest of us devils were going to get really sleepy soon.

Devils getting energized during the night didn’t mean much when all of us had school most mornings and kept to a human routine; our sleep schedules were shit for both devils and humans. Asia had been slowing down for a while now already, even with short breaks.

“One more block, then I’m calling it for the night,” I announced. If we kept going for much longer, I’d be the only one able to actually function at a decent level if we encountered our targets.

Asia almost slumped over as she sighed in relief, and I got nods from both her and Xenovia, which only sort of surprised me. Despite her headstrong nature, Xenovia was actually a lot smarter than I expected, and was actually the one to suggest proper breaks to maintain our performance levels. She understood that rest was important to carry out her mission to her best ability.  

After a periodic check-in with the other teams over radio, where the only thing of note with the others was another chimera devil attacking Akeno and somehow surviving the first hit from her Holy Lightning, I eventually felt my phone begin vibrating just after confirming another block was clear. The only notable presence was just a couple Gremory contract flyers in one of the apartments.

“Have anything for me?” I asked after answering the call.

“Not any leads for a location like you wanted, but still two pieces of potentially big info,” Mittelt’s voice fought to be heard over the light wind, but my ears would have had no trouble picking it up even in a hurricane. “Took a while of bugging her to get Kala to actually pick up without immediately hanging up, but I got to her eventually. First and more immediate of an issue, everyone’s least-favorite psycho-killer-pervert Freed is back in town and already cutting people up. She didn’t say how she knew or why he’s here, but she hates his creepy ass enough that she didn’t do as good a job as she thinks in hiding that he’s working for the same team as her.”

“Who’s Freed?”

“The white-haired rogue exorcist that worked for Raynare, remember? Pretty sure you rolled his ass at least once.”

“Mm, right.”

‘Joy.’ I couldn’t wait to have to deal with hearing that freak mouthing off when I found and beat his ass to a pulp.

That was only half sarcasm, because I would really enjoy beating his ass to a pulp, even with his dirty mouth running. Just thinking about how he ambushed Naruto-kun in his own home began pissing me off, even though it’s been months.

“I’ll warn the others. What else?”

“Aside from the claim that Freed was ‘spotted’ arriving with some old human clergy dude, despite the fact that Freed is a known criminal and would have been caught immediately if he tried to enter Kuoh from anywhere publicly visible?” She audibly snorted over the line. “Apparently a couple of Kala’s ‘bosses’ are in a bit of a rush for something, while keeping the others busy with ‘hurry up and wait’ orders.

“... Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Mittelt agreed, her voice becoming serious. “Whatever these guys are doing with these swords, sounds like you’ve probably only got another couple of days to put a stop to it before they’re ready to kick it off. I already let the Sitri know, and she’s telling the Gremory now. Good luck, tiny boss-kitty.”

She hung up before I could say anything, and there was a short moment where I imagined glaring at her with the force of a thousand suns for the insult to my form and stature, before the reality of the situation reinstated itself in my mind.

I pressed on the radio in my ear, broadcasting to every team.

“Koneko speaking, heads up; that rogue exorcist, Freed-whatever his last name was, is back in town and working with the Fallen. Keep an eye out for ambushes and be careful, he’s tricky.”

“Roger!”

“Thanks for the warning!”

“Thank you, Koneko-chan.”

A chorus of confirmations came from the other teams.

“We’re about to call it for the night, stay safe everyone.”

“Freed Sellzen?” Xenovia asked from the side.

The three of us were currently standing on the roof of a small apartment building bordering central Kuoh so that I could focus my senses without worrying about flying. Even without the same biological obstacles Naruto-kun’s people had with using it, I did find Senjutsu easier to use if I stayed still. It was easier to carefully control what I let myself connect to when I didn’t have to account for my own form and motion as a variable. With the surrounding block cleared, I had dropped my focus on it when I picked up the call from Mittelt, letting my range shrink to my immediate vicinity

“Mm,” I nodded. “That sounds right.”

“He’s a vile and disgraceful excuse of an exorcist,” she spat. “A mad dog and heretic that should have been put down before he could have become a stain on our records. I’ll be glad to take the head of a failure like him should he cross our path.”

I smelled the scent of fresh blood carried on the wind a split second later, and reflexively glanced in that direction.

A metallic ‘click’-

I instinctively lunged in front of Xenovia and threw up both of my arms in an ‘x’, not even having time to bring up my chakra enhancement.

A flash-

My mind went static for a second, before I regained my senses.

I almost fell to my knees and puked, feeling like I’d been kicked through my arms and chest by a lava ridge, as dumb as that sounded. A white-hot pain that spread like fire coursed through both my arms and the upper right side of my chest, stealing my breath.

“Koneko-chan!!!”

Asia’s cry cut through some of the pain, and I immediately began cycling and reinforcing my body with as much chakra as I could muster. It took a moment before I began feeling any slight relief, as my literal life-energy fought back the Holy Light that was trying to flood through my wounds. I looked down, and saw matching seared and bloody holes punched through my forearms, and red pooling through my shirt right between my right shoulder and breast. Even the back of my shoulder blade ached fiercely.

It was a through-and-through.

Asia reached me and placed her glowing hands on my back, I forced my lungs to suck in air despite the hole shot through one of them.

“HAHAHAHAHAH!” I glared as that psychotic white-haired jackass sped across multiple buildings before landing on the ledge of ours, an absolutely fuck-off big golden revolver in one hand, and a sword matching the description of Excalibur Rapidly in the other. “What kind of retarded shitty-devil takes a bullet for a fucking exorcist?! You’re even dumber than those mindless fucks, haha!”

The gun smoothly flowed into the shape of a mac-10 with a slight golden glow, and he pointed it at us with a manic grin that made me want to smash his face into a curb.

I vaguely felt Xenovia further back and to the side, her power spiking steadily. She’d managed to react to me in time and dodge. ‘Good.’

“What was it one of you jailbait-fucks said?” Freed continued. “You’ll be ‘glad to take my head’? Well then, let’s see you come try and take it with your shitty brains blown out the back of your skulls!”

Asia shook in a mix of fear and protective anger behind me. I spat out a wad of blood from my mouth while maintaining my glare on the man, bringing my hands up into a stance with my fingers bent and strands of subtly humming chakra trailing from them, keeping my body between Freed and Asia.

Between [Twilight Healing] and my chakra energizing my flesh, my chest was already sealing up, though my arms were still leaking blood and one of my ulna’s felt like it was cracked.

Regardless…

I pushed Asia back with my tail.

“Theres not gonna be enough of you left to recognize when I’m done,” I promised him.

I lunged.

--------

The style revolver Freed turned Mimic into was a Magnum Research BFR chambered in .500 Bushwhacker. For those who don't know what that is, it's a hand cannon that's basically twice as powerful as the .500 magnum, which is commonly cited as the most powerful hand cannon in the world. Souped up by Mimic? Not a fun time.

Quick little omake I thought of while writing:

Mittelt: “Lol Kalawarner’s really a stupid bitch I guess.”
Koneko: “She was probably pressganged.”
Mittelt: “Pressganged, huh? Yeah, that tracks.”
Koneko: “Wait say that again”
Mittelt: “I said ‘Pressganged, huh? Yeah, that tracks.’”
Koneko: “Baseball.”
Mittelt: “Huh?”