Cadre - 5

"So yeah, if you need a place to stay while you take care of this mission of yours, I don't mind letting you stay with me for a bit." his motor mouth took over.

But, still, he didn't retract the offer. Because having her in close proximity to him would at least allow him to get a proper bead on things and to know if he had to book it or not.

"That's kind of you Kaito-kun," the pretty smile from before returned, but much warmer than before, "Though I shouldn't. I don't plan on it taking long to finish my mission, but even if it does take longer, I don't want you to get caught in the crossfire, it would be safer if I left and didn't drag you into things."

"You don't need to worry about that," Kaito assured her and placed both arms on the table in front of him, "I'm pretty strong myself, and I'm not without my own ways of taking on the supernatural." he added, and with a thought, twin flashes of light formed around his arm as they were encased in a familiar pair of black and gold gauntlets.

Irina blinked, "A Sacred Gear?" she gasped, surprised.

"Two, actually," he corrected her, "Two of the same to be exact. Both of these gauntlets are Twice Critical's."

"…Huh," Irina uttered, eyeing his arms in interesting, head cutely tilted to the side, "I didn't know you could get two Sacred Gears."

"Me either," Kaito shrugged, but he'd already long since prepared an excuse for when someone wondered about that, "Before I got the second one, I got into a fight with a stray devil and nearly died, I feel like I did die for a minute actually. But I wasn't ready to die and forced myself back and when I did, I had another Twice Critical. It was either that or a gift from God himself."

Which wasn't actually a lie. God may have been dead and gone. But, the Sacred Gear's were still his gift to humanity to protect themselves and fight back.

And if nothing else, he'd forever be grateful to the top G above all other top G's. After all, if not for him, Kaito would have have never possessed his Twice Critical's at all.

"Everything happens for a reason," Irina mused and clasped her hands together, closing her eyes, "Praise be to God, I'm glad you're still alive and managed to make it through."

"Amen." Kaito finished for her with a nod.

"Hm?" Irina looked at him at his voice, "Are you religious as well?" she wondered.

"A bit, I mean, I praise God different than most and have a different way of believing in him," he admitted, "But I'm a baptised catholic all the same. I'm half Scottish after all."

Well, his other self was the baptised catholic, but that was him as well, so it fit.

"Huh, that's kind of cool and really unexpected," the older twin tailed girl grinned, "I didn't expect to meet a baptised catholic when I came back to Japan, dad always told me they're super rare over here."

"Like I said, I'm only half Jap, and I feel much more connected to my Scottish heritage." he replied.

"Umu!" Irina nodded happily at his explanation.

"I guess if you've got two of them and are that confident, it wouldn't be too bad an idea if it takes longer than I think," Irina mused after a moment, "Though are you sure, my target is a pretty strong guy."

"Speaking of," Kaito pounced on that dangling line provided to him, "Who exactly is your target?"

Please don't be Kokabiel, please don't be Kokabiel, please don't be Koka-

"His name is Satanael, a ten winged fallen angel and traitor to the Grigori." Irina revealed.

'Fuck!' Kaito cursed inwardly.

What the hell were the church doing sending Irina alone after a guy like that? On top of that, he barely knew anything about the guy beyond knowing he appeared in Slash Dog and was crazy about Sacred Gears.

It was better than Kokabiel, because he was pretty sure the guy wasn't out to start the next big supernatural war by murdering the siblings of two of the Satans and then blowing their territory to kingdom come.

But Irina wouldn't stand a chance against a guy like that.

She'd get slaughtered.

"…How the hell are you meant to stop a guy like that?" he asked bluntly, unable to even find the desire to censor himself, "I'm sure you're pretty strong, but I'm pretty strong myself and I wouldn't last a minute against a guy like that."

He didn't know where he stood on the scale of strength as things were right now. But he definitely knew he wasn't anywhere near that level.

"Hehe," Irina rubbed the back of her head, "Yeah, usually you'd be right. Buuut, things are a little bit different than that. You see, Satanael isn't currently anywhere near his current strength, you see not long ago he got into a fight with the holder of the longinus Sacred Gear, Caenis Lykaon and was injured pretty badly and thanks to the cursed flame produced by it, he's currently only at a fraction of his full strength."

Kaito's near panic halted, "….How weakened are we talking here?" he probed.

"According to Mother Griselda, he's not even at a tenth of his full power currently," Irina explained, "It's why he's currently on the run and fled here apparently. I was told he's using the siblings of the Satan's Lucifer and Leviathan as a shield, as in, nobody really strong will come here right now and risk setting them off and it's why only I was sent after him."

Right…that made, some, tiny amount of sense. If it was him, he would have sent multiple people after him though and prepared a bunch more contingencies considering the assets the church had access to.

Though, one thing stood out to him, well two, "So wait, why exactly is the church hunting him down, is it just because he's a Cadre and taking the chance to get an advantage?" he asked, "And beyond that, how are you going to find him?"

Irina shook her head, "I don't know about advantage, but he does have something the church wants," she replied, "Satanael is in possession of the former holy sword Arondight, a sister sword to the real Excalibur, he stole it a long time ago. My mission is to retrieve it above even killing Satanael, and as for finding him…"

Irina trailed off for a moment before reaching for one of the long black elbow length gloves she wore and pulled it off, holding the back of her fist up for Katio to see.

On it was a kind of pulsing, glowing arrow shape that seemed to blink in and out and was pointing to the right?

"This sigil on my hand is linked to Arondight, it will lead me right to it." she revealed.

Well now, that answered that he supposed.