18 Chapter 15:A Different Outlook & Encounter

A/N:

" " : Dialogue,

' ' : Thought,

"Italicized text" : Telepathy,

[ ] : Spells, Techniques and Sacred Gear Casts,

"Bold text" : Ddraig & Albion.

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Haruki POV

After the talk with Xenovia and Irina, I went back home with a new weight on my mind; not only was there magic from the Mother verse, the interconnected universe of Hiro Mashima's works, but there were also possibly descendants of people from Earthland, if this Angela Strauss has the magic that I believe she has.

Now this won't have been much of an issue, seeing as I'm already one of the most powerful humans, if not the most powerful human, but the thoughts that came to my mind that also gave me alarm were those of Earthland dragons and other slayer magics.

Remembering when I told Mom about dragon slayer magic, I noticed that she wasn't alarmed until I mentioned that I had it myself, I had thought that she had simply come across some magic that copied the effects of dragon slaying weapons, but this new information has made me change my mind on the entire thing.

Just how many dragon slayers were out there? Had they also caught Ophis' eye, making her add them to the Khaos Brigade? And if the Khaos Brigade had been established, just who exactly had she taken in? Would she have been deceived by Cao Cao and his Hero Faction, or by Rizevim and his Qlippoth Faction, or even by Shalba, Katarea and Creuserey, and the devils of their Old Satan Faction?

As these questions plagued my mind, a few plausible answers came. I could assume that Vali and Kuroka are already a part of the Khaos Brigade, along with Bikou, Sun Wukong's descendant, in the likelihood that it has already been established.

As for the dragon slayers, it was more likely than not, that there were very few in number, if they actually exist. Thinking of the dragons in this world and the ones from the Mother verse, specifically the ones from Earthland and Elentir, their thoughts on humans aren't particularly similar.

While Earthland had a conflict due to the two factions of dragons, that were either for or against the enslavement of humans to their whims, the dragons here only cared for themselves, so the likelihood of them teaching humans a form of magic designed specifically to kill dragons is extremely low.

Of course, this is if I don't consider the possibility of dragon slayer magic being inheritable via genetics. And if my memory serves me correctly, there has been no known instance of a slayer's magic being inherited solely from one's bloodline. The element however, is very easily inherited.

As for the last question, I remained stumped. Knowing if Rizevim or Cao Cao were accepted by Ophis is something that won't happen until I had enough information to extrapolate from.

I eventually return home with only a few minutes left till tonight's training session. Letting out a sigh, I quickly change and head downstairs, where Rias, Sona, Akeno and Koneko are waiting in the living room.

Koneko looks at me, clearly sensing that something is troubling me. She walks up to me with her ears and tails out, then hugs me. Looking up at me with dilated eyes, she asks me in a small voice, "What's wrong, Haruki?"

Looking at her with a wry smile, I stroke her head. ""Haru?"" Akeno and Rias look at me with a bit of worry. Letting out a short sigh, I tell them of the arrangement that I made with Xenovia and Irina while Sona listens alongside them.

"Do you think that we're weak? Or do you not think our opinions or efforts matter?" Rias asks me with a frown. "You said that we had gotten strong enough to not come for training compulsively, so why are you leaving us out of something as important as this?!" She says with a bit of anger.

"*Sigh* Calm down, will you? I was going to tell you about this either way, so you should understand that what's bothering me is something far more serious than just Kokabiel and his goons." I say, still stroking Koneko's hair and cat ears.

"If that's not what's got you worried, then what is?" She says, this time with only a smidgen of the anger that she held. Thinking about it, I couldn't just bring up the threat that is the Khaos Brigade, nor could I bring up the fact that I knew of multiple high level Earthland magics that could be present on our Earth. It was the same issue with bringing up the possibility of Ophis being the leader of what could only be called a terrorist cell with multiple factions in it. I would sound impossibly crazy.

So I quickly formed a plausible reason for my worry. "It's the White Dragon Emperor that I'm worried about." My words plunge them into a short bout of silence. "But why? Since the girls from the Church came by, you've not mentioned him even once, so what brought him into the situation?" Akeno asks from as she walks past me, only to hug me from behind.

"Well, I don't know if any of you remembers what I've said before, but I personally know the White Dragon Emperor. As a matter of fact, I looked up to him as something of an elder brother since I'm an only child. But at the same time, I also treated him as a rival, so I'm a bit nervous to see him again." I say in a reminiscent mood.

"That's nice and all, but it doesn't answer her question." Sona says as she pushes up her glasses. "What brought him into the situation?" She says sternly. "*Sigh* He's part of Grigori. It's safe to say that he's basically Azazel's adopted son. He's also one of the strongest Ultimate Rank beings in Grigori. It won't be strange if they send him to take out Kokabiel."

Koneko and Akeno noticeably stiffened as I said that, while Rias and Sona seemed to be making plans for his appearance, albeit in futility. "Don't worry. I say that he's my rival, but it's not something as extreme as Albion and Ddraig going at it for centuries on end."

That seems to calm them down a bit, then Rias looks at me with soft eyes. "That must be it. You're worried that he'll try and kill Issei." She says, her assumption being way off the mark. "Not really. While Vali-aniki is fully aware of the rivalry between Albion and Ddraig, he isn't so quick to go bloodthirsty in a fight. So at most he'll send a single attack to test Issei and that'd be it."

My words shattered any ground that her statement would have held, causing her to freeze awkwardly as Sona began chuckling from her position on the sofa. "What's so funny?!" Rias asks in an annoyed tone after recovering from her stupor.

"Ignoring your wildly incorrect assumption, the fact that Haru is so nervous about meeting his "big brother", that he ended up being anxious enough for Koneko to be concerned is just funny." Sona says, causing me to deadpan at her with a small bit of regret in my chest for holding back the truth of my troubles from them.

"Fine, fine. That's enough. Let's get down to the training room. I'm sure that they're at least done with their warmups." I say, then head down to the training room with the 4 of them following me.

Upon reaching the training room, I tell everyone to pause their exercises, then explain the arrangement that I made with Xenovia and Irina. Rias and Sona then tell them to try and keep an eye out for anyone that has a holy aura in Kuoh that isn't Xenovia or Irina and make sure to report back to any of the three of us.

After that, we all moved to different parts of the room, of course with everyone else being accompanied by one of my clones. Yes, I mean everyone. This time, I was going to be training by myself.

Looking at the others via my connection to my clones, I could see the different levels of advancement that each of them had made. On Sona's side, Saji had gotten a drastic increase in his stamina allowing him to bear more power, and his Absorption Line could let out 3 tentacles to drain energy from others. He had even become able to control them as if they were prehensile limbs.

Tsubaki had become more skillful with her poelarm arts, and she has improved with Mirror Alice's use, now being able to manipulate its size. I still wonder how her Balance Breaker would be.

For Momo, Reya, Tomoe and Tsubasa, they had gotten a general improvement in their physical attributes and energy pool and control. They really weren't as notable without their artificial Sacred Gears, at least when it came to their unique powers.

Meanwhile, Sona was trying out the more scientific side of magic. With the high water affinity that she has as a member of the Sitri bloodline, her ability to use water magic is really only limited by her knowledge and imagination.

So she started with learning how to cause hydrogen explosions. If she's able to grow strong enough while keeping her control as adept as possible, I won't be surprised to see her using heavy water to create miniature hydrogen bombs.

As for Rias' peerage, Asia had started training on something that most people would not expect, over healing. Twilight Healing works by recovering life force and redistributing it to heal, so an Overheal is actually quite hard to do, but not impossible.

On Kiba's side, he's basically learning how to use a bootleg version of the Getsugatenshou (Heaven Shocking Lunar Fang). He's also learning how to redistribute the energy he receives from Issei using Transfer into a single sword to drastically increase its power.

Akeno was doing a bit of high risk training; running lightning through her body to enhance her speed and reflexes. She had somehow gotten to the conclusion of creating the Kanmuru (Godspeed) technique that Killua Zoldyck uses, in her attempts to increase her movement speed on the battlefield.

As for Koneko, she's still trying to integrate the few Yojutsu that she could remember, as well as the ones I taught her, into her fighting style. For now, she's using flames to boost the literal explosive power of her blows.

For Issei, he continued training his flame magic, while also trying to find ways to use Ignia as a support in battle. And due to Ddraig's power flowing through his body, he has become highly resistant to flames. So while he won't have access to Ddraig's flames, he would still be able to use powerful flames, especially when they've been boosted.

As for Rias herself, she's simultaneously making solid constructs of PoD, while shooting out some palm sized masses of PoD. It seems that she's training her perceptive and cognitive abilities at the same time, which when you consider her place in her peerage as not only the leader, but also the main strategist, makes a lot of sense.

Cutting my sensory connection to my clones, I get back to my own training, creating Secret Arts that I can fall back on in the case that most of my other techniques don't cut it.

...

Five days pass by as we continue to search for any holy aura with no success, and it was starting to get on my nerves. Issei had suggested dressing a few of them in priest garbs to bait Valper's goon, but it was a flawed plan from the beginning, as whoever they were, could sense the stark difference between a devil's aura and that of a clergyman.

But since we had tried other plans and seen no success, we chose to humor Issei's suggestion. After school, all four of us boys went around the area close to the school with little, if any hopes that this would successfully bait the person.

A few hours pass by and eventually, we all feel it. A strong holy aura had appeared seemingly out of nowhere above us. We all dashed in opposite directions as the assailant flew straight to the ground at a high speed, kicking up a dust cloud.

Quickly clearing away the dust cloud, I get a good look at the person attacking us. She was a beautiful girl with a voluptuous, curvy body, fair skin and white hair. She was dressed in a white version of the battle suit that Xenovia and Irina wore, while wearing a white skirt.

Her appearance alone made me believe that she was related to the Strauss family of Earthland, but the cracked halo over her head and the glowing white wings on her back made me know that she was definitely the girl that Xenovia had told me about; Angela Strauss.

"Hah! I told you it would work. And you said my plan was stupid!" That idiot shouts from his position. "Now's not the time, Issei!"

Chapter End.

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Word Count: 2,165