57 Durgans
Jaina had asked about the first round of competition. Apparently the first round is supposed to be a 'secret'. Mr Crouch, the one running the tournament, stated that it's intended to test your daring. Though the other groups already knew what the competition was about. It was almost tradition that the participants cheat a bit to get an upper hand.
Ichigo and his group just shrugged it off. Not much could really affect them at this point.
As the meeting and wand weighing were over, the groups retreated to their respective areas.
They found out that the 'task' would be tomorrow. Usually the contestants would have a couple weeks at least to prepare themselves, but Ichigo's group had messed up the timeline a bit. The back and forth between Zelretch and Dumbledore had taken awhile.
Most of the castle was preparing for the eventful day tomorrow. Classes were canceled, and more visitors were coming to watch. Apparently, Minister Fudge was going to make another appearance as one of the guests.
Nothing eventful happened during the day. Some of the Hogwarts girls came by and apologized on behalf of the school for the incident that happened. The Weasley twins also came by and apologized, they didn't make any excuses on Ron's behalf and even mentioned how he got what he deserved. The group welcomed them back any time.
Dumbledore had requested another meeting, which Ichigo promptly ignored. He was too busy 'planning' for the task tomorrow and the issue couldn't really be pressed when his 'teacher' was present.
Overall, it had been a pretty mundane time all things considered.
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The night passed in peace, Rukia gave Ichigo a certain 'incentive' to do well in the competition. Though she would have probably done so regardless.
The competitors were in the waiting room with a few reporters and tournament personnel. They were 'drawing lots'. Or so Ichigo thought until the first person pulled out a miniature dragon. A real, living, miniature dragon in his palm. Though they were fake dragons from what Ichigo's group could tell. They were the bastardized distant cousins of drakes who were the distant cousins of real dragons. These things could be captured by a few well trained wizards, a real dragon could destroy all the civilization on the planet.
Ichigo pretty much ignored everything until it was his turn. He pulled out a 'Hungarian horntail' supposedly the most dangerous of the dragons.
The champion for Hogwarts was up first, Cedric Diggory was his name. From what Ichigo heard, he was a decent guy. He made his way through the 'archway' that lead out into the stadium where the event was held. They were told they had to retrieve a golden egg from the dragon's nest. There were some factors that added into the score overall.
"Are you not nervous?" The champion from the Beauxbatons Academy asked, her name was Fleur Delacour. She had a strange charm aura around her. Her question was directed to Ichigo who was just staring off into space.
"About what?" Ichigo asked.
"The competition, the dragon, anything about this?" She reiterated.
"Not really." Ichigo said bluntly.
"Are you that confidant that you will win?" She asked a bit annoyed.
"I think you misunderstand, I'm not worried because this whole competition isn't really important to me. This is basically a vacation for us." Ichigo responded.
"Dealing with a dragon is a vacation, it makes me curious what you normally do….." She said in surprise.
"Fighting things much stronger than one of these 'dragons'." Ichigo responded without emotion.
As their conversation ended, they heard the announcer and the cheer of the crowd as Cedric has just completed the challenge. From what Ichigo could hear, Cedric turned a boulder into an animal and the dragon chased after it which gave him time to grab the golden egg.
Ichigo listened on as each champion went through the trial.
Fleur tried to use her natural charm to put the dragon into a trance. Apparently, it started to sleep and while it was snoring, it shot flames at the girl, setting her clothes aflame.
Viktor Krum, the champion from Durmstrang, tried to use a spell to blind the dragon. It did not go well as the dragon thrashed about a bit. From what the announcers said, dragons have a high amount of magic resistance.
Finally it became Ichigo's turn.
He walked out of the room and into the stadium to reveal the roar of the crowd. Everyone was excited to see the 'boy who lived' in action after all the events that had transpired.
He looked up to see his group in the same box seating as the teachers and staff. Saber was being treated with the upmost care and by extension so were his group.
As he walked to his starting position, a mana infused shout was heard from the stands.
"DON'T YOU DARE HURT THAT DRAGON ICHIGO" Saber yelled. She wanted that dragon, tt was feisty.
He wouldn't dare after hearing her threatening voice.
The person in charge had given the signal, and the dragon had been let loose in the arena against Ichigo who just stared It down.
The dragon started off with a breath of fire, and at everyone's surprise Ichigo didn't move.
"Bakudō no. 44: Sekisho" Ichigo chanted. A barrier quickly formed up infront of him and intercepted the attack.
The crowd gasped at the strength of the barrier, it was blocking dragons breath. A high powered torrent of fire.
As the dragon finished its attack, Ichigo made his move.
"Bakudō no. 4: Hainawa" He chanted and a rope made of reiatsu wrapped around the dragons mouth, shutting it tight.
"Bakudō no 61: Rikujōkōro." Six energy rods sprang up around the dragon in a circle, stopping most of its movement, it was trying to thrash around and break free.
"Bakudō no 79: Kuyō Shibari" 8 black spheres were summoned around various parts of the dragon, further locking it in place.
Ichigo wasn't done. This was clearly overskill, but he was having fun.It wasn't every day that he got to play around with kido on a live target.
"Wall of iron sand, Tower formed from hate, forge molten iron and neatly finish in silence"
"Bakudō no 75: Gochu Tekkan" He finished as 5 enormous stone pillars connected by chains materialized above the dragon and fell on it. The dragon wasn't able to move an inch.
Ichigo calmly walked over and grabbed the golden egg. The crowed was a bit shocked at his display of magic. They were used to his group waving around swords and the like. Seeing them do something similar to their form of magic was frankly, a bit surprising, all things considered.
The announcers didn't really know what to say at the whole thing. The words were translated and heard by the crowd, but it sounded like gibberish even with that. Not to mention he didn't use anything even resembling a wand. He just pointed his finger at the dragon and chanted.
Rukia saw the awkward faces they were making and decided to go down to the announcers and help them out. They were more than happy to give her the floor.
"What Ichigo used was a school of 'magic' called kido. Which means 'demon arts', the name originated from several thousands years ago so don't think its something overly dark. There are three branches in this magic. There is kaidō, which focuses on healing. There is Hadō which means 'way of destruction', these are our spells that are meant to do damage. Then what Ichigo just showed off was Bakudō, or 'way of binding' these spells are mainly used to incapacitate or negate damage. In both Hadō and Bakudō, the spells are differentiated by a number, It goes from 1-99 and the higher levels are harder to cast, have longer incantations, but are usually much more potent. When you get skilled enough, you can forgo the incantation and just chant the name for a reduced effect like Ichigo did the first few spells. Whereas on the final one he used the full chant to empower the spell further." She said as everyone in the stadium was watching her.
She pointed to the ground I the stadium while still be broadcast to the crowd.
"Hadō no. 1: Shō" She said, and an invisible force punched a hole in the ground. She moved her finger to the side slightly.
"Shō" She said again, and a similar effect happened but a smaller hole appeared.
Not a perfect comparison, but it got the point across.
Everyone saw the display and they began to wonder with regards to the spells meant to do damage. If they were as powerful and as potent as the ones shown to bind or shield, what were they learning? It seemed like every aspect to the foreigners 'magic' was better than theirs.
As everyone was lost in their own thoughts, several dragon roars were heard.
The previous dragons were now somehow free from their cages, and were flying towards the stadium. The students and teachers started to panic at the sight.
Shirou was about to spring into action until Saber held him back.
"I want to test this out" She said, pulled the feather from her hair. The teacher looked at her oddly. They didn't understand how a feather was going to help them.
She channeled her mana into the feather, and it began to glow the same color as he blade.
"Come" She said as she launched the feather into the air.
With a bright light, the feather turned into an angel. A familiar angel that had met not too long ago.
"We meet again your highness." Kokabiel said with a small bow as he was floating in front of the audience.
Everyone stopped to stare, it didn't matter that dragons were approaching them….an angel had just suddenly appeared.
The teachers were not faring much better, a literal angel was floating in front of them.
Kokabiel looked around in amusement.
"This is not my home is it?" He asked with a smile.
"It is not, does that change things?" She responded.
"Are these humans in danger?" He asked.
She pointed to the creatures flying towards them. "Dragons" She said.
"Aren't those some sorry excuses for dragons. I feel like a real dragon would destroy the world just at the thought of being compared to such a thing" He said with a chuckle.
"Very well, I shall lend my aid" Kokabiel finally said.
"To me my legion" He yelled out as a few hundred angles appeared behind him. These weren't sentient to the extent that he was, these were more like constructs that had their faces hidden with armor. The amount of angels he could summon and his overall power was determined by the amount of Mana that Saber pumped into the feather before activating the pseudo-noble phantasm.
As the dragons got closer, the legion of angels threw several light spears at the targets. They were decimated in seconds.
Kokabiel turned towards the king once again and spoke.
"Is that all you require?" He asked the king.
"Yes, thank you." Saber responded.
Kokabiel bowed again, his legion dissipated and he turned back into a feather that floated back towards saber.
She put it back into her hair and was acting like nothing had happened.
Again, everyone was staring at the king in awe. She had summoned an angel to do her bidding.
"What…..was that?" Dumbledore asked in confusion.
"Kokabiel, Angel of the stars." Saber responded.
"The fallen angel from the bible?!" Dumbledore said in shock. He had read a great many books in his time, he bible had been one of many.
Not many of the other wizards knew about the bible lore, but they knew about angels and fallen angels. They were equally disturbed at the thought of having just met a fallen angel.
"Does this mean….the bible is true?" Dumbledore asked again in shock.
"Meh, not really. Some stuff is true some isn't" Ichigo said, who had just joined the group.
"Lucifer is actually a very pleasant individual. He loved to read fictional books, he said that he's always been amazed at human's imagination." Saber said.
"Michael was a pretty easy-going guy as well, he apparently meets up with Azazel every now and then to catch up." Ichigo said.
"Now that it think about it, the underworld as a whole was actually pretty nice. We should go and visit again. I heard from Rias that they opened a new theme park called 'Lucifer land' in the capital." Ichigo said absentmindedly.
"I wanna go." Saber said, staring at Shirou with longing eyes.
"We….can we when we get back" Shirou said to his lover. He really couldn't resist that look she gave him when she wanted something.
"We should make a weekend out of it, invite Sona and Rias as well. They can show us around the capital." Ichigo interjected.
"That reminds me, we didn't give them a heads up when we suddenly disappeared from school." Rukia said.
"Shit, they're probably pissed that they're going to have to deal with everything now that we disappeared" Ichigo said in despair.
"Shirou, your cooking skills are required. You shall awaken them as devils of gluttony by the time we're done." Ichigo declared.
"I can barely feed one food devil as it is…." He said, taking a glance at Saber.
"What was that?" She said, giving Shirou the evil eye.
"I said I was going to make you your favorite meal when we get back" Shirou responded, tensing up at her expression.
"Thats what i thought" Saber said with a smile.
Everyone nearby were staring at the group as they just entered a world by themselves. Dropping information that made them shake, things that were very hard to believe, yet they spoke about them so nonchalantly….and no one would dare call King Arthur a liar.
The papers were going to have more to write about for their next issue.
