7 Chapter 6: The 8th Campione Arrives

Illya opened her eyes from a good night of sleep, "been a while since I dreamed of that day."

And a while it had been. 11 years, 6 other Campione encountered, including 2 of the 3 new ones, 5 Heretic Gods, both encountered and killed, over a dozen incidents with either rouge magic associations or Divine Ancestors, and 8 years of development for her socially in schools for appearances sake.

Not to mention her physical growth. She had reached what she should have looked like upon arrival if she grew normally, and she was resembling her mother more and more as time went on. Illya personally had no complaints about the physical growth but her social growth through attending public education grated on her. Only Yuri's presence made it bearable. Ena went to undergo private Hime-Miko training, so she didn't see her as often as she would like.

Both Illya and Yuri were members of the Tea Ceremony Club and both were enjoying it, much to Illya's surprise. She expected to hate it since it took away from her time at home with her 'onii-chan' but she had enjoyed it nonetheless.

She also had many admirers and was considered one of the prettiest girls at school along with Yuri. Both had fans which unsurprisingly don't get along, despite Illya and Yuri doing almost everything together, in part due to Illya hypnotizing enough people to guarantee them being in the same class every year.

Both had also turned down countless would-be boyfriends and, scarily enough, girlfriends. Due to them more often than not doing everything together, several rumors about them being together romantically sprang up, much to their dismay.

Either way, life had gone on and the day was the first school day of the second semester of their first year in high school, Jounan Academy to be precise.

Not a lot had happened over break for either of them, even though on the other side of the world the newest Campione had been born after defeating Verethragna. In fact, there was nothing to indicate that today was going to be anything out of the ordinary. Until Yuri's Spirit Vision kicked in at the front gate.

Yuri froze and Illya was shocked into silence upon noticing what was happening. Her research had indicated that the only magically inclined people at their school was the two of them. There should be nothing to set Yuri's power off. Illya quickly pulled Yuri forward and away from the other students arriving so they could talk privately.

"What did you see, Yuri?"

"I saw a disc surrounded by ten symbols, a gale, a bull, a stallion, a camel, a boar, a youth, a raptor, a ram, a goat, and a warrior with a golden sword, then the vision changed into that of a serpent surrounded by night and chains," Yuri said confused. Thanks to Illya and her older brother's help, she had an artifact that increased her accuracy to nearly 100%. But two visions that couldn't be more different one after the other? That was new.

"The first vision sounds like the 10 avatars of Verethragna. Onii-chan didn't go after him because the risk was too high for something to go wrong. The newest Campione was born from his defeat. Could the first vision refer to him? Is he here?" Illya tried to reason out the first vision and maintain her calm, with some difficulty.

"That would make sense," Yuri replied, having a harder time remaining calm, "but what could the second one mean? If it was without the chains, it would be a mother-earth goddess but we would sense anything divine nearby."

"A grimoire!" expressed Illya, "that's why we don't sense any gods and it explains the chains. The fragment of a god is sealed and is thus represented by chains. But the only mother-earth goddess grimoire in the world is the..." trailing off as she remember the grimoire of the goddess Athena.

"The Gorgonian," Yuri picked up as Illya dropped off, "but who in the world would be dumb enough to..." trailing off herself.

Campione were also known as the illegitimate children of Epimetheus, in other words, they're idiots!

"We have to get the Gorgonian to onii-chan," Illya stated with a determined look on her face, "the only Campione this could be is the newest. He is attempting to fight the strongest mother-earth goddess with less than one month of experience. He WILL fail and in doing so bring on the prophecy of eternal night."

"How do we do that?" question Yuri with a look of nervousness on her face.

Illya grinned, "he'll have the Gorgonian with him. I don't think even a Campione would be stupid enough to leave it somewhere they can't instantaneously check its condition. We steal it and one of my constructs takes it home."

A sudden clamoring of voices caught the girls attention. At the front gate, a boy and girl were walking arm-in-arm. Both Illya and Yuri recognized the boy as Godou Kusanagi, the elder brother of one of the Tea Ceremony club's younger members Shizuka Kusanagi. He had the resistance of a doormat, given how easily he always caved to Shizuka and currently had a troubled expression on his face. Shizuka was nearby, looking at her brother with the same expression she always did when something involving her brother came up, annoyed. Neither recognized the blonde foreigner walking with him.

Illya and Yuri looked to each other, ""You don't think...""

Illya focused on the blonde, "a mage, and a very talented one at that. Taught in western style."

Yuri focused on Godou, "he's the Campione."

Illya sighed and the a calm look appeared on her face, "we're in the same class as Godou, and unless I miss my guess, the blonde is a transfer, so we'll have a brief period of time to grab it and get it out of here. Godou doesn't have the backbone to even attempt something like this."

Nearly 10 minutes later, Illya's predictions proved right when Godou entered the classroom without the blonde. Illya waited for when he was distracted by one of the other boys in class before sending a spider construct to steal the grimoire. Thankfully nobody noticed it and less than 10 seconds later, Illya held a stone medallion in her hand. After confirming that it was the grimoire, she dropped it into her bag.