CH 75: AFUREIA (1)

"—That's enough."

A calm voice was suddenly heard – and in the next moment, golden chains ensnared Basara, stopping all of his movements.

Right in the nick of time, Ornis' life was saved.

ROOOAARR!

The monster, that was now Basara's current form, roared as he fought against those chains but to no avail. It was not just because those chains were incredibly tough, the familiar aura seeping out of the sealing chains that stopped him from bringing out the full power of his current form.

Ornis kneeled while staring at the chained Basara who was trapped in mid-air. He was at a loss, seeing the unbelievable scene of the monster he thought to be invincible being chained so easily, but he was roused by the new voice…

"—I see that even you have these kinds of days, Ornis."

Turning around, he only saw her walking slowly towards them.

"So you are finally here…"

"Is it something weird? Those barriers you created to obstruct me were destroyed when Basara let loose with his Banishing Shift, and when you went crazy and lifted the last of your barriers yourself. Thankfully, I was able to immediately create a new one to contain his power."

After saying that, Chisato Hasegawa, or rather the goddess, Afureia, flashed him a chillingly cold smile.

"It's impossible to keep him trapped in these kinds of sealing barriers once he goes all out. The spirit that drives his holy sword was once the strongest Valkyrie in all of existence who hunted innumerable stray souls in the name of Odin. Moreover, that righteous being, in the end, had sacrificed her body and soul to seal an evil spirit."

"…To think that even after being sealed, the Valkyrie still retained so much of her original strength."

Probably because of the period of time Brynhildr was stuck upright in the earth, while sealing that evil spirit, the container of their power in the form of this sword was able to preserve her original strength and even part of themselves.

When Basara's life was put in danger, after he lost his leg, in order to preserve its own existence, the spirit of the sword rose from its slumber and instinctively tried to kill Ornis who was deemed to be a threat to the preservation of Basara's life and in extension to the spirit itself. The sword then actively took part in drawing out Basara's latent potential, which resulted in the awakening of a part of Basara's godly bloodline.

However…

Even if Brynhildr had forcefully suppressed Basara's consciousness and manifested itself over his body and controlled it to save his life… for her who had merely combined with Basara's body and mind, what she was able to accomplish could not exceed the abilities of the host itself.

Simply put, [Banishing Shift] was never Brynhildr's ability, to begin with…

In other words — the continuous and successive use of [Banishing Shift], ignoring the condition of it only being able to be used as a counterattack, as well as the unprecedented speed to which Ornis was not even able to react, were all Basara's own abilities from the start — his hidden potential.

Ornis had been trying to treat the injuries dealt to him to no avail. It was due to the dreadful power that was [Banishing Shift].

A wound caused by annihilation-type powers like [Destruction Magic] of the Bael's could be recovered later on after evacuating the foreign energy that was constantly deconstructing the inflicted body part. But a wound caused by [Banishing Shift] could never be healed. For the simple reason that there was nothing left to heal.

Healing magic in its roots, mainly worked by bringing back the body to its original pure state. But how could you heal a wound or recover a body part that was erased from existence itself? When the pure state was reconfigured to a deformed form, healing magic would be deemed to be unusable.

This terrifying power severed the origin of existence itself, causing the parts to be inflicted with its form to have never existed at all.

This was a power that could erase even the very gods from existence.

Ornis shivered when he realized just how broken of an existence Basara was.

Hasegawa continued to pour her divine power into the chains in order to calm Basara. She knew that using brute strength to control him was useless. Thankfully, Jin and Sapphire had already given her a way to deal with this situation.

Ignoring Ornis, she approached Basara and took out a talisman that shone in a red, green, and divine golden light. This talisman was created with the blood of Jin, Sapphire, and Raphaeline, the goddess responsible for Basara's godly bloodline, and she placed it on Basara's forehead.

The effect was immediate and with a mix of red, greed, and golden light, the crimson red and emerald green armor wrapped around Basara slowly vanished until all that remained was an unconscious Basara cradled by the divine chains.

"Heavenly Dragon of Domination."

[...]

"I know you can hear me, dragon."

[What do you want, woman?]

"Whatever you hear next, please tell Basara nothing of it."

[...I refuse to lie to my host, woman.]

Hasegawa sighed at the brash response. It seemed that she would not be able to hide the truth from Basara anymore.

If that was to be the case then…

"Then give me one day. No, just one night is enough. I will explain everything to him myself once he wakes up."

Ddraig hesitated for a long while before finally agreeing to Afureia's proposition. He didn't want to meddle in Basara's personal problems so he deemed that could hold himself back for just one day. Furthermore, he was very curious about what she was trying to hide from his host.

Once Hasegawa had made sure that the matter with Ddraig was settled, she focused on Ornis again,

"I have felt your presence in the city and even ignored you when you disguised as a professor. But there is something I do not understand. The ten gods never gave any orders to kill Basara. Why did you do this?"

Hearing that question, Ornis spoke in a matter-of-fact tone…

"…Isn't it obvious, Afureia-sama"

He called Hasegawa by her real name and roared out…

"It's because Toujou Basara – that damned brat, received a favor from you!!"

His words were spoken with such vehemence and rage as he looked at Basara's levitating figure, but for Hasegawa, those words sounded so absurd and ridiculous that she couldn't help but gawk at the man…

Hasegawa listened as Ornis continued, his tone laced with utter hatred for the boy…

"Since you had put up an invisible barrier at the infirmary and your apartment, I was not able to look in… but from the state, Toujou had left your apartment and the infirmary at subsequent times, it was not difficult to see that something had happened."

Ornis trembled from anger and asked her in a trembling tone…

"For someone so important, so majestic like you, why did you do that…!?"

She ignored her question and muttered, "I see… so that is why you wanted to kill him."

Hasegawa raised her eyebrows and said in a scoffing tone…

"—just like when you killed the real Sakazaki."

Ornis's mouth curled – and at this moment he returned back to his original posture.

"Indeed, is there anything wrong with that? That human who did not know just how lowly he was, dared to hold delusions of becoming close to you… All I did was just crush a dirty pest, was there anything wrong with that?"

A smile appeared on his face, clearly showing some arrogance, his true colors that had been suppressed by Basara's unimaginable power…

"That unmatched beauty of yours is an absolute sanctuary that no one can dirty, even if you sealed your power and came to this Universe, that fact still remains unchanged. And the one to protect the sanctuary would naturally be none other than me who was given the mission to protect you."

Ornis' words, caused Hasegawa Chisato to be disgruntled.

Hasegawa had turned a blind eye when Ornis had killed the real Sakazaki. The reason for that was because Sakazaki was a scum who secretly tried to do all sorts of nasty things to the female students, so even if Ornis had not done it, Sakazaki would have most likely been killed by Rias or Sona once they discovered the truth.

As for the other rare male teachers, Hasegawa always used mind manipulation to stop them from approaching her since she hated having any males close to her.

Basara was the only exception.

Hasegawa had originally planned to look over him from afar, but under Jin and Sapphire's arrangement, Basara had come to this school to study.

When Hasegawa saw Basara who had grown into a strong young teenager, her suppressed emotions rapidly expanded; and when Basara spoke to her about his troubles her emotions ran wild, to the point where they flooded to even push her to invite Basara into the bathroom in her apartment and bring him to climax using her breasts.

Ornis who obsessively loved Hasegawa was unable to accept something like that happening, and so on impulse, he attacked Basara. At that moment, Ornis looked at Basara with vicious eyes —

"I will definitely not allow anyone to tarnish you. Not just humans of this inferior universe —"

And leaked out the hidden secret, the words that should never be uttered in front of Afureia…

"— But even this taboo, this utter abomination of the Three Races."

Until now, Hasegawa had been rather calm and composed. But… once Ornis made the mistake of letting those words out…

The goddess Afureia's emotions immediately exploded and unlocked all the power she had locked and could unleash in this universe…

"Your words have stepped out of line."

A dazzling golden aura rapidly poured out of her being, her original black hair transformed to a divine gold, while her green eyes morphed into a deep azure blue.

She had unleashed her godly form, fully showcasing the majesty she held when she traveled the lands as the divine one — Afureia.

She wanted to end this whole farce as soon as possible.