Chapter 67

"Change the coordinates to the Vatican! NOW!"

The exorcist humbly accepted his orders.

"At once, your holiness."

Su!

Vasco was then left alone again in his thoughts.

[It's a good thing he came back.] 

If he could get in touch with Igor, then the blonde would be able to get to Kuoh much faster with his [Instant Transmission]. He could only hope that it would not be too late when he arrived.

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|DxD|

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"I accept your apology sister. But I have a feeling that Signor Strada will give us the answers we both need."

As soon as Igor said that, he took a step back and moments later, Vasco appeared in the room in all his glory. He was covered by a black robe yet beneath it, Igor could spot the heavy battle armour. Curious as to why the old man looked as if he was ready for war, he was about to ask before Vasco cut him off.

The old man wasted no time and grabbed the blonde by the shoulder.

"We need to go to Kuoh now. The Himejima clan are moving and are after Baraquiel and his family."

"..."

It took the blonde a good second for the words to properly process in his head.

"What?"

His expression morphed into that of an angry snarl. Killing intent began to seep out of him, his rage threatening to boil over. But Vasco had no time for this.

Slapping the blonde on the shoulder, he yelled.

"Stop wasting time and move! Use your [Instant Transmission]!"

Wordlessly, Igor set to the task and placed two fingers on his forehead. Not caring for subtleties, he immediately entered Kaioken x20.

Gruuu!

If Asia hadn't woken up before, she definitely woke up now. The little blonde cutely rubbed her eyes and looked around her room. Her attention was immediately drawn to Igor who was covered by a blazing red aura.

Her eyes widened in horror. It was her first time seeing Igor in his Kaioken so the first thing that ran through her mind was that he was on fire.

Jumping off the bed, she ran to him with budding tears in her eyes.

"Big bro-"

But Vasco immediately grabbed Asia and shushed her.

"Calm down, Asia. Your big brother needs to focus."

Yet Igor paid no attention to either of them at this moment. It was not that he was ignoring them, but that he didn't even hear them. He was so focused on extending his senses as fast as he could that he automatically dulled out any outside interference.

With his abilities boosted, he blatantly extended his senses all the way to Japan, not caring for who would feel offended by his ki running through them. In order to spread his senses as fast as possible, he had neither the time nor the care to hide how 'loud' his ki. While passively sensing would also yield benefits, the effective range of sensing a target relied on how far they were in the first place in respect to their power. Currently, Igor was thousands upon thousands of kilometres away from Japan. That alone would require that either Akeno or Shuri be god-class entities in order for him to sense their passive energy fluctuations. 

This wasn't the case like Asia where the blonde memorised their energy signature up to the point that he could sense them from anywhere across the world. As far as the blonde was concerned, their energy fluctuations would be hard to sense even outside Kuoh. So his next best method was to actively seek their energy signatures out. Although he hadn't memorised theirs like he did with Asia's, he could certainly pick them out from a group of millions of people.

However, the blonde was unfamiliar with Japan, much less how Kuoh felt in his senses. All he could hope for right now was that by extending his ki like a concave sonar, he would at the very least be able to run over Shuri or Akeno's energy signatures.

And so the seconds trickled by as the blonde analysed every single energy signature in desperate hope of finding either the mother or the daughter. The clock was ticking and every minute of delay might mean the Himejima were getting that much closer to killing them. Igor ran over every energy signature he encountered and tossed every non-matching signature aside. His senses had already extended far beyond the Himalayas and yet the blonde had no clue where his senses were currently running through. For all he knew, he could be sensing the inhabitants of China. 

It was only when he started sensing very small amounts of lifeforce that he guessed his senses were hovering over the stretch of ocean separating Japan and the mainland continent of Asia. So he sped up. He ignored all the sea life that gave off weak energy signatures and the few humans he sensed here and there. It was until he reached the coast that he gradually started to analyse energy signatures again. He couldn't be sure how far inland he had went and so he didn't want to take chances. He thoroughly went through each energy signature he encountered throughout Japan.

But that was until he remembered something important, something that almost made him despair.

"Signor. There is a barrier in the forests of Kuoh. That…that will prevent me from sensing anyone there."

Although his voice was calm and his visage seemingly level-headed, his fist was trembling as the sounds of the clock ticking entered his ears. He kept two fingers to his forehead as his senses combed Japan. He had that faint hope that maybe, just maybe the barrier was destroyed. But the fact that the Himejima may have somehow bypassed the barrier without destroying it made his heart rate begin to increase in panic.

Fortunately, Vasco was much calmer. 

"I see. Are you unable to teleport somewhere else in Kuoh?"

Igor's fist clenched harder, almost as if he was extremely disappointed in himself.

"I…I do not know how far Kuoh is from here. So unless there is an energy signature I am familiar with, I will not know where or who to teleport to."

Igor lowered his head in shame. Without having a rough idea of where Kuoh is from Italy, his senses could extend past Kuoh and he wouldn't even know it. It was a flaw of his that he never assumed would cause him problems until now. Whenever Igor stretched his senses, his perspective changed to black with only figures of yellow that denote an individual and the energy or lifeforce they release. Based on the race and type of energy, the colour might differ but humans and animals in general appeared yellow in his senses. 

But that was it. Mountains, infrastructure and other landmarks one would use for region identification would not appear at all. Although Igor was a good sensor, he wasn't yet skilled to the point that he could sense the extremely low frequency energy of things like small plants or the sparse nature energy in the air.

So without the ability to tell where his senses had reached and without knowing whether or not Shuri and Akeno were under a barrier, he had to think of another plan quickly.

It was then that the blonde finally thought of Cleria.

"Cleria! I'll use Cleria!"

It was a spur of the moment idea that suddenly came into his head. Although he wasn't familiar with her energy signature to instantly point her out, it was different from that of a normal human. As a devil, it would be easy to pick her out through his senses. To his senses, all devils appeared black-grey in colour, much different from humans.

Not waiting for Vasco's input, the blonde closed his eyes and got to sensing again. With his frown having turned upside down, Igor expanded his senses to the east and south-east. Covering such a large area, it was then that his grin gradually disappeared.

Igor was sure that he had passed  China at this point, yet…

"Ah…"

The shocking number of devils he was sensing served to demotivate him. He was unfamiliar with Cleria's specific energy signature meaning, he couldn't pick her out from over the thousands of devils he had sensed. Even when his senses expanded over the ocean, he could still sense the presence of devils. Although devils in Japan were fewer, there were at least a few hundred that he had come across.

Faced with such factors, Igor's will began to waver.

"D-DAMNIT! WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DEVILS OUT THERE!!!"

Panic was seeping in, the situation itself becoming hopeless. He couldn't hope to pick out Cleria's energy signature when there were numerous devils all over Japan. Igor was restless to the point that his aura began to fluctuate violently, a visual representation of his frantic mental state.

Removing his fingers from his forehead, the blonde cursed.

"Fuck! I'll teleport as close as I can and then fly over!"

GRUUU!

Just when he was about to take off through the roof, Vasco calmly placed his hand on Igor's shoulder. The blonde instantly whipped his head towards him, his expression clearly displaying his sense of energy.

"What!"

But upon seeing Asia flinch at his outburst, instant regret soured his heart. Asia was staring at him fearfully, almost as if she couldn't recognise him. She was holding on tightly to Vasco's collar, the fabric scrunched up in her tiny fist.

Igor was unsure how to act at this point, but Vasco wouldn't wait for the blonde to resolve his inner conflict.

He knew Igor loved Asia, but bigger things were at stake here.

"Can you sense massive outbursts of power?"

Sensing the seriousness in his gaze, Igor calmed himself down while giving an apologetic smile at Asia.

 "Yes. As long as it differs from the rest, I can find it."

Then suddenly, Vasco placed a phone to his ear.

"You heard him. Do what he says and use the holy swords."

While Vasco would've preferred to send a letter through a magic circle, there was no time for that anymore. He just hoped that the conversation would seem too vague for anyone who would try to investigate, although that would be pointless given what was about to happen.

Regardless, his words seemed to reignite that faint spark of hope within the blonde. So as Igor waited and waited, he finally caught the violent fluctuations of energy coming from the east.

Without even waiting for Vasco's input…

Tswii!

…he vanished.

"..."