Chapter 13 - Sleeping Avalon

When the two girls entered the church the very first thing to hit them was the smell.

Covering her nose Reginleif knew the smell quite well. It was the putrid smell of death. Perhaps not just one or two people died within this church, but instead dozens.

Cebrail looked around and could see bits of the blood dried on the walls from the slaughter which took place.

(I see, so this is the place…) The place where one of the main cast of High School Dxd was subjected to experimentation and watching all of his friends die for the sake of the Holy Sword Project, Yuuto Kiba.

She had suspected that this would be the place they were going to when they were meant to inspect the light containers; however she didn't expect it to be so rancid. Since the hentai was mostly about the steamy scenes it never showed just how bad his past was. Being in the place where children were basically treated like cattle was a bit unsettling even for her. Perhaps it was due to her Angel heritage and a sensitivity to sin, or perhaps the fact that it was done in a church made it feel particularly slimy. Cebrail didn't know the answer but the feeling was the same.

"Cebrail, you can take a break while I search for traps and stuff." Reginleif said quickly as she began to look around, putting runes on various surfaces.

Cebrail having more faith in Reginleif after her victory against Mark actually complied rather easily, choosing to sit down rather than search. Now that the fighting seemed to be over she could no longer ignore the slight pain in her chest from a bit of over exertion.

She had been coating her whip in light power the entire fight and with her low stamina swinging it around so much was actually a bit tiring.

(Maybe I do need to work on my stamina, but that definitely won't fix my chest always hurting.) Cebrail thought. While she had brought it up to her mother before Gabriel uncharacteristically brushed off Cebrail's worries claiming that she'd figure out how to deal with it later. It only happened when she used too much light power as well making it that much more annoying if a battle were to ever be prolonged.

"Cebrail! I found something!" Reginleif exclaimed upon revealing a hidden door nearby.

Cebrail had hoped that it would take a little bit longer for Reginleif to figure it out but still with a tired sigh she stood.

The hidden passageway was a long decrepit stone staircase leading down to a dark basement.

"As expected you can always find interesting things in a church's basement. Like a holy sword or a sealed away demon or even the corpse of the pope that everyone thought was alive." Cebrail said with narrowed eyes.

Reginleif looked at Cebrail with a puzzled head tilt, (Wasn't that last one kinda specific?)

"Are there any traps?" Cebrail asked, completely skipping over whatever questions Reginleif may have had.

"Ah no, though I did detect that there were two people instead of one down there."

(Two people?) Cebrail was certain she had only found three sets of recent foot prints.

"Epis you stay with her." Cebrail handed over Epis to Reginleif for the sake of protection.

While both of them were rather weak if they worked together it was unlikely they'd be hurt too badly.

Slowly they made their way down the stairs, their footsteps echoing along the stone walls eerily.

"Do churches always feel this…"

"Sinister? Whenever no one is around, yeah." Cebrail confirmed Reginleif's words easily. She had been in more than enough churches in her past life to know what they were like turning both the day and the night.

Soon they reached the bottom of the stairs where they found a younger man perhaps around the age of 15 with short somewhat curly black hair and tired looking deep black eyes.

He was standing in front of what appeared to be an altar with a small child resting on it.

The man held up a large sword high above his head clearly about to bring it down; however Cebrail reacted instantly, sending her whip out much to his surprise.

Though caught off guard a bit the young man still managed to dodge by jumping to the side.

(He's stronger than the other two outside…)

"What happened to dumb and dumber? No, don't tell me…" He looked at Cebrail and Reginleif and put a hand over half of his face. "Don't tell me those two idiots actually lost to a couple of little girls!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!!!" He began laughing hysterically as if he had just heard the best joke of all time. "Man that is good! I almost can't believe it! How could they be so-"

Cebrail was tired of hearing a crazy person insult their comrades so mercilessly, especially when one died so in the middle of his tirade she attacked him with her whip.

"As a wise man once said, 'talking ain't a free action' your babbling ends-" She was suddenly shocked as the end of her whip was caught in the middle of her words.

"Right back at you kid~" Pulling on the end of Rance he tosses Cebrail to the side like a rag doll causing her to slam into a wall. As she fell to the ground bits of rubble covered her body, and based on the lack of further movement from her it almost seemed like she was already out of the fight.

"Wow~ you went down quick kid!" The young man thinking Cebrail was out for good turned his attention to Reginleif who stared him down. Though she was still afraid she felt a great deal more confident after defeating Mark outside.

"Heh~ A little mouse thinks its glare could do anything to a human? How adorable~"

"Fire!" Reginleif sent a fireball directly for the young man who simply raised his sword. As the magical attack made contact it was instantly absorbed by the simple looking blade.

"Hehe~ seems like that new Cardinal Bishop wasn't completely full of crap. I honestly thought he might be playing a trick on me since this thing wasn't working on that barrier."

The Cardinal of the Church of Necessary Evil had given him the sword so he could break that child behind him out of her Sacred Gears barrier. She was one of the few remnants left of the Holy Sword Project making her a massive liability to the Church.

"Ugh my magic has really been proving kinda useless…" Reginleif mumbled to herself in annoyance.

(I'll focus on using the Earth.)

The difference between her fire magic and her earth magic was a simple one. For fire she used Norse rune to conjure something from words alone; however with the earth it was already there and so all she needed to do was manipulate it. That meant when it came to dealing with those resistant to magic it was the marginally better option as it did mostly physical damage.

"Stone Call!" Reginleif yelled, slapping her palm onto the ground just as the young man was beginning to charge her. Spikes of rock came from the ground curving towards him and obstructing his path, though not losing his confidence he smirked and lifted his blade. Supporting the sword with his hand he blocked the attack making the earthen spike split into two on either side of himself.

"Nice try ki-" Two feet firmly planted themselves into his face just as he was gloating, sending him flying into a nearby wall. Cebrail had drop kicked him after jumping out of the rubble.

"You-" The man growled his face twisting in rage.

"You completely ruined my joke. I won't forgive that." Cebrail stated her own eyebrows furrowed in agitation.

"I see you threw away that toy of yours!"

"Whips were never made to be weapons anyways. It just so happens though that mine is a gift."

"Whatever~ if you really think using those little fists of yours will change anything then you're living in a fairy tale." He got up and wiped a bit of blood from the corner of his lips.

"There are no dragon slayers here, young man."

"Wha-" Though confused he couldn't even get out a single word as far faster than he had expected Cebrail was in front of him sending a punch directly towards his face.

Since she was such a rational young lady she had decided to make it her mission to never allow him to finish a sentence for the rest of the fight. It would teach him two important lessons, never interrupt Cebrail, and never ruin Cebrail's jokes!

While dodging the punch he stumbled slightly from the surprise, granting Cebrail an opening to kick him in the leg. Though he fumbles slightly he regains his footing relatively quickly to slash at Cebrail.

Cebrail easily dodged back just out of range of his swing and came up with an observation, (Though he's stronger he's not nearly as experienced as the two guys outside.)

"Tsk, you-" She rushed at him again as he spoke forcing him to put up his guard, the next punch impacted the flat side of his blade hard sending him skidding back.

"Bit*h! Let me-" He began shouting but Reginleif seemed to pick up on what Cebrail was doing and imitated her actions.

"Stone Wall!" She summoned walls of stone around the young man trapping him. "Blast Away!"

The entire makeshift stone cage exploded sending dust and debris all over.

Neither of the girls let their guards down and almost immediately the sound of a gun being fired rang out sending a bullet out of the dust cloud straight to Cebrail.

Lifting a hand she made a very critical error and attempted to deflect the bullet by countering its minuscule light power with her own.

"What?" She was shocked as the bullet slammed into her hand easily forcing her to take two steps backwards.

(Both demonic and holy powers?) Cebrail had known it was possible however she had somewhat assumed only special people with special circumstances could manage such a feat. This was because the only two people she could think of off the top of her head who had accomplished this feat were Yuuto Kiba, a member of the main cast and Solomon a guy supposedly blessed by God.

This meant while she negated the light power in the bullet she didn't stop the demonic power. While it was noticeably weaker than a proper demonic bullet the very fact that it could use both attributes meant that it would be dangerous to any middle-class Angels and Devils easily.

Cebrail frowned at this. If the church was making weapons that can counter both Devils and ANGELS it wouldn't bode well for the future of the current "peaceful" times.

"Cebrail!" Reginleif called out in fear, since the two met this was indeed the first time she had actually seen the girl injured. In her mind Cebrail had become something of an untouchable individual. "Epis can't you help her!"

"Cheep. Cheep." Epis simply chirped. Even if it wanted to help her it was too far away however it also knew intrinsically that such an injury meant absolutely nothing to her master.

Reginleif found this out pretty quickly as well as she watched Cebrail's injury close itself without much resistance and the bullet tinged against the floor.

(How? The bullet is completely purified and even her wound is completely healed!) The young man thought. It was impossible purifying the bullet so simply should have been impossible unless it was completely bathed in some holy power.

The effect of the girl's blood was scarily similar to holy water, but he could feel the magic on her. He could even tell she was using it, perhaps purposefully or perhaps not, to enhance the strength of her limbs.

Magic and holy powers were nearly completely incompatible as magic was a heretical art derived from the study of demonic power. Though perhaps, given that the new holy-demonic bullets were capable of being made…

"I see! You must be one of those artificial huma- TSK!" As he spoke while laughing a bit Cebrail charged towards him, "That won't-"

He interrupted his own words with a wide horizontal swing of his sword forcing Cebrail to duck underneath it by crouching.

The young man smirked though and pointed his gun towards her head clearly having predicted this action. Unfortunately from her past life Cebrail had a great deal of experience with guns pointed at her and quickly pushed his hand to the side just as he pulled the trigger.

The bullet embedded itself into the floor next to her but while the young man was clearly a bit surprised Cebrail didn't even flinch, instead taking the opportunity to kick him in the knee.

"AGH!" He yelled in pain but didn't falter and instead tried to pull back only to have a sharp pain shoot up his leg from his foot.

Cebrail had stepped on his foot to keep him there, and just as he realized this he took a heavy punch in the face and Cebrail took her foot off of his own letting him stumble back.

"What the he-" When he raised one of his hands to touch his face he came to the realization that his gun was gone and just as quickly he came to the realization that Cebrail was still quite close. "Damn i-"

Light.

All he saw was white, as though he were hit by a flash bang before the sound of a gunshot was soon accompanied by a hole in his stomach.

(She's fighting as if this were some kind of street fight! What the hell!) He complained in his head as he tried to regain his bearings. This however was the end of the road for him as Reginleif hadn't simply been standing around. Without being pressured by an opponent and given enough time she could weave far stronger spells than just a fireball or stone wall.

"Stone Prison!" Rocks around the young man began coming out of the ground covering him until only his face was left visible.

"As a wise man once said, 'when you're up against the best you can't fight like the rest.' Or something like that." Cebrail was definitely mocking the young man but due to his lungs feeling like they were being crushed by rocks he couldn't get out any words.

"Magic sure is convenient huh, Reginleif." Cebrail commented walking away from the young man and towards the child laying on the altar.

(Huh? Did she take my earlier words seriously?) Reginleif, who was beginning to understand Cebrail better, realized immediately that despite her unchanging tone the Angel princess was attempting to make a joke in an effort to comfort her.

Reginleif scratched the side of her cheek awkwardly while following her Angel friend. "It has its perks."

The two stared at the child on the altar, she was small, perhaps smaller than the two of them but not seemingly because of a major difference in age.

"Before this barrier came up it seems like she was already on death's door…" The girl in front of Cebrail was malnourished to a disgusting degree, her bones visible through her flesh, her cheeks sunken terribly, and even her light blonde hair was bordering on white. Her eyes were closed as if she were resting peacefully.

"She must be the 'Sleeping Avalon' that Odin asked me to wake up." Reginleif commented. "But this still doesn't tell us anything about the light container…"

Reginleif was a bit dejected, while she was happy that her primary task from Odin had progressed massively she was sad that she couldn't help out Anna like she said she would. Of course that also means she couldn't get those cool gloves.

"No need to worry. She probably expected us to come up with nothing of note."

"Huh? Then why would she ask us to get information on them here?"

"She likely was baiting us into asking the Angels for help."

"???"

"That woman is a business lady through and through. She knew the fact that if I came this far and did all this work I wouldn't just drop the matter after finding nothing here." Cebrail stated simply climbing onto the mysterious unconscious child's barrier and taking a seat. "What she did account for however is the fact that I already know the main ingredient for those things. I would have brought one to Heaven either way."

It sounded like she was bragging as if she had gotten one over on Anna, however in the end either way she was doing exactly as Anna wanted, but Reginleif wasn't going to tell her that.

"You know what it is? Did you use the famous Solomon's wisdom?" Reginleif asked getting on top of the barrier to sit next to Cebrail. Before she might have found it strange to sit on top of what could almost be considered a coffin however it had been a VERY long day.

"...I guess you could say that…" Cebrail responded in an uncharacteristically hesitant tone.

"Then what is it?"

"It's created with human souls. Don't ask me how because I don't know, probably with magic or something." Cebrail pulls out a small golden key and instantly a large beam of light shot down from the sky enveloping the two girls along with their new luggage.

"Why? Why would they do that?!?" Reginleif was astonished by the information Cebrail had just casually given out. "Do they not know what they're doing?!?"

"The grunts probably don't but the high ups definitely do."

Reginleif's fists clenched in rage. As a valkyrie she couldn't help but feel appalled by the action of the Church.

Trapping a soul like this.

It was so disgusting she felt like she could throw up.

Because if a soul is trapped in such a way it is doomed. It cannot go to Heaven. It cannot go to Hell. It cannot go to any afterlife that exists. It even lacks the ability to become a wandering spirit or ghost. It's nothing but an eternal prison, and for no reason!

Cebrail looked at the enraged valkyrie from the corner of her eye and could help but sigh.

The kid had good heart.

She set her hand on Reginleif's head gently stroking it with her pleasure touch soothing the girl's heart.

Soon Reginleif was leaning on Cebrail's arm and sleep had overcome her.

Cebrail let her sleep and began pondering lightly about the day's events.

Lifting her hand she stared at Solomon's Ring with an irritated expression. "Somehow I ended up doing far more work than I would have if I had just stayed in Heaven. How ridiculous. You must really like annoying me Solomon…"