Chapter 195

Turning his head, he was confronted with a man pointing a shotgun at him. Behind him was who he assumed to be his wife as well as their child. But what caught his attention was the child.

He was a simple boy with brown hair and brown eyes. Nothing special about him in the slightest. But he could distinctly feel the aura of a sacred gears on him. Yes. Plural.

[...what?]

.

|DxD|

.

There was no mistaking it. This child had two sacred gears within him. Such an unprecedented phenomenon had never happened before, not even once in the thousands of years he's lived.

Baraquiel was about to step forward out of curiosity when the father pointed the shotgun right in his face.

"Stay back you monster! Stay back!"

"..."

His hands were shaking. This man obviously has never taken a life before. It was quite a pathetic display of confidence if he had to give his opinion. At least he could give him some points for bravery.

"Lower your weapon. I am not an enemy."

"..."

The man didn't lower it and for a brief moment, Baraquiel resisted the urge to sigh. Not even two metres of distance was between them. A normal human with the proper experience could close that distance disarm him before he could even shoot.

Sigh…

In the end, he sighed. Then nigh-instantly, he did exactly what he thought of in his prognosis. Very quickly, he closed the distance and disarmed the man before he could pull the trigger.

"Oof!"

Elbowing him in the chest, Baraquiel took the shotgun, placed some distance between them, and pointed it at the man.

.

.

.

Silence…

With the barrel of the gun pointing at her, the woman was so frozen in shock that even as teared trailed down her eyes, she didn't scream…couldn't scream. She held her son tightly while her husband stood protectively in front of them.

He was visibly sweating, most likely cursing himself over and over from what Baraquiel could see from his facial expression.

Baraquiel could admit he was feeling a bit vindictive. He never quite liked having any sort of weapon pointed at him. Made him want to break the hand of the one who dared to do so. But for once, he would cede on the account that he was the intruder and the man was just trying to do what a man should do.

No longer wanting the family to remain as tense as they were, he lowered the shotgun to his side.

"Well? Are you willing to talk…"

Idly, he glanced to a portrait of the child with his name printed in gold. Most likely an elementary school certificate if he had to guess.

"...Mister Hyoudou?"

"..."

.

|DxD|

.

Aurelia and Igor were making their way back to Shuri's house. As they slowly flew back, Igor saw the level of destruction that he caused with his transformation. Acres upon acres of trees had been uprooted or outright torn from their trunks.

This was far worse than the destruction that happened during his first fight with Aurelia. In all honesty, he felt both regretful and guilty.

[The next time I want to try something new, just going a few kilometres from town will no longer work.]

From the distance, he could see that the town was relatively fine. There were a few people who came out of their houses out of curiosity, but no one was overly hurt. As apathetic as he was to the lives of unrelated people, he didn't want to be the cause of unnecessary destruction.

Soon, they reached the house where Igor immediately felt the presence of the barriers. Thankfully, the house didn't suffer any damage. Even the surroundings were relatively fine to an extent. Nothing nature couldn't fix itself.

Slowly, the two of them landed on the ground. Leading the way, Aurelia expertly disabled the barriers protecting the house before she made her way forward. Following behind, Igor entered the house after her and the moment he did, his heart experienced palpations.

Just after turning the corner into the living room, there was Shuri hugging a sleeping Akeno and Asia, their little bodies trembling in fear. The sudden wave of power he released was too much for them, so much so that it was trauma inducing.

"..."

Frozen in the doorway, Igor was caught with hesitation and indecision. Regardless of reason, his rash actions caused his little sisters to feel fear. Did they know it was him? If they knew it was him, would they fear him?

He didn't even want to imagine such a scenario.

"..."

For a brief moment, he was tempted to walk away, but Aurelia's loud footsteps finally alerted Shuri that there was someone else in the living room.

"?!"

Shuri could not be blamed for being startled. She was just so out of it that she didn't even hear the door open. Removing her gaze from the news, she turned to face the duo, her eyes immediately widening when she saw Igor.

His energy was going haywire. She could sense his ki flow was too erratic, sometimes too fast or too slow. Was he injured? Did he fight whatever released that much power?

"Igor…"

"Hey, aunty…"

After a brief moment of hesitation, the blonde walked straight to Shuri. Upon reaching her, he crouched down so that he could be slightly level with her.

"No amount of excuses can make up for how much regret I feel. I never expected that accessing a new state would cause my power to burst out uncontrollably. Next time, I will not try something like this again close to home."

"..."

*Blinks once*

*Blinks twice*

"?!?!"

Shuri couldn't help but stiffen. She was about to yell out in exclamation when she felt Akeno groan at the sudden movement before falling asleep again. Taking the time to calm her daughter down, she looked at Igor once more with evident shock.

"You..y-you mean that…that power was…y-yours?"

She couldn't prevent herself from stuttering. The notion in of itself that such a power-level existed was ludicrous enough by itself. That Igor was responsible for it nearly made her brain shut down.

"Hehe. Yeah, aunty. I'm still a bit surprised too. I still have to learn how to control it, but I won't try to do it here."

He almost joked that he would train in Cuba, but he didn't want to make more of a mess than he already did.

"This is…this is…"

Shuri had no words she could say. Such a development was an unexpected shock. She thought that source of power was from an angry god or some other hidden entity.

Taking another cursory glance at Igor, he just did not fit the criteria.

"Hehe…"

"..."

Not at all.

.

|DxD|

.

"Special Entry Number two-three-five. Date is Tuesday, August 17, 1999. Target of importance is Issei Hyodou. Age is eight-years-old. Born April 16, 1991. Description is brown hair, brown eyes, and pale-to-tan skin. I wasn't able to verify more other than the fact that he possesses two sacred gears of possible draconic heritage. Stays with both parents. Father's name is Gorou and mother's name is Miki. Family has no involvement or knowledge of the supernatural world. Their memories of recent events have been both erased and replaced at my discretion following my departure. Any supernatural influence in their home has been cleaned up. Report over."

Placing the recorder in the pockets of his coat, Baraquiel stood atop the building of a small elementary school. Just far off into the distance, he could see the Hyoudou household. Gorou Hyoudou was complaining to hell and back about the window that had suddenly shattered.

It was fairly an amusing sight, especially when he kicked the 'rock' that had shattered it in the middle of the night.

'Of all the times for it to break! I'll find the little shits that threw this and stra-'

"Hehehe…"

Baraquiel couldn't help but chuckle when the man's wife tried to calm him. He was tempted to secretly transfer the man some money, but that would involve much more work than he was willing to undertake.

Sigh…

Furthermore, he had to watch over the children here. There were quite a few sacred-gear holders he sensed here. So temporarily, he had to protect them, especially since he had another gut-feeling that something else was soon about to happen.

.

|DxD|

.

Back in Cleria's mansion, everyone was hard at work. Ever since the wave of power suddenly disappeared, Cleria had slowly gotten better. Although her head still throbbed from the after-effects, it was no reason to not work.

Overseer or not, she had come to regard Kuoh as a second home. As such, she had undertaken the task of stabilising everything. Thankfully, Azazel had assumed first command while she was rendered incapable of leading. At the very least, the amount of work she had to do was considerably easier compared to if no one had taken charge.

Expertly commanding her peerage, media channels were manipulated into conveying anything other than the truth. Following a speech from the mayor, public panic was quickly calmed. Fortunately, aside from a few scares, the town only suffered inconsequential damage.

By transferring some money to the town treasury, Kuoh would be cleaned up of fallen debris and toppled dustbins by the end of the week.

A few more hours passed as she handled some more miscellaneous matters. During the time she was working, Azazel had returned to Grigori to handle some of his own matters while Shemhazai and Baraquiel had stayed behind.

To say she was surprised by the high number of infiltrators during this brief window of time was an understatement. In less than three hours, both she and the church had captured a combined total of twelve spies. A few were devils while the most were rogue fallen angels.

Delegates from the Shinto Pantheon under the orders of Yasaka also arrived.* They did not ask much besides asking what the power was and if she needed any assistance. Schooling her face from revealing the surprise at how courteous they were, she kindly rejected their assistance and bade them farewell.

Remaining hard at work until early morning, Cleria finally put the telephone down just as the sun peeked through her window. Looking at the time, it was just around five in the morning.

"Haaa…"

Yawning gracefully, she was just about to leave to take a well-deserved nap when a magic circle formed once more in her office, the magic circle of Serafall Leviathan.

Vwong

.

AN

.

Delegates from the Shinto Pantheon under the orders of Yasaka also arrived.*

Explanation: In canon, it is said that the yokai are completely or to some extent, separated from the Shinto Pantheon. There's the Yokai faction and the Shinto Pantheon just like there's the Church and the Devils.

Here, this is not the case as far as we know. During the World Wars, it was mentioned that both yokai and the Shinto had to work together to protect their homeland from both mundane and supernatural forces. It's probably why the Yasaka was even able to occupy the home of the massacred Himejima without some sort of backlash from the other Shinto-affiliated clans.

Once more, my patron is available for those who want to read ahead.

Until the next chapter.