Chapter 25-Surrounded By Light

Disclaimer: I don't own Highschool DxD.

Surrounded By Light

"Sairaorg, you have no idea how much you'll owe me for this," Joshua ground out, uncaring of the tone he was using with the literal Devil in the room. There was a lot he was willing to do to remain on their good side, but risking himself was just far enough that he started thinking if it was worth it. He'd try what he wanted, but if things went South and something happened, anything. He'd cut all ties with the man.

"I hate doing this, Joshua. Believe me, I do," Sairaorg, for his part, replied, looking like he would have prefered to do literally anything else. "But the Church… if they are from the Church, we can't risk an incident, even if this is our territory and they know it. On the other hand…"

"You can't just let this happen if you know about it," Joshua finished, grimacing. "What are the fucking odds of this happening right after I set up the ward?"

"I imagine they felt the wards being set up and thought to bring attention to themselves," Kuisha said, and the human man could see the logic there… A bit, at least.

"They are moving strangely," Joshua noted, his eyes moving back to the glowing dots on the illusionary map. "There's definitely something going on there… Jeanne-"

"I'm going with you," The girl stubbornly interrupted and he could only sigh. He could see it in her face, her decision was made and nothing would change it.

Thus, Joshua traded a look with his familiars, except Morag, that is, since she was in his hair. Cheshire simply moved to his side, while Nagini tightened her hold on his neck. He could feel the spider's agreement with her fellow familiars too.

He sighed again.

"Fine," He muttered through his teeth. "We are doing this."

Both Devils deflated with a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, Joshua," Sairaorg said, sounding like he meant it. "I'll repay you, that I can promise."

"You better," He shot back, twirling a card between his fingers. He wanted to sigh again, honestly, but the repetition was getting annoying too. Instead, he just went for it. A pair of Holy Throwing Knives appeared in his hands. With a flash of light, Jeanne was already holding on two Holy Swords.

Both Devils stiffened again. 'Yeah, I expected that,' Joshua thought to himself as he grimaced. He was revealing a card that he'd kept close to his chest for a long while. It was possibly the worst time to do so, but he wouldn't go into an unknown situation unarmed, even if the other people were the Church. They were supposed to be the good guys, but after interacting for so long with people that were supposed to be bad and having nothing but positive things to say…

Well, it had put some doubts in his mind.

"Kuisha," He said, powering through the tense atmosphere. "If you could drop us nearby? That would be a great help. Just… not too close…"

For a long moment, there was silence. Then, the Queen looked to her King. A silent conversation seemed to go between them, that or Sairaorg just took the time to decide what to do. Eventually the man nodded.

With the approval given, both Jeanne and him were sucked inside the black circles that seemed to be the woman's ability. That was a risk, but he'd been taking an awful lot of those lately, this one seemed almost like a joke, really. He was betting on them doing just as he'd been doing, believing in what little trust they had built between each other.

Evidently, it was the right call, because next thing he knew, they were dropped in an alley somewhere. His Magic Sense immediately picked up on the group that was around the corner. A moment later, he felt the shifting of the energies in them.

There was a fight going on, it seemed. The interesting part was that they were fighting each other. 'So, that's what the strange reading was, huh?' Joshua thought as he tried to decide what to do here. 'Well… if they are gonna distract each other…'

"I'll try to take a look," Joshua told Jeanne, continuing quickly when it became apparent that she was going to complain. "Your swords are too noticeable. My knives can be hidden easily enough though. I'll take a look, but I won't go far, ok?"

Reluctantly, she nodded, looking at her swords like they'd betrayed her.

"Nagini?" He said then. "Think you can sneak in just in case? Should be a lot easier if you aren't hanging from my neck," With that said, the snake gave him a last squish before slithering her way down his body and then moved against a wall and around a corner.

It was fortunate that people were already running for their lives. The conflict had, evidently, earned the attention of the mundane. Enough that they wouldn't be noticed at all. 'Still…' From the card in his hand, he pulled a hooded jacket and a face mask for both, Jeanne and himself.

"Sairaorg has mentioned covering stuff up from the mundane… but this people aren't mundane, I'd rather they not have our identities so easily," He explained as he passed the items to her. His familiars would be a bit of giveaway, he supposed, but they hardly went with him anywhere public, so it should be easy enough. Besides, there were a lot of white and black cats anyway, right?

He grimaced. Things would be a lot easier if he could just use Illusions, but they weren't high level enough that he would trust them to hold against anything remotely serious. He didn't even have a circle prepared for this. 'I have nothing prepared for this, really,' He thought, his eye twitching as he mentally cursed Sairaorg. He was more of a defensive player, damnit!

The guy better pay him well for this madness.

"Ok then… let's do this…" He said to himself, his voice muffled once he had the mask on.

Turning around the corner, his hands gripped the daggers inside the jacket pockets. Sure enough, there was a group of people wearing coats and swinging around light swords. 'They just had to be exorcists, right?' He thought to himself. The good thing was that they were, as he'd noted before, fighting each other. 'A group of Stray Exorcists?' He wondered as he leaned against the wall. He was far enough that nobody should pay attention to him. They had better things to focus on too, he was sure.

Thus, Joshua leaned against the wall, trying to keep his eyes on everything.

"Exorcist fight, apparently," He mumbled against the mask for Jeanne's benefit. She wasn't looking, after all. "Don't know who brought the fight here, but they probably aren't too bright," He added, his annoyance at the whole situation growing by the second. There was something that caught his attention though.

Joshua could follow the fights just fine. After reading about exorcists training their whole lives to reach the peak of humanity in order to fight "evil", the man had expected… more. Maybe he was just looking at the low-level exorcists or something, but it was still a bit disappointing. He was pretty sure that Jeanne and himself could easily take these people.

Maybe some people could make the excuse that he couldn't be considered a normal human. After all, he had the game, didn't he? However, what about Jeanne? 'The voices?' Joshua wondered as he continued analyzing the exorcists. 'Is there more to them than just some help and a 'second opinion' as it were?' That idea wasn't the weirdest thing in the world, he guessed.

Then he paused. His spam of Appraisal had finally stumbled onto something of note.

[Excalibur Destruction

Rank - ?]

'Fucking Excalibur?!' Joshua exclaimed in his mind, his body tensing as his eyes went wide. 'No, wait… Excalibur Destruction… What's up with that?' He wondered, looking at the woman - girl, more like - that wielded the weapon. She had blue hair with a green fringe on the front. She was also dressed differently from everyone else. Bafflingly enough, she was wearing what seemed to be a skintight black leotard under a white cloak.

Joshua quickly realized that she wasn't the only one.

[Excalibur Mimic

Rank - ?]

'What the fuck?' He asked himself as he looked at the brown-haired girl with twintails. The only silver lining there was hoping that the 'Mimic' part of the name meant it was an imitation or something.

He guessed it made sense, that those two stood out. They were the only people that were Rank C. 'Xenovia Quarta and Irina Shidou,' He noted mentally, taking a second look at their screens. They were also some of the best fighters there were at the moment. 'Those names…' He started, before shaking his head. 'It's probably nothing.'

His eye twitched.

It didn't feel like it was nothing.

However, Joshua didn't have time to ponder that. Things were developing. The side that didn't have Excaliburs was, as expected, losing but much slower than one would expect. He noticed something though. A man and a woman were fighting somewhere in the middle of it all, and both of them seemed to be ordering around each side.

[Freed Sellzen

Rank - C]

[Griselda Quarta

Rank - ?]

Now, that was an interesting sight, seeing an exorcist fighting a nun. 'Quarta, huh?' He noted quickly. She looked nothing like Xenovia, but then again… Blinking, Joshua turned around the corner for a bit.

[Jeanne Davis

Rank - C]

'Huh, good to know.'

"I'm waiting to see if there's a side we can take in this mess," Joshua told her, before turning around. "At least we can confirm that they aren't here to create trouble for Sairaorg, I'm pretty sure," He added with a frown. 'Then why did they come here to fight themselves? That's just asking for trouble.'

'And why is Quarta losing?' Now that was an interesting question. She was obviously higher rank than Sellzen, considering that Joshua couldn't see her rank. So, why was it that the man was the one that was pushing her back.

Staring at the woman as the fight went on told him the reason. It seemed to trigger something in Appraisal too, he noted, as the 25% chance of revealing weakness activated even though it hadn't the first time. The important part there wasn't that though. It was that Quarta had several weaknesses showing.

'She's injured,' Joshua noted with a click of his tone. Scanning the battlefield again, he saw many of the exorcists ganging up on both of the girls that were carrying Excaliburs. 'That side's going to lose,' He realized. He was surprised, but also, not very much. The winning side didn't have quality, but they had numbers over the others and it showed. 'That and there's probably more here that happened before we arrived,' Joshua thought, taking a deep breath in.

'What to do though?'

That was a good question too. Sairaorg had asked them to make sure that these people weren't trying to bring trouble to him. They weren't worried about a fight breaking out, the Bael was sure he could take them. What he wasn't so sure about were the political issues that might bring for him though.

How that worked, Joshua didn't know, but that didn't seem like the time to ponder on that.

'Maybe we can just go,' He mused. 'Let them be, get Cheshire to bring Nagini back and go on our way… On the other hand, they came here to get Sairaorg's attention… Something is going on.'

"Why are you fighting us, Griselda?" Sellzen asked, loud enough that even Joshua could hear him, the name exclaimed like it was an insult. "The Devil's surely have noted our sudden visit and you still prefer to fight us instead of them?"

"This has nothing to do with the Devils, Sellzen, and you know it," The woman replied imperiously, standing straight as if her body wasn't littered with wounds. "This is about bringing you to justice, and I'll do that."

'Huh? So, Sellzen and the others are Strays then?' Joshua noted, the gears in his mind turning as he adjusted his view of the situation. Maybe he really could get away from the whole thing and forget about it. After all, this was unrelated to Sairaorg and his people… If only Sellzen wasn't on the winning side though… 'What does it matter? I don't know these people.'

Then, Joshua internally cursed Appraisal. He now knew these people on some level. He could relate to Griselda there, he could see Jeanne in Xenovia's place. He knew they were actual people instead of nameless strangers. He almost told himself that they would be fine, but it was such a lie that he couldn't even manage the full thought.

'Fucking… Fine,' He grumbled when Griselda barely parried an attack. Action that had her immediately on her back foot. It was now or never. This was an opening Sellzen could use to kill all of them or something along those lines.

"Jeanne," Joshua said, forcing the words through his mouth. He barely received a sound of acknowledgement before he started speaking again. "We are going in. They have guns, so have a defensive sword with you at all times," He suggested.

"Right," Jeanne replied and he was surprised that she didn't sound that scared. "The voices were whispering about getting involved," She added then, momentarily hesitant.

"Well, it's good to know I have back up in this decision," Joshua said with a deep breath in. It was somewhat reassuring to know that the voices agreed with him. "Let me do the entrance and then we rush in, yeah?"

"Ok."

"... Actually," He paused and turned to the side and to the ground. "Cheshire," He started, speaking to the cat that was almost rubbing against his leg. "Care to do the entrance? I need you to distract the white haired guy. Just for a moment before I join."

In the blink of an eye, the cat gave out a dim pale blue glow. Then, she ran down the street the exorcists were fighting. Steeling his resolve, Joshua followed. He took a card from his pocket and put it behind his right ear.

"What the fuck?!" Sellzen exclaimed as a white and black blur jumped to his face. Just before he could completely incapacitate Quarta too. 'Good, no hostage situations here, please and thank you,' Joshua thought before pulling back his arm and- "Fuck!" The man shouted when a knife embedded itself in his leg. 'I was aiming a little lower than that though,' Joshua thought, clicking his tongue.

Ignoring that, he pulled his hand up to the card on his ear and pulled another knife from the Storage Spell drawn on it. 'Just like target practice,' He told himself before he started throwing knives everywhere.

"They have back up!" Someone shouted from the side, but he was of no concern to Joshua. He was more focused on protecting Griselda. The rest of the fight seemed to be even enough that he could push that to the side. However, if their leader fell, then that side would come down crashing pretty quick.

"Agh!"

Thus, he threw his knives at anyone that tried to approach the woman. Maybe one or two of them were her allies, but since everyone was dressed the same, he thought he could be excused for that. Joshua almost smirked when he heard someone shout something about a snake from one side.

"Help Nagini, Cheshire!" He ordered once he was close enough to Griselda that he didn't need the feline to jump in anyone's faces. His familiar seemed to have decided the lynx form suited the situation much more. He didn't know how accurate that was, since she was a bigger target that way, but he'd leave it to her discretion. He had other things to keep in mind as it was.

"Who the fuck are you, little shits?!" Sellzen exclaimed as he went to shoot Joshua with his gun. He'd brought up a Magic Shield just as fast though. After that one try, he was already too close for the exorcist to try again, having to bring up his Light Sword instead.

"Just people passing by," Joshua ground out as he started fighting the man. His face grew strained quickly though. The man was much better than the dummies he used to train, that was for sure. He was used to fighting more people though, so that might have compensated a little because he was pretty sure he could hold his ground.

In a purely physical fight, that is.

Circles started appearing around him, shooting energy towards the exorcist, who could barely dodge or block them with his sword. He'd have gone for a Rope but that was much harder to hit a moving target with. Still, the addition of magic was enough for him to start pushing the man back.

"This is none of your busine-!" Started someone from Joshua's side, only to be interrupted. He only needed to see the sword that interrupted his attack to know that Jeanne now had his back. 'Good, this guy is enough to keep me busy. I don't need others interrupting.'

"Morag… You are last line of defense, go with that woman that's recovering next to us. Keep her as safe as you can," He mumbled through his teeth as he continued his assault on Sellzen. Obviously, he received no response from the spider, but soon enough he started feeling her creeping her way down to a jumpable distance.

"Talking to yourself? That's not a good sign, you know?" Sellzen mocked but Joshua ignored him. It wasn't particularly difficult since the insult held no truth behind it… at least with what he was talking about. He would have actually laughed on the Stray's face, really.

Instead, he strained himself a little to make a circle appear a little further away from himself. Joshua felt the magic being drained considerably more than usual, but it was worth it. The spell was cast from behind Sellzen and even if he had a sensing ability like Joshua, he was too preoccupied with the man himself to dodge that attack.

"Miss, don't you dare," He heard Jeanne hiss and had to resist the urge to turn and see what was going on.

Joshua would have turned to see what was going on, but there was no way he was taking his eyes off Sellzen. The man was supposed to be higher ranked than him, after all. He would give him zero chances. His magic reserves were being drained by the second too and he had no delusions that he could defeat this man without magic.

He heard Jeanne speaking with someone behind him as he continued his assault. Sellzen, meanwhile, cursed out loud everytime he managed to get through to him and every time his own attacks failed. Joshua himself kept silent, gritting his teeth as he tried to finish the fight before his energy ran out.

His daggers blocked the light sword then, crossing each other as they held the bigger blade over him. Sellzen wasn't just a swordsman though, and he decided to prove it when he pulled a hand away and pulled his gun. The shot was stopped by a barrier though, and Joshua decided to take advantage of the weakened grip on the exorcist's sword.

Twisting both his arms, and with them the daggers, he forced the man's weapon away from him. When Sellzen stepped back to try and get away a little, maybe to get another weapon from his allies, Joshua threw a knife straight into his shoulder. 'Well, can't fail from this distance, right?' He thought with a smirk, pleased that at least he's aim had held true this time.

Getting to the man in a second, Joshua wasted exactly zero seconds before kicking the man's head, knocking him out. 'I'm not gonna risk it,' He thought as he brought his arm up and pulled another dagger from his Storage Spell. 'That was the last one in that card, I think,' He noted as he assessed the situation on the street again.

Nagini and Cheshire seemed to be doing fine. There were several bodies on the ground already. He guessed that it was either the snake's Wrap or Disable, since he'd looked up Black Mamba venom's effect and it should take longer to make someone drop like that. Well, they could be victims of the cat too, he supposed, but she seemed to have taken the distraction role this time.

Behind him, Jeanne stood next to Griselda, who seemed to have recovered already. 'Healing Gratitude?' He wondered and indeed, Jeanne seemed to be holding that sword on one of her hands and healing everyone that came close to her. Joshua was very grateful to see a Shield Sword in her other hand, a sword that basically let her create barriers not unlike his Magic Shields.

The general fight seemed to have turned back in their favor. Unsurprising, since despite the number difference Griselda's side seemed to have the better fighters. Still, with how she'd almost been taken out, Joshua wasn't sure what the outcome would have been if he'd stayed out of it.

"You will-" Was as far as another Stray Exorcist got before he parried his light sword and smacked him with the pommel of his dagger, knocking him out. 'There's still people around,' Joshua noted, replacing the card behind his ear for another that was also full of daggers. 'Let's finish this up, yeah?'

From there, he was more annoyed than anything else. Fighting wasn't for him, he realized. Even when he was on the winning side and the battles were easy he just… didn't like them as much as he thought he would. He'd much prefer to be at home, training, studying, tinkering, relaxing or literally anything else.

Thankfully, the fight was over soon enough.

"That's the last one," Jeanne said, having already moved to Joshua's side. Nagini and Morag had returned to their rightful places on his shoulders and hair respectively and Cheshire remained in her lynx form at his feet.

"Indeed," He replied, eyes locked on Griselda's group of exorcists. The fact that she was the leader evident once more when she was the one that remained in front of them all as they regarded the two of them. Would they turn hostile now that they had what they got? The fact that they were from the Church was supposed to be reassuring, but really, he knew very well that was hardly enough. Call him paranoid, but he'd heard enough history from the Church to know that they might not be as good as they'd like to present themselves as.

"I'm Griselda Quarta," The woman introduced herself as she stepped towards them. Joshua, taking a deep breath in, stepped forward to take the hand she offered them. "I wanted to thank you too for your assistance."

"There's no need for that," He waved off then, pointedly not introducing himself. He was wearing a mask and a hood for a reason, after all.

"There is," She insisted before sighing. "This is Devil territory and we felt wards being activated. If the fight had dragged on, who knows what would have happened?" She said. 'Or what would have happened if you lost,' He added to himself.

Joshua took a moment of wonder if it would be a good idea to reveal that he was sent by Sairaorg. He didn't know what the Devils and the Church's relationship was like. Evidently, they weren't as on each other's throats as he'd expected, since Sairaorg hadn't run straight to them to kill them all. Still, from how the Bael King had asked him to act on his part… He had doubts.

"Exactly what happened today," Joshua heard someone say.

'Speak of the Devil,' He thought to himself as he turned around slightly, not letting the exorcists out of his sight. 'Or, think, in this case.'

There stood Sairaorg, with his entire peerage behind him.

"You did well," The Devil said, this time towards Joshua, who was grateful the man seemed to have decided to go along with his wish to hide his identity. "We'll take it from here. Once more, thank you for your services."

"Don't mention it," Joshua waved off. "If we could get a lift to our place, please?" He really wanted to just go back home. Fortunately, that's exactly what he got, as a black circle materialized at his feet.

Trouble was over.

For the moment.

[} Chapter End {]