Chapter 155: New Group in the City

–

Erik was in a dilemma. A complicated look adorned his face as he watched four Fallen Angels enter the abandoned church of the city. He knew the identity of the four of them and what their arrival in the city meant. And he didn't like it.

"Well, first things first, I suppose."

Erik said to himself in a low voice and called a friend of his through a communication spell. It took some time to connect, but the irritated-looking face of Azazel appeared in projection form over Erik's blue magic circle.

"What is it?"

Azazel said in an irritated manner while angrily scribbling something.

"Bad day, uh?"

Erik commented to Azazel, who raised his head from the papers in front of him and looked at the magic circle of the communication spell.

"Erik!"

Azazel exclaimed while letting his face show a smile. It seemed that the interruption was a welcome one.

"Hey, Azazel. How are you doing?"

Erik greeted and asked the Fallen-Angel, who let a sigh as a sign of despair.

*Sigh*

"I'm drowning in paperwork here! One would think that with the computer era finally taking the normal world, the paper would become a thing of the past, even more for us that had the technology available fifty years before them. But I just can't see to get rid of this damnable thing!"

Azazel replied, talking heatedly about his hate for paperwork.

"You have to learn how to delegate more, Azazel. Try to contact some of those companies that are specialized in raising productivity by shortening the workflow."

Erik said to the Fallen Angel. He had a similar problem some few decades ago when his Ravens' Group started to quickly expand. Erik was starting to drown in the paperwork that was coming from all the different companies and was getting each day later and later at home. He solved the problem by cutting some of the bureaucracy off and letting each company chairman/woman take their own decisions in accord with the targets set for the company at a big meeting that happened two times a year. Erik's paperwork had all but disappeared nowadays and all he had to do was put out the eventual fire. It helped that with the creation of tablets, all paperwork was digital with every employee having their own devices.

"You have to kick the ass of those fossils that work with you and chug a computer down their throats too. I mean, even Heaven is modernizing themselves."

Erik added, making Azazel chuckle. It was true. Some of the millennia-old Fallen Angels were very resistant to changes and were adamant about continuing to use paper. The Angels were the same too, but with the explosion in population in the human world, they saw themselves obliged to modernize or be drowned in paperwork. He knew of that because Michael, at Gabriel's indication, had hired Selena to install and configure their servers. Her proprietary technology even managed to interact with and interpret some of God's system's language, making the Great Seraphs' jobs dozens of times easier. Azazel let out another sigh at that.

*sigh*

"I know, I know. It is just that some of the people here are too damn stubborn."

Azazel said, complaining a little more about the old fossils that didn't want to modernize themselves.

"Throw all the paperwork on their laps. They will very quickly agree with the process then."

Erik said while shrugging. An evil-looking smile adorned Azazel's face after hearing that. Dozens of different ideas of how to proceed with what Erik had said were popping into his head. Some seconds later, with a bare plan already made, Azazel looked at Erik's image and smiled.

"So, to what do I owe the call? Not that I don't appreciate the help that you just gave me, but you rarely call me out of boredom."

Azazel asked Erik, taking in a tone of an abandoned lover at the end of the sentence. Erik rolled his eyes at that and decided to ignore the innuendo.

"Well, as you know probably already know, I am keeping an eye out for the two little sisters of the Satans that are governing Kuoh, in Japan, and the abandoned church in the city is housing four Fallen Angels. So I decided to call you and ask the reason for them being here."

Erik said to Azazel, who frowned at the end of the explanation.

"I don't remember signing anything like this for Kuoh… Let me just verify with Penemue. I will return to you in ten minutes tops, okay?"

Azazel said to Erik, who nodded his head in agreement and finished the call. While waiting for Azazel's answer, Erik decided to snoop a little on the Fallen Angels' group by concentrating his senses inside the abandoned church building. Being an old base of operations for exorcists of the church that were stationed in the area, the old building was much more than could be seen on the surface. Underground, it had a vast area that Erik estimated could house up to fifty people. It had dormitories, bathrooms, kitchens, dining areas, and even a big training grounds. While Erik listened to the conversation of the group of Fallen Angels inside the old church, learning and confirming their names, he picked on a poorly hidden strong life signal quickly approaching the location. Curious about it, Erik re-checked the spells that kept him hidden and waited for the arrival. And he was not disappointed with it. Covered by totally black clothes, Erik watched with interest while Kokabiel, the poor excuse for a Vampire rip-off, landed in the front of the church's doors, looked around to see if he had been seen, and entered the building. Erik accompanied the Vampire rip-off with his senses while he descended to the church's 'secret' dwellings and met with the four Fallen Angels. As a swiss clock, Erik received the call back from Azazel and when it connected, Erik saw the face of a very put-off Azazel.

"Hey, Azazel. Some new things happened here on my side, what about you?"

Erik said and asked cheerfully.

"Yeah, about that, it was just like I had suspected. I signed an authorization for a long-term mission that had as a target the search and recruitment of Sacred Gear users with four Fallen Angels as the main party. But it was most definitely not for the city of Kuoh."

Azazel replied while still frowning.

"It seems that someone had taken advantage of the mission that I signed off to diverge resources for their own gains."

Azazel said again, this time with a tinge of fury showing in his voice and eyes. If there was something that he didn't like was others taking away the precious resources of Grigori for their personal agendas, be it workforce or materials. Only he could do that! It was one of his rights as the leader of the faction!

"Well, and it happens that I had just discovered who did it, and you will never guess who it was~"

Erik said in a playful voice while a smirk showed on his face.

–

Four months! It had taken four months for the four Fallen Angels to make their move on the school. While that time was passing, small groups of rogue exorcists were arriving at the city and taking residence in the underground of the old church, together with the Fallen Angels. In total about thirty rogue exorcists were living there, a group composed only of the more bloodthirsty individuals that were expelled from the church because of their trigger-happy personalities. Between them, it was a perverse abomination known as Freed Sellzen. The crazy rogue exorcist would come and go from the church as he wished while spewing profanities to whoever could hear him. Erik's hand was itching to put an end to the miserable life of the shit spewing rogue exorcist. But he managed to hold himself by only giving the man diarrhea whenever he felt like murdering someone, which was pretty much all the time, much to the horror of the poor noses of the other rogue exorcists and the four Fallen Angels that lived underground with him. The success of Azazel's plan to catch Kokabiel depended on them being alive. For now.

Erik's attention was caught when, just ten minutes before the start of the morning classes, he felt a weak confounding spell trying to influence his mind. The spell was 'weak' and discrete at the same time. Weak enough that any supernatural being would not be affected by it while at the same time being discrete enough so it would be ignored by his senses. That is unless you had some very strong and developed mental shields. Only normal humans would be affected by the confounding spell with its configuration. When the school bell signaled for the start of the classes, Erik walked to his first-class while trying to discover the effects that the spell had on the school's population. Whatever it was, he knew that it would not have changed much since it was too weak to do great changes in a person's mind. Just before lunch, as Erik entered the second-year classroom for his history lesson, he immediately noticed the new addition to the class. Sitting in the middle of the classroom, as if she belonged to the place while using the school's uniform, was a somewhat cute girl that had long black hair and reeked with the energy of a Fallen Angel. It was Rainare, the leader of the group of Fallen Angels that was housed inside the old church.

Erik ignored the girl's presence, just as she didn't recognize him. After all, why would one of the top powers of the supernatural world be doing working as a teacher in a High School? Erik continued with his class from when he had stopped last time, teaching the students about the world's history while rigging the Fallen Angel's entire body with hidden tracking and spying spells. His little monsters were not necessary to act here. They were already all over the Fallen-Angels' system since their first day in the city and after confirming with Azazel that they should not be in Kuoh.

As his class ended, Erik watched as Rainare got up from her seat and walked up to Issei Hyoudou. She then shyly gave the horny boy a small letter before hurriedly running from the classroom.

'Hmm, her acting skills are somewhat passable.'

Erik thought to himself while he watched as a dumbfounded Issei stared at the empty space where Rainare was just standing with a dumb-looking face. Soon enough, the boy started to get mercilessly teased by one of the girls from his class that had become good friends with him, Aika Kiryuu. Issei Hyoudou had found in the almost equally perverted girl a friend to discuss the less perverted side of their tastes after the two sick perverts that he called friends got themselves kicked from the school. In accord with the gossip around the school, the two of them had tried to date for some time during the summer break, but it had not worked well due to their personal tastes. Aika was too much into boy-love romances while Issei could not resist a pair of big boobs. Fortunately, both had already entered the relationship knowing of their partners' preferences and ended the 'experiment' in a very amicable way, allowing their friendship to go on. In Erik's sincere opinion, they had just wanted to blow some steam while gaining some 'valuable experience' with the opposite gender.

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a/n: So, do I kill Issei before reincarnating him or not?