Chapter 25: The Prisoners

Sorry for the late chapter, I'm still short on time to write from both my new job position and my certification classes. Might be a bit late for the next few weeks, I might have to skip a week, but my classes end soon and I'll have more time once they do.

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The next morning, the five of us woke up and met Roygun in the living room, where she had already made tea and coffee for all of us. I walked up to her and gave her a good morning kiss and walked behind her into the kitchen to make us all breakfast.

After our breakfast, I went towards the Infirmary with Serafall and Inanna, where all the injured from the day before were resting, and checked in on them. Luckily, no one had any lasting injuries, like severed limbs, though quite a few had a close call. As we walked in, we saw rows upon rows of people laying on cots, surrounded by privacy curtains. The space inside of the infirmary tent was quite clearly stretched to accommodate the number of patients.

Seeing me walk in, one of the Sitri Clansmen came over and did a slight bow, "Welcome my lord, is there anything we can do for you?"

I nodded, "Yeah, just came to see if anything unexpected happened overnight."

"Ahh, no my lord, nothing has happened, they will all be well off with a few days rest." He replied dutifully.

"Alright, that's all. I'll be taking me leave then." I responded and gave Serafall a quick peck before walking out of the tent. I walked back to my tent while using a communication circle to call my mother.

"Valerian? What's up, this isn't the time you normally call to let me know your coming home? What happened?" She fired of with an undertone of worry.

I smiled warmly at her worries, "No need to be worried, we caught a battalion of fallen angels on their way to sneak past our border. We cut them off and fought, defeating most of them. They were lead by a Cadre, he said his name was Kokabiel. We had a few casualties, lots of injuries, and captured a little over 1000 fallen. I will take them to Lucifaad along with the word of the fallen's actions."

"Just kill them... They wanted to invade our territory and slaughter a bunch of our people. You still need to send word of the fallen's actions to the capital. When you are done, you and the girls better come home for a bit." She responded with a stern voice.

"Alright, Alright. I'll let you know when we're done. Love you." I said, placating her.

"Love you too. Be careful." She said with a sight.

I closed the communication circle and went and told each of the girls to meet me in the tent in four or five hours from now. As I walked into the makeshift prison that was made for the fallen, most of which were awake now, I began to look over each of them, looking for the strongest one left alive. Finally, I found a busty fallen woman with an ice cold face, which only intensified with the glare she gave me when I was in front of her.

Crouching down in front of the woman bound in chains, I spoke after a minute of thinking, "You're the strongest fallen left from the one's that we captured. You tell me what your objective was for coming here, you and you're friends live... for now. You don't, I'll get to watch you tear your wings off and claw out your eyes in madness...Just like that Cadre." I started in a bargaining tone and ended it with a vicious grin. Part of me hoped that they agreed, since information would be nice, but another part of me hoped they didn't so I could figure out how my madness effect on the variety of weaker beings. All the ones with Kokabiel when we fought had been killed by my human form, so the only one who I actually tested it on was Kokabiel.

When she heard the first part of my statement, she looked at me like I was an idiot to ask such a thing, but her expression grew serious hearing what I said later. "Like I'd tell you anything. Besides, no angel, fallen or not, will rip off their own wings."

I smiled, "Not a sane angel. Who said anything about them being sane while doing it?" I stood up and grabbed the fallen that was next to her and used void manipulation to block out the sight of everyone else in the room except the fallen I was holding. Then, just like I did with Kokabiel, revealed a small amount of my true form while forcing the fallen to look at me.

He flinched back as soon as he looked at me in fear and horror. 'I'm not entirely sure how my madness works. It's like as soon as they see me, but what if I hid my true form before they went fully mad? Would they go back to normal, stay somewhat mad or would they continue to descend? Might as well find out.' I thought as I retracted my true form and dropped the barrier blocking everyone's sight.

All of the fallen looked up and saw that the fallen I was holding previously is not doing everything in his power to get out of my grip. His eyes were gradually getting more and more unfocused, as his attempts to free himself were getting more and more desperate. Eventually he started screaming out loud, "No! No! Let me go! G-Get away from me!"

'Looks like its continues progressing even if he only just saw my true form for a moment.' I came out of my thoughts when I noticed him shaking in place. I dropped him onto the ground as he started to laugh to himself and pull at his back, or more specifically his wings.

Reaching up behind him, still laughing, he grabbed his right wing and pulled and slowly ripped it from it's place. Blood spurted all over the ground around him as he continued pulling until after an entire 2 minutes of him pulling at it until it finally gave and separated from his body. Without a second thought he dropped the now removed wing from his hand and grabbed the other wings, doing all of them exactly the same as he did the first. After 10 more minutes, he finally pulled off the last wing and started laughing hysterically, and started clawing at his eyes, scraping them out of the eye sockets with his bare hands.

I ignored him and looked back at the woman, who looked horrified and she was as pale as a ghost, "Well, wanna talk?" I said in a questioning tone.

She flinched slightly before getting her bearings and looking at me resolutely. "M-My answer remains unchanged."

Hearing her answer I grinned, "Very well. Lets see how long you can keep that resolution." One by one I repeated the process of making the other fallen go mad as in all honesty, I wasn't doing this out of some viscous way of torture, I just used them to test the different ways my madness would affect people of various strength. And the answer was, not much different.

The one exception was one of the very few two winged fallen that was still alive. When I showed her my true form, she reacted mostly the same at first but after I dropped the illusion and where the others would start screaming, she stayed silent and fell limp, with blood flowing from her ears, nose, eyes and mouth.

I shrugged and figured I had been here for long enough and it was time to head back home with the girls. I looked at the woman, who looked ready to pass out, "Well, I'll be back tomorrow to see if you are willing to talk." Throughout the time, I had noticed a few that were more than willing to tell me what they knew, but most of them were weaker 4 winged fallen rather than the woman, who was an 8 winged fallen. If any if them actually knew any amount of useful information, it would be her. Before walking out, I used void manipulation and destroyed all the bodies of the fallen that I had used as test subjects.

Walking back to the tent, I walked in and noticed all the girls were talking to each other, and a few looked at me with annoyed faces. I sighed, "Sorry, I was getting information from our prisoners and they were... less than cooperative."

Grayfia nodded and stood up, "So we are going home?" she asked.

"Yes, mother wanted us to come visit since we haven't seen her for a while. First though, I need to tell Simon to send a report to the capital of the fallen's actions, if he hasn't already." I replied. They nodded and I sent a message to Simon telling him to make and pass on a report of their movements to the capital.

Making a teleportation circle next to me, all the girls joined me as the circle lit up and we arrived back home.