New Faces

"Stay. Still!"

Freed furiously shouted as he swings his light sword at me. Instead of blocking or parrying, I [Switched] away. Reappearing a small distance away from him, I slapped my ass to his face. The mad exorcist gnashed his teeth and began shooting. In a blink, I changed places, posing all the while—

This was what we have been doing for a few minutes. Freed would attack me and I would just disappear and reappear while taunting him. From calling him names to doing a blatant JoJo pose, I did it all.

Of course, if that was all I did, he wouldn't be so pissed. No, at random points I would score an attack on him with my dagger. Sometimes I feinted and did nothing to keep everything chaotic.

You might ask why I didn't just attack him head-on.

Well, to be honest, I don't trust my shanking skill at the moment.

Freed, despite his craziness, was a somewhat competent fighter. He had a slight chance to kick my ass, a slight chance too many.

Also, I have an ability that I've trained for a day and a half, why won't I use it?

So yeah, sorry if you expect me to fight this crazy bastard honestly. I would rather go home without so much as a bruise, thank you very much.

—I dodged a light bullet and suddenly appeared behind Freed. He swiped at me with his sword, but I was already disappeared. I taunted him, reappearing on a box flat on my back while yawning. He charged at me, breaking the box with a mighty swing. I reappeared beside him and shanked the man on his side before backing off.

Freed cursed while clutching his side, the blood from the wound turning his clothes red. Right now, Freed was drenched in his blood from the small wounds I had inflicted. I wasn't planning to murder him if you were wondering. No, Leader wanted them alive for some reason, and also Penny don't want us to shed unnecessary blood.

Freed stumbled back and took something out of his pocket. He shot me a crazed scowl and threw it to the ground.

Nothing happened…

The stray exorcist was bewildered. He repeated his action several times. I just sat there on a rock, waiting for him to realize that he was throwing pebbles all this time.

I had [switched] the strange balls he got (probably flashbangs) to rocks that I used to move around, I did it when he threw them so he wouldn't catch on too quickly.

He did catch on eventually though. Seeing that his flashbangs turned to rock, he started to sweat.

"You…!" Freed growled as he steps back. I didn't move an inch as I shot him a smile.

Good thing that my Mystic Eye was barely distinguishable from my regular eye. I bet the mad exorcist was thinking that I had Sacred Gear or something.

Freed spun around and was about to make a run, but two steps away and he stepped on something.

I closed my eyes when bright light exploded from under Freed's feet.

From the curses I heard I think he didn't see that one coming, literally. Where we fought was barely illuminated by moonlight. Something as big as a small rock won't be seen easily, especially if ones panicking.

I opened my eyes and acted quickly.

Before Freed could regain his sight, I appeared in front of him and threw an uppercut to his chin, then I followed it with a chop to his neck before finishing with a strong kick to his solar plexus. Freed bent forwards, throwing out bile as oxygen was being kicked out of his system.

At this point, an intrusive thought popped into my mind...

I let it win for once.

The next moment, my dagger found a new sheath as Freed let out a guttural, agonized cry.

I didn't know if it was because of the pain or the blood loss, but Freed was out the next moment, landing face-first as his rear pointed to the sky.

I was marveling at my work when Penny and Issei came, they were bringing the fallen with them. Upon seeing my handiwork, Penny threw a curious frown at me while Issei grimaced, "Dude…"

"Sorry, can't resist intrusive thoughts." I shrugged.

"And what is this supposed to be?" Penny asked as she dumped Mittlet and Kalawarner near Freed.

"Asscalibur..."

"That's not even a sword!" Issei cried while throwing Dohnaseek to the pile.

"A dagger is just a very short sword, Issei-kun." I conveyed with a sage-like tone, "Wanna find out if you're worthy?"

"Not even if you paid me for it."

"Is he going to be okay?" Penny asked while squatting near Freed, her eyes on the hilt of my dagger.

"It'll take more than a knife to someone's ass to kill anyone in this world, Penny. That's just how this world works." I answered with a shrug.

"I see…" she then stood up, "my radar picked up the devils' signatures. It seems that they're coming here. Let's regroup with Leader Rio."

"There's no need for that," Rio said as she stepped out of the church, holding what looks like an orb the size of a soccer ball. But what we focused on was her appearance, her uniform was drenched with blood. She had no scratch on her person, then it probably wasn't her blood.

"Uh, are you okay? what happened?" Issei asked unsurely, he looked a bit green.

"Oh, I'm fine. It's just Raynare didn't like it when her minions started running," Rio answered easily, "oh yeah if you're squeamish don't step down to the basement. It's a bit… messy."

It must've been a miracle that we didn't go and fetch her. I wasn't sure I would get sleep if I saw whatever gruesome sight awaited us in that basement.

"Where's Raynare?" Penny inquired and Rio showed us the orb.

"Right here."

We took a closer look and just as she said Raynare was inside the orb. She was running around like a headless chicken, under her was a pulsing red magic circle.

"She's not going to break out at any moment, is she?"

"Don't worry. So long as she stands in that magic circle, it will continue to sap her of magical energy, which then stimulates the production of cortisol and adrenaline in her brain at a steady rate, keeping her in a stressful state. And as long as she's stressed, the wall of this orb will keep any thoughts of destroying the barrier or the magic circle away. In short, unless she learned how to reign her temper, she won't break free." Rio explained before the orb disappeared into her [Inventory]

"That's ingenious, Leader Rio." Penny and Issei clapped

"Thank you. It's just a small application from my study. Given time, I think I can create a bounded field with more awesome features." Rio was positively beaming as she explained.

So that was the fruit of her study...

She just created what looks like a pseudo-Reality Marble. Not gonna lie, seeing her progress even if it was small to her, made me envious. But the only thing I could do now was to improve my Mystic Eye.

Maybe I should ask her for suggestions on what to do.

After tying up the fallen angels and Freed (we gave them a bit of health potion so they don't drop dead,) Rio cleaned herself and we waited for the devils to approach us.

It didn't take long for the devils to appear.

~~~~

The devils approached the church's entrance, their steps were careful but not overly cautious. They were about to meet an unknown party and one of them had hiding under their noses for who knows how long.

Sona and Rias had split their group with the Sitri heiress observing from afar while her peerage members hid in the shadows around the church, and Rias and her peerage made contact with their 'guest.'

It didn't take long for them to meet. The group did not try to run or hide, instead, they were waiting just a couple of steps away from the church's door. The four—no, five of them were standing in front of tied-up fallen angels plus a (what Rias presumed) stray exorcist.

"Evening everyone!" greeted the girl with a side ponytail," sorry for the ruckus. Hope we didn't make too much trouble for you guys."

"That depends, miss…?" Rias trailed off.

"Oh, it's Emiya! I'm the leader of this little team."

"Right, Miss Emiya. My name is Rias Gremory, the overseer of Kuoh town. Like I said, depends on what kind of problem. Your action against these fallen? There was a small problem, but nothing that my peerage members cannot handle…"

Inwardly, she thanked the group for dealing with the fallen. After all, she and Sona cannot interact with them for various reasons.

"...But I must ask, why didn't you contact us directly? Why left trails that could be easily traced back to you by other supernatural?"

After some discussion with Sona, Rias realized that the traces of magical energy they found was deliberate as they were made to point at the church, or at least the neighborhood around the church. Sona threw an idea that these were an 'invitation' and she had been right.

"Ah, that! Sorry, sorry! It's just we don't know who's in charge in this town. So we decided to leave those traces and see who'll come tonight." Emiya said sheepishly.

Rias raised an eyebrow, "you don't know that this is devil's territory?"

"We know that much, but we don't know that this is house Gremory's territory."

They were informed by someone that Kuoh town was a devil territory but whoever told them left the bit where it was House Sitri and Gremory's territory.

Strange, why would someone miss to tell that important tidbit?

"So you had an idea to leave crumbs trails in the hope we contacted you." Rias could see some sense in the idea but, "That's a bit reckless, Emiya-san."

Leaving traceable magical energy like that could lead them to be tracked by another group that dabbled in magic. Even more so when the traces left behind was dense enough for a novice magician to sense. Moreover, they pointed straight at Hyoudou's resident. This means something like a stray devil could easily use this trail and followed it instead.

It was either these guys unaware of it or confident enough with their skill.

And after seeing their performance tonight, Rias was betting on the latter.

"Eh, it worked right?" Emiya-san shrugged carefreely.

"Hm, it is still a reckless move. But moving on, why did your team attack these fallen?"

"That's because these crows kidnapped one of us, Asia here! They were going to do some ritual on her." she patted a blonde girl in a hooded robe who looked surprised by the action. "That's also a reason we can't contact you guys."

So, They were also pressured by time to save this girl. Rias nodded understandably.

A silent moment passed between the two groups, Rias could see the members of Emiya's group were silently assessing hers, and vice versa.

The boy beside Hyoudou Issei looked apathetic, but Rias could see he was nervous because his fingers were drumming against his thumb. The lack of magical energy confirmed that it was a nervous tick of sorts.

Hyoudou Issei himself looked visibly nervous, he had some sweat running down his face and his eyes kept flickering on hers and Akeno's breast (she silently was pleased that his honest perverseness was not an act).

The girl who Sona was interested in had glimmers of curiosity in her eyes, the devil's presence she had also gone like it was never there.

And finally, The girl they went to save, Asia, looked uncomfortable for some reason.

"So… are we in trouble?" Emiya-san's question broke the lull in their conversation.

"At the moment, no," Rias answered honestly. They hadn't broke anything other than that house which they had to pay a small fine.

"...seeing that you're somewhat uninformed and the fact that nobody was harmed during your fight, we decided to be lenient. There will be a fine for breaking the Sawamura's front door, but nothing too outrageous." Emiya-san smiled when Rias said she let them off scot-free, "But we still have to question you all, both for the report of this incident and register you all as an active supernatural party in Kuoh town."

With Hyoudou-san's family around and he still schooling, it was safe to assume that they won't go anywhere soon.

"What kind of question?" Emiya-san asked, a bit hesitant.

"Nothing too invasive. Just legal background that's available in the government database and some of your supernatural background too."

"And if we don't have papers in the mundane world?"

"Then just your supernatural background will suffice." not all people on this side of the world had a legal background in the mundane after all.

After some thought, Emiya-san glanced at her friends who either shrugged or nodded.

"Alright, we'll answer your questions."

Rias nodded gratefully, "Good. thank you for your cooperation, Emiya-san. I promise this won't be long. Please, step into the circle."

Emiya-san's group then approached her group. They were more relaxed than before (except Hyoudou-san, who looked both excited and nervous.) they stepped into a teleporting circle that Rias conjured and the two groups disappeared in a flash of red.

~~~~

Our registration didn't take that long, we were set free after some questioning of what happened at the church, it took roughly thirty minutes.

When the devils asked for our supernatural background we honestly said that we were new to this side of the world. It was technically the truth since it was barely a day since we dove into the supernatural in this world. Then they questioned our place of origin, when do we aware of the other side, and of course our 'Sacred Gears.'

We don't have any of course, but just in case, we register our ability as Sacred Gears under made-up names. I registered my [Mystic Eye of Displacement] as an ocular-type Sacred Gear, [Parallel Fantasy], which led us to discover rename feature.

Would we get into trouble when they realized that we all lied? Probably.

Eh, not that we cared that much.

This was a world where the strongest you were, the fewer people wanted to screw you over. so we just need to get strong enough that when our lies were discovered they can't do shit about it.

Right now, we were lounging at Issei's house, resting. Asia was currently asleep in the guest room. After some explanation from us about her condition, Issei's parents agreed to let her stay for a while.

"Friend Rio," Penny suddenly called. She was currently sitting on a couch with [Menu] window opened, "why do we have to lie to the devils? They seem to be pleasant people."

Right, Penny is technically still a child.

She would probably see our action as wrong since we lied to good people or in this case the local authority.

Rio leaned forward in her seat and lowered her tome slightly, "It's because we need to lay low as much as we can for the time being. If we outright said that we're from another world or that our powers aren't Sacred Gears, we might receive unpleasant surprises in the future."

"But Rias and her peerage don't seem to be that kind of person," Penny frowned, "even the data we got indicate that she won't act in such a way."

"Penny, remember; use that data as tips instead of absolute truth. We may have seen how she would act in the novel, but there's still a possibility that we're in a parallel universe of sorts." Rio reminded not just Penny, but all of us, "Issei-kun's Sacred Gear was stolen and Raynare didn't target him specifically. Let us assume that the thief is still here and had changed things in the background."

After all, isn't that System user's (read: OCs) favorite pastime?

We nodded and she continued, "Moreover, we don't know who would see this report Gremory-san write other than Sirzechs Lucifer and Serafall Leviathan. We need to be careful with who we divulge our capabilities to." Rio smiled at Penny, "Honesty is a good trait Penny, but we also have to be cautious. The supernatural world is sometimes even more crueler than the mundane."

"...I see. I understand." Penny said reluctantly. Seeing the frown on the girl's face, Rio threw her a bone.

"Don't worry, Penny. Even if we lied to them, I'm sure they would understand when we told them the truth. And by then, we would have enough good standing with them to forgive our deception," Rio consoled, and Penny's nodded understandingly. Our leader then returned to her tome and Penny her [Menu]

There was a beat of silence with occasional sounds from pages being turned.

Seeing that I got nothing to do and Issei was fast asleep on the floor after a game of Collapse 3 (this world's Burnout), I asked Rio, "Now that we can act more freely in this town, what's next?"

"I have some plans. One and foremost is of course getting stronger. Two, make connections. It'll make our leveling up easier if we have a job source other than Kuoh, preferably both mundane and supernatural. The third is more of a personal plan. I want to study the phantasmal of this world. They are different than the ones in my world–not to mention abundant. I'm curious, are they evolved the same way as us humans?" she said the last part with a glint in her eyes.

My condolences go to whoever earned her 'curiosity'...

"You're not interested in Sacred Gears?"

"I am, but they're Divine in origin. I doubt my Structural Analysis spell would work well with those things. So, until I have ways to understand them fully it'll stay low in my priority list."

Ah, speaking of priority…

"Rio-san, what do you think I should focus on?"

"Hm, What do you mean?" Rio once again lowered her tome, eyes turning at me.

"I mean, I'm shit at everything. Other than my eyes I got nothing. Not that my eyes were useless. on the contrary, they were very helpful. It's just that if my eye somehow got countered, I'm dead meat." I turned to her, "What do you think I should learn?"

"Hmm…" Rio cupped her chin, eyes not moving away from me.

After a while, she answered, "I'd say you'd make a good Rogue."

"You think so?"

"Hn. Your eye could tremendously help in silent takedowns and you can pretty much infiltrate anywhere your eyes can see. I'd say train to be stealthy, dump most of your stat points in [Dex] and [Int], and learn some martial arts. Even if you're not becoming a Rogue, a little hand-to-hand skill won't hurt."

That wasn't a bad idea. With my eye, I could move around easily by [switching] with things, and since the momentum doesn't carry when being switched, I could be the stealthiest Rogue around.

Heh, not to mention if I somehow learn how to see and switch organs separately from the body, I'll get my own Zabaniya.

"Hm, I think you're right. Thanks for the advice, Rio-san."

"Don't mention it, Yoga-san."

~~~~~

"What do you think Sona?" Rias asked her friend who was deep in thought.

After registering and questioning Emiya-san's little group, Rias and Sona had a small meeting with only them and their Queen pieces. The topic of course was Emiya-san's little group.

The devil heiresses were now in the Occult Research Club office. Rias and Sona were sitting on a sofa with the group's documents on a coffee table before them. Akeno and Tsubaki were sitting on the couches nearby. The documents contained whatever data they got from Emiya-san and her teammates, both from what was disclosed and their research.

The result was both surprising and unsurprising at the same time.

"Other than Hyoudou-san and Argento-san, they have no data in the government registry," Sona muttered.

The data from their ID cards were fake, the two had expected this. Strangely, only three out of five people had this issue.

From their sources, the devils learned that Argento-san was a nun that got excommunicated around two months ago after healing a devil.

Meanwhile, Hyoudou-san data was as legit as they could get. He had said that he learned of the supernatural only recently but had known the others through online messaging for longer. The reason they moved to Kuoh was to open up a business. Currently, they were living and working at Sugarstar Cafe.

A group of Sacred Gear users led by a magician who's able to conceal their presence.

With facts presented to them, Sona concluded…

"They either hiding something or hiding from something." the Sitri heiress surmised.

She had quite a good reason to think so. It was of course their concealed Sacred Gears.

'Twilight Healing', Blazing Avatar', 'Demon Revolver'', and 'Parallel Fantasy.' were the Gears possessed by Argento, Hyoudou, Polendina, and Prayoga respectively. One rare and three never heard before Sacred Gears.

From the testimony and what they saw, two of these Gears were at least high-class Sacred Gears; 'Blazing Avatar' and 'Demon Revolver' one could control and become fire, and the other turned one's limbs into firearms.

Not to mention that revival ability…

Then there was 'Parallel Fantasy'. Sona doubted it only switch objects.

Her kind would do anything to get these Sacred Gears users into their peerage.

Then, considering Argento-san was kidnapped by the fallen angels…

"It is safe to assume that whoever informed them to move here knew about their Sacred Gears and decided that living under our protection was a better choice."

That's if this person existed in the first place…

It wasn't that Sona was a distrustful person. It was just the data they had raised too many flags. Lack of background, powerful abilities, and dubious identities…

She knew she was jumping to conclusions, but when facing this lack of information on a group of people with exceptional ability, hard not to.

For all she knew, they were running away from a threat, and the one sent them thought it was much safer for them to come here.

But it could also be that they faked their identity because they were people with problematic backgrounds who had problems with the authorities.

Sona thinks for a while, weighing every fact and option available…

She finally came up with a plan; to employ a probation period.

The devils would keep an eye on the group while giving them tasks in the pretense of jobs for a month or two. These tasks would gradually turn from small jobs to something bigger, like hunting a stray devil.

Rias agreed to this course of action. Other than Hyoudou-kun, the rest were unknown factors. They need to see if Emiya-san's group bore harmful ulterior motives.

It was a perfect opportunity to test their trustworthiness and deal with problems they had neglected for some time.

Thus, Rias and Sona started compiling jobs for Emiya-san's group…

After sorting the lists of tasks, Sona and Tsubaki bid Rias and Akeno good night and left to do her report, leaving the Gremory heiress and the queen alone.

"Anyone catches your eye?" Akeno asked when her King was looking down on the documents.

"Some of them, yes," Rias answered.

The people at her table caught her interest. Depending on how they would perform, Rias might offer them a place in her peerage.

One of the candidates was Hyoudou Issei. Discounting his Sacred Gear, she found his honest pervertedness a breath of fresh air. Even if Her human schoolmates won't see it that way, for a sinful creature like her, it was a sight to see. Of course, too much sinning could turn some devils off.

Hyoudou-kun struck a perfect balance for Rias, perverted but not too handy.

…But she had to ask; can 'Burning Avatar' take on Riser Phenex? After all, the Phenex clan had the power over wind and fire at their fingertips. They both controlled fire, and they both became fire. They would practically be locked in a stalemate, like a mirror match between equally good fighters in a video game. so…

Who's fire is hotter? Can fire burn fire?

A question for another time. After all, there was a report to write and contracts to fulfill…