Starting Out [3]

https://discord.gg/ZrWk2jqjbV

AN: AU elements, no changes to the storyline just some stuff about the Grigori building.

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Honestly—I already had a hunch that he would propose something like this, considering his research addicted nature. And originally I was going to deny out of concern for Tomura, but it seems that issues already been dealt with, hold on, didn't he mention he would listen to any other requests I have?

"I'm inclined to accept your proposal—but I have a few requests I would like to have met" Azazel rose his eyebrow.

"I'm listening"

"First of all, I want Rosemary to be completely revamped, new caretakers, new infrastructure, new facilities—the whole package, and I also want to be frequently updated on how things are going, especially if it concerns any of them falling ill, getting involved in an accident—or other issues that may arise—Furthermore, I expect the current caretaker to be given a full retirement fund, that is if she chooses to stop working, and should she continue to act as caretaker, I highly urge you to provide her with cooking lessons"

"Quite the Angel aren't we?" Funny coming from him.

"Oh please, we both know I'm doing this just to make myself feel less guilty for leaving them so abruptly" Azazel thought him to just be full of surprises—now his suspicions were confirmed, as if a child could comprehend such a manner of thinking.

"Any other requests—you haven't even asked who I am" Azazel pretended to just ignore his statement—originally he had committed to just to focus on his physical attributes—but Koen's psychology had intrigued him as well.

"Did you plan to tell me?" Koen had already revealed that he had some unusual knowledge, and even gave hints to recognizing Azazel, but just blurting out his identity might cross a line he didn't want to step over, so he would just feign ignorance.

"Well—you may, or may not already know, but my name is Azazel, and I'm from a species known as Fallen Angels, specifically, you can think of me as my race's representative. Officially I'm the Governor-General of our species, which also makes me the head of an organization called Grigori. I won't bore you with the little details but just think of us as a research organization—and for the record, you're currently at Grigori's headquarters"

If I'm going to feign ignorance—I might as well full send it. "Fallen Angels? Not Angels? So you like did something to Big-G or what?" I doubt it would be strange if I had basic biblical knowledge—especially considering our orphanage was heavily catholic—a bit odd considering a good chunk of Japan is aligned with Buddhism, but it is what it is. I knew the real reason Azazel was banished was because he was a horny bastard, but yet again, sometimes it's just better to keep quiet.

"Haha, something like that—and if you're curious that beam I shot at you is derived from [Light Magic] a special ability, exclusive to certain races, which unfortunately means I cannot teach it to you—oh right, I forgot to tell you about other races, we'll save that for another time"

"Hm, I have just one more request—if possible I would like to have someone I could spar with, I'll hand you a bit of information as a freebie—my flame seems to improve in power the more I fight, and the rate of progression depends on how difficult a fight is, or so I think"

"I see, Sacred Gear's strengthening through battle is not uncommon at all, but still a good piece of information to have, alright that can be arranged—as a matter of fact I think I have the perfect sparring partner for you"

"Well then—I have no qualms, let us have a fruitful partnership" I held out my hand in my signature office-worker diplomat style, which seemed to impress Azazel, my ten years of office politics bootlicking have made me a relational genius. I kept a perfectly calm smile and made sure my posture was as welcoming as possible, if I'm going to work together with this guy I may as well try to get on his good side.

"Likewise" he shook my hand—and thus began our partnership, although I still had one more concern, it was a question rather than a request.

"By the way—what do the people at Rosemary think about my disappearance?"

"Ah, that was quite easy—I ended up adopting you"

"Huh...modern problems require modern solutions I suppose" I'm not against being seen as his son, as a matter of fact having Azazel's name protect me would definitely be useful later on, granted that whomever doesn't want to kidnap me for leverage or something, I suppose all I can do is hope he didn't piss of the wrong people.

---

I've been allowed free roam around the institute and there's one area in particular I would like to check out—the library. Actually that's not completely correct, there's the common library where all members of Grigori are allowed to enter, and I was told that there was another guarded by a high-surveillance door that I should never approach, unless Azazel granted me entry.

I will admit my curiosity did tempt me quite a bit, but getting on his bad side on my first day was a horrible idea.

Officially I'm actually a member of Grigori but I would only receive missions on two conditions. First, Azazel had to deem me strong enough and secondly I had to be willing.

I loved the idea of undertaking missions, first of all I would be able to explore the world better—and be able to get some good experience to help me temper my flames, sparring was good and all, but I highly doubt it could help me grow faster than actual life-or-death battles—speaking of which, I wonder if I actually have it in me to kill.

The thought was slightly alarming—but it was not something I would have to bother with for a while, killing a raccoon and killing a human were two very different things.

I found myself at the doorstep of a mahogany entrance and what I saw inside was unbelievably intimidating, rows and rows of books as far as the eye could see, it just seemed to never end, how the hell was I supposed to navigate this, I didn't see any clerk or someone to manage the place.

This place probably does have someone to act as librarian, but they're probably just not in at the moment. I wandered through the columns when I noticed a section that had a category that interested me quite a bit.

"Elemental Type Sacred Gears - Common" the tag read, the section [Flame Shake] was included in, I face palmed internally when I realized I had forgotten to ask Azazel if he knew anything about my Sacred Gear that I didn't, although if he knew so much already he probably wouldn't have bothered with me.

Although maybe I shouldn't view him so negatively, one of Grigori's commitments are providing Sacred Gear wielders without relatives a place to call home—although you could argue they're just using empathy to manipulate strong people into a sense of loyalty, then again Azazel treats Slash/Dog and Vali far too nicely for that to be completely true. I don't know if I can say the same for everyone in this organization though, or those who used to be a part of it.

*Cough* Valper Galilei *Cough*

At the same time they also wish to get rid off Sacred Gear users who may be threats, or potential threats, originally Issei was considered among this category considering he was a "talentless" user with an incredibly dangerous Sacred Gear, but that changed once he reincarnated as a Devil and was brought into the Gremory peerage, I wonder if Azazel viewed me in the same way.

Actually now that I think about it he probably did—not for the same reason as Issei though because everyone already knows how scary the [Boosted Gear] could be, I mean it is literally the vessel of a Heavenly Dragon that took all three factions to seal, in my case I think they were just uncertain of whether I would become dangerous or not as they didn't know much about my Gear, and just went with the "better safe than sorry" approach.

If that's true I'm not really angry about it—they didn't do anything to me to begin with, and furthermore I can kind of understand where they're coming from.

I opened some of the books here—but when I flipped to the page that had the heading "Balance Breaker" everything was either blank, or blacked out—I suppose the "True" library is where such information is kept, which makes sense, Azazel wouldn't want people he couldn't trust having access to such information.

Funny enough, there was no mention of Juggernaut Drive anywhere—again, probably located in the other library. I finally found what I was looking for, a crimson colored book with the label [Flame Shake].

I opened it and was slightly disappointed with what I found—the information was all either very obvious or stuff I already knew, but there was one thing that relieved my disappointment—though not completely.

"Be warned before proceeding to read this log that the contents are unconfirmed, and are just speculation concluded through the help of an educated guess, it's theorized that a faster method towards training this Gear includes the host being constantly exposed to high temperatures, as a result—races with high durability or strong heat resistance would be suited towards using this Gear"

"Following this conclusion, although such a scenario can never be guaranteed, should the host engage an enemy in an area with scalding temperatures the destructive power of the Gear will be boosted significantly, again, this information is based of a hypothesis, and has yet to be confirmed" - Nakajima Chie, Junior Researcher.

I had never heard of the name—but I was thankful nonetheless, sure it wasn't a guaranteed outcome, but I now had something to test out, a sense of direction at the very least—the Grigori Institute is very luxurious so it should have a sauna or something for me to use—if not I can just ask Azazel to bring me to one in Kuoh.

For now I shall continue to rummage through the Elemental Section for a while—I'm kind of beginning to understand where Azazel's fascination of Sacred Gear's is coming from.

I grabbed roughly three books that seemed slightly interesting to me—found a table to sit at and began my reading session. The three books I chose were [Freezing Archaeopteryx], [Staring Blue] and [Staring Green], the two Staring Gears interested me quite a bit, they were similar to the [Boosted Gear] and [Divine Dividing] in the manner in which they're part of their own mini-category. Although in terms of power, they're probably leagues apart.

The contents of these three research logs were truly extensive, it seemed the users of these Gears had decided to become affiliated with Grigori at some point—probably enticed by the benefits they offered, just like me—and hey, could you blame them? This place is like the definition of lavish.

Unfortunately—each of the entry logs had no record of Balance Breaker being achieved, slightly disappointing but I guess the hosts either weren't compatible or committed enough to their training, what a shame.

---

My body jolted all of a sudden—shit, it seems I had fallen asleep whilst I was reading, the library had no windows thus I had no idea what time it was, but it was most likely pretty late, I looked behind me and saw Azazel staring at me with a curious expression.

"Azazel? What's the matter?" My words seemed to snap him out of his daze.

"Ah my bad, I just wanted to check up on you, but geez, you shouldn't have started with such long entries, don't be so disheartened because it's hard to understand though, with practice your comprehension will improve"

"Huh? But I understood it quite clearly, I managed to finish [Staring Blue] and [Staring Green]" Right after I finished that sentence, I realized my blunder—I was supposed to act more my age to avoid rousing suspicion, I was just too tired and spoke instinctively.

Although Azazel's expression was not that of wary, but it was rather smug.

"Hoh really? Then how about you tell me a bit about what you know about them" He clearly didn't believe me—hmph, little does he know I'm about to prove him wrong.

"Both Gears take the form of a bow and shoot arrows of their respective colors, they're similar to Light Weapons used by Angel's in the manner which the energy they produce act as a form of poison towards Devil's and subsequently, it was hypothesized they would also be effective against Youkai and Vampires—just like [Light Magic]"

(AN: So much for acting like a kid haha, Koen shall be corrupted by research addiction muahaha)

"I see, you really did read them—but there's more to reading than just absorbing the information within it, how about you make a hypothesis of your own regarding these Gears?" I had an odd feeling that Azazel was putting me through some sort of a test, but I complied nonetheless.

"I'm not sure, but I have a feeling I know the reason behind why the users failed to achieve [Balance Breaker]—I think the [Balance Breaker] achieved with [Staring Blue] and [Staring Green] is completely different from all other Gears".

Azazel seemed to be eagerly awaiting my hypothesis and signaled for me to continue. "Go on"

"I think it's a co-operative [Balance Breaker]—it's my hypothesis that the reason both Gears seem to be an exact replica of each other—with no noticeable differences other than the color, is because both people selected need to resonate with each other in order to activate it, I believe my reasoning is further supported by the fact that both users were recorded to be identical twins, the fact that they have similar DNA and the exact same Sacred Gear's isn't a coincidence in my opinion"

Azazel had an grin that clearly showed how impressed he was with Koen. "Very good, no that's an understatement—that was excellent, I think I have another proposition for you, but first let's go get some dinner, it's about time for you to meet your sparring partner as well"