Chapter 19: Path of Innovation

~Rias Gremory~

This was bad.

In fact, it was very bad.

She had messed up. She had messed up big time.

One day, everything is going fine, chatting with Takumi, helping him with the supernatural side of the world and trying to subtly convince him to join her family and then bam.

Fallen Angels that she didn't even know were in her town suddenly attacked Takumi, nearly managing to kill him before he managed to handle them before she was able to arrive there to help him.

Takumi, the person who she made a contract with. One of the largest factors in that factor was that HE was under HER protection. She was responsible for protecting him.

Yet he was attacked, nearly killed, in HER territory. The territory she was supposed to rule as the king of. Yet he was attacked right under her nose by Fallen Angels who were camping here for a while.

There were no words strong enough to express her frustration. She felt like she was slapped across the face and then had cold water dumped over her. 

And then after that, when she was about to rashly execute the fallen angels, probably causing more work for her already overworked brother and even more so for Sona's sister. She was stopped from doing that by the man she failed to protect in the first place.

After all of that, even she would lose confidence in her competence if she were in his shoes. 

To make up for that whole fiasco, she interrogated(interrogation in the lightest term, they spilt the beans the moment she asked) the fallen again herself after Takumi was nowhere to be found and she was baffled.

Takumi, who was already new to the supernatural side of the world, was able to beat 4 fallen angels by himself. Apparently skilled in martial arts enough to one-on-one fallen angels, capable of harnessing ice and lightning with ease, moving the ground, and even creating potent explosives in vials.

He was a prodigy, one that was either rapidly improving or was already strong and very good at hiding it.

Even Sona's sister, Serafall Leviathan was impressed with his feats and wanted to go see him herself but he was nowhere to be found at that moment. So she just took the hostages for negotiation and left with the promise of seeing him for herself later.

Speaking of nowhere to be found.

He was nowhere to be found.

Literally, she hadn't seen him in 3 days.

If she was frustrated before she was now downright anxious. Because it seemed like Takumi did not want to show his face anytime soon.

She was scared, rightfully so, they weren't able to find him. He wasn't in his house and he had called in sick for school several days and they let him on the understanding that he needed to recuperate.

But it was now almost like he had ghosted them.

To Rias, it seemed very likely that Takumi could have decided they weren't worth his effort nor attention since they couldn't even hold their own end of the bargain. He may have just decided to pack his bags and quietly leave.

Not only was her dad pushing the marriage harder than ever but she may have even fumbled the greatest bag she could have gotten.

Thankfully, it seemed like that wasn't the case for now. He may also be avoiding them.

Regardless, that frustrated her to no end. She wanted to at least meet face to face to at least talk about it like adults, but Takumi was just hiding from her. She couldn't even apologize.

She could only hope he hadn't made up his mind. She actually really did like him. 

She wondered what he was doing.

✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧

~Takumi Katsuragi~

I am mad scientist. It's so cool. Sunova bitch!

At this point in time, you could put an emphasis on the mad part baby. I have been living in a dirty church next to 20 dead bodies for the last 3 days.

But you can't spell innovation without sacrifice. Well you could, but then you wouldn't be a mad scientist.

What was doing? What wasn't I doing? I spent hours upon hours perfecting my formula. My system gave me the knowledge I needed to not so safely extract sacred gears. And with that knowledge, I also learned why it killed the extracted party.

It was lifeforce baby! At least for an unawakened sacred gear that is. When the sacred gear is awakened it is attached to the soul and after a balance breaker, it is fully a part of it. Before it is awakened it just stays dormant, loosely connected to the soul. Taking it out would hurt but wouldn't kill you with just the soul injuries.

The problem is, when you rip out the sacred gear, the lifeforce is kind of ripped out along with it so after the intense pain, the victim gets real sleepy and eventually falls asleep never to wake up again since their life juice is run out.

So, if you were to, I don't know. Supply them with enough life force during the procedure they should be able to survive.

I will be honest, I am not innovating the surgery at all. I am not turning an 18th-century into a 21st-century one, I am just slapping a medic gun over the operating table so that the patient is at least alive enough after the surgery.

But you know what they say. If it aint broke, don't fix it.

So I spent some time creating a new potion and a method to incorporate Alkehestry into the ritual to keep them alive. Reaching this solution.

I would have several bottles of condensed lifeforce created by adding a bunch of health and vitality potions and basically reducing them using Alkahestry until all that is left is pure lifeforce(unsuitable for any form of consumption or use). Then you incorporate Alkahestry into the extraction ritual circle so that the condensed vitality you put on the table helps probably not kill the person you take the sacred gear from.

Hopefully anyway. At this point, I am willing to gamble. It is too close to canon for me to be willing to put more effort into this. So Saji better hope this works.

Anyway, it should be time to grab my victim.

✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧

Alright time to finally initiate my plan, first, I should try getting the absorption line, it is far weaker and consequently has way less of a chance of popping me like a balloon in the case of something going wrong with me taking it.

Besides, I remember him being recruited around the same time as Issei, so I can't risk him being recruited before can take that nifty little thing from his hands.

So I stalked Saji outside school. Waiting for my chance to strike as he reached somewhere that was decently secluded, that was my chance.

"Ghak!* *Thump.*

I walked up behind Saji slowly before giving him a controlled shock, just enough to knock him out but not enough to permanently damage him. Then I forced open his mouth.

After dumping the sleep potion that would ensure he would stay asleep for at least 2 hours I dragged his body with me to the abandoned church, since I was at this point beyond the peak of what a human could achieve it was rather easy and quick to haul him like a human-shaped sack of potatoes.

Once that was done, I strapped up to the sacred gear extraction machine. After that, I started up the machine, hoping for Saji's sake that he would survive as his body trembled violently, he moaned in pain in his sleep as the process continued for over a minute.

It was certainly an experience to see a man moan in pain for a minute straight strapped to a cross-shaped machine next to dozens of exorcist corpses.

Slowly, a purple light drifted down from the machine as I touched it with my hand in wonder, the light seeping into my skin as I felt it connect with me.

Immediately I felt the sensation of being immensely full, like eating way beyond your limits until your stomach was pushed to the limits. I writhed in pain on the ground as I saw multiple notifications pop up in my vision.

____________________________

ERROR log:

Noticed the addition of an additional sacred being added to the user's vessel. Conflicts detected.

ERROR

Initiating self-repair...

Converting karma...

System Update complete!

You have achieved Sub-Species Balance Breaker: Path of Innovation.

Changed [Receptive Body] and [Enhanced Vessel] to [Path of Innovation]

[Path of Innovation]

Your being constantly innovates and aims to ascend even further. You constantly adapt to changes and so will your body. Allowing you to consume, digest, evolve and change beyond the limits that others cannot.

____________________________

I rose up from the ground, my legs still shaking but the smile was still on my face. I felt the power inside me settle, I felt laughter bubble up in the back of my throat.

____________________________

You have assimilated the [Absorption Line]

[Absorption Line] has been added to [Iter Melius] abilities have been adjusted accordingly

You now have access to the abilities of the [Absorption Line], they can be found under the abilities tab.

-[Absorption Line]-

One of the four Vritra sacred gears, also referred to as the black Dragons Pulse. It allows the user to manifest the sacred gear and create multiple power lines that can be used to absorb, transfer, and convert energy or simply be used as physical restraints.

[Absorbtion Line Lv. 1]

You can manifest absorption lines that can absorb, transfer, and convert energy. The durability of the lines and their potency is determined by magical power and proficiency.

____________________________

Reading the notification I couldn't wipe the grin from my face. I felt the power inside of me, I knew how I could use it. I extended my hand in front of me. And then an ethereal blue cord was shot out, sticking to the wall.

*Crumble!*

With a mighty yank, I pulled out a chunk of the wall. Then I shot another cord into the ceiling and started reeling the cord back, I was pulled up to the ceiling like I had a grappling hook.

Reeling myself back down I landed back on the ground. I did it. I managed to steal his sacred gear, I now had two sacred gears. I was now the owner of the absorption line.

And soon enough, the Boosted Gear too.

I could barely stop myself from trembling in excitement. 

But before I get carried away, I should really take care of this guy huh?

I pulled the body of Genji off of the crucifix. Fortunately for him, he was still alive, somewhat. I forced some more potions in his mouth such as recovery potions before dragging him back to town and setting him down on a bench. 

Since I kind of not really felt bad about it I decided to give him some compensation for the utterly generous gift he gave me.

I bought a porn magazine and placed it on his lap for a little surprise for when he woke up since I was such a great guy.

And now that I was done getting Benji's sacred gear, why not go ahead and take the other one while we are at it?

That's right, it's time to get my hands on that beautiful Boosted Gear.

A/N: And finally it has paid off, Takumi now has access to the Absorption Line and its abilities and soon he will have the Boosted Gear in that arsenal too if everything goes according to plan. 

All the while Takumi is performing his mad science however Rias is wondering in guilt how she can make it up to him. She thinks he is purposefully avoiding her while he is just making plans for absolute power.

What do you guys think of the balance breaker by the way? This isn't the true balance breaker, by the way, it's one it spontaneously developed to cope with the new sacred gear. Other than that, what did you guys think about this chapter?

_______________________________

If you like my works and want to support me and my works you can do so at my P*treon at: p*treon.com/BronzDeck. You can also read up to 10 chapters ahead on all of my works there.

Just replace the * with an a.