Of course, just because I was proud of Zekka for putting up a fight doesn't mean she doesn't deserve to get absolutely reamed for the stunt she decided to pull tonight.
Sure, it turns out her new rival didn't want to kill her.
But Zekka literally asked for it.
In front of me.
Shit, if she wanted to die that badly, I could've obliged. Get Rose to throw up some magic seals on the girl and have her run laps around the town until she can't feel anything at all anymore.
Just an idea off the top of my head.
Fortunately, I had the whole night to workshop it.
As Zekka sets me down at the steps of the Inn and damn near collapses beside me, I take a sip of tea we had picked up along the way.
A little meh. A little bland. I guess the Norse don't do tea?
Or maybe it was cheap shit. Probably just that.
I take a look at Zekka, seeing her struggling to hold herself up with her arms, her entire body trembling from sheer exhaustion.
For a second, I consider setting back out, but…
No, no, I think this is enough for now.
I tore everything I wanted out of the poor girl's head by prying open her eyes and spun up an extreme hypnosis on her.
Her gear tried to get in the way. Violently so.
It was easy to suppress it, however. I got everything I could.
After that, I woke Zekka's ass up, and we went on a little trip around town.
She carried us, of course.
We dropped Laundry Pole girl - seriously, how come I didn't think of that one - off at Freya and her Valkyries' place, then headed back to the inn.
The long way.
I wanted to try a couple of teas, after all.
After all that, I think Zekka got the message.
I reach over and pat Zekka on the back, with even that slight bit of pressure on her enough to almost make her tumble, and smack her face back into the ground.
A bit of light crackles forth around my hands as I rub her back gently.
"Are you going to sneak out in the middle of the night again?" I ask quietly.
"N-No, sensei." She answers back through sheer and utter exhaustion.
"Are you especially going to go out and have potential duels to the death without telling anyone?" I follow up.
"N-No, especially not that, s-sensei." She answers again, through a particularly heavy and heaving breath.
I nod, satisfied, and pat her on the back once more, as my light dissipates.
The shaking in her limbs hasn't vanished entirely, but it's lessened enough now that she could make it to her room, at least, without falling over.
"Good. Have a good night's rest."
"H-Hai…" With a deep breath, she manages to push herself up onto her feet and practically shambles back inside.
As soon as she's in, I sigh in turn, the tea in my hand boiling away as I heat it past the point at which it could stay liquid.
The cup, a tiny papery little thing, quickly burns away, the ashes scattered to the wind shortly thereafter.
That done, I slowly release the large amounts of aura and power that had been pumping through my body, simulating an artificial kind of weight.
I didn't have Rose on hand to seal up Zekka; the poor girl barely gets enough sleep as is, so I figured I could wing it.
I'm not sure of the supernatural physics, if such a thing even exists, but yeah, somehow that worked.
Anyhow. I know new things now, a few of which…I'm admittedly still processing.
Right. I should probably get to a more comfortable place.
With a completely unnecessary snap of my fingers and in a burst of light, I'm back in my room, sitting at the edge of the bed.
I turn, gazing back a bit to see Rose completely splayed out across the bed, taking the whole thing up, her body itself only covered by the blanket and sheets.
Holy me, those cheeks.
It takes every fiber of my willpower not to reach out and give that ass a nice grab, along with wrenching my gaze away from her globes and instead focusing on her cute little snores.
Right. Before I get carried away, or jump Rose, or something stupid.
Yotsuba, Sasaski Yotsuba, that's the name of Zekka's new rival.
Apparently related to a guy Musashi dueled and killed in the past, the defeat of her ancestor drove that Yotsuba girl to train to avenge it on his modern-day descendant, Zekka.
I'm going to be completely real. The name Sasaki Kojiro doesn't ring a bell for me at all. Even though he is apparently part of the whole mythology surrounding Musashi, I don't recognize it, and I especially don't recognize the style she was using.
Ganryu. A whole set of techniques based around said ancestor. Apparently, that was another name he was known by.
A shame, too, because that whole sword style actually had some pretty neat forms to it, especially the multi-striking one.
All that, though, isn't the most important bit; no, it's her fucking Sacred Gear.
I thought Zekka having a sword with the First Man in it was insane, but guess who was in this one?
His fucking son!
Primal Death. The Sacred Gear contains the soul of the first murderer, and like his father, I can't say his true name aloud, not even think it, even though I know it.
Man, the big man upstairs sure does love sealing names up, huh?
Honestly wondering if at this point He's doing it specifically to fuck with me.
Anyway, Laundry Pole girl ended up naming him Genma.
But here we are again, another Ancient Sacred Gear, another incomplete gear: specifically, Primal Death's sheath was shattered; thus, its power to conceptually erase things is limited.
Oh, I saw the memory of her fight with Zekka, where she explains Primal Death's [Erasure]. She gave a few examples: stamina, fighting spirit, memories, the titty power Zekka's gear runs on because the First Man is basically Issei.
Oh yeah, that's what that was. She erased the power that Edens Dual relied on. Apparently, Zekka can't hear the voice from her gear right now at all. And those Valkyries that had their memories wiped? Her as well.
Which is worrying, but we'll get to that when we get to it.
I'm still having a mild crashout about how… ridiculous [Erasure] is as a power. As I said, the way Yostuba explained it to Zekka made it sound like it has limits.
But from what I pulled from her head? Hah, not really. It can work on immaterial things, like memories, and even ideas!
If she pushes it enough and has a target she can define, she can erase it.
And from what I saw? There was no resisting it. At least, no one had outright resisted its effects before.
If her attack had hit me back there, she was planning on erasing my memory of what was going on, so I'd be completely discombobulated and open to further attacks.
Unfortunately for her, she was simply far too slow for me. Even if she wasn't completely out of it by her fight with Zekka, there was no way I was going to let something that sounded like it was chanting [DEATH] hit me.
Well. Okay. Actually. I was totally planning on face tanking it at first, under the idea that I could just divine resist it; the death chant really wouldn't have stopped me.
Especially after the fight against the Reapers. That really did set in stone my level of recklessness, huh?
I wanted to groan out loud, but stopped myself, remembering Rose lying just behind me.
What a mess. I hope Freya and her girls can hold her properly. Unlike Zekka, I only healed her enough so she wouldn't bleed out- nothing else.
Still, with a weapon like that…if I were more competent with my ability to manipulate divine power, I might have legitimately tried to remove her gear.
But I'm not, and the likelihood that she'd die just isn't worth it.
Besides, I get the feeling Zekka would want a rematch with that girl at full power.
Under my breath, I hum.
Primal Death, like Edens Dual, also has a Balance Breaker or Juggernaut Drive-like state, the [Sword of Supremacy]. Though without the sheath, she can only activate it partially, and usually only uses it as a last resort due to how unstable it is.
How completely and utterly fucking absurd.
If Laundry Pole girl was mentally unstable in any way, had any plans to actually kill Zekka, or come after anyone, damn any pretensions, she'd have died on the spot.
That power is simply far too dangerous to let roam around in the hands of someone not of sound mind.
Lucky for her, she's not insane; she holds herself to samurai honor and such to an almost absurd degree, but not quite in the way Lile does to knighthood.
So, for now, she lives.
Thankfully, in the grand scheme of all I learned, that practically sums up all the absurd bits.
What's left is what I gleaned about the Great Emperor. It's not a lot, but it's better than nothing at all.
Unfortunately, Yotsuba wasn't technically in the Hero Faction; at best, she was a guest, only really allowed in as much as she was because of her skills and gear, likely in hopes that they could fully bring her in.
She only really went to them as a stepping stone, turns out. She was using them to find Zekka; that's all she really cared about.
Thus, she was kept at arm's length, but she did meet the Great Emperor once.
My hand comes and rubs the bridge between my eyes.
I really shouldn't be so surprised, yet this world keeps surprising me.
I already knew Charlemagne was a girl.
But I didn't suspect her to be as old, if not younger than me, and of course, her one defining feature was her absurdly large rack.
Look. I like big titties, but when you keep seeing them all the time…they just sort of lose their luster, right?
They aren't special anymore; they're just a dime a dozen.
Thankfully, unlike Plain Jane Laundry Pole, she at least looked like royalty, befitting someone who I assume is either his descendant or spirit inheritor.
Platinum blonde hair, short, but only because it's length was braided up, styled to make a sort of crown around her head, draping down from the front and wrapping around, with cold icy blue eyes.
Honestly, she looks far more intimidating than Cao Cao ever could.
Not only that, but she rocks having a Longinus far better than he did, too.
She was carrying it around, much like Cao Cao apparently did his spear, a sword. Another sword-type gear like Zekka's, like Yotsuba's. Plain Jane recognized it immediately.
Another Longinus. Yes, that's its name. Like all the Ancient Sacred Gears, for whatever reason, hers is also incomplete; that's why it's not one of the thirteen.
But that doesn't matter. It's just the True Longinus, in sword form, apparently.
Idly, my hand comes up, tracing the scar across my cheek.
Of fucking course it is.
Well. I guess when we meet, I'm going to add another god-slaying weapon to the collection under my bed, huh?
Assuming the sword breaks like the spear, which, considering it's incomplete, should be far more likely.
Right?
I shake my head.
No point betting on that. If Charlemagne here is even slightly intelligent, as soon as she shows, she'll pop her incomplete Balance Breaker and go for my throat, as funny as it would be to add another one to my collection…
No holding back. Return the favor. That's the end of that.
A shame Plain Pole didn't really know the faction's workings all that well, as I said, kept at arm's length.
That wasn't enough to stop her from getting a prophecy from one of their members, though- an actual future teller.
They were the ones who made her come out all this way in the first place; it was they who she used to find the lead on Zekka.
Although the details of the prophecy turned out to be completely wrong, the ending remained true. Weird.
Laundry Jane thought their powers were completely bull upon getting here, but I think there's something a bit more going on there.
So. All in all? This new Hero Faction is looking to be fun to fight in the future. You've got the Tower of Babel gear user, this prophecy person, a Chinese girl, and their leader, who has big tits, and the Longinus 2.0, Sword Edition.
Best of all this? I'm probably going to get a chance to meet them in person soon.
For some reason, Yotsuba was told not to come here by the group.
She doesn't know what their plans are, but there's definitely something going on here.
Unfortunately, she didn't really suspect that, and all she cared about was getting her revenge on Zekka, so off she went.
All in all, this is all setting up to be one big mess. Thankfully, I get to be in ground zero of it, to help clean it all up.
A shame I can't stop it from occurring in the first place.
Not even Yotsuba knew where their base was, as apparently, somehow, it keeps moving.
All I've got there is that it's a big flying boat; how it does any of its stuff, which includes outright teleporting, I have no idea, and Yotsuba didn't care to try to find out.
So, no point in wasting time and effort trying to track it down.
In the morning, I'll tell all this to Freya; maybe we can work out a way to prepare for the inevitable.
Even if it's only in some small way.
That's not even taking into account the whole evil dragon situation, too.
Ugh. Those are probably linked in some way, aren't they? Probably part of the attack, or plan.
Well. Some information is better than no information. Got to think on the bright side, here, or else I'll go spiraling down theorycrafting and what-ifs.
Again.
For several hours until sunrise.
And that doesn't benefit anyone.
So, instead, let me do this!
I ease my shoulders and let out a breath before sliding back onto the bed.
Almost immediately, Rose finds me, and her body abruptly latches onto me, clinging and pulling me close against her.
I smile as I reach up, running a hand through her beautiful silvery white hair, her mouth briefly flickering up into a smile itself between a snore and a murmur.
I'll be telling Rose about tonight and all I learned, too, of course.
Oh, right, on top of all that, although I don't think it's really a concern, that's why it slipped my mind for the moment.
When we dropped off Plain - er, oh shit, I ran out of degrading ways to mix up her nicknames.
Ah, fuck it. Yotsuba. When we dropped off Yotsuba, Freya gave me something for Rose and me.
I haven't really looked at it too deeply; I think it was a flyer, an invitation of sorts?
From the cursory glance I gave it, there's apparently a lake near the town, with a very small resort for saunas. Specifically, Norse saunas?
I wasn't aware there was a difference, to be honest. Is there magic involved or something?
Could be interesting, I suppose; I would definitely have to see if Rose wants to come along.
If not, I might have to decline, because it seemed like Freya was coming along as well, and, well…
I don't know if Norse saunas are mixed, gender separated, nude, or not…all that.
But then again. This is DxD.
I can make a few guesses based on that alone.
I will be shocked if they aren't at least mixed; I entirely expect them to be nude or borderline.
Seeing Rose in a skimpy swimsuit would be worth it. Seeing Freya in a skimpy swimsuit would drive me insane.
Seeing both?
Hah.
I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.