Griselda on the other hand was blushing rather heavily and Akeno was letting loose a very scary smile while the scent of ozone and leather was at an all-time high. It took me a moment for me to connect the dots, but when I did, there was only one thing I could say.
"Oh~"
...
I was more or less aware of the type of responses my body would get from people. It wasn't just because of the scars that I wanted to hide from public view, it was also because of the type of physic I have obtained from training in order to maintain a level of strength that could help me deal with many of the Sealing Designates, the occasional Dead Apostles and on rare occasions during my dimensional travels, a Servant during one of the Grail Wars. Even when I arrived to this world and my body regressed back to that of a teenager, I was fit enough to maintain a certain amount of muscle and I got back to retraining after my wounds were healed, ensuring I would be in peak physical condition if I had to fight someone over the top.
The end result was me having a body that would not be too bulky or considered a body-builder, but with enough muscles obtained from swinging heavy weapons for hours on end and little body fat to be considered 'roguishly handsome' as Luvia and Rin had often said. It might be a tad narcissistic of me to say, but I felt that the eyes of the girls in this girl should not be encouraged if I were to expose both my body and scars to them.
Speaking of scars, I had better cover up before someone asked a question about them.
"Hey kid, one question?" Azazel pointed to the scar on my chest, "how on earth did you survive that attack?"
'Oh crap.'
"Emiya-kun, may I ask why do you have a scar directly above your heart?" Sona was the first one to recover and now asked in a tone that sent shivers down my spine. "One that seems to extend to your back through your heart, it would seem?" At that question, the others seemed to have awoken from their daze and were now looking at the scars adorning my body with mounting expressions of shock and a hint of fear.
"By the Maous, what the heck happened to you?!" Tsubasa exclaimed as she noted the long gash by the side of my body.
"You said that you had injuries, but this is going beyond that!" Momo pointed to the one particularly nasty scar on around my collar-bone. "How do you survive any of those?!"
"Well..." I looked to the side while scratching my cheek, panicking inwardly on explaining. This was really I did not to have at the moment.
It said something about my lifestyle that I was glad when someone interrupted with a large dose of killing intent.
I looked up to find Vali coming down at us, both the wings of his Sacred Gear and what looked to be devil wings opened wide and looking oh~ so menacing. I quickly projected a spear with [Hell's Trident] and fired it at him, who merely knocked it away with a punch before he sped up and slammed a fist into the ground, forcing the others away while I maintained my stance.
"It would seem that you managed to keep your end of the bargain by staying alive." Vali spoke as he stood up from the spot he landed. "It is a good thing that both of you are alive, now I can get to fighting."
"Shirou, be careful!" Ise called out from his side. "This guy is one of those from the Chaos Brigade, and somehow he is related to the old Maou group!"
"That explained the name you gave me back then." I remarked as I looked at the devil. "I had wondered how you were related to Rias and her brother, but after hearing the story of the old group, it did clear up some bits."
"I figured you would be able to guess some of it." Vali said as he spread his arms while the wings glowed brightly. "Shall we continue our previous bout? We were rudely interrupted last time." Before I could answer, something else decided to interrupt us again.
"RRROOOGBTGR!"
...
"Come now, Shirou Emiya." The magus looked on from his vantage point at the horde of monsters swarming the academy. "Surely you can get out of this with a bit of effort."
Since his release of [Sammuel] fifteen minutes ago, the magus had been monitoring the battlefield with a bit of disjointed interest. There was not much to see though, his creation had multiplied a total of 25 times due to the amateurish extermination methods set by the magicians, and had set about devouring them to increase their numbers and to attack the academy, which much to his surprise, held up better than he expected from all the attacks set on it. It would seem that the devils placed a lot more protection on the academy since the Kokabiel incident.
At least this was not a complete loss. He was able to see the host of [Divine Dividing] use his gear to fight the magicians and fallen angels, allowing him to study his fighting style. He also watched the leaders attack the others with some of their special moves, paying close attention to the leader of Grigori who took on one of the supposed leaders of this attack with some sort of Sacred Gear. He had heard of the research the fallen angel was conducting some sort of research regarding these Sacred Gears made by the Christian God, but this was the first time he was seeing it in person.
Frankly speaking, he now desired the research.
The raw power that radiated from the armor the Grigori Leader donned was staggering to say the least, and what little he had gathered, this was a but a mere droplet of what it could achieve. Having seen the other types of Sacred Gear during his time in this world, the magus had come to appreciate the limitless potential that could be achieved if he could just get one to study. The annoying titbit of a gear immediately moving to the next host upon the current host's death was certainly an issue; not to mention the bit where hypnosis was not an ideal method for some of the gears in question. There were some gears that did not have such issues like that one Longinus that came from the magician's side, but they had quite a few conditions to fulfill.
This however was something that could be done. Creating a gear from scratch and in a type of configuration that could achieve the maximum effect from the get-go would be a most ideal situation for him, especially with the knowledge of Shirou Emiya having some weird talent to attract Sacred Gears like bees to honey. He needed that research in his grasp and away from the others who would likely have heard about Azazel's work.
His musings were halted when he smelled the scent of Shirou Emiya and sighted him in the area. Old emotions reared their heads as he watched him talk to the leaders, his eyes wandering over the scars that littered his body, one of which made him give off a sinister smile.
A small victory to mark Shirou Emiya, considering that man's ability to heal with no injuries visible.
He did not delve on it much as he watched Vali Lucifer fly over to likely taunt the party and challenge Shirou Emiya to a fight. The half-devil was well known for being a battle-hungry beast who wanted the strongest fighters to go against, and one did not need a PHD to see that the Sword Magus would be the next target.
Too bad, he would need to take a queue number.
With a gesture, he commanded the hounds to go to the spot where Shirou Emiya was before taking a seat on the ledge and watched the fireworks of chaos go off.
"Go forth, [Sammuel]. Take Shirou Emiya down."
...
A/N : The Story Needs More Power Stones ;)
PS : if we can reach 400 Stones by the end of the week, I will throw you an extra chapter
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to my p atreon :
p atreon.com/Aerle