It was a complete mess, plain and simple.
Staring down at everything below with dead-fish eyes, Cid felt utterly exhausted. When exactly had he gotten to know so many people? What was this supposed to be?
"Cid, what exactly is your relationship with them? From the way they're talking, it sounds like you're... very familiar with them?"
Natsuki Minamiya spoke hesitantly. She felt as though she had misunderstood the relationship between Delta and Cid. It was not the hostility she had imagined. On the contrary, judging from Delta's tone whenever she mentioned Cid, they were far more than familiar. You could even call it a superior-subordinate relationship.
"Yeah. What exactly is my relationship with Delta? I'm still looking for the answer myself."
"!!!"
Cid said the classic line without thinking, then looked toward Delta with a faintly melancholy gaze, completely unaware of Natsuki Minamiya's stare beside him, filled with terror, confusion, shock, and several other emotions all at once.
Down below, Delta had already defeated Vali. Rising from her crouched position on the ground, she turned toward Arthur, who had stepped forward, her eyes fierce.
"Delta is the strongest. Why won't you obey Delta's orders, Arthur?"
"Hah... Captain, I respect you, so I'm usually willing to follow your orders. But I hope you won't get involved. This is my business."
Arthur raised the Holy King Sword Collbrande without hesitation. His words to Delta were polite, but aside from not pointing the blade directly at her and attacking, it was no different from declaring war.
"Grr... So, Arthur, you don't want to obey Delta's orders."
Delta crouched down again, a hunting growl rumbling from her throat like a wild beast. Even so, she did not attack immediately. She wanted to confirm Arthur's answer one more time.
"Vali, what do you think?"
Arthur did not answer right away. Instead, he looked at Vali, who was being supported by Bikou, and asked him.
"Me? Didn't I already say it? We follow the team's rules and fight it out. Whoever wins gets to call the shots. And you saw the result..."
Vali waved helplessly and showed Arthur the wounds on his body. After thinking for a moment, he added,
"Besides, what does my opinion matter now? Do you really think I'm in any condition to activate Juggernaut Drive?"
"...So I'm on my own now."
Arthur looked around. Seeing that none of his teammates intended to step forward and help him, he fell silent for a few seconds before speaking with a hint of self-mockery.
"Well, I'm following the team's rules. Delta won, so don't blame me for not helping you.
And since Vali can't use Juggernaut Drive right now, what use would I be? Arthur, you don't actually think the two of us together could outlast Delta, do you? Why fight a battle we can't win?"
Bikou shook his head indifferently and actually tried to talk Arthur down. In his view, starting an internal conflict over something this minor was not worth it. In fact, if they had not already beaten all their enemies, fighting among themselves halfway through a battle would have been unbelievably stupid.
"She's really that strong?"
Rias, who could only lie weakly on the ground as Kuroka Toujou's Senjutsu continuously drained her stamina and Magical Power, instinctively asked in surprise when she heard Bikou's words.
In Rias's eyes, Delta was strong, but the pressure she gave off was nowhere near what her brother did. And even her brother would have trouble dealing with this many powerful opponents working together.
"With Delta, it's not really about how strong she is. The real problem is her ridiculous stamina and vitality. Numbers don't scare her at all."
Kuroka Toujou, who was fully in spectator mode, heard Rias and casually explained.
"Back when Vali was defeated, we fought Delta for five days and five nights to save him. In the end, she beat every one of us by herself."
In terms of pure burst power, Delta was certainly strong, but among them, she could only rank second. If the others went all out, they could briefly hold their ground against her.
The problem was that Delta's burst power was constant. Unless they defeated Delta instantly with even higher output, once the fight dragged on and their Magical Power and stamina ran low, all they could do was wait for Delta to finish them off.
In theory, Vali could beat Delta. Unfortunately, Vali was the White Dragon Emperor, not the Red Dragon Emperor. One Divide would cost him half his life first. Using Juggernaut Drive to massively raise his own power would let him suppress Delta without relying on Divide, but what could a few minutes of Juggernaut Drive accomplish? Once the time ran out and his body entered a weakened state, he would be killed instantly.
God only knew how they felt after four of them ganged up on her for five days and five nights, only to discover that they were the ones who collapsed from exhaustion, while Delta, who had been fighting all of them for five days, was still bouncing around like nothing had happened.
Kuroka Toujou recounted the story of her defeat with great interest, not caring at all that she was exposing her own embarrassing past. Mainly because she already knew that Delta had genuinely been cheating back then, and now she was cheating alongside Delta too.
Of course, in terms of compatibility, she still could not compare to Delta. That overwhelming vitality, enough to fight for five days and five nights and still act like nothing had happened, was something only an idiot could have. A normal person would break after a few days.
"Hey, Le Fay, what are you doing down here?"
Noticing a blonde figure dropping straight down from the sky, Kuroka Toujou stopped telling Koneko Toujou the gossip she had picked up while traveling the world. With a wave of her hand, she used Senjutsu to pull Le Fay over to her side.
"Kuroka-san, what are you doing? I have to stop my brother from attacking Captain Delta!"
Her path was suddenly thrown off, and her body was caught in a cloud of white mist. Flustered, Le Fay could only keep trying to tear herself free with her hands.
"Wow, Arthur is only planning to defy Delta because of you, Le Fay. Are you sure that's okay? Don't you hate that Genshirou Saji guy for taking you hostage?"
"Uh... a-actually, I don't really resent him for that anymore. Besides, it's not worth making my brother and Delta start fighting each other over me. Kuroka, let me go already!"
Watching Le Fay struggle with her face flushed red, Kuroka Toujou chuckled as though she had found something amusing, then casually pulled Le Fay to her side.
"I'll go break it up. If you run over there looking like this, you'll only make things worse. Keep an eye on them for me... and if you're in a bad mood, you can take it out on anyone here except Shirone."
Kuroka Toujou stretched lazily, gestured toward Rias and the others still lying on the ground, said that to Le Fay, then turned and flew toward Delta.
"Hey, hey, hey, you two. We're teammates, aren't we? If we start fighting among ourselves, everyone else is just going to laugh at us. Why don't you hear me out first?"
Smiling as she spoke, Kuroka Toujou slowly moved between Arthur and Delta, her tone light and teasing.
"Kuroka, are you helping me or Delta?"
"Subordinates who don't obey Delta's orders aren't the kind of subordinates Delta wants!"
Hearing those two extreme statements, both clearly heading straight toward a fight, the smile on Kuroka Toujou's face stiffened for a moment before quickly returning to normal.
"Why do we have to fight at all? We're teammates. We can talk this through!"
"...Toujou, you've spent the most time with Delta out of all of us. You should know very well that if she could be reasoned with, Vali wouldn't have been beaten into this state."
"..."
Wasn't it possible that Vali was just as much of a simple-minded brute and had never intended to reason with her in the first place?
"It won't hurt to try."
As she said that, Kuroka Toujou kept smiling and slowly walked toward Delta. Delta merely stared at her coldly, still holding her battle stance.
"Kuroka, stay away from Delta. Delta has to teach her disobedient subordinates a proper lesson today. Delta has been putting up with them for a long time."
"Yes, yes. No one's stopping Delta from teaching Arthur and Vali a lesson, but can we at least talk some sense first?"
"Huh?"
What nonsense are you talking about?
Delta did not say it outright, but the look she gave Kuroka Toujou clearly said as much.
"Look, Delta. You think you're our boss, and we're your subordinates. So when we don't obey your orders, that's why you have to teach us a lesson, right?"
Kuroka Toujou crouched down and smiled at Delta.
"Mm... Right!"
"Leaving aside whether they obey or not, as a proper boss, if Delta's subordinates are bullied by outsiders, you would definitely help beat those outsiders up, wouldn't you?"
"Right!"
"Then right now, a group of enemies attacked the subordinates of Boss Delta and even took your subordinate away. In other words, they stole Delta's treasure. Shouldn't Delta fight back?"
"Right!"
"Then after beating them, how should Delta deal with those enemies?"
"Hunt them all down!"
"Good. Now, a group of Devils injured Delta's subordinates, Arthur and Le Fay, and even stole Boss Delta's treasure. Shouldn't we hunt them down?"
"Yes!"
"That's enough. Arthur, do it!"
"Huh?"
After successfully fooling her, Kuroka Toujou turned and shouted at Arthur. Arthur only stared blankly at Kuroka Toujou and the fooled Delta, as if he could not believe things had been resolved so easily.
No matter how much power someone had, without enough Wisdom, they could still be led around by the nose.
Seeing through Arthur's thoughts, Kuroka Toujou gave a disdainful sneer. Of course, this method usually did not work on Delta. Her instincts were far too sharp.
"No! Delta won't allow it!"
The moment she heard the key phrase, Delta instinctively shouted to stop Arthur, but Kuroka Toujou made her freeze with a single sentence.
"Why not? Could it be that Delta isn't a proper boss...?"
"Ah... Th-that..."
Under Kuroka Toujou's gaze, Delta stammered with her mouth open, wanting to say something but unable to figure out what. In the end, she could only turn her aggrieved eyes toward Cid.
"Cid, what should Delta do? The things you taught Delta didn't mention this. Delta wants to be a proper boss..."
I don't know whether you're a proper boss, Delta, but if a few words are enough to overload your brain, then you're definitely a proper dog. I should never have trusted your intelligence.
Once again, Delta drew everyone's attention. Facing all those gazes, Cid knew he could not avoid it this time. He really did need to explain how he knew Vali and Delta. After thinking for a moment, he spoke.
Come on, Cid. Think about how you should say this while you're in Shadow mode.
"Let's all sit down and talk properly. I'm willing to say this is all a misunderstanding."
"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Delta will listen to Cid."
Naturally, Delta was the first to respond. Almost as soon as he finished speaking, she hurriedly nodded in agreement with Cid's suggestion. Other than her, however, no one else nodded along with Ci...
"I think Cid-san makes a fair point. We really should talk this through properly. Maybe Cid-san is right."
After straightening her collar with a slight awkwardness, Kuroka Toujou was the second to agree.
"I-I-I have no objections either."
After Vali was beaten down, the thing inside her that had been constantly absorbing power disappeared, and Serafall finally had enough strength to stand.
"Well... since she values him, I suppose I agree too. Let's all sit down and talk."
Following the idea that "someone valued by the Infinite Dragon God can't be a bad person," Vali agreed to Cid's proposal, and Bikou went along with him.
"Fine. I trust my team member."
With a Church warrior helping him up, Dulio thought of how Cid knew Xenovia and Irina Shidou. After a brief pause, he agreed as well.
In the blink of an eye, almost everyone had accepted the idea of peaceful talks. Even his own sister Le Fay was looking at him expectantly. After some hesitation, Arthur finally lowered his weapon.
"I'll trust you this once! If we can't find the killer, then we continue!"
Cid was not surprised by this situation at all. How should he put it? Once he realized that he seemed to have some connection no matter which side it was, the idea of mediating between them had occurred to him.
Of course, he called it mediation, but if he could not solve Arthur's problem, Arthur would probably still explode. That said, Cid was not worried. He was confident he could make this work.
As someone connected to all three sides, and the person who had personally beaten Vali, he had an advantage no one else could match. He knew everything.
He did not know what had happened to Yuuto Kiba and Genshirou Saji, and he did not know who the mastermind was. But after gathering his memories and the reliable information others had given him, then analyzing it a little, he successfully found a blind spot.
He had to praise himself a little. He felt he did have at least some Wisdom. It had only taken him a few minutes to find this loophole. Of course, he had Sherry to thank for her help. Without Sherry's improvement, he would not have managed it.
The only problem was that he seemed to be drawing a little too much attention now. But there was no helping it. It was not as if he could really stand by and watch Rias and the others get killed.
Forget it. It did not matter. He was already drawing enough attention anyway. Drawing a little more would not make much difference. Afterward, he could just make up any excuse and bluff his way through.
"Of course. As long as you aren't lying, we'll definitely find the killer. But before that, shouldn't we heal them first?"
Cid pointed confidently at Rias and the others, then quietly looked at Arthur.
Arthur nodded, and Le Fay immediately flew over to heal everyone. At the end, she even gave Cid a grateful look.
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