Kokabiel was on the floor, with his knees and palms resting against it as he breathed heavily. Half of his body was a bloody mess, and his eight previously imposing black wings were either bent unnaturally or had been torn off completely.
Despite this, Kokabiel clenched his fists tightly, digging his fingers into the floor as he glared at Mashiro with hatred and reluctance.
"Y-you... damn you!" he shouted desperately.
"Kughhh!" A kick to his chest sent him flying dozens of meters until he crashed into the wall of the enormous place, only for less than a second later to be grabbed by his long hair and brought back to where he had been by Kuroka, who slammed him against the floor in irritation.
"Hey, hey, I'm the one who beat you up, so why are you looking at little Mashiro with so much hatred?"
Kokabiel gritted his teeth, enduring the pain before speaking.
"I... am Kokabiel! One of the only eight-winged fallen angels! Someone who participated in the Great War of the Biblical faction! Someone who witnessed the death of God! I shouldn't die like this... not in a pathetic ten-minute fight in a hidden basement... not without showing all my power... my death should be a worthy final battle! It should be written in the history books and remembered for generations!"
Contrary to what one might expect, Kokabiel was not angry about losing or about his supposedly imminent death. He did not even harbor hatred toward Kuroka for being responsible. All of his hatred was directed at Mashiro for preventing him from having an epic and memorable final battle that would go down in history.
At Kokabiel's speech, the three simply looked at him as if he were an idiot. None of them had any interest in his desire for recognition.
"Stop wasting time and just tell us how to steal Sacred Gears" Kuroka urged irritably.
"Hahaha! So that's what all this is about? Some stupid method for stealing Sacred Gears?!"
"And because killing you will save us trouble later" Kaito added.
"Jejeje, I won't tell you anything, I won't tell you anything!"
"How annoying" Kuroka complained.
"Why won't you talk? Aren't you tired?" Mashiro crouched down, ending up in front of Kokabiel before speaking.
"Tired?... Yes, I'm tired. I don't want to fight anymore... why don't I just talk? No! Fighting is my reason for being! It's my way of obtaining glory! Of becoming known!" Although Kokabiel initially felt tired, as if he could do anything just to finally rest, he quickly recovered, refusing even more vehemently than before.
"I suppose Supreme Level beings can still resist" Kaito lamented.
"I suppose" Mashiro agreed, returning to his side.
"Kughhh" Seeing that he was not going to talk and that there was no need to keep him alive, Kuroka pierced his chest from behind with her claws, tearing his heart out directly.
And in doing so, she realized something.
"Couldn't you have just done this yourself? Like when you did it to those two fallen angels in the abandoned church?"
"Yes, but I wanted to test the limit of the sin domains on strong beings" Kaito explained.
Although someone at Supreme Level could survive without a heart for a while, their strength would probably be severely diminished and they would die shortly if they did not receive some kind of miraculous healing, so Kaito could indeed have ended the fight with a single move.
"So, how do we get the method now?" Kuroka asked, confused.
"With him" Mashiro pointed in a specific direction, where at first glance there did not seem to be anyone.
But Kuroka only looked confused for a second before moving. With a strike, the invisible barrier cracked, revealing a person.
It was an old man with patches of white hair on the sides and a pair of small, rounded glasses, wearing a white robe with a golden cross.
"Hiii, please don't hurt me, I'll tell you whatever you want" The old man fell to the floor and backed away in fear.
"Do you know how to steal Sacred Gears?"
"Of course! I was even involved in developing the ritual" the old man nodded as if he had seen a ray of hope.
"Tell us, and we'll let you live"
Hope shone in the old man's eyes and he was about to speak, but he stopped when he realized that something was wrong.
"H-how do I know you're not lying to me?!" he shouted in fear.
"You saw our methods" Kaito replied, pointing at Kokabiel's corpse on the floor. "We can force it out of you if we want, so there's no reason for us to lie to you"
"...A-all right" The old man nodded, not because he trusted them, but because he truly had no other choice. "It's about..."
In short, the ritual was not that complex. Basically, Sacred Gears are anchored to a user's soul, and through this ritual they cut that bond, also damaging the soul and most of the time killing the user.
Kaito already knew that, so he did not really care. What he needed was the exact process of how this ritual worked.
And with the old man explaining it to him and Kaito using his soul manipulation, he managed to do it with ease. Finally, about a thousand fragments of divinity turned it into a complete ability, so Kaito would not have to perform the process manually every time.
"S-so I can..."
"Kuroka" Kaito interrupted him, signaling to the black-haired cat girl.
She nodded and struck the old man on the back of the neck with just enough force to knock him unconscious. His eyes rolled back and his body went limp as he fell to the floor.
"So we're going to kill him anyway?" Kuroka asked with a smile as she watched the old man with murderous intent.
"No, we promised we wouldn't kill him" Kaito denied.
"And we'll just let him go?"
"Neither. We'll imprison him for now, and later we'll give him to Kiba so he can kill him" Kaito explained.
"Kiba was the handsome boy who was Shirone's companion in the peerage, right? Why him?"
"This old man is Valper Galilei. He was the leader of the Sacred Sword Project"
"I know, I know, it's the project Kiba participated in as a child, right? When the Church gathered a bunch of children and tried to forcibly impose the Sacred Factor necessary to wield Sacred Swords on them" Kuroka raised her hand and explained animatedly, like a student who knew the answer and wanted to show off.
"Exactly" Kaito nodded.
"Hehe, I investigated everyone close to Shirone" Kuroka said proudly.
"Kaito, are we leaving already?" Mashiro asked, bored.
"Wait, let's leave a letter" Kaito said before taking paper and a pencil from his inventory and writing for a moment.
...
Some time after Kaito, Mashiro, and Kuroka left, two fallen angels arrived at the scene.
A tall and refined woman with fair skin and long, well-kept hair, wearing formal and elegant clothing typical of an office worker or something similar. Her presence was calm and orderly, conveying the impression of someone intelligent and meticulous, Penemue.
And a tall man with messy black hair with blond strands and a short beard, dressed in dark clothes and a long coat. He had the appearance of an experienced veteran, relaxed on the outside, but with a presence that made it clear he was someone to be taken seriously, Azazel.
"Penemue" Azazel said, looking at the destruction in front of him with interest.
"It is one of Kokabiel's many 'secret' laboratories. We received a request for help recently, and we haven't been able to contact Kokabiel since then" Penemue explained.
"It doesn't look like he's still fighting" Azazel frowned, seeing the completely silent surroundings.
If the reason he was not responding was not that he was busy fighting, the other most likely reason was not exactly a good one.
But as they went deeper into the basement, his fears were confirmed.
Kokabiel's corpse was lying on the floor, completely lifeless, with a hole in his back where the absence of his main vital organ was evident.
Penemue and Azazel only looked at the corpse for a second before sighing helplessly.
Kokabiel was the kind of person who loved plotting plans and causing trouble at all times, so they knew that at some point he would end up messing with someone he shouldn't have. His survival during the Great War had filled him with far too much confidence.
"Do we know who did it? Was it a personal attack or an attack against our entire faction? Who has Kokabiel gotten involved with lately?"
"I don't know" Penemue sighed. "You know what Kokabiel is like. What he declared on paper probably has nothing to do with what he was actually doing.
...What is that?" While speaking, Penemue saw that Azazel had picked up a piece of paper and was now reading it with an amused smile.
""Azazel, we had a personal problem with Kokabiel and we've already resolved it. I really have no intention of starting a fight with the fallen angel faction, so I'd prefer it if you simply ignored it and didn't look for us. That way, we both save ourselves some trouble" that's what it says" Azazel read, amused.
"Are they trying to threaten us?" Penemue frowned.
"No" Azazel denied. "Just like it says, he is simply trying to avoid unnecessary trouble"
"How are you so sure?"
"Isn't it obvious? Because I also love avoiding trouble. If I could kill someone from the demon faction I have personal problems with without it becoming an issue between two factions, how great would that be?"
"And we'll simply let them go, then?"
"There is no need to cause trouble with someone capable of killing Kokabiel in less than ten minutes without anyone noticing, especially if he isn't even our enemy in the first place" Azazel replied. "Even so, I'm very interested in his identity. Let's investigate what happened here"
______________________________________
I have a new fic about Syndrome in Marvel. Go check it out if you're interested.
Name: Marvel: Creating a World Where Everyone Is Super.
(Don't worry, this message will only be here for one month and then disappear)
+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)