Well, that helped a lot.
It may have been a tad overkill using [Gae Bolg] to get everyone to shut up, but it was effective enough to get negotiations ongoing. To alleviate the mood and to satisfy Raiser's Peerage loss of food, I brought out a new cart of pastries to let them sample, thus making them very happy and granting me the smug pleasure of seeing Raiser's embarrassment at the relative easiness I conquered the girls over with food.
Now I knew why Archer feels so happy about this.
At any rate, they decided after a fair amount of debating to have some sort of competition called a Rating Game in 10 days' time, with the 'suggestion' from Raiser being that Rias's Peerage would need all the help they could get. And despite Rias bluffing her way out of that situation, I could tell that she was partially grateful that she had this handicap from him. She would definitely need all the help she could get from these few days of training.
So after all that, I returned to the Student Council Room to hand over my letter of leave, and to report back of the events in the Occult Club Room. Evidently word traveled fast to the Sona's Peerage about the proceedings, as Tsubasa immediately bombarded me with questions about the incident the moment I entered the doorway.
"So let me get this straight, you essentially immobilized Raiser's entire Peerage, scared him into behaving himself nicely, and basically embarrass himself in front of everyone in the room?" Tsubasa asked incredulously with the others looking at me in disbelief. "Damn, I wish I was there to see that look on his face!"
"Yura, we do not take pleasure in people's discomfort." Sona adjusted her glasses as she looked at us.
"Come on, Kaichou! Wouldn't you feel the same way towards that guy?" Tsubasa asked with a raised eyebrow, and I got treated to the sight of Sona looking away and letting out a light cough while lightly blushing. That was a little adorable and slightly emotional for me as that action reminded me a little of Saber when she got embarrassed on the spot.
Darn it, keep control.
"But honestly, Emiya-kun. I am a little concerned about your actions." Sona focused on me to hide her embarrassment. "You may have limited knowledge about us, that I cannot refute, but you need to be careful making such moves against one of the 72 clans. You do not want to make enemies of them, especially one with great influence like the Phenex Clan."
"Hmm~ would that be because they are the clan mostly associated with the mythical creature of fire most famous for its ability to resurrect from the ashes?" I mentioned offhandedly as I absentmindedly twirled a small blade in my hand. Putting on an expression of great thoughtfulness, I said out the word that basically spoke of what I felt of the matter.
"Meh."
"What~ what do you mean 'meh'?!" Sona asked in a slightly offended tone.
"No offense, but it is not the first time I have to go against an immortal creature that is hard to kill and regenerates from its wounds." I shrugged as I thought through the times I fought such creatures. "And if you want to get more detailed, well…" I held up three fingers. "This was the number of times I went against a supposed phoenix."
"You are joking, right?" Tsubasa let out a chuckle only to stop when she saw my expression. "Wait, you actually fought off a phoenix three times?!"
"Well, granted the first two times, the bird was held back by some powerful barriers, and the last one was due to a crazy magus trying to resurrect the bird in order to absorb it into his body and gain its abilities." I told them a little as I reminisced about my old missions. "And I had a few artifacts that allowed me to go toe-to-toe with it, so as far as I know, I and a couple of others are the only ones to successfully fight off such a bird. So yeah, Meh!"
"No way…" Everyone in the room gawked at me who talked about going against one of the most mythological creatures in existence like I was talking about the weather. The boy Saji for one was looking ready to crap his pants.
"Trust me when I say, that no matter how many creatures that try to eat you, disembowel your organs, skewer you with 3 foot claws or skinned you alive as your soul is being sucked out, you will not forget the first immortal that tried to kill you." I knew my eye twitched uncontrollably when I thought back to all the immortal creatures I had taken out, right back to the first one I had fought.
Thank you Berserker Herakles for being the main core of my immortal monster nightmares.
My urge to shudder got interrupted by a knock on the door, drawing our attention to both Ise and Kiba who had arrived. "Apologies for the late visit, but we have a certain favor to ask of Emiya-kun." Kiba bowed his head to the girls before turning to me.
And once again, I had a very bad feeling.
...
Ha~ Why am I not surprised anymore?
It seemed that my earlier performance at the Occult Room prompted Rias to appoint me as a part-time trainer of sorts for Ise and Kiba. I was supposed to meet them at some vacation home that Rias had near the mountain regions where they were going to spend their time training for the match.
At first she had hoped to get me in for the whole training period, but me, Sona and surprisingly the other girls rejected that proposal. For Sona's reason, since I was not a part of her club I shouldn't be going on club trips. For the others, their reason was simpler: who would be around to fix the equipment when I'm gone?
Not sure how to feel about that, but hey, the thought counts.
After some serious negotiations, I ended up coming every odd day of their training to help whatever way I can, since I still had my part-time job to handle. At the same time, this was about as good an opportunity as I could have to get some answers to certain questions.
Especially the ones involving these Sacred Gears I kept hearing.
During one of the few question-answer sessions I had with Sona, I learned a lot about these gears, and quite frankly I was both impressed and disturbed at their existence. Apparently these were like physical Noble Phantasms created by God himself, meant to spread his acts of miracles among the world via his human followers.
However some bugs got in the way of their creation, thus leading to some developing abilities that seemed more suited for war than peace, like Kiba's Sword Birth. Furthermore, each one was capable of going to the next level of power that was considered so outrageous, that level earned the moniker "Balance Breaker".
Amongst this lot, there were thirteen particular Sacred Gears that had more than enough power to supposedly kill other Gods, thus leading to their titles 'Longinus', allegedly named after the blind soldier who stabbed the Son of God. Ise's Boosted Gear was ranked the fifth of the lot, its ability name evidently taken from the dragon that was residing inside the gear, the one called the 'Red Dragon Emperor'.
Best not to let them know about the few Noble Phantasms considered Longinus level inside my Reality Marble.
I was honestly perplexed at the fact there were such powerful artifacts that could grant the user any power of the sort. Heck, even the Twice Critical Gear that everyone seemed to dismiss as average and weak would be a godsend to anyone in my old world. If I had such a gear, I would not have to worry too much about my Prana reserves. Combined that with Twilight Healing, I would be able to complete my jobs in a jiff.
I did asked why were the Devils able to use Sacred Gears if God allowed only humans to use them, and the best answer that Sona could come up with was the idea that God would not have expected the Devils to create a system that allowed for the resurrection and conversion of species into Devils, while Rias had shown evidence of half-humans also gaining the Gears.
Even the Devil higher-ups had once dismissed this Ajuka's system as a mere joke until he created and demonstrated its use. So it seemed even God could not foresee this development.
But enough of that, I had another important question to ask.
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Hey guys I really need you to throw some power Stones ;)
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