Ise had to question whether the universe was against him or something.
He had just spent the past hour dealing with some magicians who had forced Gasper to use his Sacred Gear on wide scale, trying to give the vampire some motivation to control his abilities. After helping him in stopping the magicians (and getting a decent eyeful, he might add), he and the others went back to the leaders to find the others back on their feet and dealing with the magicians who came up to attack.
Things got tensed when one of the apparent leaders of the attack came out and challenged Azazel, alongside Vali who revealed his association with the Chaos Brigade. A very hot and mature woman that he would not mind ogling if not for her attitude towards him and the fact that she helped to usher the attack in. Azazel fought back using an artificial Sacred Gear that he created to achieve some type of forced [Balance Breaker] and was able to defeat her with the cost of his arm. Vali seemed to have disappeared at some point, so they did not know what happened.
Shirou soon came back to them, looking a little worse for wear without his jacket and shirt and revealing a body that inspired envy, fear and a bit of respect. Envy because Shirou was sporting a muscular body boasting a six-pack ready to grind meat and enough to make the females around blush heavily and one angel to almost fall. Fear because Shirou was sporting a lot of old wounds and scars that looked as though they should have killed him from the start, especially the one above his heart that appeared to be a true-and-through. And the respect part was because Shirou had to endure a lot to survive all of those attacks.
His observations got interrupted when Vali came along wanting to attack them, but got sidetracked when some weird monsters came along and swarmed the area, forcing them back quite a bit. It would seem that Shirou had fought them before but had issues to contain them, thus asking him and Rias for help in a creation of a spear he made to deal with them. After that he got the front row seat to seeing a rather graphic destruction of those creatures as they got sucked into a black hole of destruction and set on fire by Shirou. They did not get much respite as Vali came back and sent Shirou flying out of the clubroom and back to the grounds below.
Ise did not waste time and jumped out of the open wall, hitting the ground hard before going after Vali who was pushing Shirou away from them and into the open courtyard. At least by the time he got there, Shirou had enough of Vali and proceeded to use that magic of his to create several swords and fire at Vali like missiles. But the traitor merely raised his fists to punch them, breaking them in the process. Oddly enough Shirou smirked at that and raised his hand to snap his fingers.
"BOOMM!"
Ise got knocked off his feet as the shrapnel of the damaged swords glowed before exploding spectacularly, completely engulfing Vali in fire and smoke that continued for close to a minute before subsiding, during which Shirou used that chance to project some weaponry and stab them into the ground before calling out his bow. Ise used that chance to get close to him while keeping his head down.
"Hey there Ise, quite an evening for our meeting huh?" Shirou quipped as he notched one of the swords to his bow and pulled it back, the sword reforming itself into an arrow with a jagged arrowhead. He let fly into the smoke and let it explode, forcing Ise to the ground again while the explosion cleared the smoke enough to show Vali forced back with his armor damaged from the attack.
"I must say, you are certainly living up to some of the rumors on the network." Vali commented as his armor repaired itself. "Yet you are holding back on me, that is not good. You should not be doing that."
"Oh great, just what we needed. Another Kokabiel." Ise groaned in frustration while Shirou grunted and made an expression of resigned agreement. Clearly, the both of them would have preferred no one else to come to them with a battle-centric mindset.
Bummer.
"You want to know something funny? Destiny is a cruel mistress." Vali spoke again while directing his eyes at Ise. Shirou narrowed his eyes at Vali, likely wondering what was his angle while looking for a possible opening to attack.
"I can't help thinking how different the two of us are. We have me, the strongest existence one could perceived of with a Maou and a legendary dragon. And then we have you, someone who was once a regular human and just happened to possess the same dragon-type Sacred Gear." Vali started while folding his arms. "Both your parents are normal folk, along with any known relatives. There is literally no one in your bloodline or ancestors who are ability-users, practitioners with powers, let alone any connection with devils or angels. You have no special friends, not even a hint of a magical pet. Aside from getting [Boosted Gear], you are practically a boring and normal male high school student."
Vali laughed loudly while putting a hand to his head. "Honestly speaking, I was almost appalled at the truth that faced me when I was reading up on you. If your parents were magicians, then maybe I would have been a lot more interested, but this is so pathetic I can't help but laugh at the absurdity!" He slowly regained his breath as he looked back at Ise.
"Here's an idea for you. Why don't I kill your parents?" Ise's heart literally stopped and his mind went blank at Vali's words. He did not understand what he was talking about earlier but these he did perfectly well, along with the next set of words.
"Yes, the idea is quite appealing. After all, your parents will just live ordinarily, grow old ordinarily and die ordinarily. It is just so~ boring." Vali gestured with his arms as though he was trying to mime a scene. "But if your parents are killed by a valuable existence like me, your personal history would become more interesting. You would be devoting yourself to a solemn destiny of vengeance. Yes~ You can become an avenger, devoted to killing me for revenge over your parent's death. The setting I spoke of is much more brilliant than such a boring life, right?!"
"…"
Ise was not sure how to express the odd feeling that started from inside him, but he knew that this guy was to blame and that he was say something very unlike him. But before he could speak, Vali decided someone else should be given the speech.
"And let's not forget about you, Shirou Emiya, the Mage of Steel." Vali turned his attention at him who was now sporting a hardened expression at his declaration to kill Ise's parents.
"At least you have the strength to prove yourself, but you are clearly born in the wrong type of world and time, having to tow amongst the weak sheep around you. You have to hold back a fair bit of your strength to fit in, too much in my opinion. What little I have gathered about your fight with Regeis, and what I recalled from your fight with Kokabiel, you do much better if something is at stake or when there is a sense of danger that brings out the inner beast. So why don't I extend the same courtesy to you?" He paused before continuing. "How about that old couple at the bar? They seemed close enough to you for a good reaction."
Ise's heart went cold a second time as he digested the words, remembering the old couple that arrived at the academy's reopening and accompanied Shirou during his lessons and visited the store where he acted as a butler. He recalled how Shirou actually showed a bit more emotions around the two, less guarded compared to their groups and how the old man talked with the both of them with a bit of boyish youth in his actions, while his wife acted like a kind grandma who was stern but gentle at the same time.
And Vali just threatened to kill them as well?!
The odd feeling from earlier grew even more, wanting to burst forth from his body and spill all over the area. Next to him, a shadow passed over Shirou's face as he looked down, likely trying to process what Vali just said blatantly to his face.
"I am going to kill you."
Ah, now Ise understood the feeling, it was the same with Shirou's when he fought against some of the Strays and Kokabiel.
The intent to kill with extreme prejudice.
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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
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if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to my p atreon :
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