Rias Gremory stood frozen mid-breath, crimson hair swaying in the aftermath of the battle, her gaze glued to the figure who had just taken Kokabiel's arm off so effortlessly it bordered on the absurd.
"How...?" Rias whispered before catching herself "I didn't even see him move..."
Her fingers curled slightly at her side. Every instinct as a devil and strategist urged her to make sense of what she had just seen, but it refused to align with her memories of the boy who had challenged Riser in the Underworld.
The Motohama she remembered and the one standing before her now shared the same face, the same voice, and the same irritating confidence.
Everything else felt different.
Xenovia stood next to her, with her arms folded across her chest, her gaze fixed unwaveringly on Motohama's blade as she inclined her head toward the battlefield.
"It's the sword" Xenovia stated without hesitation "Look at the motion. His body isn't generating that acceleration by itself. It's being pulled along by the swing. The effect is similar to Excalibur Rapidly. The weapon is amplifying his movement beyond normal physical limits"
For the briefest moment, Xenovia's attention slipped from the battlefield to the sword at her own side. Her fingers tightened around the hilt, a tiny gesture close to envy, that vanished before anyone but Rias could notice.
Irina's eyes kept drifting back to Motohama despite herself. The white-aura blade rode his shoulder with such effortless familiarity that it looked less like a weapon he wielded and more like a longtime companion taking a walk beside him.
She knew Holy Swords the way sailors knew the sea. She had lived around them, suffered for them, built entire pieces of herself around the idea of one day wielding them properly. Yet the aura bleeding from Motohama's blade reduced all that familiarity to irrelevance. Her Mimic suddenly felt like a child's drawing hanging beside a masterpiece.
It wasn't just holy power. It felt like holy power after being compressed under impossible pressure for centuries. And sitting atop all of that was Rapidly's attribute or god knows what else, as though whoever forged the thing had started with perfection and then continued making bad decisions.
"The more I look at it, the less I understand what I'm seeing," Xenovia said. "A Holy Sword of that quality would already be an extraordinary discovery. The fact that it recognizes him as a wielder pushes the entire situation into absurdity. Compatibility with Holy Swords is not something people stumble into by accident. The Church has dedicated generations to identifying suitable candidates. But, somehow he...."
Rias breathed out through her nose, buying herself a brief moment of composure before her thoughts resumed colliding with one another.
"Whatever the explanation is, it will have to come from him" Rias said, folding her arms beneath her chest, her gaze never leaving off him "For now, we have more immediate concerns"
Beneath her composed exterior, Rias was already adding another page to the ever-growing catalogue of questions labeled Motohama. The frustrating part was that every explanation he offered somehow expanded the mystery instead of reducing it. She was beginning to suspect he treated straightforward answers as a personal challenge.
Everyone turned back toward the battlefield, where the brief pause in the fighting felt less like an interruption and more like a predator drawing breath before another lunge.
---
Motohama extended the sword toward Kokabiel, its pale radiance cutting through the dust. The grin tugging at his lips looked less appropriate for a life-or-death battle and more appropriate for someone who had just won a year's supply of free food.
"What's the matter?" he called, his voice carrying easily across the ruined schoolyard "Getting cold feet, one-armed Cadre? I understand. Losing an arm has to be rough. Throws off your balance, your depth perception, your whole intimidating-fallen-angel aesthetic. Recovery's a journey, Kokabiel. I believe in you"
"You arrogant....."
Kokabiel's remaining hand closed into a fist with enough force to make the entire arm shake.
Blood continued to stream from the stump of his missing limb, splashing onto the destroyed battlefield in steady crimson drops that spread outwards. Behind him, his ten wings unfurled in a violent snap, black feathers rippling as though each one was trying to launch itself at Motohama independently.
"Don't get so full of yourself, you lowly human!" Kokabiel snarled, his voice bubbling in rage "You think you've won just because you severed my arm by surprise?!"
The air around the Cadre erupted into light.
One spear became ten. Ten became fifty. In seconds, a glittering halo of destruction hung above Kokabiel's head, each lance radiating enough holy power to reduce buildings to memories. Their golden glow washed over the shattered schoolyard, transforming the battlefield into the world's least welcoming cathedral.
Kokabiel thrust his arm forward with enough force to send blood spraying from the stump at his shoulder.
Above him, the hovering arsenal surged into motion. Hundreds of points of golden light streaked across the battlefield, so densely packed they resembled a collapsing star aimed directly at Motohama.
As the battlefield vanished beneath the approaching flood of light, Motohama simply lifted his sword into the path of the oncoming storm.
Fwooosh!
The white aura coiled around the blade, gathering along the edge in dense bands of light. Then Motohama swung in a single horizontal arc that split the air with fractures bursting into existence between Motohama and the descending barrage as though the world itself had taken the blow.
SHATTER!
As the fractures swept through the incoming barrage, the light spears simply came apart, their radiant forms dissolving into drifting clouds of golden dust that were swept away by the expanding shockwave before they could reach their target.
The expanding shockwave crashed into Kokabiel with devastating force, launching him backward through the air and snapping his wings inward.
For a brief, humiliating moment, the warmonger Cadre had no more control over his movement than a leaf caught in a storm.
Kokabiel's attempt to regain control ended abruptly when Motohama appeared directly in front of him. There was no visible acceleration, no warning, only the sudden realization that the boy was no longer fifty meters away. White radiance engulfed Motohama's leg as he drove a kick into the Fallen Angel's midsection, the impact producing a flash that lightened the battlefield whole for a brief instant.
SHATTER!
Kokabiel's mouth opened in a silent scream before a violent cough finally tore its way free, sending a spray of blood across the front of Motohama's pants.
'There goes my 800 dollars'
Motohama glanced down at the fresh stains and felt a surprising amount of disappointment. The pants had done absolutely nothing to deserve this.
Kokabiel hurtled downward at such speed that the eye could scarcely follow him, leaving only a dark blur and a trail of blood in his wake. When he hit the earth, the resulting impact demolished the already ruined school grounds.
BOOOOOM!
The crater unfolded across the battlefield in expanding rings of destruction, lifting concrete and earth into graceful arcs that might have resembled a flower had they not been composed entirely of ruin.
When the dust finally settled, Kokabiel remained standing at the crater's center. Blood streamed from a dozen wounds, and his robes had been reduced to ragged scraps that clung to his body as though uncertain whether to remain attached.
The fury in his eyes had crossed a line somewhere during the exchange. What remained was something far less rational, a feral intensity that seemed ready to tear apart anything standing in front of it.
"I'll kill you," he hissed, blood dripping from his lips in long strings. "I will kill you, human!"
"I will kill you" Kokabiel hissed, blood dripping from his lips in long strings "Even if I have to drown this city in blood to do it, I will kill you"
Motohama simply smirked as though Kokabiel had just delivered a mildly amusing joke rather than a death threat.
With a furious sweep of his wings, Kokabiel hurled himself back into the air. Golden light gathered in his remaining hand and condensed into a sword, its luminous edge radiating the sort of destructive promise that had ended armies long before humanity learned to write its own history.
The light sword moved in a continuous blur of motion, each attack arriving before the last had fully ended, the entire offensive driven by the accumulated experience of a warrior who had spent centuries fighting opponents powerful enough to make mistakes fatal.
Light spears emerged around him like hunting dogs released from a leash, striking from blind spots and unexpected angles while Kokabiel drove forward with his sword. Every attack served the others, each one herding, cornering, and constricting until the battlefield itself seemed to be closing around his target.
Fwooosh!
Motohama's body flowed through the barrage with impossible precision. He sidestepped one strike, slipped beneath the next, and turned aside a third before it had fully developed. The purple light shining in his eyes remained calm and unwavering, as if the battle unfolding around him had already been seen with his glowing pair of vision.
Light spears screamed past him, missing by margins that looked terrifying to everyone except Motohama. The sword fared no better. Every strike carved through air he had already vacated, his movements carrying the calm efficiency of someone handling a minor inconvenience rather than a millennia-old Fallen Angel.
With an enraged shout, Kokabiel abandoned restraint and drove the offensive into overdrive. Sword strikes came faster. Light spears multiplied. Every opening became another attack. Yet no matter how overwhelming the assault appeared, Motohama slipped through it all with uncanny ease, moving as though the entire exchange had been planned around his convenience.
"Let's put an end to this farce," Motohama said, rolling his neck with a pop that echoed louder than it had any right to. "It's gone on way too long, and honestly, I've got places to be."
You know, when they said a legendary Cadre was attacking the city, I had certain expectations" Motohama said, while shaking his head with a sigh "But, this has been surprisingly a disappointment"
Fwooosh!
He launched forward with such explosive speed that afterimages burst into existence behind him, littering the battlefield with ghosts of his passing. Before Kokabiel could distinguish illusion from reality, the real blade was already upon him.
SLASH!
The first wing was severed so effortlessly it felt almost insulting. The second and third soon joined it. Then the remaining wings began disappearing with alarming efficiency, each strike stripping away another piece of Kokabiel's pride. Black feathers filled the air around him like the remains of a broken pride. Moments later, the once-majestic Cadre was reduced to a screaming projectile tumbling helplessly toward the earth.
Motohama landed beside the crater and delivered a final cut, the blade tracing a luminous path across Kokabiel's chest. The ancient Fallen Angel fell backward into the dirt, his gaze fixed on the heavens above. Centuries of hatred, ambition, and violence ended not with a roar, but with silence.
But, somehow the Cadre was still alive.
Motohama raised his free hand and flicked his fingers. Cross Tail wires burst forward, their thin forms nearly invisible against the night sky. They pierced straight through Kokabiel's chest and continued deeper, threading through his body with terrifying precision until they reached his heart. Even from a distance, the sound was enough to make several spectators flinch.
"For someone who spent the entire evening talking about war, you folded surprisingly fast"
As the wires drove deeper into his heart, Kokabiel's body convulsed beneath the strain, his breath catching in his throat before escaping as a ragged, pain-filled groan.
The outcome had already been decided, and Motohama was merely moments away from delivering the final stroke when the night sky split apart overhead with enough force to seize the battlefield's attention.
SHATTER!
A single fracture appeared at the barrier's apex. It spread relentlessly, dividing and multiplying until the entire construct trembled beneath the strain. Then the breach opened wide enough, and something bright forced its way through. A column of white light descended from above, washing the battlefield in radiance and bringing the fight to an abrupt halt.
Every gaze lifted toward the sky, as the descending radiance began to contract and solidify. Within the heart of the light, a silhouette slowly took shape, descending with the effortless composure of an individual for whom attention was neither requested nor earned, but simply expected.
White scale armor covered the figure from head to toe. The armor's sleek, segmented plates resembled the scales of a dragon, radiating both overwhelming power and refined elegance. Blue jewels embedded in the chest plate and gauntlets glowed with a mysterious light, pulsing in rhythm with the immense aura surrounding him.
The White Dragon Emperor!
Motohama's brow raised as he looked the newcomer over. This was not who he had been expecting. Azazel had assigned Benemune to deal with Kokabiel, and Motohama had gone through the trouble of reaching an understanding with her beforehand.
The appearance of Vali implied that somebody had altered his plans. Experience suggested that whenever plans changed without warning, politics was involved.
Politics, unfortunately, had a long history of making his life worse.
"Sato Motohama." The White Dragon Emperor's voice echoed from within the armor. "I have come on Azazel's behalf. Kokabiel is to be taken into Grigori custody. Azazel will see that you are rewarded for your assistance."
Motohama's eye twitched, as he couldn't believe that Azazel found out about his agreement with Benemune already.
'A Rank 14 Gacha Ticket. No deal in Heaven, Hell, or the Underworld was worth trading that away. Whatever Azazel thought counted as compensation, it wasn't going to come close'
"Unfortunate timing" Motohama said, clenching his fist "I've already made up my mind."
SCHLICK!
The Cross Tail wires constricted simultaneously, and the difference between a battle and an execution finally disappeared. Kokabiel's body separated with brutal precision, the outcome so absolute that it felt less like victory and more like a sentence being carried out.
For several seconds, nobody seemed entirely certain how to react to the fact that a being of his stature had died in such a way.
A small smile tugged on his lips as the blue screen appeared in his vision. Its cheerful lettering suggested that, from the system's perspective, the evening had gone exceptionally well.
[ Quest: Eliminate Kokabiel and his accomplices — COMPLETED! ]
A second notification appeared beneath the first. Evidently, the system believed one congratulatory message was insufficient.
[ You've received a Rank 14 Gacha Ticket ]
He resisted the urge to grin. It wasn't Vali's fault, really. Most people would struggle to formulate a convincing argument after discovering they were competing with a Rank 14 Gacha Ticket.
Withdrawing the Cross Tail wires, he allowed them to fade from sight and shifted his attention to Vali, carrying himself with the calm satisfaction of a man whose evening had exceeded expectations, at last.
"I see, You leave me no choice"
Beneath the helm, Vali's voice remained calm with the quiet certainty of someone who had already accepted violence as the next step.
The clawed gauntlet extended toward Motohama, fingers spread in silent invitation. Whatever obligation had brought Vali here in the first place had already begun to lose ground to a far more familiar impulse.
"This isn't something I can overlook," Vali said "You're coming with me"
Motohama regarded the challenge for a moment, taking in every detail from the outstretched gauntlet to the folded dragon wings. Then a smirk surfaced and remained, sharp and comfortable all at once, like a predator finally recognizing movement in the tall grass.
"I'm curious" he said, with a smirk that never left his face "Is this the part where I'm supposed to be intimidated?"
His thumb drifted toward the Rank 14 Gacha Ticket hovering on the blue screen and pressed it without breaking eye contact with Vali. If he was going to perform a high-rarity pull during a standoff with the White Dragon Emperor, there was really no point in doing it halfway.
The ticket dissolved into light and the screen flickered through its animation. When the result appeared, Motohama's grin sharpened noticeably. Across from him stood the White Dragon Emperor, poised for battle. Somehow, that no longer felt like the most interesting development of the evening.
[[ You've received: Ten Shadows Technique — All Shikigami Unlocked — Domain Expansion Unlocked ]]
Motohama stared at the screen for a moment, his smirk widening with every line he read. The reward wasn't merely Ten Shadows; it was the complete inheritance, every shikigami and every application included from the start.
That alone would have justified the ticket.
Then he noticed the Domain Expansion attached to the package and briefly wondered whether probability had finally decided to stop pretending it was impartial.
'Is the system trying to speedrun my character progression or is this the best one I could get from Rank 14 one? Only Rank 15 will reveal that, but first...' He dismissed the screen and focused on the next fight waiting for him.
Vali dropped into his stance with all the confidence of someone who'd never been properly humbled. Under normal circumstances, that confidence would've been justified. Unfortunately for him, these weren't normal circumstances.
Motohama rolled the new technique through his mind, felt the shadows at his feet stir with a sentience they hadn't possessed three seconds ago, and thought with the quiet amusement of a man who had just been handed the keys to his tank while staring down an enemy tank.
'Now, the real battle begins'
. . .
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