Then Xenovia slammed her hands on the table and said the one thought that was likely in all our heads.
"Bullshit!"
I was thinking something with less cursing, but yeah basically that.
...
"How the heck do you expect us to believe this hogwash?!" Xenovia glared at Lyle who was calmly taking a bite of the snack on the table as though he was watching a soap opera unfold.
"I don't." Lyle gave that simple reply. "I have given you what I know, it would only be up to you to decide what you want to do with that information."
"Lyle Wallner, I understand that you are an individual who tends to look at matters a lot differently than most." Griselda held her hand to stop Xenovia from retorting while maintaining a steady gaze at him. "Now I do not know the real reason as to you deserting the church, but I can tell that you still wish to prevent innocent people from getting involved. Is that your reasoning behind the information you are telling us?"
"Yes and no." He answered as he placed the cup on the table and grabbed the kettle to get another round of the drink. "But it is not for you or me to decide. It is for the magician here."
"Magus." Now I understood a little of what Rin felt every time people just carelessly call us wizards, witches or magicians. This was getting repetitive, but that was beside the point right now.
"Why me specifically?"
"…" Lyle took the moment to swirl the liquid, watching his reflection on it before looking back at me. "All of the shards in this area are reacting to you, something that has not happened for many years. This means you are someone worthy enough for all the shards to seek you attentively."
"Whatever that means, I do not know. But I get the feeling that you will be at the eye of the storm that is to come real soon." His eyes seemed to bore into my head as he looked on. "So I want to know what you would do with that information."
"… The reason you do that is because you believe that I am worthy of those shards?"
"Partially, but if what I am reading is true, you are the key to something that would change the dynamics of this world. I want to know precisely who you are. I want to understand what your thoughts are." Lyle replied in a manner that seemed foreboding and for whatever reason, this conversation was reminding me of the few occasions I had a talk with Kirei. I was not sure why, but for whatever reason, this guy seemed… 'Similar' to the both of us.
Like, he was empty.
"Can I ask why do they want this location? I have fought enough bad guys to know there is always a secondary reason to this."
"Yes well, that is an answer I think you might know too well." Lyle let out a sigh that was very familiar to me. "The original intent was to get away from prying eyes, but Kokabiel wants to piss off the devil faction by doing the ritual in an area under their supervision, Galilei wants to piss off the church for throwing him out and getting rid of his research, and Creed followed along just to piss me off."
"… Yeah, I figured as much." I placed a hand on my face and started massaging my temple to ease the headache. "It has to be the 'piss off the enemy' routine."
"But that is just asking for more than angry people, you people are risking war!" Xenovia snarled as she glared at Lyle.
"Unfortunately, that might be the case." Lyle agreed with that sentiment as he closed his eyes with a deep frown. "I am honestly troubled by this, and I would prefer that Galilei is not trying to start a war with Kokabiel but…"
"You knew that would be lies behind all that crap?" I continued his words as I listened in. "If so, why do you still continue? Is it because he has some hold on you or by chance is it due to your promise to the pope?"
"!" Lyle snapped his head up at a rate that I was sure would break his neck if he was not careful, giving me an expression of shock, fear and a tiny bit of anger at me. Uncomfortably I also noted the others looking at me with complicated expressions and it was only then I realized that I had accidentally said something I shouldn't have.
"… Was that supposed to be a secret? Erm, sorry?"
"Lyle Wallner, is this true?" Griselda turned to face the fallen exorcist who was now sporting a very complicated expression.
"… I neither confirm nor deny those allegations." Lyle said shortly before directing hardened eyes at me. "Pray tell, what makes you think that I was under orders from Pope Francis?"
"… Well for one thing, you have this type of 'devotion' feeling when talking about the pope. You seemed to avoid attacking the others unnecessarily and you want to be away from the civilians." I started to list my observations as an explanation and to avoid revealing my magecraft was the reason I found something out through our last altercation. "I also requested information from Griselda regarding your mission, and one thing that struck me was you being the only one from those experiments who had some contact with the pope, someone who had been taught in the church properly unlike the others and if I recalled, you were temporarily under his direct guard. I have known a few others in similar situations, so I guessed that you may have been under orders of sorts to go after Galilei. Am I wrong?"
"…" Lyle sat still for a few seconds, his eyes seemingly trying to find fault in my words. After that he sighed heavily and drank the remainder of his drink in a big gulp before hitting the cup on the table with a bit more force than required.
"I have come to say my piece, now I will return to Galilei. I have overstayed my welcome." Before we could react, he got up and made his way out of the door.
"Oh no you don't buster!" Xenovia got out of her seat and ran after him with Excalibur Destruction in her hand. "You are not getting away that easily!"
"I highly doubt that." Lyle remarked lightly as he sidestepped her swinging attacks. "Not to mention that you may have forgotten something."
"What do you MEAWWOOH?!" Xenovia grabbed her head as she wobbled and stumbled to the ground.
"There is a non-aggression spell going on in this area. And you are being extremely aggressive in trying to chop my limbs off." Lyle replied with a tired sigh as he looked at her with somewhat unamused eyes. "Seriously it would benefit you to pay attention to the magician."
"ARGH!" Xenovia groaned as a humming sound grew inside her head, feeling like someone was pushing a bar of hot iron in her head. "Make it stop!"
"Young man, could you remove the spell?!" Griselda turned to me with quite frankly a very scary expression. But thankfully I was way ahead of her in removing the runes.
"Done!" The effect was immediate as I removed the last rune; Xenovia seemingly got back her stance and aimed her sword at Lyle.
"Xenovia, watch out!" Irina's timely shout was her only warning to get out of the way of a gun-shot aimed at her legs.
"Man I nearly got her!" Creed let out an irritated sound as he stood up from the cover he was behind on one of the buildings near us. He dropped down lightly to the ground and looked at us with a raised eyebrow. "Seriously this damn spell is stopping me from getting a clear shot at her."
"And you won't get the next shot." Before anyone could comment on it, I quickly set up a brand new barrier to stop everyone from getting aggressive. "Now I really don't want this district destroyed. So leave while I am being lenient."
"And why should we AAHHH!" Creed tried to speak only to grab his head in agony. "What is with this noise?"
"That would be you suffering the consequences of having very violent thoughts towards the host." Lyle mentioned calmly as he looked at the two girls wincing slightly. "At the very least, you are not the only one suffering."
"Whoopie~" Creed hissed as the pain grew in his head. "ARG! Fine we will leave!"
"We can't let them leave! AH DAMN THIS PAIN?!" Xenovia growled as she kneeled to the ground. "Seriously come on! Why?!"
"It is safe to say neither one of us want to fight here and now." Lyle moved his hand to cover the Creed's mouth, likely to stop a retort by that person. "We shall leave now, but later we can resume our fighting in a less populated place."
"Is that really what you want?" I asked while Griselda clamped the mouths of the two apprentices who wanted to protest.
"More like what we both want. Especially since we did not use our full strength before." His eyes steadily focused on mine. "And I believed that you wanted to at least go further than what we did in our last fight if we were not in a populated place."
"…"
Okay, this guy was really similar in some ways.
"Fine." I shot a look at the elder exorcist who merely raised an eyebrow as she spoke. "I think it is best that we continue our conversation in an area more suitable." Lyle merely nodded and grabbed Creed by the shoulder as he took out a charm and dropped it to the floor. A dim circle with Christian symbols formed around them as he looked to us again.
"We will meet again later." Lyle turned to look at me one last time. "Better bring your 'A-Game', Shirou Emiya." And with that, he vanished with the other person, leaving us behind with a few questions and a challenge.
A challenge I intend to follow up.
...
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