Lyle gripped his hands tightly with an anguished expression. "If I did not go out to meet her that night, she wouldn't end up getting killed! The people of that town wouldn't have gotten wiped out! Maybe it would have been better that I did not know her in the first place, then maybe!"
...
"I highly doubt that doing that would have prevented her death." The elderly man reached out to lay a comforting hand on Lyle's shoulder. "Given the type of experiments you had to undergo and that man's way of thinking, you may end up going after her without hesitation with the intent to kill. You may not want to hear this, but sometimes these type of matters are not in our control. No matter how much you plan there will always be some factor that would disrupt it."
"Let me ask you, have you, for one moment, ever regretted meeting her?" The old man smiled gently at Lyle shaking his head immediately. "Then you have your answer."
"… Guess this means I still have the will to continue this mission." Lyle looked up with strong eyes. "It may take me a long time, but I will keep the promise to her and you. I will make sure no one else has to endure what I went through."
"Then…"
"If it is possible to save the children, then I will undertake it." Lyle moved forward and climbed the ledge of the patio. "In exchange for this broken soul with bloodstained hands, many children can live on with smiles and with a future. One broken man for the lives of many unspoiled innocents. I cannot do this in the halls of the Vatican, it can only be achieved from outside the system."
"And besides." Lyle turned around with a crooked smirk. "Having been on the side of lawlessness for quite a while, I don't feel comfortable being in the halls of the Vatican. I am after all a sinner." And with that, he took a leap out of the ledge and vanished into the darkness, leaving behind an old man who looked on for a moment before closing the door with a deep sigh.
He honestly feared for the young man's life.
...
"Well that was rather unexpected." Georg remarked as he walked down the corridor. "Looks like Cao Cao's informant might be on to something, huh?"
"…" Siegfried continued to walk by his side in silence, the expression on his face being a mix of confusion, awe, frustration and a hint of sadness.
'Ho Boy~ this is awkward.' Georg thought while scratching his head uncertainly. His friend had been completely silent on the way back to their base and seemed to be on the brink of snapping at anyone. Not surprising when Georg thought about it. Siegfried was one of the many test subjects under the Holy Sword Project to try and increase the compatibility of a user. The type of experiments he had managed to dig up were so horrific in practice, he could not help but feel glad that Siegfried got off relatively easy by being kicked off the selection process early. Even when he had taken Gram and the other swords, they were partially due to his induced compatibility from the project, and there have been times when Georg could see Siegfried looking at those holy sword users with a very complicated expression of longing, envy and sadness.
Seeing a relative nobody popping out of nowhere and using the Excalibur Shards like they were going out of fashion would definitely set him in a bad mood.
"Georg, Siegfried." A voice broke his thoughts and he turned to find a teenager holding a staff in his hand walking towards them, followed shortly by Jeanne and the others looking rather solemn. "I have obtained your report, but I would like to hear a debriefing from you."
"Erm, sure. But must it be now, Cao Cao?" Georg looked uncertainly at the swordsman who was still sporting the odd expression. He was not sure if Siegfried was really in the best of moods at the moment, but Cao Cao looked to the person in question.
"Siegfried, go and get some rest. I can get the answers from Georg." Cao Cao continued speaking with a gentle tone. "We got to do a lot of preparations for Kyoto, so it is best for you to catchup on some sleep."
"… I will be taking my leave." Siegfried lightly bowed his head and immediately made his way down the corridor and disappear at the next corner.
"Man, this is going to suck." Leonardo scratched his head uncertainly.
"Yeah, looks like he won't be in a good mood for quite a while." Jeanne remarked a little quietly.
"Hey Georg, anything we can do to help him?" Hercules turned to the wizard with a very somber voice. Georg for one was both surprised and humbled that Hercules was being serious about wanting to help Siegfried. Seems even the biggest bruiser of them all had a soft spot for tender issues.
"At times like this, it would be best to give him some time and room to get over his situation." Cao Cao said it before pausing. "Although I hear there is a church nearby performing other questionable experiments on children for other matters…"
"Okay then, we will take that mission along the way back to Kyoto!" Hercules pumped his arm in enthusiasm. "I'm sure Siegfried would be a lot happier after that!"
"We can do that later. For now…" Cao Cao turned to Georg. "Give me your impression about the groups living there."
Georg silently nodded and made his way to one of the nearest rooms, stepping to one side to let the other through before closing the door and facing them. "First and foremost, the rumor of the Red Dragon Emperor joining the ranks of the devils is true. He is a student of Kuoh Academy and until a few months ago, a human. He is currently under the house of Gremory, his master being the Crimson Princess."
"So the Red Dragon is with the Devils, while the White is with the Grigori." Cao Cao lightly tapped his staff. "Next."
"During our observations, we were able to determine other users wielding Sacred Gears. One is the former nun wielding [Twilight Healing] from the Gremory, while at least two others are from the Sitri Group. Of the two from the Sitri group, I believe the female user is more dangerous as her ability to reflect and potentially double her opponent's attacks would be a big problem for us." Georg continued on with his explanations. "Unusually enough there is also a swordsman who was once a test subject for the Holy Sword Project, now wielding [Sword Rebirth] and under Rias Gremory as well."
"Ara~ so that fellow is using my gear's counterpart." Jeanne remarked with a smile. "Well then, it will be my obligation to get rid of him then."
"Okay, that is some decent information." Cao Cao let out a smile that was almost predatory. "Then how about the observation target?"
"… Honestly, he is a mystery." Georg started talking with a big frown. "His magic style is not from any of the schools I know, and the manner it is deployed is plain weird. For one thing, he is not using calculations for his magic style."
"An instinctive type huh?" Cao Cao nodded lightly. "Rare enough to be considered. Next point?"
"The second point is, again, related to his magic style. There are at least three schools that allow some form of weapon creation, but they involved actual black-smiting and multiple types of charms. His seems to skip all those steps and just create them without any form of equivalent exchange, if anything it resembles the powers of the devils' or the fallen angels more than other magicians, even mine for that matter." Georg replied with a notable tone of frustration.
"Unique, but not that shocking." Leonardo raised an eyebrow at the wizard. "Based on your report, you are deeply disturbed by something else entirely."
'Leave it to the quietest person in our group to guess the nature of my worries.' Georg sighed heavily before looking back at them. "Weapons created by magic should not have presence as profound as his, yet for whatever reason, each of the weapons he creates seemed to be alive, making any other weapons we have until now feel different and insignificant. Something about them seems to be in line with the Longinus themselves."
"At the same strength level as the Longinus?!" Leonardo sat up straighter as he looked at Georg with a hard expression. "Surely you jest?"
"I wish." Georg snorted much to Hercules and Jeanne's amusement. "I can't say for certain, but it seemed that those weapons possessed something equivalent to a soul, thus being very similar to the Longinus. And on a slightly different note, he seemed to have claimed a demonic Sacred Gear that matched that of Regeis Cornelius. If so this means he could steal Sacred Gears."
"Interesting." Cao Cao scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Anything else to report?"
...
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
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to my p atreon :
p atreon.com/Aerle