Chapter 434: A Foolish Deal with an Excellent Result
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Neji suppressed his annoyance at the devils and sat down again. He looked Serafall a little less cheerfully now, and that seemed to hurt her.
She suppressed those personal feelings and reported them professionally. "Sona reported to me that on your first day, you met a teacher who was a spy from the Yokai faction. Do you remember?"
"Hm," Neji nodded. The girls around him, especially Rumi and Ryukyu, were paying great attention to her words.
"As you know, she returned to her Yokai masters once she was caught. A few days ago, we received a complaint, a threat, from the Yokai Queen, Yasaka. She called me, as the Satan responsible for Foreign Affairs, for a talk. I had to manage time even though the world was in turmoil, and when I went to Kyoto to meet her, I was presented with a complicated situation." She hesitated and then snapped her finger.
A doll appeared on the table. Neji's eyelids twitched but he didn't move. Serafall held the doll and looked at Neji, "Apparently, the cat girl woman who was acting as the spy, Yuhei Kotazaki, was found in her room as a toy. This… doll. Yasaka thought it was the devils who cursed Yuhei, but I had no idea about it. I recognized the appearance a little, however, from those pictures you showed me. So I asked for the doll so that I can show you."
Neji stared at the doll. It was a small doll, the type that's known as "kimmidoll" in Japanese culture. It was made out of hard, stone resin, the size of his palm. The figure had hair of yellow, eyes of blue, while its shirt was white and its pencil skirt black. And there… was a silver choker collar on the neck.
"The other Satans aren't aware of this," she hesitated, and then slowly passed the doll to him. "Here you go."
Neji slowly accepted the toy. His arm moved numbly as he reached out to grab it, and [Observe] read the damned name it has.
[Kimi Doll 3 - out of 6]
[Gather all 6 dolls to see a message.]
"...." Neji held it and looked at the face, the doll's face was shaped like a (◠‿◕) emote with one eye winking at him.
What was this damned thing? It wasn't any kind of misunderstanding either, it literally said her name. "Third out of six…"
"Uh, my lord," Raynare chimed and he turned to her. "There was a similar toy left behind in Aika Kiryuu's room after she vanished. I am sorry, I didn't get the chance to mention since you suddenly descended on Jerusalem right after I said she vanished…"
Neji blinked. He didn't waste time blaming her and activated Jogan. His eyes searched the mansion behind him, and he found the doll in question right away. With a thought, he teleported the thing to his other hand.
"This is kind of creepy," Rumi said as she and everyone else looked at the new doll.
The doll didn't look creepy, but the concept of this whole thing was weird. The doll was another "kimmidoll", and it wore a school dress. The one that Kuoh High students, the one that Aika Kiryuu, used to wear.
[Kimi Doll 4 - out of 6]
"It says… four out of six," Neji muttered aloud, but the girls' were as confused as he was. "Sisty, is Observe saying 'Kimi Doll' instead of 'Kimmidoll'? Is that an error?"
[No, master. The doll type is kimmidoll, yes, but they have the name Kimi Doll. It is as you think it is…]
"Fuck," he groaned.
"Neji-nee," a voice called all of a sudden; the door of the mansion opened and Hinata ran out. Her Tenseigan was active, meaning she had been watching and listening to the conversation.
Neji allowed her closer to him and she stopped at the table. She looked at the two dolls. "You know, we found one of those after you and Lady Kaguya left."
"Really?" Neji asked her, frowning. "Why didn't you notify me?"
"It didn't seem anything weird, so…" she trailed off, and Neji stopped wasting time.
"Sisty. Connect to Heaven #1. You should be able to see the entire area and see if the doll is anywhere in heaven. If it is, teleport it to me." Neji ordered and Sisty got to work.
Five seconds later, a doll teleported to the table. Neji grabbed it.
This one looked… weird. It was the same type of kimmidoll, but the clothes were that of a kunoichi. Precisely, it was the clothes of Yugito Nii, the human host of the Two-Tailed Beast, which represented a cat.
The doll had long, straight, blonde, hair bound with taut bandages, blue eyes and red lipstick. It wore a short-sleeved black and purple blouse and black pants, both had a cloud-like design on them and also purple fingerless gloves, and a chain of blue beads wound around her left hand. It also wore a Kumogakure forehead protector, sandals and a kunai holster, which was strapped to her right thigh. The doll also wore bandages around her arms and legs as well as a red belt around its waist.
[Kimi Doll 1 - out of 6]
"Alright," Neji grumbled. "This is odd."
[Master, if you don't know, the philosophy that Kimmidolls bear is that of wishing good luck and fortune to family and friends by bestowing small but highly meaningful tokens of attention and love. The… creator of these must be offering you good luck.]
Neji was feeling a little annoyed at this whole thing until Sisty said that. He was wondering why was Kimi doing this, why wasn't she just coming to meet him if she could leave things like this for him?
The reason was simple.
She must be in some kind of heavy trouble since she was saying good luck to him. She wanted him to find her soon, and that's why she was wishing him luck.
"Doll one, three, and four…?" Neji spoke out loud. He looked at the girls. "You girls don't happen to know about some other doll, right?"
"No," they all replied in unison, and Rumi continued. "I think it's serialized by each world you visit. Naruto was your first, so the first doll was there. Fate was second… so the second one must be there."
"It doesn't explain why there were two in this world," Ryukyu said. "Also he said it's six in total. If it's five worlds, it means the worlds where we got scattered. Since it's five of us, shouldn't each world only have one? Why is it one extra?"
"Maybe the extra one is supposed to be from DxD?" Neji asked, mostly to himself. "But yeah, the extra one must be Aika's one. The first doll is cat-based, and the Two-Tailed Beast was a cat too. Yuhei was a catgirl, too. Aika was not one, so she might have been some kind of backup in case I didn't need to travel to the other worlds?"
"Perhaps"
"In that case, the 2nd doll in Fate should be cat-based too?" Ryukyu said. "In that case, it should be…"
"Neco-Arc," Neji finished. "I thought I'd find Kimi in her the first time I got to Fate. So if that's that, it must be her. Kurai," he hesitated but picked up Kurai and looked into her eyes. "I know I've been making you work too much recently, but can you go check the Fate world? It's for your mama."
"Search the new world," Merlin chimed in. "I don't think we'll find her in Babylon. But since we finished the singularities, the real earth is stabilized and working. You might find that creature there."
"Alright," Kurai didn't complain. It was for her mama, after all.
"Oh, and," Neji smiled awkwardly. "Since there is a modern world now, try to make it ours. Spread our name and gather divinity. Should take you a few days at most if you use all your new powers."
"That part is annoying," Kurai frowned. "But fine. I'll search for the doll and do it."
Kurai nodded, and then a portal appeared. It seemed, at Level 5000s, she could freely travel dimensions. Kurai jumped into the portal, giving Neji one last look before the portal closed and she vanished.
"Alright," Neji ghastly out a sigh. He put the three dolls in his inventory and looked at Serafall. His expression was tired. "Sorry, I feel shit all of a sudden. Can you convince your friends to give me my Phoenix girl's location? Sorry, if you are unable to do that, I am going to destroy everything."
He didn't look threatening when he said that, he simply looked tired. But that was scarier for Serafall, and more than his flirting, this fed-up look helped convince her to get up and fly back to her friends.
A minute later, the three Satan came down along with Grayfia. They were slow as they did, looking at Neji in case he told them to stop. When Neji waved them entry, they came down and stood around the table.
"I can tell you where the Phenex Ancestor is," Sirzechs had. "But you have to give up Rias for-"
"Not interested, I am sure I can find the location with ease if I just teleport to the underworld and destroy half of it. Will take me a day, but at least I don't have to deal with your stupid negotiations," he said, and then proposed an absurd counterproposal. "You know what? If you give me your maid along with the location, I'll give back Rias. And even all the other Djinns I captured. Deal?"
Neji was annoyed that he had to talk this much at all. He used [Omniscience] already but there was no result. As expected, it was not all-powerful, the devils were somehow blocking it.
Due to the annoyance, Neji presented this "deal" really to just get on Sirzechs nerves, it was not a serious proposal. He basically just said whatever came to his mind.
And to his surprise, Sirzechs agreed after a short pause. "Alright."
"What?!" Grayfia snapped at her husband. "Hey, did you hear what he said?!"
"Grayfia, this is for the greater good. It's not just Rias, but a lot of the other devils." Sirzechs argued, frowning at his wife.
"Are you insane?!" For once, the cold and calculative maid yelled at her husband. "Are you really trading your wife for this?! For your sister and those other devils who gave up their pride?!"
"I'm sorry."
Neji laughed in a weird mixture of pity and humor. He shook his head and snapped his finger. A contract appeared in the sky, and Sirzechs looked at it. It was the deal they just made but in text.
"I agree," Sirzechs replied.
Behind Neji, the girls wore a stupefied expression. 'Is this real?'–was what they asked. Ozymandias didn't even bother to hide her amusement as she laughed out loud.
"Alright," the contract vanished and Neji snapped his finger. The entire yard shone bright and thousands of devils appeared there. All of them were in the town on the other hills in this mountain, along with Rias. "Say hi, your lovely Satan Lucifer has come to rescue you."
Neji stood up and applauded. Of course, returning them was only beneficial to him. No matter which part of the world they were, as they had agreed to the contract before, they'd stay his believers. He'd gain faith from them. So if the devils wanted to feed his cattle and fatten them, who was he to stop them?
"Hey, Rias," Neji waved at the girl, who looked around in surprise. Then he used telepathy, <
It was a win-win. Rias wouldn't hate going back to her home, she would see that as Neji showing love to her. To give her freedom.
What a stupid deal. He looked at Sirzechs. Did this man really sell his wife for this? He looked at the infuriated Grayfia who had fallen silent. 'Oh well, I need to punish her for the little betrayal she pulled on me.' Then again, didn't he leave her alone in that crumbling dimension? Fine, he won't punish her in the harsher sense of the word.
"Now, tell me," Neji used telekinesis to pull Grayfia to his arms, squeezing her butt as he looked at the foolish Lucifer. "Where is she? The Phenex Ancestor."
Sirzechs looked at Neji's hand on his wife's private, as his wife studied his face with an enraged frown. Then he sighed, shook his head, and opened his mouth.
…
Neji created an Omni-Copy of himself who teleported to the underworld.
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