Chapter: 93
We had made it back to the Grigori HQ in the Underworld safely. Raynare didn't screw up the teleportation—surprisingly—and the circle managed to send us here safely. A few of my siblings who usually stood guard in the teleportation room smiled at my arrival and welcomed me back. As for Raynare, they just gave her some dismissive looks.
She had a bit of a negative reputation as an annoying fangirl…
Baraqiel immediately came running when news of his daughter appearing in the headquarters spread. She was the only Fallen Angel in existence–Half or otherwise–to have become a devil's slave. She was a lot more famous around here than she thought. The various Fallen Angels around the Headquarters were surprised and happy to see her free from the "Devil's Taint."
The strange thing about Baraqiel was that the guy looked old. That was weird for Fallen Angels considering most of us stopped aging in our physical 20's.
Except for Mittlet, the eternal loli, of course…
Baraqiel looked like he was in his 50's, and it was strange to see a cadre of his stature with tears in his eyes, openly weeping.
"Akeno! I'm so glad you're back!" Baraqiel cried his daughter's name as he embraced her in a loving hug. It was well known that his biggest regret was losing his daughter to the devils all those years ago. He had become a lot more withdrawn after that. And now here he was completely breaking his stoic character with tears in his eyes as he cried in happiness.
This would have been a more heartfelt reunion to watch if I didn't notice that Akeno was openly scowling as her father hugged her. "Get off me!" She shouted and shoved him away.
He let her do that, of course. There's no way she was actually strong enough to budge him if he didnt let her.
She had taken a big hit to her physical and magical strength after losing her queen piece. Akeno was now solidly in Mid-Class powerwise where before she could have been in the Low-Ultimate range if she fully utilized all of her heritage along with her demonic powers from Rias.
The truth about the evil pieces was that they did not automatically make someone stronger just by getting them. The evil pieces drew power from the "King" and siphoned it slowly into the reincarnated devil over time to give the illusion that the evil piece was the source of the reincarnated devil's power.
The much darker truth was that the power came from the souls high-class devils would regularly consume, and then it would pass through the kings to the peerage members. The evil pieces weren't called "evil" for no reason. They were aptly named for what they did…
Despite shoving Baraqiel off of herself, I noticed that Akeno wasn't telling him to outright fuck off and never talk to her again. I took that as a potential sign that she would eventually reconnect with her father. There was plenty of time after all since we were basically ageless. For now though, I figured I'd let them talk alone at their own pace.
Akeno had also chosen to leave with our group after finding out the truth about devils from Grayfia. I highly doubted she'd ever return to the Devils, but "highly doubt" didn't mean 100% sure. I still don't completely trust her. Not quite yet.
I didn't want her seeing any of the things that Azazel had down in his lab. It was an open secret that Azazel was obsessed with sacred gears and was always trying to make his own. What most people didn't know was just how close he was to succeeding. Once he succeeded it was pretty much game over for the devils…
If every Fallen Angel had a sacred gear–even a mediocre one–it would be an insane boost to our strength. The devils might outright declare war against us to prevent that if they knew how close Azazel was.
"Why don't we give the father-daughter pair some time to reconnect? I wanted to check out Azazel's lab," I said to the rest of the group. "Raynare, you can fuck off now, though." I said to her as I made a shooing motion. Sif stifled a small laugh at my actions. Asia gave me a pout—probably for my open swearing.
Raynare glared at me.
"Oh no! I heard that Master Azazel is now missing after he went looking for you! I'm not leaving till I make sure the man I love is safe!" She declared loudly.
Very loudly!
Her declaration turned a bunch of heads nearby. My Fallen Angel siblings all around us started snickering at Raynare. Raynare didn't care, though, as she stood there and gave me a defiant look like I couldn't make her leave.
Yes I could. I could just knock her out and leave her here, but… whatever—it didn't really make a difference whether she came with us or not.
"Fine, you can check out the lab with me, but don't touch anything. Last time I accidentally touched one of Azazel's experiments, it sent me to a graveyard on an alternate earth where I had to fight an evil wizard who just came back from the dead." I said.
Two of my three companions looked at me strangely after I said all that.
I raised my eyebrow at their looks. "What?"
Raynare scoffed. "You're so full of shit! It probably just teleported you to the Arctic or something. And you got lost trying to find your way back. Evil wizards? Yeah, right!"
"Can evil wizards really come back from the dead? I thought only our Lord Jesus could do that?" Asia asked with concern.
"Of course not!" – "Yes, they can." Raynare and I said at the same time. She glared at me again, but I just laughed. She'd find out about the existence of Earth Marvel eventually. She was only around 100 years older than I was, so it was no surprise that she didn't know the truth of our world yet. Plus none of our oldest siblings liked dealing with her because she was so annoying.
…
I led my small group towards Azazel's lab in the base's main basement. Down there, the walls were reinforced with extra magic and concrete in case any of his experiments violently exploded. That was good, because a few of them had.
I placed my hand on the scanner in front of his lab, and the doors swung open for us.
"Welcome, Layla," a robotic voice called out through the intercom as I entered his lab. It was just as cluttered as I figured it would be. Half-finished sacred gears were strewn about across every available surface. Along with that, dozens of old coffee cups that probably hadn't been washed in years could be seen all over the room.
"Seriously though, don't touch anything," I said as I carefully stepped around the piles of sensitive equipment everywhere.
"I thought only the Lord could make sacred gears," Asia said in wonder. "There are so many in this room!" Her eyes were wide as she looked at the literal piles of them all around.
"Azazel is very close to getting a properly working one. I'd say in the next few decades, he'll be able to start pumping them out en masse." I explained.
"Haha! And then the Fallen angels will be unstoppable! We'll use Lord Azazel's Gears to take over the world!" Raynare cheered with a look of rapture.
I'd have to find a way to snap her out of her Fallen Angel supremacy mindset eventually. Maybe I could have Sif train her. Maybe a couple of dozen beatings from the blond goddess would snap some sense into my idiot borderline evil sister…
"Layla, is this it?" Sif called out from where she wandered across the room. She pointed towards a small black and red ball about the size of a baseball.
Yep, that was it. I used [Observe] to check just in case.
[Artificial SpaceTime Sacred Gear - Created by Azazel. This sacred gear is incomplete and is missing a proper focus. It also needs a true wielder to work correctly.]
Missing a focus and a proper wielder, huh? Now how would I go about fixing that?
[I might have an idea on how to get it working.]
There was the system coming in clutch as always.
XXX
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