"Actually," A voice that I was quickly beginning to learn to hate interrupted the conversation between me and Griselda, "Aniki's called the 'The Queen of Swords' not 'The Lord of Swords'."
"Oh, my apologizes. It seems that there was an error in one of the reports. I'll be sure to correct it and inform the rest of the Church of your proper title when I return."
Saji, you son of bitch!
...
"Still, to think that old Serafall would have finally gotten herself a Queen, I couldn't believe it when I first heard." She eyed me up and down for a second, "But I guess it was a good thing in the end. That girl needed to get laid for the longest time; I'm glad someone finally came around and popped her cherry."
Poor Sona had just begun to take a sip of her tea when Griselda's words hit her and she ended up doing a perfect spit-take as a result. After sputtering and coughing for a few seconds she managed to crocked out a, "What?"
Which was at least more than I could do, as all I did was gape at the sweet little old lady that just implied I was sleeping with my King. The two Exorcists were in no better state as they just stared incredulously at their superior.
"Boss/Griselda!" They exclaimed, red-faced.
"What?" Griselda didn't seem to be the slightest bit disturbed by how the rest of the room's occupants were staring at her as she calmly enjoyed her tea, "It's true. I don't know if Serafall ever had a man before but if she did it sure as hell was a long time ago. So long that I wouldn't be surprised if she grew her virginity back."
"Still," the twin tailed exorcists tried to reprimanded her, though the effect was ruined by her cherry red blush she was sporting, "you shouldn't talk about such things. You're a nun for Christ's sake."
"So? I wasn't always a nun you know. Did you think I came out of my mother's womb old or something? There once was a time when I was young and boy crazy too. Hell, I think it's you two with the problem here. You're going to be taking your vows soon; you girls need to live a little before them.
Trust me there is nothing like riding a man or three to utter exhaustion to make you feel alive. One of the most enjoyable experiences in my old life I tell you." She finished with a nostalgic smile on her face and her eyes lost their focused as she lost herself in old memories.
…I am never going to be able to look at sweet little old ladies the same way again.
"Anyway!" Sona voice sounded a little bit too loud to be natural as she attempted what was a clearly blatant effort to change the topic, "you have my permission to enter my territory as long as you don't interfere in anything unrelated to your hunt for the Excaliburs and leave as soon as you're finished."
"Ah," Griselda nodded cheerful at that, "that's more than fair. Thank you dear for co-operating with us." Using her cane as a crutch, she pushed herself up to a standing position. "Before we leave, you wouldn't happen to know where we can find Rias Gremory. We expected to find her here in the school with you but as you can see she's nowhere to be found."
"If you head to the back of the school you'll find a patch of woods, in the middle of it is the old school building. You should find her there."
She nodded towards Sona, "Thank you again for hospitality. We'll get this whole mess settled out and be out of your hair as soon as we can." She was about to turn to leave before she looked like she remembered something.
"Oh and sonny," She turned towards me, "I'm sorry for how little Xenovia here acted. But don't worry, I promise you she'll be properly disciplined so that she'll never make the same mistake again." Xenovia froze rigid at her words and sweat actually began to breakout on her faces despite the coolness of the room.
"Still, I admit that this has gone a lot better than I hoped." Griselda stated as she began to make her way out of the room with the two girls trailing behind her, though Xenovia was walking far too stiffly to be natural. "If the meeting with Gremory goes just as smoothly we may have time to visit that boy of yours Irina. What was his name again? Is-shat?"
"It's Issei Boss." Irina corrected.
"Issei?" I interrupted when I heard the familiar name, "You wouldn't be talking about Hyoudou Issei by any chance?"
Irina turned and locked her violet eyes onto me. "Yes," she spoke cautiously, "do you know him?"
Well, this was gonna be awkward. While I wasn't sure about the details it was clear that this girl knew Issei and it was equally clear than she was unaware of his new statues as a Devil. How do you tell a girl that a friend of hers has been turned to one of the very creatures she has dedicated her life to slaying?
"Let's just say that you'll be seeing him sooner than you expect." I replied, decided that there was no point in hiding it, "Issei was reincarnated as Gremory's new Pawn a couple of weeks ago."
"…I see," Though she tried to hide it, it was clear she was saddened at the news, "What about the others? Did the same thing happen to them?"
I had no idea who she was talking about but I waved my arms to indicate the entire room, "As far as I know the only other humans that were reincarnated in this city are in this room."
She let loose a sigh of relief at that, "That's good, at least the others are OK." She turned back to Griselda, "Well boss, looks like I won't be able to hang out with Issei but my other friends should be fine. Maybe I'll go see how Kara-nee is doing after we're done."
"Sure we will, it's not often you get to visit your hometown in our line of work. You better enjoy it while you still can." Tsubasa trailed after them and shut the door behind them as soon as they stepped out of the Council room. The remaining occupants of the room physically relaxed and the atmosphere became less strained as soon as the unexpected guests had departed.
They weren't allowed to navigate the school unsupervised of course. Sona had already sent her Peerage's familiars to track them ever since they set foot on school ground and will continue to do while they remain in the city. I had no doubt that they, or at the very least Griselda, were aware of them but they could do a thing about them, not if they wanted things to stay peaceful between us.
"You know," Sona took off her glassed and massaged her eyes as she spoke, "this wasn't what I expected to do when I woke up this morning."
"That's what makes life interesting Sona," I tried to cheer her up, "can you imagine how boring life would be if you knew how your entire day would be the moment you open your eyes in the morning?"
"Better than waking up to find something like this dropped into my lap." She replaced her glasses and faced me, "And despite her cordial manner it was clear that Griselda was trying to warn us off."
"So you caught that too did you? Yeah, they wouldn't have revealed the swords to us so eagerly if they didn't want to scare us away. Though I have to admit that was perhaps the most polite way I had ever been told to back off before."
"Be truthful with me Shirou, how dangerous are they and what are our chances on taking them if they decide to get hostile? I couldn't get a good enough read on them from the swords they were carrying."
"They were strong Sona, Griselda far more than the other two." I decided to be frank with her. Sona was the type who functioned better with more information than less, no matter how unfavorable the situation was.
"The two girls, you and the rest would have probably been able to take with little difficulty if they had ordinary swords. However going by how all of you reacted just by standing in the presence of the Excaliburs, you might only be able take one of them on at once, even then you'd risk losing a member or two of your Peerage at very least."
She grimaced at that before nodding, "And Griselda?"
"Run," I told her, "I'm not joking Sona just run. She isn't someone you can ever hope to face in battle and live. Old or not, as long as she had that sword in her hands she could take on both your and Gremory's entire Peerage at the same time and win without so much as a single wound to show for it."
I wasn't even exaggerating. Out of the three of them she was the only one to have truly mastered her sword, the other two have barely learned to use it beyond the basics. And the things she could do with that blade were almost frightening, even for by my standards.
In some ways she reminded me of assassin, her speed of her strikes were simply that fast. Combined with the powers of Excalibur Rapidly and she was a speed demon.
Then there was the Xenovia, there was something off about that girl. As far as I can tell, the first time she had ever held that sword of hers was less than four days ago.
Yet from what little practice she was able to squeeze in with it, it looked like she was already familiar with how her sword worked to an almost instinctive level. Even for a skilled swordsman you can't reach that level of familiarity with such an unusual sword unless you put in dozens of hours' worth of hands-on training, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
"I see." She shut her eyes as she processed this, "And what about you? How would you fare against them if the worst occurs?"
I snorted at that, "Sona, as long as I'm not caught off guard I could take all three of them at once." Unlike the others I wasn't handicapped by the presence of the Holy Swords, so to me they are little more than ordinary humans.
Even before my transformation into a Devil I could have physically outperformed any one of them with reinforcement alone. As a Maou's Queen the gap in pure physical abilities would have made it almost impossible for them to have a chance. Factor in that they were swordsmen with blades inferior to my own and it'll be a massacre.
"We have that going for us at the very least. Still, what I don't understand is why the Excaliburs would even end up here. The influence of the Church may be weaker in Japan than the rest of the world but that applies to the rest of three-factions as well. Which means outside of Kyoto, there is nothing preventing the Church from sending its hunters here.
"So why did they try to hide out here. Politically there is nothing in Japan that can protect the thieves from the Church's wrath. That's not even tackling the issues of who stole the swords and why?"
I said nothing as I only half-heartedly listen to the rest of what Sona was saying as I came to a realization, one that I should have made days ago. I may not know why the swords were stolen, the who on the other hand was an entirely different matter.
========================
Hey guys I really need you to throw some power Stones ;)
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to my p atreon :
p atreon.com/Aerle