Chapter 49

Castiel P.O.V.

It has been three days since the day I took Gasper to the Tower. Illya put him into intensive care and used many precious herbs and items to stabilize him, and now he is recuperating.

According to Illya he is going through the same thing that Serenity is, but instead of fusing normally the two souls entered in discord due to the heroic spirit soul receiving vitality from that weak blast of senjutsu's life energy, the heroic spirit's spirit responded to the fusion by attacking Gasper's original soul in hopes to take over the body. Thanks to the treatment Illya managed to remove the life energy present in the heroic spirit's spirit and now Gasper is back to his prior condition of trying to fuse. The problem is that now the heroic spirit soul is a bit incomplete sohe never will reach full fusion like Serenity has.

It is expected that he will take at least 5 more days to awaken and a few more to recuperate back to his normal state.

Knowing that everything will be fine Rias was extremely relieved, even shred a few tears right then and there. Afterward, the rest of the peerage was informed and they all came to my place the next day to thank me and the Tower for the help, unnecessary as it may be. We are allies, helping and respecting one another is part of the deal, and now that Rias and her peerage are finally starting to actually look the part I can respect them for more than just the title.

On the other days, I was banned from entering Sona's training ground alone and had to apologize repeatedly to her for the damage I left there. I even had to request for the group working on my future house to go there and fix things, making the date of inauguration of my new house to take two more days.

One more day that I had to listen to Okuyasu snoring like he wanted to practice breaking the windows with an annoying sound.

And if that wasn't enough Rin called to nag me about the costs of the repair of Sona's training ground, saying that it will be deduced from my expenses, and to inform me that my place will be a base of operations for the Tower so Okuyasu and any other member that comes here will be living there.

And the expenses for food will come out of my pocket because 'why the fuck not?'.

At least these last three days have not been completely bad. I was still called to Sona's training area, mostly to help to teach Sona and her two bishops about the different uses and applications of magic. After it was time for the others to leave I would spend around two to three hours with Tsubaki training myself and helping her with whatever she needed. I discovered that she was not good with long-range attacks, she could use them but it was not natural or comfortable for her. Instead, she was quite good with reinforcement magecraft and runes with similar effect, adding to that the powers of the queen piece and you got someone that could take quite the beating and stand up as if it was nothing.

And it did happen quite a lot when we practiced with weapons, I used a normal blunt sword that they provided me while she used her spear. She knew her way with the weapon, but it was clear to see that despite her talent on the art she was still too reliant on instinct as she did not have someone to teach her properly. I could have asked help from Lancer-sensei, but considering how pretty Tsubaki is I fear for some misunderstandings to happen that would endanger Kuroko's chance of having a new sibling (it would not be the first time that such misunderstanding happened and Bazet almost ripped his jewels off before the misunderstanding was solved last time).

As I was thinking that I continued to practice with her and during the weekend I also tried to connect more with Gandiva, not that I could practice using its true power as it would DEFINITELY destroy Sona's training ground but I did try to connect my mind more to it and practiced some technique of archery that I heard long ago but was too weak to practice before.

The technique is based on the legendary archer Houyi, and it has very extringent requirements for physical strength, mind, soul, and perception to even begin to practice.

Now that I went to low high-class and also thanks to my new spirit bone that improved my body, soul, and mind enormously, I finally can start practicing it. This technique is centered on using my own soul and mind to help guide and direct the arrow while my body shoots it using all the physical strength I can possibly muster. It can be said that it helps to unite my soul, mind, and body in each shot I make, thus increasing the range and accuracy of all my arrows.

It is said that if anyone can reach the utmost limit of this skill it will be possible to pierce one wing of a fly in dozens of kilometers without killing it, and the arrow going forward to pierce some mountain kilometers ahead as if it was nothing. Of course, the only one to reach such levels is Houyi himself and I am not stupid enough to think I can do it too, however, the fact that this helps to make my archery much more formidable is not something to complain about.

Now it is Sunday night and I am back on my home, just enjoying this few hours before going to sleep when I saw Emily passing me. She was covered in sweat and clearly very tired.

Why is she like that? I mean, there is no place for her to train further and there is no possible way for her to be doing any sort of chores, I can tell since it is her and the place is not on fire.

"Emily, is everything alright?" I asked her.

She looked at me with that tired face and made a pained smile.

"Yeah, everything is going great."

I don't believe it for a single second. If everything was going great so why is she so tired?

"What were you doing? And don't give me the 'nothing' bullshit as it is clear that whatever you did it was not 'nothing'." I said seriously.

She looked at me and deflated a bit.

"I was trying to activate my magic core, but it is a slow process." She said, and I finally could understand why she was so tired.

When the Christian God created the angels he made all of them with magical cores, a biological manifestation that produces a nigh-infinite amount of magical energy (the purity and output are still decided depending on what class you are). For what I heard it is an inherited characteristic, just as the absurdly high amount of magical circuits that any descendant of an angel has, especially when it comes from one of the original archangels as they had the greatest amount out there.

That is the reason why Emily has an extremely high amount of circuits of great quality, but as her magical core is not active yet her magical reserves are limited. The best way to open said core is for her to stimulate it using her own normal magic reserves, but it seems like it might take some more time as this is the first time I heard of her even trying to do such a thing.

It is probably so that she can beat up Vali as she felt bad because of what he said last time they met… or just to kick her father even harder on the balls. Who knows?

"This is great news! I am happy for you finally decided to take this next step, but it also makes me sad as you probably will surpass me when you do it." And it is true. The difference between someone that has an active magical core and someone that doesn't it massive, to say the absolute least.

And even though I might be stronger now it is not like I am that ahead of her and when she opens her magical core I will be left in the dust.

"Yep, you will have to call me Emily-sama and ask for my help when you are in trouble." She said sticking up her chest with pride.

I could not help but chuckle a bit and say.

"Don't worry about that, I already trust you with my life anyway so no matter if you are stronger or weaker to me." Her eyes widened hearing that, and she got a healthy tingle of pink on her cheeks. "But I will not call someone that cooks so badly that can even burn water with sama." I said with a Cheshire smirk on my face.

And that healthy pink was replaced with the pure red of rage from my words, and maybe from me reminding her of one of her shortcomings.

"I will kill you." She said while pouncing at me, light spear at hand and all. Good thing is that she was dead tired, the bad thing is that I was just as tired as her so I ended up with some scorch marks from where the spear went to close to myself.

At least this did not last long as the two of us were so dead tired that not even three minutes doing this we were already panting on the ground without any wish to move a muscle.

After that I simply went to sleep right there on the ground, too tired to move and all. At least I hope nothing is going to happen next.

///---///

3 hours later

"Guys, there is some trouble here!" I heard Okuyasu's voice too loud and too clear for my sleeping senses. Is it that hard to get one good night of sleep in here?

I stood up, clear bags under my eyes and with a patience that is so short that even a barrel of TNT on a fire has more.

I wanted to sleep. I even did it on the ground. and not even three hours later there already is trouble around here. What the fuck, is the world determined to not let me sleep even a bit.

Sigh, no point in complaining now. I will just beat Okuyasu to a bloody pulp if the reason is not good enough, and put him into survival training if it is. I am petty.

I then proceeded in turning up the AC and to put a blanket over Emily. She snuggled on it with a happy and relaxed smile as I did that. Seeing this made me calm down some more, but far from enough for me not to beat Okuyasu up. He still disturbed my sleep.

As I proceeded to the living room I realized why Okuyasu was doing all that noise. A dude no more than 16 was laying down on the couch, clear signs of a struggle and even though his injuries were recovered it was still plain to see that he was still in great pain.

Seeing this I walked forward to see what is going on in this dude's body, as normally after being treated by Okuyasu's sacred gear (that he obviously was) he should be fully recovered and healed. Instead, he is in clear agonizing pain.

Not waiting to ask who this guy was, or bothering to ask Okuyasu about what was happening, I went straight to work. First I did a structural grasping to understand his body in details, I need to know what was doing this damage.

Surprisingly I saw that the problem was that inside his body there was some light energy of considerable purity wreaking havoc inside his body. It clearly was not his own as well, because I could feel that he also carried some light energy but it was clearly different than the one damaging his body. It is likely that if it wasn't for Okuyasu healing him he would already be dead.

Seeing this situation, I realized that there were not that many options. I could leave Okuyasu healing him as with time the energy would be spent, and this was the easier and deadliest method as who knows if his mind can take the cycle of destruction and reconstruction.

The other option I can think of is taking him to the Tower to get proper treatment. I believe Caster-sensei is capable of removing this malicious energy in two seconds flat while not even paying attention, but this method also has its demerits. If this guy has any sort of malicious intentions towards the Tower he could endanger someone there, and I will never allow for them to get hurt under my watch.

I guess it will have to be the first option.

'Use me.'

I heard in my head.

Who was that? Who talked on my head just now? Is it an enemy, an ally, I need to get ready to kill whoever did this if it is an enemy.

I suddenly felt a tingle on my left arm and I comprehended what happened, which also opened a whole new amount of questions. Apparently, the one that said for me to use it is my new spirit bone. I never heard any of my others communicating with me in any shape or form, but this one is much stronger than the other two so maybe there is still some soul fragment in there.

Scary thought. The world-devouring wolf is beyond simply dangerous, he is someone that literally devoured two inhabited worlds whole and was going to devour another one when Zelretch decided to hunt it down, and even then the wolf devoured half of a third world by then. If such creature is still alive in any form inside the spirit bone I better take care for it not to kill me instead of being of use.

But it begs the question, how do I even use the bone to threat this guy?

.

.

.

.

I am an idiot. How could I not have thought of that earlier, if the ability of this spirit bone is to devour I just need to use it to devour the foreign energy on this guy's body.

As I released the spirit bone, before I even touched the boy I started feeling it devouring in great speed the energy naturally on the air to replenish my own reserves. It was nothing massive enough to cause discomfort to those around me, but it did make me realize that I must use some time to practice with this spirit bone as well. Knowing exactly what you can do is important.

I then put my left arm on his abdomen, as it was there that I felt the foreign energy at. The process was very fast, barely taking a few seconds and as soon as I finished extracting the foreign energy I removed the arm. Who knows what would happen if I left it active for longer while touching him?

The dude's condition got visibly better. He no longer was squirming in pain on the couch and was now peacefully sleeping. He will probably wake up tomorrow morning as he needs to rest properly to recover from all mental exhaustion that came from the destruction and healing process he went through.

Now that everything was better I turned to the person that brought this exorcist (quite likely considering his holy energy and being human) into my house.

"Okuyasu, what the hell happened?" I asked with a stern face.

He completely ignored what I said to ask.

"Is this dude going to be alright?"

I raised one eyebrow and had to fight back my urge to smile at him. He truly was a good guy inside, always wanting to heal and help others.

"Yeah, the treatment was successful. He is just sleeping now and will probably wake up normally by tomorrow evening."

"*sigh* That is good. I was worried when I tried to heal him and he did not recover, thinking that someone would die due to me doing some shitty work was not okay." Okuyasu said.

"Again, what happened?" I asked again, trying to get back on track.

Okuyasu looked at me and visibly got more serious when he decided to explain what happened.

"Well, it is sort of complicated. It was like this, I was walking on the streets not bothering anyone but some punks that tried to steal some kid, I beat them up of course, and suddenly I felt something wash over me. It felt somewhat similar to one of those magic fields you use sometimes so I got curious and went looking. It took me less than a minute to get to the battle as the two fighters were not quiet at all, but before I could do anything this guy here" he pointed to the dude sleeping on my couch. "was thrown to the ground, bleeding quite a freaking lot. Before I even went to help the one that was fighting him flew away, not even bothering to finish the job or seeing if he is really dead."

Interesting, and troublesome.

If there is someone that uses holy energy in town it may be dangerous for the Rias, Sona and their peerages. I need to confirm something first.

"What exactly was that he was fighting?" I asked.

Okuyasu looked really serious when he said the answer.

"It was a high-class fallen angel."

Well, shit. This is going to be a nightmare to deal with. Not only is someone that is probably an exorcist in my house there is also a fallen angel around town. Not only that but who knows if there is only these two or if there are a lot more. And why the fuck they decided to mess with this town that is under the protection of the devils, the Japanese Pantheon (more for being in Japan than anything else), and the Tower?

I took a deep breath, calming down as I can't really go to investigate what the fuck is happening as who knows if I can handle (or should handle) this on my own.

After that, I talked some more with Okuyasu, who was surprised by the others still being asleep, what a poor fool, he still thinks that these girls will wake up from their 'beauty sleep' that easily. They can sleep through your snoring for fuck's sake.

Following that, we went to sleep, or at least that is what I wanted. It was only at that moment that I realized that my bed/couch was being occupied. I could go back to sleep on the ground, but I am not so tired to do such a thing.

Now, what do I do?

.

.

.

Oh, I got a good idea. I can take advantage of one of my newest connections. I just hope she won't mind.

///---///

KNOCK

KNOCK

"This is better be good, do you know what time i-"

"Sorry for crashing here so late, Tsubaki-chan."

Yep, I went to sleep at Tsubaki's house. It was not far from mine and the lack of space on my own was really bothering me. Also, she is my contracted devil so I think she won't mind. Probably. Maybe. There is some possibility. I can only hope.

Her face was frozen on the very position than when she was talking.

"Again, I am sorry to appear like this out of nowhere, but can I sleep with you tonight?" I asked while smiling, hoping that she would not mind.

Her mouth that was opened slowly closed, following that two streams of blood started flowing from her nose. I stepped forward to hold her when she was about to collapse as she seemed to have lost all power on her legs.

Strangely enough, she was still awake until the moment that I held her on my arms, and after she was secured in my arms she fully passed out cold.

Is she sick somewhat? And why is she with a strange smile on her face that I sometimes see on Yuno or Seryu?

Weird.