Chapter 28 - Resolution of Strays

"If you don't tell me where the boy that damn old man Odin has been hiding is I'll slit this brats throat!" Buffy growled in rage holding Kojika's broken body up with a sharp claw at her neck.

Her face was bloodied and her arm was bent at a weird angle, by how still her body was one would probably assume Kojika was already dead. In truth she was just extremely close. Her life was disappearing as each second ticked by.

"..." Cebrail stared at Buffy blankly then looked at Kojika then looked at Buffy.

"Didn't you hear what I said!"

"Reginleif who is that girl?" Cebrail asked the young Valkyrie with confusion.

"I uhh… I don't actually know her name but she gave me directions the other day and sold Tosca and I some good food earlier…" Seeing Reginleif was unsure Cebrail turned to Tosca who shook her head.

"I-I don't really know her either but, but, we should still save her!" Tosca seemed resolute in not letting Kojika die.

"That much is obvious." Cebrail responded simply in response.

"Her names Kojika. Good kid but definitely not anything to write home about. Mediocre spiritual powers, mediocre physical strength, and mediocre skill." While her words were harsh Anna didn't mean for them to be insults exactly, in essence she was simply calling Kojika a mostly normal girl.

"I see…" Cebrail knelt down picking up a blade of grass and standing back up. Confusing Buffy as she inspected the grass casually.

(Is this really an Angel? How can she not care at all about this kid's life!?!) Buffy was both confused and outraged but with his mind distracted he could barely react to the sudden barrier forming around them.

"Don't try anything white winged brat!" Buffy goes to sink his claws deeper into Kojika's neck but in the same instant she vanishes from his grasp and appears laying down in front of Cebrail.

Buffy looked at Cebrail with narrowed eyes. He didn't understand how she did that but when he opened his hand, which had previously held Kojika's arm in its grip, what he found was a blade of grass.

(Teleportation? She's skilled enough to use teleportation magic so precisely and instantly?) Buffy of course was wrong to mistake what Cebrail did for being magic, though it was understandable given the amount of magic power he could smell on her. In truth what Cebrail did was change the property of the location of both Kojika and the blade of grass she had grabbed.

"Oh. She's actually dying…" Cebrail seemed a bit surprised that the small blue haired child was actually dying from all of her injuries. Since Cebrail wouldn't die from this much and Reginleif probably would only find it hard to move perhaps…

*COUGH* *COUGH*

Kojika coughed laboriously and spit up quite a bit of blood.

"Ahhh! Ms. Cebrail can't you heal her like you did for me?" Tosca asks frantically upon seeing Kojika quickly dying.

"Mmm… technically I could but she's just wounded, not starving or dying from a cause I can't fix immediately." Cebrail's calm and casual tone made Tosca look to her with wide pleading eyes.

"Don't look at me like that. I didn't say I wouldn't be helping her…" Cebrail forced Kojika's mouth open causing her to groan in pain. Slowly she brought her mouth closer to the blue haired girl as if she were going for a kiss.

"W-What are you doing!?!" Reginleif shouted with a blush on her face.

"Huh? Is that no good?" Cebrail said in confusion. Moving she stood up and hooked her fingers on either side of her jean shorts and began pulling them down revealing for just a moment that Cebrail seemed to not be wearing any underwear.

Instantly Reginleif grabbed the sides of the yellow eyed princesses pants pulling them up forcefully putting the two extremely close to one another.

"Why are you taking off your clothes!?!" She screamed her blush only having gotten larger.

"I think the more important question is why you don't have any panties on…" Anna raised an eyebrow at Cebrail but Cebrail ignored her question and instead looked back at Reginleif with a confused expression.

"I'm about to heal her with a… how do you call it…? 'Golden Shower' I think." Cerebral responded seriously.

"What???"

"All of my bodily fluids are holy water, so I can heal anything not weak to holy powers just by using my saliva and stuff." Cebrail let go of her shorts before continuing. "You seemed against me using my spit so I'll just use something else."

"Can't you just use your Sacred Gear?"

"I'm not a doctor, most of her bones are broken and my ability isn't inversing things. So making something go from 'broken' to 'unbroken' will take more practice." She then points to Kojika whose breathing was clearly slowing down. "Also she's probably around thirty seconds from death."

"Nghhh…" Reginleif couldn't argue since Cebrail was probably right.

"Why don't you just put spit on your finger and then put it in her mouth?" Tosca asked.

Cebrail frowned and grumbled out, "That's so dirty though…"

All three of the other girls stared at her with a confused expression on their face which she didn't even seem to pay any mind to.

With a begrudging look on her face she bit the bullet and put her finger in her mouth before plunging it into Kojika's own.

"B-Buffy, we s-should leave!" Tibbi came out of hiding and hovered near Buffy, flapping her wings rhythmically in stark contrast to the panicked expression on her face.

"These guys are our only leads to the kid the boss wants us to find…" Buffy was hesitant, Werewolves much like vampires had a great deal of pride though it was as warriors not as monsters, they didn't run from fights very often. He had also been given a task by the big boss making running away especially shameful. However he knew he likely couldn't beat Cebrail in a straight on fight especially with the added information about her bodily fluids being holy water. If he slashed her with his claws her blood would damage him and if he bit her her blood would poison him, likely leading to an extraordinarily painful death with all of his insides melted like candle wax.

Luckily for him an out came in the form of Gumi who had exited the abandoned factory.

"Enough of your pedophilia Buffy it's time for us to go." Gumi stated with her arms crossed under her sizable breasts.

"What? How am I a pedophile?!?!?"

"Isn't it obvious? The moment that pretty white haired LITTLE GIRL showed up you've been basically awestruck. It's obvious you did that disgusting Werewolf thing, 'imprinting' or whatever." Gumi had been watching everything from a window and did not like what she had seen at all.

"I told you those Twilight books are bullsh*t! Shut up about them you-"

"The big boss struck a deal with Odin so we are no longer going after the next Red Dragon Emperor." Gumi seemed annoyed by this conclusion as she glared away from her two companions with a small frown.

"Huh? So we don't need to look for the kid anymore?"

"Did you not hear me the first time you bumbling buffoon?"

"Y-Yayyy! I-I can go home!" Tibbi was quite excited, so far she had only joined the search because the big boss asked her to. Usually she scouted for far safer missions.

"I really wanted to do a few experiments on one of the sealed Heavenly Dragons. How annoying." Gumi mumbled, biting her thumb in frustration.

"Is that why you guys were fighting? You were looking for the Red Dragon Emperor?" Cebrail questioned drawing the attention of the three Stray Devils. "It seems pretty ridiculous. If your boss already has a retainer then he can't form a contract with Ddraig."

"What?"

"What I mean is that it's completely pointless." Cebrail stated this simply as if she were speaking to a bunch of idiots.

"I-I don't understand? R-Retainer?"

"The big boss doesn't have a retainer yet, that's why he wants the Red Dragon Emperor!" Cebrail seemed genuinely confused by this, she had somewhat assumed that only herself and Cthylla were late to Solomon's game as they were children that hadn't even reached their teens.

Given that Cthylla had a retainer she simply assumed everyone else besides herself also would.

Cebrail didn't want to seem stupid so she quickly made another excuse, "If that's the case then he should know that a perverted sex offender like Issei Hyoudou wouldn't be able to bring out his full power with a man as his team leader."

"Issei… Hyoudou…"

"Did your boss not tell you his name? How strange…" As Cebrail said this she stood up pulling her finger out of Kojika's mouth with a thick strand of spit connecting them. The blue haired girls body was much better though her arm still looked a bit off, at the very least she wasn't in any critical danger anymore.

Cebrail looked at the thin coating of spit on her finger and made a visibly sour expression, her entire face shrinking in on itself. It was the sort of expression few people were allowed to see as Cebriail didn't typically express herself so overtly.

"You two stop talking to that Angel and let's just get out of here. This whole thing has just been one big disappointment." Gumi complained and despite grumbling and growling Buffy transformed back into his human form and he along with Tbbi went to the pouting Gumi. The three of them were gone in a teleportation spell nearly instantly, though Buffy did glare at them on the way out.

"Well all's well that ends well!" Anna said cheerfully clapping her hands together, Cebrail narrowed her eyes at her and walked towards her. "Hm? You need something?"

Instead of responding Cebrail grabbed the edge of her skirt and staring the red head dead in her eye she slowly wiped her finger.

"Aren't you a bit spiteful for an Angel?" Anna joked with a sweat drop.

"Have you met my mother?"

"I thought you were nothing like Gabriel."

"Of course I'm not. I'm rational. Every choice I make is based on logical reasoning." Cebrail removed her finger and sniffed it before gagging and thrusting it as far away from herself as possible.

"You're right, at least a little bit. You remind me a lot more of your father than you do Gabriel." Anna commented bending over and taking one last donut.

"You know my father?"

"Meh~" Anna with that unsatisfying reply turned around and began walking back towards Kuoh Town in a leisurely manner.

"What an annoying sort of woman, I bet she wants me to pay for the information or something. Do humans in this world really value money so much?" Cebrail wondered aloud when a Raven landed on her shoulder.

"CAW CAW!"

"You, tell Odin that he needs to protect-"

The Raven interrupted Cebrail by raising it's leg to reveal a note attached.

"If you're reading this Cebrail Caritas your next sentence will be 'tell Odin that he needs to protect Issei Hyoudou better so less trouble comes to the townsfolk!' Am I right? I'm right aren't I?"

Cebrail frowned at this but continued reading despite her annoyance.

"One year. I'll keep Issei Hyoudou as guarded as I possibly can for just one more year. Once Rias Gremory begins her schooling at Kuoh Academy my protection comes to an end." Despite it only being words on paper Cebrail could feel the deadly seriousness in his tone.

(He probably thinks canon starts when Rias first enters Kuoh Academy… I guess he really isn't all knowing nor does his clairvoyance truly see that far into the future. He's just a really smart guy…) This was a guess by Cebrail as Odin wasn't a holder of Solomon's Ring and those with the ring could not simply go around speaking overtly about the "wisdom" it gave them. This meant Odin likely had to piece together and calculate what was and wasn't actually important to the future based on the movements of the King's Candidates.

In essence he was using his clairvoyance in tandem with his wisdom to create near perfect calculations of the future.

Cebrail thinking like this couldn't help but have just a little bit more respect for the guy. Still however she ripped up his letter and put the pieces in her pocket, since littering is bad. She hated being jerked around by the will of others, she had already been doing that enough in her past life.

She snatched the raven off of her shoulder and gave it a very unangelic warning. "Go tell Odin to stop sticking his nose in my business. If I see you spying on me or my subordinates again I'll turn you into a raven soup."

Letting it go it flew off in a fright and dusting her hands off she simply said. "Let's go home," to her two subordinates.