Chapter 68 : Vin's New Sacred Gear
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Looking towards the front entrance to the church was Griselda, a handful of men with white wings, and floating on twelve wings of glittering gold, was a man with long, flowing blond hair, his arm held foreword, and his expression calm, but hardened.
"Ah, Michael, how kind of you to join us…" Kokabiel shot a look at Ethan's corpse, eyeing the blood-soaked Excalibur Rapidly that laid amongst the viscera, "I wish you arrive a few seconds later, though."
"Kokabiel, surrender peacefully, and we can talk this out like civilized people," Michael bargained, to which Kokabiel scoffed, his wings unfurling, as he took into the air, and flew off into the night.
Several of the other angels unfurled their wings, preparing to pursue the fallen, but Michael put his hand out, sadly shaking his head.
"Don't pursue him. He's likely to have teleported away at this point, and truthfully, Kokabiel will overpower you all easily," Michael scanned his gaze around the room, frown deepening at the carnage, "Come, we have injured to tend to."
Griselda quickly fell to her knees, clutching her blue-haired ward in her arms, "Xenovia?! Can you hear me? Xenovia!"
Cracking open her amber irises, wincing in pain.
"I-I'm alright…"
Griselda pulled her deeper into a hug, "Oh thank god…"
A sound drew everyone's attention, as they all looked across the room, the twilight glistening and refracting off of the crystals, to the sole standing member of the exorcists-in-training; Vin, with his new crystal grieves, his body covered in blood and viscera, as he looked to the moon with tear-filled eyes, and right as the last of his strength began to fade, and he slowly lost the will to keep himself awake, he let out a hoarse, harrowing wail of despair.
"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Well, here we are. That was the dramatic conclusion to this first story arc, but we do have one last chapter to go before we delve fully into the next story arc. Think of it as an epilogue, except it's actually important for bridging the gap between the two story arcs.
I know this chapter was a lot shorter than some of the others, but that was mainly because this entire chapter was one fight scene, and if I tried to do anything more than that, it would've taken away from what happened in here.
I would also like to say thank you everyone. As of writing this, we've just hit 12,000 views on this story. You all… You're the best.
Now, let's move on to the chapter notes.
CHAPTER NOTES
[Kokabiel Stealing the Excalibur's:]
This is what I was referring to when I said in the last chapter that I would be adapting something that happened offscreen between DxD's volumes. The actual theft of the Excalibur Nightmare and Transparency by Kokabiel was something never shown in DxD, and I thought it would be a really cool 'oh shit' moment that could help establish how much of a threat Kokabiel is, while setting him up as the first concrete big-bad that the group has to go after.
This entire chapter's premise was actually inspired by the final scene of Star Wars: Rogue One, y'know the one, where Darth Vader shows up at the last minute, and slaughters everyone in the movie? Yeah, I wanted this chapter to have that same effect.
[Ezekiel Loses His Hand:]
Originally, I actually wanted Vin to lose a limb either during this scene, or at one point in the next story arc, but I realized that it would be a little better suited for Ezekiel, as it would be both a long-standing reminder of how these other exorcists aren't invincible, and also, it helps provide justification as to why Ezekiel isn't going to Kuoh with the others.
[Ethan is Dead. Permanently:]
The idea to kill off one of the group-members was one that I had floating around in my mind for a while, and only until around the writing of chapter five did I decide it would be Ethan who bites the dust.
Shoutout to Crestowl, who sort of caught it as soon as these guys were introduced in chapter three, as they eloquently put it: "But why is my 6th sense telling me these guys are gonna be cannon fodder?"
Maybe that ended up not being in the way Cretowl thought it would be, but yeah… Sort of got it.
Ethan's death sort of also marks the death of 'innocence' in the group. I think the gravity of everything has sort of become clear to everyone remaining in the group, and starting in the next chapter, we're going to see how Ethan's death changes everyone, more specifically, a lot about the church is going to be called into question, and the characters are going to have to draw lines in the sand over it.
[Vin's New Sacred Gear:]
So Vin finally reached an emotional state powerful enough to awaken his Sacred Gear proper. It's design is a lot more reflective of the crystal motif than the rings ever were. From a power point of view, you could see in that first showcase that the crystals have grown a lot stronger, and are able to be made faster, and in much higher quantities.
More will be explained soon, but now I can confirm both the name of the Sacred Gear, and the identity of the creature living inside of it.
The new Sacred Gear is a newly-minted Longinus, a sub species that's finally reached the level of power to be considered Longinus-class. It's on the lower end of that spectrum, as it's just cracked that tier, but that's my solution to the whole, 'Can't break the 13 Longinus' rule, and like Azazel has mentioned in canon, under the right conditions, there is the possibility of more Gears evolving into Longinus-tier Gears. This is one such example. The Sacred Gear later on in the story, will come to be known as [Crystal Weaver].
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