DxD : A New Hero : Chapter 27

Almost half an hour later, I found myself standing in front of the corpses of the Fallen as I thought about the situation.

The church was as expected empty. While I did find a large basement that looked to have been set up for some kind of ritual that in itself wasn't too uncommon for a place like this and there was nothing else unusual about the place. 

No signs of a fight or struggle, no clues to what may have happened, there wasn't even any paper work or reports that would tell me what the fallen was up to before they got killed.

I examined the bodies before me one more time before I face palmed. This was gonna be mess.

I don't even want to think of how the Fallen Angels will respond when they find out that their entire branch in this city was wiped out. The only silver lining in this mess was that these guys were low ranked Canon fodder. 

A dime a dozen and expendable as far as the Fallen higher would consider and certainly not worth sparking a war over.

I may have felt bad for these guys if I hadn't known that they tried to murder an innocent teenaged kid just yesterday.

Still, that doesn't mean this won't cause problems.

Now the question remains, who could have done this?

It was impossible for Devils to have been done it. The guards would have prevented any other Devils from entering the City and neither Sona nor Gremory would have done something like this. Besides, unless the message was there to throw us off the trail, it looked like the killers were followers of God.

Exorcists? No, no matter how much they hate the Fallen, they would never desicrate a church with their corpses. Even the more extreme members of their order would have dragged the bodies outside the church before torturing them at the very least.

The Fallen Faction was naturally ruled out. Not only is every Fallen in the city currently hanging off the wall before me but they would have no reason to do this to one of their own, then destroy the Bounded Fields that protected their territory. If it was simple infighting they wouldn't have wanted outsiders to know about it.

Someone outside of the Three Factions? No, while it was faint I could still sense some lingering light magic radiating from the holes on their chest. That and the way the wound were cauterized indicated that they were pierced by light spears. 

As far as I know no one outside of the Heaven or Fallen Faction can create and use light spears, unless there was some kind of Sacred Gear I have never heard about. And presuming that the message is genuine then whoever did this wanted to punish the fallen for betraying God.

You know what, I give up. In the end finding the killers isn't even my job and even if I did find them I'm not sure if I should punish them or thank them. These fallen were anything but innocent after all.

For a moment a very worrisome thought hit me, what if someone caught me here in front of the group of dead Fallen and thought I did it? However I quickly dismiss the idea as I realized that there was no one in the city that can catch me in this moment. 

The fallen are gone, the Vatican were never here to begin with and all the other Devils are currently in school.

I laughed as the absurdity of the last thought hit me. Before I arrived here, the entire Devil faction of this city was repented by a group of inexperienced underaged High school students. Who the hell thought that was a good idea?

Anyway, I'm not sure what I should do next. I'm tempted to call in the guards but there is nothing else they can do here and it's not worth blowing their cover over. There was also the possibility that whoever did this did not know about them and if they didn't, then they'd make a useful trump card. 

No, the best thing for me to do was contact Serafall and let her decide what to do. That way I can wash my hands from the political side of this.

I turned around and began making way out of the Church but not before giving the dead Fallen one final look over my shoulder.

Well, at least it wasn't all bad. Now when I try to convince Sona to set up a Bounded Field over the School and improve the ones at her home, I'll actually have a genuine reason to give her.

...

The ringing of the lunch bell echoed down the walls of the staircase just as I set foot on the first step.

Well, so much for getting back in time for class. At least this way I don't have to try to explain myself to the teacher. It was a good thing that I didn't actually need to attend any of these classes to learn anything or at this rate I would have ended up having to repeat a year.

As I began climbing up the stairs up to the third floor, I thought about my recent discussion with Serafall. 

Communication between the human world and the Underworld had always been a fickle thing as the dimensional gap that separated the two worlds interfered with any form of magical communication. Until very recently it was hard to get messages across the void in a timely manner.

That was until technology advanced enough to fix the problem. Right now it was possible to send small bursts of electronic signals through the void to delivers short messages. It had to be very limited in size for it to work, so each dispatch had to be restricted to about 140 characters per message.

Yes, the human to Underworld primary form of communication is basically Twitter and Serafall and I had just basically just finished tweeting one another about the situation.

Long story short, it was decided that as long as it looks like no Devils were involved we'll take a hands off approached to the death of the Fallen. It was unlikely that Fallen Faction will appreciate us poking our nose in what was basically their business anyway.

She also decided to temporarily triple the amount guards patrolling the city border, at least until Fallen issue had been handled. The crows in the city were about gain a big boost in population in the upcoming days, so at least the bird watchers will be happy.

Reaching the third floor landing, I took a right turn and made my way towards the corridor that held the lockers to pick up my lunch. 

I was actually surprised to find out that they had lockers here as they were unpopular in many Japanese schools and my last one certainly didn't have one, but it looks like Sona had them installed as soon as she took over. 

It was good thing too or else I wouldn't have any place except my desk to store my stuff in.

Walking up to my new steel grey locker, I pulled out my key and unlocked it. After swinging the door open I took one look inside before instantly slamming it shut.

I took two full steps back and just stared at the now closed locker, not able to believe what I just saw. I just stared at it for several seconds and after seeing nothing happening, I hesitantly began to approach the locker once again.

Positioning my head right next to the edge of the locker's door, I quickly cracked it open just an inch, peered inside before slamming it shut again.

I placed my forehead on the cold metallic surface of the door as I felt a headache coming on. Really, why did these insane things keep happening to me? I mean after having traded my soul to a magic girl for a wish.

Walked into a Cthulhu ritual on my way to the bathroom and found out that Lucifer himself likes to dress his wife up in a French maid uniform, you'll think I'd be used to the insanity. 

But no, it just keeps surprising me.

Finally I stood back and swung my locker door wide open and asked the occupant, "Koneko, what are you doing?"

She swallowed her last mouthful of food she had been chewing before answering, "Eating"

"My food?"

She thought about it for a moment before nodding her head, "Yes."

"Why?"

"Tasty." She answered without hesitation, as if that would explain everything.

Koneko was sitting snugly inside of my locker, her cheeks covered with red sauce making her look so much like a child that I found it impossible to believe she was a teenager let alone a High school student. She had my open and now mostly empty lunchbox claps tightly in her hands. 

Even for her petite frame the locker was too small to hold her comfortably, she had to fold up her knees up to her chest and scrunch up like a ball to fit in – and if it wasn't the most adorable thing I've ever seen I might have been angry at her for stealing my lunch.

How the hell did she get in there anyway? The locker was locked from the outside and there is no way to open or close it from the inside. The only way I could think of her getting in was for her to teleport- oh dear she teleported directly into the locker didn't she? For food?

Seeing as how she was ignoring me in favor of searching for scraps inside of the lunchbox, I could believe it. I noticed my second lunchbox that she discarded beneath her legs. 

I had packed two boxed this morning in anticipation of Koneko joining me for lunch but it looks like I underestimated her appetite.

I looked down at my stomach as it let out a remarkably loud rumble. Not surprisingly really when you considered I had skipped breakfast this morning in addition to all of the work I had done. 

Koneko seemed to have noticed my hunger because I looked up to find her holding out a small strip of chicken out to me in her dainty little fingers.

"Share?" She looked so adorable when she said that with her head stilted slightly to the side that I couldn't help but laugh as I took a bite out of the offered food.

Still, that was nowhere near enough. "I'm still hungry." I muttered out sadly.

Koneko reach out with her soft little hands and began to gently pat my cheeks with a "There, there," as she apparently tried to console me. I couldn't even muster will to complain that she was the reason why I was going hungry.

You know, I just realized how unfair girls have it. If Rin had ever opened her locker and found me cramped inside with her lunch devoured I seriously doubted I would get off anywhere near as lightly as Koneko would.

I looked back down at my stomach as it let out another rumble. "If only my house wasn't so far away I could have snuck into my kitchen and cooked me another quick lunch, but if I did that I don't think I'll make it back to school in time. 

I'm gonna be enough trouble with Sona when she finds out I already skipped the entire morning classes, I don't even want to imagine what she'll do if I'm late for the afternoon ones as well." 

Seriously, Sona may let me get away with a lot of things she wouldn't allow anyone outside of her family to but when it comes to school matter, I don't she'll treat me any different from any other student.

"I guess I'll just have to eat from the canteen but I heard their food has always been kind of bland. It that true Koneko?" I asked her but she didn't reply, "Koneko?

I looked up to find that Koneko wasn't listening. She was sitting as straight up as she could in her the tiny locker as she stared blankly ahead. Slowly, almost mechanically, she turned her head to towards me. 

Her eyes, when she instantly locked with mine, looked like they were almost gleaming with their own inner light as she quietly asked me, "Kitchen?"

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