章 19: Chapter 19
Drinking with Azazel might've been a bad idea.
Turns out Devil wine is extremely strong. According to Azazel, it's consumed mainly by High-Class Devils, and I'm neither a devil nor High-Class, yet.
At some point during the night of drinking, I challenged Azazel to a spar with only swords. I genuinely thought that because I could see Cao Cao's attacks during image training, I would be able to see or even react to Azazel. Turns out I can't do either. He was faster and so much better than Cao Cao. Six times. Each match lasted about thirty seconds.
I then challenged him to a drinking contest—and lost horribly.
Waking up in the Blood River wasn't something I wanted while being this hungover. Worse, the voices were twice as loud as last time.
'Free it!'
'The End!'
'Let it out!'
'Chaos bringer!'
'No one can stop it!'
'Consumer.'
Two more voices than I could make out before.
Just as I was about to plunge my hand into my chest to wake up, I froze.
"C̸͇̼̑̕ò̶̲̰n̸̥͑s̵̅̅..."
I woke up, back in the real world, and turned over to vomit whatever was in my stomach. 'What in the hell was that?'
I'd never been ejected from the Blood River before. Whatever that voice was, it killed me in there.
It was only then that I noticed I was still in the warehouse. To my left, where I'd thrown up, was Azazel, now looking at me with no expression whatsoever. I'd thrown up on the Governor of the Fallen Angels. Plums.
"S-Sorry?" I haven't stuttered in a while.
Azazel opened his mouth to say something but paused when he realized I was about to throw up again.
"Hey! It's fine! Look the other way! Noooo!"
I threw up on him again.
Ten minutes had passed in silence. We were both seated on the couch, drinking water. One of us smelled like alcohol, and the other like vomit.
It was Azazel who finally spoke up.
"L-Let's never speak of this again, agreed?"
I just snorted and took a mouthful of water.
"What's it like wielding a cursed blade like Muramasa?"
I promptly spit the water out. How does he, oh right, we had a spar.
After I sorted myself out and was looking at him, he continued the conversation.
"You see, Muramasa- the real one, isn't like most cursed swords."
I was aware of that. Mura had made a point of drilling that into my head.
"The only sword I can think of that's similar is Gram, the cursed sword. It's said to have a will of its own, pushing its wielder towards violence and bloodshed. But that's where the similarity ends." He locked eyes with me. "Gram was forged by dwarves, but Muramasa was created by a human blacksmith. And yet, it's possibly as powerful as Gram. How?"
I looked down into my cup of water, staring at my reflection. I still had bags under my eyes, even though I sleep so much. After a moment, I glanced back at Azazel.
"I don't know. Maybe curses get stronger the more legends are made about them. Japan is pretty big. Perhaps the number of people slain by the sword made the curse stronger, which in turn strengthened the sword?" I wasn't completely lying. I didn't exactly know how Muramasa was strong enough to cut stray devils in half or stop even minor regeneration.
He hummed in response. "It appears to be quite the troublesome blade, no? And how are you dealing with the curse? I'm surprised you haven't gone somewhat insane."
Before I had time to respond, he adopted a serious expression. "But enough of that. I would like to request your help not for free, of course. If you assist me, I'll give you anything related to Muramasa, as well as any belongings from Kojiro Sasaki." I wasn't even surprised he knew, but that reward, while not seeming like much, could help me with my weakness at long range.
"Is it related to the Church incident that happened yesterday?" He seemed amused by something and pulled out his phone to show me the date.
Three days had passed; it was now Thursday. I had been drinking for days?! Azazel cackled at my expression; I couldn't even hide my shock this time. Then he became serious again.
"Yes, it is. You see, they had orders from me to lay low and investigate humans with potential. But it seems my orders were altered, by a Fallen Angel named Kokabiel."
Right, this was soon happening. Something about Gripper and his sword project, along with an antsy Yuuto.
"So what do you want me to do?" I asked.
He stopped being serious and started smirking. I didn't like this.
"Word has it that he's been working with a man named Valper Galilei, a former member of the Church and a holy sword researcher. If I've heard of this, then the Church has as well. It's more than likely that Kokabiel and Valper will come here to Kuoh, which means the Church will send exorcists after Valper." He sighed. I didn't envy Azazel's position at all. "That could be a problem. The Church will likely try to send an envoy to stay low and not inform the Heiresses that they are here. This is where you come in; you'll act as the middleman." He cut me off before I could ask why. "You're not allied with anyone. And I know if I asked you to join the Grigori, you'd refuse, which makes you the perfect person to ensure the envoy from the Church doesn't act up."
Simple enough; I knew who was being sent, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
"Now, as for the envoy being sent? I would have guessed originally two people."
Wait. What?
"But I decided to anonymously inform my dear sweet sister that Kokabiel will be there. So she'll most likely send someone around Middle-High class to aid the two. But don't worry; if it's who I think it is, they'll be enough to delay my masterful plan." Right, Vali Lucifer's grand entrance.
"And as long as I make sure no one on either side dies, I'll get my stuff as promised?"
We shook hands.
"Yeah, I promise. I don't want to miss out on a good drinking buddy." With that, he teleported me back to my apartment.
"See you, Ryou. My door's always open if you ever need some help." And with that, he teleported to wherever an Azazel was needed.
I knew Azazel was a genius, but these bandages were amazing. The hole in my leg was fully healed all that remained was a fresh scar.
According to the apartment manager, I had people looking for me over the past few days while I was with Azazel. Great.
While walking to the Occult Club dressed in fresh black sweat pants with Muramasa tied around my waist with a sash, I realized I never asked when the envoy would arrive.
I heard fire crackling for the briefest moment before I felt the aura of someone insanely strong.
Right. Riser stuff. I don't hate him. Is he a prick? Yeah. But he knows what he wants, and he makes use of what he has, High Regeneration.
For the next four seconds while approaching the door, I wondered whether to knock or not. On the other side were Riser and more importantly, Grayfia Lucifuge.
Well, Redhead does owe me for helping her peerage members.
I swung the door open. Everyone was silent. Riser, looking like he ate a lemon turned to me and looked like he was going to crap himself from how pissed he looked.
Redhead took that moment to get up from the couch and walk over to me. "Ryou-kun?! Where have you been? We've been looking for you!"
"Rias, what do you think you're doing being so close to a filthy monkey?!" I disliked him now, though not enough to punch him in his cocky little face.
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