Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRai
Who Da Boss Lady?
Chapter 34
-VB-
Mari didn’t know what to do.
What Dad told her to do … was the smart thing. She knew that. She knew that. Dad was part of the supernatural world for decades, at least triple her own age.
But she didn’t like it.
She hated it.
She sat alone in her bedroom, sitting on her bed, while looking out of the window with her back to the head of the bed.
She was watching the sun rise and stared at it with hollow eyes.
Someone had died because she was too slow.
… No, that wasn’t quite right.
Someone died because someone else chose to kill them. She was just … a bystander. Yeah.
But she still felt … bad. About not saving that lady. But she also knew that the house had other people, so by killing Freed, she saved them, right?
Mari took a deep breath in and let it out.
She didn’t know what to do, though. She felt lost and aimless.
And as she thought more about it, the more she realized she wasn’t strong enough. If she had been strong enough, then she would have been good enough to stop the attack that killed that woman.
But she wasn’t strong enough right now, which meant that she would have to get stronger but in the meantime, get help to prevent that kind of thing from happening again.
She frowned.
Mari got up.
“I need to go talk to Sona and Rias,” she realized. They were supposed to be the “owners” of Kuoh Town. And since they were, then it was both their responsibility and right to deal with the supernatural world, including that serial killer exorcist.
Yes, she would make demands, too. Whatever her excuse was, she would get them to do something about it.
Because if there was even one more exorcist who was like that man, then they needed to do something about it. Or bother their siblings to send someone to deal with it.
She glanced at the wall clock and sighed.
It was at least three more hours until it was a reasonable time for her to visit either Rias or Sona-senpais.
Ugh.
She sat there in bed for a bit longer…
And then her stomach began to growl.
Mari grumbled as she got out of bed.
She opened the door of her room and found Dad standing there.
“Ah,” he sounded off before she could say anything first. “I will call your school today and tell them that you can’t be there today.”
“... I need to talk to Sona and Rias-senpai, though. About the exorcist.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll also handle that.”
She opened her mouth before he shushed her. “Do you want breakfast in bed?”
“Yes, please, otou-san.”
She wasn’t going to say no to that.
He turned to leave for the downstairs, but he paused halfway through.
“If you feel guilty about not being able to save that woman,” he started. “Then you can start studying healing spells and the like.” Then he left, his feet thumping lightly as he walked down the stairs.
Healing?
… Right, that was an option. She just never thought about it because, well, she never got hurt before. Not seriously at any rate.
She frowned.
Where would she even begin, though?
Like, can she just tell the body to “heal thyself”? She doubted it was that easy. If it was, then everyone would be healing themselves easily, but in the months so far that she’s known about the supernatural world, no one showed that kind of thing.
Then she froze as an idea came to her.
Slowly, she turned to her bookshelf, which had her textbook.
Including her biology textbook.
She took a deep breath in and let it out.
“Damn it,” she mumbled as she walked over to it and pulled it out.
A perfect day where she got excused from school, but instead of relaxing, she was choosing to study.
Argh.
-VB-
“Thank you, Sakai-san,” Sona said to Mari-kohai’s father. “Have a pleasant day.”
Then when he hung up, she put her phone down and frowned.
And only then, did she allow her professional mask to drop.
And she frowned.
She hadn’t known about a murder of one of her own clients in the city. And by an exorcist as well.
This was … serious.
On a personal level, this upset her because she found herself wanting in both securing security for her client and the city. Both of those were part of her jobs as Heir Sitri and co-owner of the city.
Instead, she had to be alerted to her failure by a third party’s family, not the third party herself. Because she was sick after witnessing her first death and performing her first kill.
Sakai-san didn’t say it so directly, of course, but “results of first combat experience with casualties” more or less stated it in so many words.
Which meant…
“The Fallen are inside my city,” she hummed as she leaned back. “And they struck at my clients.”
She was … not happy with that.
On a political level, she knew that she needed to alert this to her sister, even if it felt like she was running away from the problem instead of solving it herself.
However.
If she actually thought that, then she was woefully unprepared to remain the Heir Sitri and should ask her parents to give her a new sibling.
As a Devil, she should do what benefited her the most. Though Pride may be her sin, launching into a sweep over the city when she didn’t even know the enemy force numbers was stupid at best, suicidal at worst. What if there was a six wing Fallen in the city, and the exorcist was a trap for her? A bait to drag her or Rias out.
She took a deep breath in and let out a sigh. “Tsubaki? Can you reschedule all morning appointments I have today? I may need the extra time.”
“Of course, kaichou. And by all appointments, did you mean all school-related appointments?”
“No. All appointments, including business and contract.”
Her queen looked at her in surprise. “I will carry out your order.”
With that done, she grabbed her phone and dialed her sister.
The phone rang once before her sister answered.
“Sona-chan~!”
Sona sighed.
Even if this was her duty as a Devil reporting in a potentially disastrous international incident, it didn’t stop her from sighing when faced with her sister’s exuberance and endless energy.
“I have a situation, Satan Serafall,” she reported formally. “I apologize if I interrupted your morning.”
Her sister caught her tone perfectly. “I see. Please give me your report then.”
She did.
And when she did…
Even though her sister didn’t say anything, she could almost feel the coldness of her sister’s aura infesting her sister’s office on the other side of the phone.
By the end of the call, her sister told her to “stay put, I am sending Behemoth.”
The same Behemoth that was an Ultimate-class Devil who could, and did, destroy mountains when he felt like it.
Yes.
It was serious now.
-VB-
Rias frowned. “I see. Thank you for the warning, Sakai-san,” she replied and hung up.
She sniffed.
“Akeno, can you gather all of my peerage? We might have to go on a patrol.”
Her queen leaned into the doorway from outside. “Ara? Are we finally going out to patrol after so many weeks?”
“Yes. Things … have happened. Mari-chan’s father had to call us about it.”
“Very well. I shall gather all for the patrol.”