Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRai
Who Da Boss Lady?
Chapter 36
-VB-
Rias frowned as she looked down at her city while flying from above.
It was difficult to tell if there were exorcists around. She wasn’t the greatest sensor in her peerage or the greatest sensor Devil in the city, period.
That didn’t mean that she was bad at it.
She and her peerage flew about in a loose formation, covering the areas outside of her and Sona’s usual routes around Kuoh Academy.
And as she roamed further and further from her school, she began to notice things.
Things at the edge of her city were murky. Like something kept crawling into the left their trails as magical residue. She wasn’t too worried about those; they looked like what Stray Devils and Yokai might leave behind.
No, the trails that stood out to her were the ones that made her frown.
Clean trails. Places where all energies have been cleansed, leaving behind very faint Holy Light that decayed as passed by them.
This was something she learned about from her tutors.
Holy Light was dangerous to Devils and all “underworld” races and creatures. To humans, however, it felt warm and cuddly, which was why they unconsciously gravitated toward it. But humans with their Original Sins were not toxic to the Holy Light but a natural font of negative energies that ate away at the Holy Light. Did humans make a lot of these unaligned negative energies? No. But where there were more humans, there were more unaligned negative energies, which would exponentially increase and thus exponentially drain Holy Light from an area.
There was a reason why most divine realms kept themselves separate from humanity. Why only He stepped up to take in humanity while most Holy gods disdained humanity.
It was also why Devils and other underworld creatures and races were naturally drawn to humanity. It was why they risked dimension and realm shaking wars just to get more humans.
So.
The fact that there were Holy Light residues rapidly decaying in her territory? That meant that there were Holy aligned creatures or people actively operating inside her city.
Without her permission.
She already knew that this was the case but to actually have evidence of it now…?
It irked her.
It irked her a lot.
This was her city, and these … these … These pests dared to sully it.
“That way,” she said and they all swerved towards the highest concentration of Holy residues. To her surprise, the residues led towards an abandoned church instead of the only active church in the city.
She would have thought that the only church she left alone would have been complicit, but maybe that wasn’t the case. She could have used that as a valid reason to kick them out.
Whatever.
She frowned as she and her peerage flew closer to the abandoned church.
The trails didn’t quite stop right at the church but went around it before trailing off in the forest behind the church away from the rest of the city.
“Did that abandoned church have a basement?” she asked Akeno.
Her Queen frowned. “There is one.”
Many older churches definitely had basements, and if the trail led into the forest next to an abandoned church that had a basement and then faded away…
Her eyes twinkled.
A secret entrance!
This was something exciting!
And then she frowned. “How did they even dig a secret entrance? Wouldn’t that make a lot of sound?” she asked around. “Like where are they getting the stuff to keep the secret entrance from collapsing?”
“... What if there was someone working with them in the city?” Kiba asked. “Then they can make it look natural. Maybe a construction company?”
“But not the church?” Rias asked with a frown.
“The church has ten members, buchou,” Akeno replied. “And the richest member is a nurse who spends too much time working to be arranging anything.”
“What about the second richest guy?”
“Also working his butt off. You realize that most of the people who go to that church are hard working people, right? That’s part of the reason why your brother didn’t kick them out. They’re good for the city.”
“Ugh!” Rias grunted out. “Fine! So how are we going to do this? Obviously, that’s a whole lot of … whatever down there.”
Akeno cleared her throat. “We should alert Sona-Kaichou.”
“What?!” Rias whirled around. “But why?”
“Mari-chan’s otou-san called us,” her Queen began. “Which meant that Mari-chan encountered enough resistance to end up having to tell her father in detail that something happened. And we all saw how well Mari-chan did against Levi-tan.”
Rias paused.
She remembered. How could she forget? It happened recently and … made her feel weak. She didn’t think that she was weak before but after seeing that spar, she felt weak.
It was why she was out here. To not be weak. Patrolling to find enemies and defeating them.
So what was the point of being out here at all if she just called for help right after she found the enemies?! Just because Mari-san got a little hurt?!
“No. Tell her that we are engaging trespassers,” she finally said after thinking about it. She pulled her sleeves back and pointed her palms down at the abandoned church below. Her demonic power gathered between her two open palms in front of them into a single sphere that grew and grew and grew -.
And fired.
-VB-
Mari blinked, looked up, and stared out of her window.
That was a burst of demonic power she wasn’t familiar with. It was strong. And someone was using it aggressively.
“... Dad!” she yelled as she walked up to her room’s door and opened it. “I’m going out!”
“Keep your phone on you!” he said loudly from downstairs. “And call me if you need help, even for anything small.”
“Okay!”
She quickly transformed - “Envious Transformation!” -, made herself invisible, and flew out of her open windows.
She blasted forth silently, shooting up and above skylines of suburbia and pulling herself to a stop some ten floors above the streets. She silently waited for anoth-.
Her eyes widened when she got something else instead. From where she first sensed demonic energy, she found a whole different kind of energy shooting up from the ground after the first attack.
She took off, blasting like a cannon from where she hovered at to where the fighting was taking place.
And as she sped toward the fight, she saw it.
Blasts of light.
Flashes of magic.
It was a full on battle! And she recognized some of the people in the sky. It was Rias-senpai and her peerage!
Narrowing her eyes, Mari pulled out her wand.
And pulling herself up to a stop, she pointed her wand.
‘No killing. Moderate the power,’ she thought to herself as she gathered her power. If someone was going to die, then it wasn’t going to be by her hands.
She took a deep breath in.
And released it.
“FINAL SPARK!”