"Ike."
A blond haired woman, dressed in formal office attire, pushed an impressive door open, stepping into the office behind it.
The room was massive, with large sofas, massive TVs and a huge desk with a suitably tall stack of papers on it.
"What? I don't really have time right now, the British military is nagging me about 'withholding powerful Realizer technology' or something. Is it important?"
The tired voice rang out from behind the stack of papers, the owner of which was a tall, pale man with blond hair and rings around his eyes. This was the genius creator and CEO of Deus Ex Machina Industries, Isaac Westcott.
"Ma-" Ellen Mathers, the blond haired intruder, also known as the Strongest Wizard, hesitated upon seeing the pressure that Isaac was under. Did she want to add to his workload?
"It's fine, Ellen. What happened?"
She stopped hesitating and made the report.
"Material A has escaped from Neryl Isla-" *Bang*
The table shook, scattering pieces of paper all over the ground.
Paying no attention to it, Westcott stood up, shock in his eyes.
"How did this happen? We had multiple squads of Wizards in there, didn't we? Plus, Adeptus 2 should've been present as well!"
Ellen grimaced, pulling out a tablet. The screen showed the image of two figures facing up against a squad of Wizards, causing Westcott's eyebrows to furrow.
He recognized one of the figures as a Spirit, Nightmare. She was a troublesome one, causing large casualties whenever she appeared. Her clones were particularily troublesome too, being capable of gathering information with remarkable efficiency while also posing a significant threat in combat.
But who was the other figure? Their face had white hair and features that were incredibly similar to his own. Were they wearing a disguise? They seemed to be holding a large sword in one hand and a key in the other.
Ellen frowned.
"Nightmare is troublesome enough, but that other person seems to be even worse. That sword is Sandalphon, Princess' angel. The other weapons they were wielding gave off strong Reiha signals, too. It's safe to assume that those are all Angels."
Westcott gazed at the image showing their Wizards falling to the floor, one after another.
The intruders nearly reached the exit, but were interrupted by Adeptus 2.
"Pay close attention. I doubt Takamiya went down without a fight. Pay close attenti- Huh?"
He stared, along with Ellen, at the sight of their Adeptus 2 being defeated instantly by the disguised figure. After throwing her into their shadow, the duo had left the area through a portal opened by the key.
"..."
The shock in Westcott's eyes slowly faded away, being replaced by sheer joy.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ellen! We have a new target! See if you can track them down! I assume the trackers in Sister and Takamiya are out of commission now?"
"I-Indeed. The trackers in the chips and CR units have all malfunctioned. However, we have identified the clothing worn by the disguised intruder as a shirt produced by a Japanese brand. The store doesn't have many branches outside of Japan, so it's safe to surmise that their location is somewhere in Japan. That is, of course, if the clothes aren't part of the disguise itself.
However, the trap for Material A's chip has triggered itself."
Westcott smiled.
"Remember the report from the Tengu City AST? There was a report that Princess showed up at a school there, without any sign of spacequakes or Reiryoku."
Ellen's eyes widened.
"So you mean-"
"Yes. The usage of Sandalphon in this raid may be connected. I intended to deal with this matter after clearing out my current pile of work, but it appears that my schedule will need some re-arranging. Keep an eye out for signs of an Inverse."
He walked out of the room with Ellen following close behind.
"I'm coming, [Emperor]."
...
Shido was currently walking along the streets of Tengu City. He was just passing through a quiet road when he heard a faint voice.
"Boy...."
He turned around, seeing a head of silvery-white hair. It was a girl wearing glasses and an impish grin on her face.
"Boy, couldst thou perhaps find it in thine heart to help out a young maiden such as I?"
Truly shameless.
Shido's face twitched.
"That speech doesn't make you any more pitiable!"
"I tried, okay!"
"..Whatever." Shido sighed. "Well, follow me for now."
...
A few hours earlier
A silvery-white haired girl was lying on a bed, with the figures of Shido, Kotori and Kurumi surrounding her. She had her eyes closed and way lying nearly motionlessly, with the only indication of her still being alive being the faint up-and-down movement of her torso.
This girl was Nia Honjou, the spirit they had just saved from DEM's experiments, and they were currently in one of Kurumi's various hideouts across the city.
Shido frowned. This was a fairly worrying situation. He didn't exactly know when she'd wake up. He had Gabriel's March playing in the background, and had used Haniel to temporarily patch her up, but they couldn't afford to get her to a medical Realizer.
A Spirit finding Shido was one thing, but Shido coincidentally finding an injured Spirit and bringing her to the Fraxinus was a little too unbelievable
"?!"
Thankfully, his concerns were unneeded.
The silvery eyelashes began to tremble softly, before snapping open in an instant.
"Nia?"
Shido carefully asked while cautiously stepping forward.
His eyes widened, noticing her frail form starting to shake.
"Wh-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Before anybody could do anything, an ear-splitting scream shook the building, seemingly summoning several dark strands of Reiryoku around the Spirit.
"This is-" "Inverse?!"
Kurumi and Kotori's shocked cries were drowned out by the powerful wailing coming from the Inversing Spirit, who was summoning their Astral Dress.
"Beelzebub"
A massive, dark book appeared in her outstreched hand, with an appearance similar to Rasiel, but with far darker colours and more elaborate symbols.
Several pages scattered around the ground, forming large creatures that appeared to be made from shadows.
"Not good! You guys, hold off the shadow creatures! I'll deal with Nia!"
Shido shouted out a few instructions and ran for the Inversed Spirit.
Truth be told, they weren't exactly in too much trouble right now.
While Kotori only had a Limited Astral Dress, Kurumi was more than capable of facing off an Inverse by herself, even if the boost from Michael had ran out by now.
Of course, his own abilities went without saying.
The actual problem was that they were pressed for time. There was no way that DEM and the AST hadn't noticed the massive spike of Reiryoku. Actually, after he thought about it, it was likely that DEM had done this so they could track down the location of their precious Material A.
Having a three way battle with Nia and the DEM Wizards was not something he wanted to try out, ever. Right now, however, he needed to stop her from trying to kill them so they could get the hell out of here. But how was he supposed to calm an Inversed Spirit down?
Thankfully, he had one option here that wouldn't be too slow.
Sealing her powers with a kiss should be enough to stop her rampage here.
Sadly, she didnt exactly have feelings for him in this world, meaning that he had to...
"Rasiel!"
While avoiding the shadow monsters, he summoned Rasiel to prepare.
By giving her back her memories, he should be able to seal the rampant Reiryoku.
"Gabriel, Requiem! Haniel, Kaleidoscope, Requiem!"
..These commands for the angels were starting to get a little long, weren't they?
Gabriel, which was already present in the room, quickly changed the song that was playing and came closer, while Haniel was summoned, taking Gabriel's appearance.
It, too, played the same song.
Requiem.
A song that relieved the listener's pain, it was the most effective counter to Nia's Inverse form, since her whole reason for Inversing was the agony from her time with DEM.
"Uh?!"
Upon hearing the two angels, Nia shuddered, her eyes widening open in surprise.
She frantically started writing on the pages of Beelzebub with a pen formed from the Astral Dress, attempting to use Future Entry to stop Shido.
However, Shido just frowned as he brushed off the pressure easily. The effects of Future Entry were less and less effective the more Reiryoku the other party had, which practically gave him immunity to its power.
Nia's shuddering quickly weakened, her attacks slowing down.
This was what Shido had been waiting for. He quickly rushed in, clutching Rasiel. Several shadows rushed in to stop him, but he immediately raised the angel overhead and threw it.
The book flew through the air, magnificently landing on the middle of Nia's forehead.
Naturally, it hardly did any damage, simply bouncing off the skin and falling to the floor.
However, its job was done.
Nia fell completely silent, her eyes widening as she processed the information entering her brain.
The shadow creatures fell apart, giving Shido a chance to dash forward.
Sorry for this in advance, Nia! I hope you understand!
Lightly touching the sides of her head, he leaned forward.
Their lips met.
....
After that, Nia had woken up without any nasty Inverse surprises, letting them fill her in on everything that had happened before.
"Wow, Boy! You've become so bold now! Stealing a kiss like that.... Even I'm surprised now!"
Nia smiled impishly, holding a hand to her mouth.
"H-Hey that was the only way, okay?! Any other way would've been too slow!"
"Ha-ha, sure.. By the way, the fact that the lil' commander and Kurumi are with you right now means you're planning something, right?"
Kotori looked stunned. "How did you figure that out?"
"Heh. Don't underestimate my Intelligence stat! It's the highest of the Spirits, right? I sneaked a peek at Ratatoskrs data in the last world, hope you don't mind. By the way, why did you go with such a game-like stat system?"
Ignoring her last comment, Kotori crossed her arms and huffed.
"Fine. If you understand that, listen up. We need you to...."
...
Returning back to the present time, Shido was heading to Nia's house along with the Spirit herself.
"Leading the way to my own house, what a gentleman.."
Nia's slightly mocking tone caused Shido to chuckle a little.
"It's not like you remember its location, right?"
He doubted that she remembered its location after her recent extended stay at Neryl Island.
"Of course I do! Did you forget my angel?"
"Ah...."
Shido facepalmed. Of course Rasiel could simply tell her the location of the house. He just looked stupid now.
...
Once they entered the house, Shido prepared everything so that it looked like the same events as the last time he met Nia happened again.
Instead of coming up with an excuse for Reine, simply recreating the same thing that happened last time seemed to be the more believable option. The story of Nia meeting Shido, getting him to her house and revealing herself as a Spirit.
He definitely wasn't doing this to get another free chapter of Silver Bullet. Totally.
After they were done with the creation of the new chapter, he turned to Nia.
"Alright, release your power."
Nia nodded, gathering all of the remaining Reiryoku in her body.
Manifesting Rasiel, she tried with all her power to break the sealed link between her and Shido.
They had to break the seal before re-sealing, to prevent suspicion from Reine.
"Just- a little- more!"
Shido attempted to forcibly send all of Nia's Reiryoku back through the link, forcibly streching it past its limit.
[A/N] Don't you dare think of anything wierd here
With one last push, the link tore open, restoring Nia's Astral Dress and angel to full power.
"Huff.. Puff.. You did it, Boy."
"..Yep"
While he was feeling very tired right now, Shido smiled and reached for the earpiece's power switch.
*Click* It connected to Fraxinus
"Shido, its Reine here. What's the matter?"
------------------------------------------------
To be continued
yay, chapter 15, I think? 1.8k words
At this point, this fic has grown to be able to rival the other larger Date a Live ones!
I never thought that we'd reach this point when I wrote chapter one, thank you to all my readers that have reached this point.
This chapter, Westcock finally finds out about the rescue, and we see the start of the plan to explain to Reine exactly how Nia conveniently showed up. This is past the point where I planned the story out in the first place, so this is unknown territory, even to me.
Please don't forget to leave behind comments for feedback or just to share your opinion!
as always, cya next time