Game of Monsters - 68 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

Holding the Light for the Ones That We Guide

“Ok, so what is it you wanted, Kunou?” Yasaka asked while she and Joshua sat next to each other. In front of them was her daughter – their daughter, really, but it was still awkward to call her that, especially with Yasaka present – looking nervous but determined as she organized some paper sheets in front of her that seemed to contain many notes. They were in for… something, it seemed. Joshua wasn’t sure he remembered ever seeing Kunou look so much like a girl on a mission.

Preparing himself for it, he took a sip from his tea cup, foreseen that he’d need it. Whatever it was that their daughter wanted, she thought they’d disapprove. And while that wasn’t a sure proof of anything, it was telling in itself.

“I want to call Joshua dad in public,” the girl said, making him choke on his drink. Yeah, this was going to be a troublesome conversation, it seemed. The woman next to him didn’t react much better, with her eyes widening and blinking repeatedly as if to process that sentence better.

“Kunou, I know you do,” Yasaka started after a moment and everyone knew where she was going with just that. “But don’t you think it’s enough as is. I don’t have a problem with it, but it would make things troublesome for everyone, not just me, but also you and Joshua.”

Reasonable point that, and it was something that they did indeed know and had already discussed back when the whole thing started. Joshua didn’t say anything though, instead just looked at Kunou and then at the papers in front of her. Especially considering that the girl seemed undeterred by the argument. Likely because she’d seen it coming but also probably because she had something in mind to counter it.

“So, what did you think of to avoid that?” Joshua guessed, drawing a wide eyed look from Kunou. He just gave her a half-grin and urged her forward with a tilt of his head. Beaming, the girl did just that.

“I thought I could apply an Illusion Spell on myself to look different – maybe on Joshua too? – and be able to go outside and be together as father and daughter without worrying,” Kunou explained, pushing a few pieces of paper towards them, spreading them on the table. They basically detailed the kind of illusion they could apply and how it would look, in either of their cases. From there, they went on to describe where they could go with that.

After all, Illusions were fragile things, they could break from the slightest of prodding with other magic or any other supernatural interaction. Thus, Kunou had noted everywhere they could go in the mundane world and spend some father-daughter time. It looked well enough and Joshua was certainly all for it.

What was a little worrying was the fact that she’d added an illusion for Yasaka too.

“Kunou, you know I can’t leave Kyoto,” Yasaka said then, likely having seen that part too.

“You can though!” the girl protested. “It’d be just for a few hours at most. Surely you can-”

“Kunou,” the youkai leader interrupted, looking like it pained her to say what she was about to. “I’m sorry. I truly am. But being away from here weakens me, and as a faction leader, I can’t afford that.”

“The ley lines and such, right…” Joshua mused. He’d started to get a feel of those with Magic Sense, but not overly much. That was new, but he was very interested in those. Natural magic formations, flowing like rivers all around the world. The “lakes” that formed in places where ley lines crossed were highly sought after by basically everyone in the supernatural world. Nobody could say that they were indifferent to the power that kind of place could offer, regardless of race.

Kyoto held one such gathering, more specifically centered right where Yasaka’s place was. The youkai leader apparently had connected herself to that well of power to increase her capabilities. It wasn’t something that was done often and he was fairly sure that she was a unique case regardless. After all, the whole thing was said to have been set up by the Shinto Gods themselves.

“Kyoto has mundane places, right?” Joshua asked, tilting his head curiously. He was fairly sure that was the case. “Still, I guess it’d have more chances of something still managing to find us and breaking the illusions. We can kind of explain me and Kunou as just me taking her out and adding some protections, but with Yasaka? It’d be more complicated.”

“Dad~!” Kunou whined pitifully. “You were doing so well, why did you have to ruin it!”

“I’m just… pointing out facts?” he said, somewhat caught off guard by that reaction. He was even somewhat supporting her idea and she got angry with him? How did that even work? He got that Kunou wanted both of her parents together to spend some time as a family, but that didn’t mean they could ignore important details.

Next to him, Yasaka giggled behind her hand.

“I guess I can be convinced to allow this, but you can’t do it too often, is that clear?” the youkai leader said, looking at the two of them. Since when did he become a suspect of mischief too? “And you can’t go out of Japan. I’d be more at ease if you stayed close to supernatural parts, even if you have to be out of them. And I want to know where you’ll be and when.”

“That all sounds fair,” Joshua agreed with a hum. “So, I guess we are going out sometime soon?” he asked, only to blink at the slightly dejected look on Kunou’s face. “What? I thought you wanted to do this.”

“I do, I do,” Kunou quickly told them, shaking her hands and head for emphasis. “I just… put a lot of effort into these arguments,” she added weakly, looking at the papers before she deflated and pouted. Joshua got the idea that she’d left something else out but he couldn’t quite place what.

Still, as Kunou went on to babble about where she wanted to go and such, he guessed all was well anyway.

[}-o-{]

“That feels… wrong,” Jeanne said, frowning and breathing harshly under the pressure of his Hexes. He’d added the Exposing Hex and the Daunting Hex to his repertoire together with the Obscuring one. The first was a sort-of mix between the Detection and Monitoring wards while the latter was an equivalent to the Deterring ward. If he had to guess, the latter wasn’t exactly what Jeanne was expecting.

“Wrong how?” Joshua asked, eyes narrowed. He’d tested the Hex on himself and it hadn’t felt very different from the ward counterpart. There was the same sense of dread, that it was dangerous to go there but that’d been about it.

“It’s just… I feel like something is looking at me. Like there’s something strong, stronger than me, watching my every move, daring me to come closer,” his sister replied, her voice coming off nervous, afraid. It was strange to hear her like that. “Like I’m stepping into the lion’s den.”

An idea popped in Joshua’s mind. Was that because of the Exposing Hex? He’d tested them separately and together and he’d felt nothing of the sort. Neither had his familiars. However, the books he’d read did say that hexes interacted differently with the caster than with other people, even if they still targeted them. Did that extend to his familiars? If so then…

He had more experimentation to do, it seemed.

“I think that’s enough,” Joshua decided, dispelling the hexes and letting Jeanne deflate where she stood. “Interesting… very interesting,” he mumbled, wondering how far that went. He hadn’t made any mistakes on the circles, but just in case he’d check them. If they were indeed fine, then it meant that he had something else to research on top of the hexes in general.

No book he’d read on the subject said anything about such an interactive system for hexes though and that was strange. Was it because of modifications he’d made? Was it something else? A coincidence? Luck? The nearby ley lines in Kyoto?

‘Wonder if the foci matter regarding this,’ Joshua thought to himself, looking towards where the circles were. He’d used animal parts this time. Maybe those could affect how the spells interacted with each other if that was a thing? What would happen if he made an array with plants instead? Or with tools? Would more spells make the whole thing even more… whatever it was that was happening?

So many questions…

“I’m guessing I’ll be testing more of those things?” Jeanne asked wryly.

“I might ask Yasaka to lend me some youkai, or maybe ask our devil friends… I might do both. I need as much information as I can get. Maybe it’d interact differently with different people? Wonder if you being a Hero Descendant affected that for that matter…” Joshua mumbled and his sister rolled her eyes.

“And we’ve lost him. Let’s go, girls,” she said, leaving him to his thoughts. Which was appreciated. This was a lot of new things to go through and he was unlikely to focus much anytime soon.

Still, rude.

[}-o-{]

Joshua smiled peacefully, leaning back on his chair instead of working as he should be. He’d been kind of caught up in the moment though and his mind was distracted from its usual overwhelming ideas. Instead of brainstorming new wards and hex theories, he just closed his eyes and opened his ears.

What was he hearing, some might ask.

Well, it was Kunou, humming quietly to herself as she worked on some exercises he’d given her. Or maybe she’d already moved on to work on Project Duel a bit. Regardless, it was incredibly adorable and calming to hear, so he’d decided to do just that for a bit.

Opening his eyes for a moment, he looked at his daughter and brought his tea up to take a sip. Truly, he hoped one day things would calm down and he’d be able to sit back like this more often and whenever he so wanted. Not having to worry about the future being threatened by a bunch of crazy people, not having to worry about politics or being almost forced into making near impossible spells. Yes, that would be nice.

“What?” Kunou asked, apparently having noticed that his attention was on her.

“Nothing, just enjoying how adorable you are,” he admitted truthfully with a soft smile. For some reason, this made her pout, even if she didn’t actually protest. Instead, she just proceeded to look away from him with a slight blush of embarrassment coloring her cheeks, which made her look even cuter. “Well, I think this is enough time spent appreciating that-”

Whatever else he was going to say was interrupted by his phone ringing. He had a hunch of who was calling, mainly because few people actually bothered calling. Most of them either sent a message or just came directly to his house if they needed to talk. Still, he deflated, the previous peace leaving him and instead making him feel weary.

‘Griselda Quarta,’ He read from the screen of his phone, sighing. With a look towards Kunou, the little girl made a gesture of zipping her lips, to which he gave her a slight wry smile before setting up a Sound Dampening ward. Nothing against her, but there were things that were better left out of her hearing range. For her own good, for the most part, or so he guessed.

“Miss Quarta,” he greeted, and he was sure that it showed in his tone that he’d prefer to do just about anything than dealing with her. It wasn’t that he hated the Church or anything, but they were so frustrating to deal with that he didn’t want to bother. If they were going to throw walls at him that he’d have to dodge just to be an ally with them, then why should he even try?

“Mr. Davis,” the woman replied with. If anything, she sounded about as enthusiastic as he did, which was something that caught his attention. That weary tone coming from a woman that had let little escape her professional act was enough to give him pause. It seemed that she just might have something worth hearing to say. “I trust this isn’t an inconvenient moment to talk again?”

To her credit, she was asking politely and there was no annoyance or aggression in her tone. Joshua’s gaze moved towards Kunou, where the girl was looking at him curiously but quickly turned towards her work, as if that would somehow fool him. He could use her as an excuse, tell Griselda that he was busy tutoring someone but… He sighed.

“No, what did you need?” he asked flatly. Despite being willing to give her a chance, it didn’t mean that he had to be enthusiastic about it. They had been the ones that turned away from him, not the other way around.

“The Church came across information regarding Khaos Brigade that the youkai and the devils might appreciate,” Griselda said and she instantly had his full attention. Straightening on his seat, he snapped his fingers to make a notebook and a pencil appear. It seemed that things might have changed since the last call.

“And what do you want in return?” Joshua asked, already expecting something that would be troublesome, annoying or both.

“We want in on your arrangement with the other factions,” Griselda said, which was annoying. They could have just agreed with his previous offer and be done with it. He really wanted to know what the fuck had happened on that side of things to cause the mess he had to deal with. “And we want a meeting in person with you.”

Joshua’s first instinct was to ask if that was all. It sounded like very little for how much it must pain them to work together with devils. Once more, he wondered how much he was missing on their side of things, but he didn’t want to ask. He probably could have, but he really had entirely too much on his plate to try and push more stuff into it. No, he’d let other people deal with that shit.

“That’s doable. I’ll be bringing someone else with me, because I can’t be bothered to do politics and you’ve proven to be more annoying than I can handle,” Joshua told her instead. Maybe more blunt and harsh than he needed to be, but he didn’t want to be a politician. He wanted to do his job and be at peace. It was the faction leaders’ fault that he had to deal with the shit he had to.

How difficult was it to take seriously the threat of a terrorist organization? Honestly.

“That’s acceptable, Mr. Davis,” Griselda replied and if he didn’t know better he’d have thought she sounded relieved. “I’m sure we can accommodate whatever schedule you have at the moment, but before we get to that, I want to personally thank you for giving us a chance, Mr. Davis. I know it can’t have been easy.”

Joshua would freely admit that he was somewhat caught off guard by that speech. He hadn’t expected more than a thank you out of obligation and to be done with it. Maybe shit had truly gone down on the Church’s side. He was getting increasingly more curious about that.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, tiredly bringing his hand up and massaging the bridge of his nose. “And really, if we are going to have to deal with each other, please, for all that’s good, call me Joshua,” he added, hoping against hope that she’d take him up on that offer. Dealing with the church again would be bad enough, he didn’t need the extra annoyance, really.

“Of course,” she replied, surprising him once more. “But only if you call me Griselda again.”

“Deal,” he told her almost instantly, chuckling to himself. “Now, about that meeting…”

[}-o-{]

[Unknown Student]

Joshua Davis was a genius. A very confusing, frustrating and downright infuriating genius, but a genius nonetheless. That was the consensus of most people that got to attend the class he gave at House of Water. Even those people that liked him more than the rest agreed with that assessment.

And that was a whole lot more than they liked most of their other magic teachers. Magicians weren’t, after all, people that were very caritative with their resources. Especially in regards to knowledge. Most of the time, when an association got one of them to give a class, they’d do the bare minimum, which was why they tended to have requirements on their contracts regarding how well their students needed to do.

After only a couple of classes, the student body could easily understand why House of Water hadn’t done the same with one Joshua Davis. The strange man gave knowledge away like it didn’t matter. He freely told them, guided them through the secrets of spell modification like he didn’t care about the power he was giving everyone.

There had been talks about him wanting to give a chance to all those people that had wanted to but hadn’t been able to attend. An anomaly to be sure, but one that the students appreciate to no end. The only people that didn’t like Joshua were those that came from high places and had been consumed by their station. Those that would have thrown their names around to get their way.

You couldn’t do that with a man that didn’t even bother remembering your name though. Hell, Joshua hadn’t even tried, hadn’t even put up the act of caring. He’d just outright told them that they weren’t important enough for him to do so. Now, most students realized that wasn’t what the man had actually wanted to say, and he’d just been saying that he was a forgetful man. However, those people that had wanted to take advantage of their privileges had certainly taken things personally.

Not that Joshua cared about that either, and after a while neither did the rest of the students. Why bother with that when there was such a fountain of knowledge right there, standing in front of them? It’d be the peak of stupidity to have such an opportunity and waste it because of pride.

The students had certainly never participated so much in a class, that was for sure. Going from teachers that didn’t want to answer questions and only told them the bare minimum to someone that urged them to ask, to research, to experiment and to learn, was quite the shock. They took to it like starving men to a buffet, however.

It’d be a sad day, when Professor Davis’s classes inevitably reached their end, but the journey would surely be one to remember.

“Question,” Davis started once he was done going over some guy’s desire and project to modify a simple fire spell. “Is there a spell that’s widely known? Maybe something that most mages know? I don’t have a proper magical education, you could say, so I might not know this. It’s a serious question.”

How one could just admit to something like that was baffling in itself, but the students were getting used to having a very odd teacher. Besides, it wasn’t like any of them would mock the man. Nobody was that stupid, since that carried the threat of being asked to leave the class. So far, the course was too good to pass up the chance to be in it. Not even those few that didn’t like Davis would risk it.

“The Magical Signal Spell, Professor Davis?” Someone answered uncertainly. The man that spoke was, from what most knew, part of the Golden Dawn association. He was older than Davis too, which was eye catching in itself. Both facts together spoke quite a lot of the teacher’s prestige.

Even though he was an independent magician, even though he was young, even though he’d been part of the supernatural for a very short time… He was still much better than most of them. He was just different, they were coming to realize. And that was enough that everyone was willing to put away any prejudice. Joshua Davis was just built differently from them all.

Word had spread quickly, after the youkai situation had been resolved. Every magician that had been there spoke of the man that could keep at bay Annihilation Maker by simply endlessly modifying his wards to keep the Sacred Gear creations away from him. Joshua Davis’s name reached far into the magic community until everyone knew of him after that.

As such, anyone that had heard of his class had done what they could to get there. Strings had been pulled and the other associations did their best to get at least some of their members to attend the course. As such, the numbers of the people present in the classroom were surprisingly even between all the associations that had managed to get in.

“Is that right? How many people here know that Spell? Can you please put up your hand if you know it and can cast it?” Davis asked then, eyes sweeping over the classroom as more and more arms went up. “There’s a few people that don’t know it, it seems,” he commented, but he didn’t seem to be mocking them. If anything, he seemed thoughtful. “Hm, I’ll see if we can solve that. I’m guessing there’s no other spell that might be more common knowledge?”

Silence greeted that question and he nodded slowly.

“Ok, if those people don’t have anything to do after this, please stay behind. I’ll have to ask something over here in House of Water and I’ll get back to you,” Davis said, and pretty much everyone of those people were sure to stay behind even if they had something to do afterwards. Even some of those that did know the spell might stay behind just to see what happened. “As it so happens, I do know that spell,” Davis said, moving towards the board and drawing a rough Magical Signal Spell on the board.

It didn’t have any of the little details that most spells had, but the students soon realized that it wasn’t meant to be an actual circle. It was an example and many of them hurried to copy it in their notebooks, sure that more would soon follow. From there, the teacher added a few more things to the side of the dummy circle. Things like how the spell’s range worked, an estimate of the magic energy needed and such.

“Ok, this is roughly how a basic Magic Signal works, right? If you disagree, please put your hand up,” Professor Davis asked, but nobody did. Then, he nodded. “Ok, how would you go about modifying this spell? Just ideas, no need for calculations just yet.”

“Focus it in one direction instead of a sphere?” a girl from Grauzauberer suggested, raising her hand.

“I like that,” Davis said with a grin, pointing at the girl who shrunk on her seat and blushed slightly. Not that the man noticed, since he soon turned around and separated a part of the board to sketch the range of the modified spell. “Anything else?”

“Maybe something weaker but constant?” some man from House of Water said then.

“Good idea,” Davis nodded, but didn’t quite note it down. “How constant?”

“I assume it would be kept up until it was picked up. Could be useful if one is low on energy and isn’t sure if someone will pick up on the spell right away,” the man explained then, getting another grin from Davis as he did as before and added that idea to the board.

“Could it be made permanent?” a younger member from Golden Dawn asked from the other side of the classroom.

“Sure, what’d be the issue with that?” the teacher asked, looking around.

“One would need a wardstone to store the power and keep the spell going. Otherwise someone would always have to be casting the spell consciously,” a girl from the same association answered.

“Exactly,” Davis said before pausing and looking at the girl again. “You’re the one that broke the silence in the first class, right?”

“Yep,” said student answered with, looking quite happy with herself.

“What’s your name?”

Needless to say, many people were watching the girl with envy right at that moment. She was the first one to be asked that question, and that meant one thing. She’d made an impression on Davis, enough for him to care about who she was. That was more than any of them could say, and nobody had any idea the kind of benefit that could give.

“Meredith,” the girl answered, grinning widely. “Meredith Ordinton.”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Writing the PoV of the students was, maybe, the highlight of this chapter for me. It’s certainly interesting to put myself on the other side of things, with a completely different outlook on things than Joshua’s, which is the one I’m used to. It’s quite fun, I gotta admit.

I feel good about this chapter too, which might help that good mood too.

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Is there a PoV you are looking forward to seeing?

See you.