High School DxD: Scotland Forever - Chapter 6.1 (Patreon)

"So this is Absorption Line, huh?" Yarden mused.

He was currently resting atop a thick branch belonging to one of the trees in a local park within Kuoh.

With nothing better to do, he'd decided to just find somewhere to laze around, as was only proper and play some gacha games on his phone.

In the meanwhile, Vritra had gotten straight to business after re-absorbing his soul fragment, consolidating his strength, and imprinting the ability that was originally bound to the fragment, into his Sacred Gear/s.

It took a few hours, and the school day at Kuoh had obviously already let out, seeing as the sun was beginning to dip down over the horizon and cast the area in a warm orange glow.

Truly the world should praise his great ancestor for deigning to give them such warmth.

But, in the end, it really hadn't taken Vritra that long all said and done to get things done, and he was now testing out his new ability.

From the black gauntlet currently on his right hand, a thick glowing blue rope of energy was extended from one of the clawed points of his finger and wrapped around a tree.

He could get a rough guess on its speed at draining power just from that alone, and he had to admit, it was way beyond what he expected it to be. And this was only the one, he could create many more just as easily.

Saji may have been stuck to just the one from what he remembered, but he was a complete newbie to Vritra's power, Yarden had been training with Vritra's powers since he was a child, so even a new one like this was easy to get a handle on.
Of course, it also helped that his Scotland given prodigious talent was a thing.

And on top of things, the Absorption Line was no mere fragile tether. Yarden gave his finger a twitch and the glowing blue rope tightened around the tree, easily crushing right through its thick bark and causing the tree to topple.

It slammed into the ground, its sheer weight enough to make the ground rumble a bit.

"….It's a good thing I put up a barrier around here." Yarden mused, that would have probably alerted quite a few people and tossed them into a bit of a panic.

Thankfully, it was a simple enough matter to copy the barrier Akeno created earlier and employ it for his own uses.

'….It was me who explained it to you and walked you through the process you dumbass.' Vritra sighed.

'Semantics.' Yarden rolled his eyes. They were pretty much one and the same really at this point, because it wasn't like Vritra would ever have a new host.

He was too Scottish to be killed off, and even then, in the bizarro world that it did occur, Vritra could probably leave the Sacred Gear at any point.

...Wait.

'Why are you sticking around actually?' Yarden wondered. Could it be, that Vritra had truly come around to the glory of Scotland and being connected to Scotland's first son?

'Not even close you crazy patriot,' Vritra snorted, 'Let me be clear, before all of this nonsense with the Hero Faction and becoming insane as you are, even if I was not whole at the time, I remember everything since you awakened Blaze Black Flare.'

Yarden's brows furrowed, 'What does that have to do with anything?' he wondered.

'Is your head so full of Scotland you can't even comprehend something so simple you buffoon?' the black dragon scoffed, 'To dumb it down for you, loyalty begets loyalty, I too remember the long nights where your only comfort in your life with the loss of your family was Blaze Black Flare. And remember, I have also seen from your memories just the barest hints of what comes in the future, we are far stronger together, than apart.'

Oh.

So it was something as simple as that in the end.

'Don't underestimate the grandness of something so pure and simple,' Vritra sighed, 'You're a mere fifteen year old brat and as simple as simple comes, yet look how powerful you are, your average god would think twice before fighting you if they knew the extent of your strength.'

Vritra really was so smart! But, he wasn't simple at all! He just embraced his heritage and badassery full heartedly.

'You keep telling yourself that,' he could practically feel Vritra rolling his eyes, 'As it is, we are partners, don't forget that. Besides, if Ddraig could go so far with such a foolish pathetic host, think how far I can with you? Being a Dragon King is much too low for the new Scottish Dragon, don't you think so? I think at the very least, Heavenly Dragon is more apt a level.'

Even as warmth flooded his chest and a wide silly smile splayed across his face, Yarden nodded in agreement, "Aye, aye!" he pumped his black gauntlet clad fist, "As if I could let a mere Ddraig and Albion be thought of as higher ranked than the Scottish Dragon!"

'Exactly,' Vritra laughed, 'Now, enough being a little wimp and asking questions you should already know the answer to. Don't you have a job to do? If I remember correctly, Ddraig's host, the cat girl, the previous holder of one of my fragments and the Sword Birth boy will be trying to hunt the Excalibur Fragments.'

Oh, right!

While he was keeping an eye on things as a favour to Serafall, that wasn't to say there wasn't possible benefits of his own to from this mess, he just had to play his cards right.

With a thought, his wings erupted from his back and Yarden took to the sky, dispelling his barrier as he left.

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Finding the Excalibur hunting crew, wasn't exactly very hard to do at all. Koneko and Kiba had been devils long enough to learn to suppress their aura quite well.

But Issei and Saji? Not so much, pitifully weak as they may have been, the trace of dragon in their auras made them stand out more to his senses.

And it was almost child's play to stay out of the way and watch from afar. Why? Because their sensing abilities were trash.
He could feel Freed and Excalibur Rapidly long before the ones hunting him could. In fact, they didn't even notice until he surprise attacked them and almost did them in.

And my god land of Scotland!

They were so fucking incompetent and weak. They stood back and let Kiba fight him one on one, and the fool was so high on his boner of revenge against a fucking sword that was never even near him before, that he was barely fighting at half his full ability, how much of a fool did you need to be to let your anger impair you that much in a fight?

And then when they did join in, they displayed their sheer lack of experience fighting at all. Issei Hyoudou boosted a bunch of times and Saji managed to catch hold of Freed with his own vastly weaker and inferior, Absorption Line, and stop him in his tracks, even as pitiful as Saji was, his Absorption Line could easily hold up in the face of an attack from an Excalibur Fragment.

…They could have ended it all right then and there, Issei could have killed Freed easily with him pinned with his Dragon Shot and then they could 'destroy' the Excalibur Fragment at their leisure.

…But instead he transferred all his boosted power to Kiba, who then proceeded to make tens of dozens of huge swords erupt out of the ground around Freed, more than half them used to try and cut off an escape route, despite him being pinned down and an easy target.

And fucked it all up because then Valper Galilei showed up and let Freed know how to use the holy energy he'd gotten from the fat little Timmy fondler, enhancing Excalibur Rapidly with it and cutting through the Absorption Line.

It was actually, quite pathetic to watch.

Especially because Irina and Xenovia showed up in those sinfully tight black bodysuits that made them look oh so tasty, and Freed chose that time to book it like a little bitch despite all his tough talk with the speccy fat and ugly former priest.

Irina, Xenovia and revenge boner pretty boy took off chasing after them, but before the others could, Rias Gremory, Akenao Himejima, Sona Sitra and Tsubaki Shinra showed up.

He could have taken the chance to talk to the Gremory Heiress and meet her finally, but, he had better things to do, and she was head over heels for that pleb Hyoudou now anyway, so there was no point.

Too bad for her really, she would have to settle for a subpar little Issei-dick instead of his massive throbbing Scottish dong that would have bred her into a stupor.

Besides, it was almost time for him to step up and gain the first of the benefits he was looking to gain from this silly, silly little debacle.

So, Yarden, with Vritra laughing in his head at the sheer patheticness of Ddraig's host in battle, flew through the air, keeping watch over the three in pursiuit of Freed, making sure to keep his distance for the moment.

It was as he was doing so though, following them through the town and flew above a small river going through the middle of the tower, Vritra gave a startled shout in his head.

'Yarden, quick, stop!' the black dragon king of Scotland shouted, forcing him to abruptly halt mid-air in confusion. Before he could ask what the problem was, Vritra continued, 'Look down!' he ordered.

Doing as his partner said, Yarden looked down at the river, and his eyes immediately locked on a figure sitting at the side of the river atop a chair, a fishing pole in hand.

And his eyes widened as he recognised the figure. Clad in a some casual Japanese kimono fashion, with tan skin, and black and blonde hair.

It was Azazel. And he was looking right up at Yarden with interest.

'But how did I not sense him?' Yarden gaped. Strictly speaking, he was amazing in all forms of combat and he'd extensively trained his sensing abilities growing up as well. And his ability to feel holy power, due to his close connection with it due to his ancestry, was even better.

'He has a barrier around him, a very subtle one, even I almost missed it.' Vritra replied.

Well, if anyone could hide themselves from his senses, this close, Azazel would be a top contender, the guy was real cunning and sneaky at times.

Yarden cast an eye in the direction the three that chased Freed ran off in, before shaking his head.

They weren't even close to finding them. That could change in an instant, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up. He'd known Azazel was in town to examine Issei and shit, but he'd never thought he'd get the chance to meet him this easily.

Flapping his wings, Yarden descended down to the riverbed and landed quickly beside the leader of the Fallen Angels.

"Well, hello there Devil-kun," Azazel greeted him casually, "A lovely night for a little stroll through the air, is it not?"

Yarden smirked, "Yeah, a pretty nice night indeed Azazel," he crossed his arms, "I didn't think I'd be able to run into you any time soon, it seems Scotland truly does favour me."

Azazel gave a slow blink at his words, "Well then…how scary, to have a devil-kun like you with such impressive power at your age wanting to meet little old me," the man hummed, "And you'd think I'd have heard of the devils having another heavy hitter like you around."

"I'm new, just became a devil the other day, the names Yarden Caelan Odhar Wallace, heir to the Wallace bloodline, Queen of Serafall Leviathan and first son of Scotland." Yarden introduced himself.

Azazel coughed, eyebrows rising in surprise, "….Queen of Leviathan huh? And of the Wallace Bloodline too, quite the impressive guy aren't you?" he said, "So what can little ol' me do for such a scary guy?"

"You have something I want." Yarden shrugged.

"Oh?" interest gleamed in Azazel's eyes, and the man leaned forward, "And what would that be?"

In response, with a single thought, Yarden manifested Blaze Black Flare and Delete Field, black gauntlets blazing into existence over his arms and and a long metallic spiky black tail emerging from his backside, "The Sacred Gear Shadow Prison, I know you have it." he declared.

Azazel's eyes widened to massive proportions.