Beyond Critical - Chapter 8.2 (Patreon)

Irina ended up crying herself to sleep once more. Which, was probably for the best.

It was good for her to get some rest after the ordeal they both went through and having her entire world view turned upside down before shattered completely.

The only problem was, Kaito didn't exactly have another futon that he could use. Hell, he didn't even have a spare pillow or cover for that matter.

And with it being very late at night by time they returned to his place, never mind by time Irina awoke and then cried herself back to sleep…well there wasn't exactly any shops open he could pop over to buy any extras.

So, as it was, Kaito didn't bother going to sleep through the night. And come morning, he was absolutely exhausted.

"My eyes look like a dogs bollocks." he groaned as he looked himself over in the bathroom mirror.

Usually, an all nighter wouldn't really be a problem. He had endurance for days after all.

The problem being, he spent all that endurance fighting for his life last night and hadn't gotten any proper rest since then.

"…Fuck…" he groaned, turning away from the mirror and leaving the bathroom. There was no way he was going to school today.

Not only was he exhausted. But, he had a house guest he couldn't exactly just leave alone right now and on top of that, his magic power had jumped rather noticeably since yesterday after his little dragon organ stunt.

A bit over fifty percent by his estimates.

Which meant even more reason for the devils to take interest in him. And he honestly could not be bothered dealing with all the eyes on him today.

And that wasn't even getting into the…other little problem that had come about due to his actions last night.

'My perfect attendance record.' Kaito almost whimpered as he began rifling through his fridge to prepare breakfast.

Some food would at least give him a little pick-me-up.

His shoulders slumped and with a sigh he looked over to his cupboard, where a familiar dark coloured blade lay leaning against it, alongside a gleaming white katana, "Stupid Cadre." he clicked his tongue.

Stupid church.

…Stupid ugly flat Sona.

Look, just because she had nothing to do with what happened last night, didn't mean he couldn't curse her in his head.

His futon had been rolled up and packed away for now and Irina was nowhere in sight.

Which was because currently, the girl was outside his apartment with his phone.

Reporting back to her superiors.

"I bet that will go swimmingly." he snorted at the thought and shook his head. He put that thought out of head for the moment, before deciding on a simple cereal breakfast, he couldn't be bothered cooking anything this morning.

….Not very fulfilling though, "Fuck it, I need me some protein." he decided, and after pulling out his milk, grabbed his crappy blender and cheap ass big bag of protein powder.

A nice vanilla flavour that had only cost him five thousand yen and he'd had it for a year at this point and still had a quarter left.

Mostly due to his amazing self control in only using it after work outs. But, for now, he would allow himself not only to have it on a day where he hadn't worked out yet, but also…make it with milk!

"What an expensive breakfast, but It's a reward for myself." he consoled himself.

Actually….!

"Shit, I missed the gym yesterday as well!" his eyes widened in realisation…and shock!

Fucking supernatural man!

Yesterday, as far as gains went. Was a net loss for him. Or at least, he was working on that theory.

There was more than one reason why he hadn't wanted to transform his body parts into that of a dragons beyond more attention from the devils. It was because, he was very sure, that the stronger he became, the more of a boost he would gain.

It was simple math. Take what he gained yesterday. His magic power increased by roughly fifty percent or so, maybe a bit more. If he measured his magic numerically and said he had a magic power score of a thousand…he now had one of one thousand and five hundred.

But, say he had a numerical magic score of ten thousand. If he had done it then, and increased his magic power by fifty percent, it would rise to fifteen thousand.

So, if he was right, which Kaito was very sure he was, it was in his better interests to hold off doing such a thing, until he was stronger. That way, he would gain much more out of it.

So yes, it was a loss for him in the end.

"Being a good guy sucks ass." he groaned as he loaded the protein powder up into his blender, alongside milk.

Enough for two people.

Because he had a guest after all and he couldn't not show such basic common courtesy.

Thankfully, with him just making such a simple breakfast, it didn't take long before he had two bowls filled with some nice and healthy bran cereal and a two glasses filled with lovely, milky vanilla protein goodness alongside them, set up on the table.

Just in time too.

Because, as soon as he set the breakfast down on the table, the door to his apartment opened up and Irina made her way back inside.

She had…a rather confused look on her face.

"Everything go alright?" he asked, getting straight to the point. Honestly, there wasn't any point beating around the bush and it would be better to get right to the heart of the issue if any problems were going to crop up.

Irina blinked, "…Kind of?" she replied, before shrugging, "I got ex-communicated because I know Lord God is dead now."

….Yeah, he saw that coming.

"Guess you're out of a job, sorry about that," he winced in sympathy. He felt for her man, really he did, she'd planned on dedicating her life to God and his faction and now in a single day, she'd been cut loose, and it was probably worse for her considering her family had been with the Church for multiple generations if he remembered right, "What about the swords? Are they sending someone to come get them."

Irina shook her head, "That's what I don't get," she replied and looked him in the eyes, her gem-like purple iris' swirling with clear confusion, "They told me to keep a hold of them and that they couldn't risk a true believer coming in to contact with me because I know the truth now."

….What the….fuck?

Were they fucking stupid?

Like, he understood…to a degree when it came to letting Irina go. But, just cutting ties with not only Excalibur Mimic but Arondight!? Giving up such powerful weapons?

Arondight, that sword itself was bullshit overpowered! And Excalibur Mimic wasn't anything to scoff at either from what he saw last night.

"Are they retarded?" He couldn't even attempt to conceal his disdain for them. Like, what the absolute fuck?

"I don't know," Irina shrugged again, "But that reminds me…" she trailed off.

"Wha-?" Kaito began to asking, but was cut off as the older twin tailed girl walked over to him and threw her arms around his neck.

Before leaning up and pressing her lips against his.

Kaito was stunned silly for a moment, staring wide eyed down at Irina and before he could regain his faculties, she pulled back, cheeks flushed red and a pretty smile on her face, "That's your reward from last night, thanks for everything Kaito-kun." she said, voice light and warm.

Oh….oh right!

"Oh...thanks…" he coughed to hide his shock.

And of course, that single cough ruined the moment as the side effect of his decision last night made itself known to him once again. Irina yelped and dove to the side on pure reflex as a sphere of dragon fire erupted from his mouth and slammed into his front door.

"No, my door!" Kaito yelped himself and panicked, rushing towards it and promptly slapping the the dragon fire out of existence, and burning his hand lightly in the process.

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Thankfully there, despite it being dragon fire, which was way hotter and more destructive than your typical average fire, there was hardly any magical energy within it so beyond making a scorch mark on his door, he slapped the fire shit in before it did any real damage.

But that was only because, he'd been draining his magic power all night long after his new little self control problem made itself known.

….To be exact, Kaito couldn't currently control his dragon fire and breathed it by accident, quite a bit.

Until he learned to control it, he was going to have to drain his magic power constantly. Lest he be caught literally breathing fire in public.

And that was only the beginning. Because, if he didn't learn to control it and let it build up, his body would start to fully go through dragonification and turn him into a full dragon.

"I didn't know you could breathe fire!" Irina was practically all sparkly eyed though as they sat down at the table with the breakfast, "You should have did that to Satanael last night, would'a sure given him a surprise."

"I couldn't until last night," Kaito shrugged, "After you passed out I knew there was no way I could beat him myself, so I used my Sacred Gear to turn my organs into that of a dragons." he explained.

"Eh?" Irina gave him a confused look, "Sacred Gear's can do that?"

"Only dragon ones I think," he ran a hand through his hair and gave her a small grin, "It's a bit of a pain, but you could say that the blood of the Red Dragon Emperor runs in my veins now, and my organs are made from his flesh and it's why I can breathe fire now."

"It's weird, but totally cool at the same time," she giggled, "It's almost like how devils can turn other races into theirs for their thingie."

"Kind of, though on that topic," Kaito's lips quirked up, "Did you know Satanael's big plan was to heal himself by turning himself into a devil? He boasted it to me last night before I beat him."

"Eh, no way!" she gasped.

From there, as they ate, he explained to the twin tailed girl how things ended up in the end with Satanael and how he defeated him.

"The one thing I don't really get though," Kaito shook his head, "Is how I could wield Arondight. Does that mean I'm a holy sword user or something? Or have some compatibility with it at least? Cuz every time I tried to pick up Excalibur Mimic it zapped me."

With light at that, it stung like a bitch. He'd had to wrap his jacket around it to carry it back.

"Mmm, that's cuz of how it became a Holy-Demonic sword apparently and it's why Satanael could wield it as well from what I got told," Irina pointed her spoon at him after taking a mouthful of cereal as she explained, "Apparently the sword is infected with Lancelot's madness after he betrayed King Arthur and because of that, the sword itself can't even recognise its wielders, so anyone can use it now."

"…Huh."

Anyone included him if last night was anything to go by. Which, could be interesting considering what he learned to do last night with his Twice Critical's.

Something to think on later-

For now though, with the more pleasant side of things out in the open, he had one more thing to ask her, "What will you do now?" Kaito asked.

Irina paused as she was about to take another spoonful of cereal, before letting go of the spoon and sighing, "…I don't know to be honest," she replied, giving him a half smile, but there was nothing happy about it, "I can't go to my parents, they're both part of the church, so if I do, they'll get ex-communicated as well, and I don't really have anything but the clothes on my back and well…the swords."

Well, that was really bad. She literally had nowhere to go, huh? And the clothes on her back, were literally a skin tight body suit that had the stomach area burned away.

"I could maybe pay a visit to the Hyoudou's?" she mused lightly, "They were good friends with my parents a long time ago when we lived here and I used to be best friends with Issei-kun."

Kaito grimaced instinctively at the name drop.

Hell to the fucking no.

"Issei Hyoudou, same age as you?" he questioned, even if he already knew, "Brown hair, brown eyes, kinda scrawny?"

"Well it's been a while since I saw him so I wouldn't know how he's built, but he is the same age as me and has brown hair and eyes," she nodded, "Yeah, that's him I guess."

"Then you won't want anything to do with him," Kaito told her bluntly, making her give him a confused look, "I know the guy, he goes to my school. He's a total freak who constantly harasses and peeps on pretty girls, honestly the guy should be on a sex offender list. And on top of that, I'm pretty sure he got recruited by Rias Gremory a few days ago."

"…Oh…" Irina uttered softly, before frowning, "So Issei-kun turned out like that, huh? That's….disappointing."

"I've had to chase the guy and his perverted buddies off from harassing other girls a bunch of times, sorry to disappoint you." he gave her a sympathetic smile.

Was it manipulative of him? Yes? Did he care? No.

There was no way in fucking hell, he was risking his life for a girl, only to send her off into the arms of that fucking perverted retard.

Though on that topic, it did make him remember that there was a certain someone in Rias' peerage, that absolutely hated Holy Swords with a manic passion.

'Great, I'll have to deal with him in the future. Lovely.' he grimaced. Hell, from what he remembered, if he saw an exorcist with a Holy Sword out and about, he'd attack first and ask questions later.

Which would end up with him either murdering Irina to destroy her sword if he came across her. Or her killing him and drawing the rage of the Gremory clan.

Issues upon fucking issues man.

Honestly, there was really only one option here, wasn't there? "You can stay here with me if you want." he offered.

She perked up, "Really?" she lit up, before wilting almost immediately and casting a look around his apartment, "Are you sure?…You're having trouble as it is yourself."

She wasn't wrong.

"I'm sure," Kaito nodded instantly. A man should stand firm on decisions like this, "Besides, I've got some savings packed away."

It wasn't like he wasn't already preparing long in advance before he started to attend Kuoh after all and got paid a stipend and was allowed this apartment due to his scholarship. But, he'd been running odd jobs since he was a kid and even had a part time job all the way through middle school

…And, while he didn't really relish the thought. There were….other alternatives to money when once had become supernaturally powerful and could now move faster than a human eye could track.

Which he now could at his at maximum strength after last night.

"Ah," Irina's smile returned, wholly bashful this time, "Thanks Kaito-kun."

….He only had one problem.

'How the hell will I explain this to Yanagi?' he thought in dread.

Maybe he could sell Satanael's clothes? The shirt and jacket had been ruined, but his pants and shoes were still freaking Armani, he could probably get a good few hundred thousand yen for them.

'No, fuck that!' he decided right then and there. He was going to wear them himself, he was about the same height as Satanael, so they should fit…hopefully.

Hopefully the dead Cadre rotting in his Sacred Gear didn't have tiny feet.