Spear Devil - 028 (Patreon)

[A/N: An extra chapter to lighten the burden of this Monday. Enjoy!]

Chapter 028 – Home Economics Class

[April – 2008]

Slipping into class just moments before Mrs. Ito did, I ignored the rather piercing stares of my classmates, both male and female. And while the girls seemed to be just greatly infatuated, the boys' gazes were filled with hostility and jealousy.

I could easily hear the Perverted Trio curse at me silently but I didn't care either way, though I did greet Kiba with a short nod before placing my stuff down and taking a seat.

The first two periods were history and English respectively, which was just nice as it allowed me to slack off and start reading the introductory book about the Italian language while listening to the class with one ear.

And while the book was roughly three hundred pages thick, when the bell rang to announce the end of the second period, I was already finished with it, my brain feeling comfortably stressed as I remembered every word perfectly.

"What were you reading during class, Akira-kun?", Murayama asked as she approached during the short break while I was just packing my stuff and getting ready for the next period, which was home economics i.e. cooking class.

Grabbing the Italian language book, I held it out for her to see before putting it in my bag too, as I answered: “I was just looking into learning Italian.”

“I-Italian?”, Murayama asked surprised, a curious light in her eyes, “Why do you want to learn Italian?”

“Just thought it might be a nice way to pass time.”, I shrugged as I answered with a smile.

"P-Pass time?", Katase whispered from the side, her eyes wide in apparent shock.

And before either of them could dig any further, Kiba suddenly appeared and addressed me: "Hey Akira, do you want to team up for the cooking class?"

His question seemed to cause a critical hit on the surrounding teenage girls as he didn't deliberately lower his voice, which caused them to stare at me intently, obviously hoping I would decline Kiba's request.

Kiba's eyes though had an almost pleading look in them, even though the smile on his face was still gentle and pleasant.

I understood immediately that he did not want to partner up with any girls as most cooking classes were styled for teams of two and the only other boys in the class were the Perverted Trio, which meant that he was caught between a rock and a hard place.

On one hand, he could spend the entire class with some blushing girl that could probably hardly keep herself from screeching every time he spoke to her, or he would have to spend it with one of the three idiots whose every sentence was filled with desperate obscenity.

My addition to the class though had changed that, and I kind of pitied him for having to endure either, so I answered with a humorous smile: "Sure, though I hope your cooking skills match your swordsmanship, so you won't drag my grades down."

Laughing lightly while visibly relaxing, he answered: "Don't worry, I cook most of my own meals, so I am not totally helpless."

Most of the girls sported a disappointed look, seemingly hoping that we wouldn't get along, even Murayama seemed to be the same, though there were also some whose eyes seemed to shine with an almost demonic light, my sensitive ears picking up on them whispering stuff like 'The dragon has corrupted the prince!' and 'The prince tamed the dragon with his hard sword!'.

It honestly made me shudder and avert my gaze, as I realized the Perverted Trio weren't the worst perverts in this class.

…

In the end, choosing to work with Kiba during home economics had been the right decision, as we simply followed the recipe of which there were four different categories, each of them being distributed to four groups, one for the appetizer, two for the main course, and one for dessert.

We had luckily managed to grab one of the recipes for dessert and had to make sweet potato orange muffins, which I had never even heard of before. It wasn't a traditional Japanese dessert either, but baking something was simple enough, as it was a task of precision and not one where skill and experience were all that important.

We worked mostly in silence but it wasn't an uncomfortable one, and Kiba kept true to his word and proved himself rather capable, which meant we finished up earlier than expected and were allowed to entertain ourselves quietly, as long as we weren't on our phones.

I took the opportunity to start on the book for beginner French, though was interrupted as Kiba addressed me while seating next to me.

“Aren't you curious about what happened to the Fallen?”, he asked with a slightly puzzled look.

“And why would that be?”, I replied, not looking up from the book.

“Well, you told Sitri-san about them in the first place. Don't you want to know what came of it?”, Kiba explained.

“True, but I am not part of the Three Factions. The only way I would care about what happened to the Fallen was if they had targeted me, which they didn't.”, I answered, only partly paying attention.

"They might still do.", Kiba added, causing me to finally look up at him with a raised brow.

“Still? Sitri-san hasn't yet taken care of them?”, I inquired.

"She has. Rias and us even joined her.", Kiba explained with a wry smile, "But one of them got away after severely injuring Sona's Pawn Ruruko Nimura. A rather crazy exorcist called Freed, or at least that was the name we managed to squeeze out of the ones we captured."

[Congratulations you have finished a task. You are rewarded with Spear of Resistance(Blank)(Uncommon).]

[Congratulations you have finished a task. You are rewarded with Durable Spear(Uncommon).]

Immediately after Kiba's words reached my ears, two notifications appeared in my mind, letting me know that I had completed the tasks involving the Fallen, though I pushed them aside as my mind was occupied with something else for the moment.

Frowning, I almost wanted to ask Kiba how they could have been so careless. They clearly had been much more powerful and yet they had still let the other party escape while one of them got severely injured.

"How?", I questioned with a slight rasp to my tone, draconic anger rushing through my veins at their perceived incompetence.

Sighing quietly, Kiba replied: "Sona went in with her peerage alone while asking us to only stay ready and reinforce them if necessary, as well as look out for other possible enemies. But before we even noticed that one of them got injured and before we could react to help them, the exorcist had already escaped."

“Wouldn't Koneko have picked up his scent?”, I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"We were unlucky. It started raining ten minutes before we set out and stopped an hour after the battle had ended.", Kiba answered with a shake of his head, "Still, there was something else you might find interesting."

Raising an eyebrow, I voiced out: "I might? And you are allowed to share all this information with an outsider?"

“Well, if I don't ask for permission then Rias can't really say no.”, he smirked, “Besides you saved me from a rather tedious cooking class, so I feel like I owe you.”

Smiling to myself at his rather easy-going nature, I replied: “So what's so interesting?”

"Well, Sitri-san, Shinra-san, and Akeno used Hypnosis Magic on some of the weaker exorcists, and from what they knew, the Fallen had been waiting for another Sacred Gear user from the Grigori to come to Kuoh Town as reinforcement."

"The exorcists though didn't know anything more specific about the possible reinforcement as the Fallen seemed to have kept most information on that a secret. The only thing they knew was that this Sacred Gear wielder was supposed to arrive sometime during the next two days.", he ended.

Listening to Kiba, I was sure that the Sacred Gear user was undoubtedly Asia, which meant that she would be arriving soon, and with the Fallen dealt with and Freed having fled, she would undoubtedly have nowhere to go.

Now, it seemed that I had to make a decision about approaching the clumsy little nun or not.