Sona Sitri and Rias Gremory frowned heavily as they stared at the document sent to them directly from the underworld.
Normally, they would not be all too concerned about documents coming from their homeland. Most of the time, this was the method used by those old timers down there to inform them of a new Stray Devil spotted in their territory, as well as to inform them of the statistics of their territory as a whole every month through an independent survey.
However, this time, this document did not come to them with that purpose.
Instead, it was direct orders sent to them straight from the four Satans.
That alone sent alarm bells ringing through their minds.
Their siblings never used official seals when sending documents to them or talking to them through magic circles, mainly because they loved them too much to do something like that.
However, this time, the documents contained the official seals of both Sirzechs Lucifer and Serafall Leviathan, which showed how serious this business was.
The contents of the document were just as bizarre.
It talked about two new humans joining their school who should be left to their own devices and not to be meddled with.
Sirzechs even went as far as to warn Rias not to try and recruit them into her peerage, a warning that Serafall sent Sona as well, stoking the curiosity of both teenage devils.
All this happened a day before.
"....So, did you find anything?"
Rias's words made Sona nod seriously.
"I did. I contacted some of the mages under my contracts to investigate the two, and what I found is a intruiging and disturbing in equal amounts."
Sona took out a stack of documents and placed them down in front of Rias, with a familiar girl's photo included in the documents.
"Rin Tohsaka. Daughter of Tokiomi Tohsaka, the famous mage of Grauzauberer, before he defected to the Clock Tower under Zelretch's direction. She is also a promising member of the Clock Tower and specializes in Jewel magic, just like her father."
Rias raised an eyebrow in surprise.
Jewel magic, a relatively new field of magic introduced by Zelretch and the main catalyst which allowed the enigmatic wizard to establish own force in the supernatural world, is considered an extremely difficult form of magic to master.
The entry point for this magic is very low. However, the mastery curve is so high that most practitioners are stuck in the initial stages most of their lives.
It is because of this difficulty that Tokiomi Tohsaka made such a name for himself as one of the few humans who managed to attain a great level of mastery in this branch of magic.
So, it was expected that Rin would also inherit the talents of her father and his sharp tongue, if the way she ruthlessly pressed them for advantages in the negotiations yesterday was anything to go by.
Sona continued speaking as she went through the documents.
"Luviagelita Edelfelt of the Edelfelt family, preferring to go by Luvia Edelfelt, is also a Jewel magic user, but her family mainly uses Jewel magic to circumvent the catalyst and regent issues that arise with using Runes, so they can't be called true practitioners of Jewel magic like the Tohsakas and should be called Rune practitioners, but they are no less dangerous than the Tohsaka."
Rias knew that her best friend spoke the truth.
After all, there are very few human mage families that have earned the respect of the Devils, even if reluctantly. And among these families, the Edelfelts hold a different kind of respect altogether due to their mercenary like tendancies and battle-crazed nature.
It was this nature of theirs that allowed them to kill a High-Class devil and his entire peerage despite being numerically and magically outclassed.
For a moment, Rias was truly tempted to try and recruite these two promising human girls into her peerage. Her greed and desperation stoked at the sight of such power.
Yet, the seals of the Satans on the document poured cold water over her ambitions, reminding her that even her brother would not stand by her side if shit hits the fan due to her actions in this matter.
Not to mention that the master of the Clock Tower is a truly enigmatic being that nobody wants to cross.
What happened to Rizevim Livan Lucifer was proof enough that Zelretch is not someone to be messed with.
"Damnit! Such promising Peerage member candidates, and I have to sit on my thumbs without even trying."
"As if you were going to try anything. Don't you always just wait for your 'luck' to drop your peerage members into your lap?"
"Hey!"
At Sona's flat stare, Rias at least had the decency to blush in embarrassment and look away, unable to refute her friend's words.
"Tell me, Rias. When was the last time you actually trained? And I am not talking about that stupid thing where you exercise a little and play around with the Power of Destruction and call it training. I mean actual training."
"....."
"That's answer enough."
Sona sighed before leaning back into her seat.
Sona loved her friend, there was no doubt about it. However, she also hated how Rias lamented about her situation yet did nothing to change it.
A child of the Gremory clan, sister of the strongest devil in recorded history, cousin of the monster of effort known as Sairaorg Bael, related by blood to two of the oldest devils to ever exist in the form of Zekram Bael and Runeas Gremory, the only two surviving original devils in modern times.
Even one of these inheritances would be enough for a devil from lesser clans to celebrate and work their ass off to maximize their power. Yet, here she was, wasting away all that potential.
In fact, it was not just Rias who did things like this. Most of the devils of their generation from the pillar families wasted their potential just like her, something that Sona refused to do, even though she did not have as impressive a bloodline as her sister, with the Sitri family not having many noteworthy members in the past, with her sister being the anomaly instead of the norm, unlike Rias's family.
Watching the depressed look on Rias's face, Sona sighed again, her hard gaze softening considerably.
"....Anyways, speaking of Peerage members, I think I've finally found who has been going around killing Stray Devils around here."
Finally, Rias turned up from her self-pity and looked at Sona, who turned around her laptop to show footage recorded through one of the many magically enhanced cameras across the school.
"Last night, the cameras around the track recorded this."
"Hold on! Weren't we supposed to keep out of the Clock Tower business yesterday, according to the deal we had with Tohsaka?"
Sona's serious persona finally cracked, showing a rare grin on the Sitri girl's face.
"The deal said that we will keep out of Clock Tower business and turn off all our magical surveillance systems around the track, but it did not say anything about mundane cameras that are slightly enhanced with magic."
"...Devious. I like it! So, what did you find?"
"See for yourself."
The video played, showing Rin and Illyasviel von Einzbern, much to Rias's surprise, before they disappeared through some kind of teleportation magic.
However, what caught Rias's attention was what happened afterwards.
Shadows twisted before falling away, revealing a man wearing black body armor, a crimson shroud with a hood that hid his features completely, and black combat boots.
The way he held himself showed that he is a combat veteran despite the countless gaps in his guard.
Then, suddenly, a strange ceremonial dagger manifested in his hand, and the shadows surged again, allowing the man to disappear before two figures ran in.
Matching the photo in the documents, Rias realized that this was Luvia Edelfelt, while the black-haired girl by her side was unknown to them.
Then, they too disappeared from the area when the shadows once again twisted, and the man appeared again, this time trying to follow Luvia and her companion at blinding speeds, yet failed.
What happened afterward sent a chill down Rias's spine.
An old man with white hair, beard, and crimson eyes appeared and took the unknown man away.
However, before he left, his crimson eyes stared straight into the cameras with a mischievous grin.
"....is that...?"
"Zeretch. There is no doubt about it. I have cross-referenced that face with the few images we have of him."
Sona's serious stare fell on Rias.
"While his presence here raises several worrying questions, what is more important is the identity of our mysterious man."
Sona typed in a few commands, reversing the footage to the timestamp where the cameras caught the front profile of the man.
"I have gone through the wards around the school to find out who he is. Since none of the supernatural species detectors were tripped, he is a pure human. Since the age restrictions were not activated, he is not someone above the age of forty, and neither is he a member of the staff, since the D.N.A recognition wards did not detect him. That means we are looking at a man who is under the age of forty, not a part of the staff, but knows the school so perfectly that he was able to go from the gates to the track through the most efficient route that only those who have spent at least a whole semester here would know."
Rias nodded her head at that.
"A student then?"
"Yes. And given that the male population in the school is very low, I have managed to narrow down the suspects to a handful of people. But my money is on two people in particular."
Sona showed the profiles of the two boys, making Rias's eyes widen considerably.
"Issei Hyoudou, and Shirou Emiya?"
Sona nodded.
"Issei Hyoudou is someone who knows the school like the back of his hand, even more than us, which is quite embarrassing for us to admit, thanks to his usual activities. Not to mention that his build is similar to what is shown in the video."
"As for Shirou Emiya, the reasons are the same as Hyoudou, but more importantly, for some reason, my instincts are screaming that he is that man in crimson."
"Hm. What do we do?"
".... Well, I was planning on inviting them individually to my office and see if I can't squeeze some clues out of them. If my guess is right, I might extend an invitation-"
"I call dibs on Hyoudou."
Sona sighed exasperatedly at Rias's words.
"Rias-"
"Look, Sona, you have your gut feeling, and I have mine. And right now, my gut is telling me that Issei Hyoudou is someone worth keeping an eye on."
".....Fine. But fair warning, he is a rather, unpleasent, boy."
"If it is about his perversion, don't worry about it."
Rias smiled amusedly.
"I think it's kind of cute that he expresses himself so openly like that."
This time, Sona really frowned heavily at Rias's hypocrisy.
She hated Riser Phenex, calling him a leech and perverted bastard, yet, when Issei Hyoudou expressed similar characteristics, she called him cute.
What was her criterion for differentiating the two? What made one unappealing, and the other tolerable? Sona did not know and could not be bothered to investigate lest she lose even more brain cells, given how many nonsensical actions Rias has taken in the long years Sona has known her.
Rias finally came back to reality from whatever fantasy she was imagining while Sona sighed exasperatedly.
"So, we have a deal then?"
"Whatever. But, if you are going after Hyoudou, you should know that he is already marked by other parties, right?"
Rias face tightened up as she glared at the laptop.
"...Yeah. I know. I've had Koneko follow that bitch yesterday, but she got away somehow. Those damned crows are really brazen, barging into our territory like this and even trying to ensnare one of the students from the school."
"Hm. I'll send out my familiars as well. The sooner we find that Fallen and whoever else is with her, the better. We can't have them show up on the next month's evaluation report lest our reputations go down the drain."
"Fine. I guess I'll go home and rest for a bit."
Watching her friend leave, Sona sighed again and shook her head, going back to reading up on Shirou Emiya's file.
A file that had conspicuous gaps before he was seven years old, when he was adopted by Kiritsugu Emiya and Irisviel von Einzbern from the local orphanage. An orphanage that was created a year before Shirou's admittance and was dismantled a year after he was adopted, with its founders disappearing into thin air as if they and the orphanage never existed to begin with.
His DNA did not match any known records in the Japanese registry, indicating that either his birth family did not have any records themselves, or they did not exist in Japan at all. And neither did this town of Kuoh have any records of his birth family ever existing either, raising several questions on how the boy even arrived here in the first place.
It was as if he suddenly appeared out of thin air one day and ended up at the orphanage. Then, adopted by one of the most dangerous humans on Earth and his homunculus wife, a short two months after appearing in the orphanage.
No matter how Sona looked at it, his circumstances were extremely mysterious and suspicious.
"....Just who are you? Shirou Emiya?"
With those thoughts dominating her mind, Sona left the school and headed back home.
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Author Notes: Read 5 chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/Ruijard1