"Come on!" Ise called out to us as he ran ahead of us. "That was Irina screaming! She must be in trouble!"
"Mitelt, go ahead to scout!" I called out to the girl who merely nodded and flew higher to get a better vantage point. "Ise, as discussed I will be providing mid-range support. You need to get them out of there and try to move those fallen exorcists to an open area so that I can bombard them."
"On it!" Ise gave a thumbs up to acknowledge as he sped up. I followed for a few more meters before jumping onto one of the roofs of the nearby buildings and made my way to one of the taller buildings in the area. Once there, I set my sights on Ise who was now a couple of street blocks away from the fight.
"I am the bone of my sword."
A bow and a sword appeared in my hands while I focused on the situation in front of me. Ise wasn't kidding about the enemies being skilled; both of them were able to handle several opponents on their own without issue, and their teamwork was solid compared to the rather eye-itching cooperation that was going on with Ise's group and the female exorcists, and they were paying the price by having one of the swords taken away by them. Even as I watched, one of them seemed to have conducted a teleportation spell to move both their shard and the stolen shard elsewhere.
"My steel is twisted, my soul is fragile, and my core is distorted."
The sword in my hand rapidly twisted and lengthen to form an arrow with angry barbs running along the length of the shaft. I notched it to the bowstring and pulled it back while confirming the distance. Just in the nick of time, Ise had arrived and seemingly managed to convince the others to leave quickly, leaving me plenty of room for target practice.
"Fire one." I muttered while releasing the string.
"BOOMM!"
...
"SHIT!" Creed swore as he ducked for cover. "I don't recall the Fourth of July being celebrated in Japan!"
"It seems we have someone crashing the party." Lyle emptied his cartridges and reloaded his gun before checking his sword. "I estimate roughly ten minutes before the others come along, so we need to decide whether to attempt taking Excalibur Destruction or leave now to minimize our losses."
"Good thing you kept a lookout for this type of attacks, I got too carried away with the devil." Creed knocked his head with his hand.
Lyle sighed in reply as he peeked from his location. He knew something was wrong when the dragon user returned to the battlefield only to call the others away for safety. He looked around in time to spot a brief flash of light before he dashed forward to grab Creed by the collar and dragged him away to avoid the explosion that set off every vehicle in the area.
"We might as well see the face of the one who came late for this party." Creed peered from his side only to pull his head back to avoid an arrow to the face. "WHOA! That was a close one!"
"Time to say hi." Lyle placed the magnum back into his holster before reaching back to his coat and taking out the Desert Eagle he had brought along for the mission. He took a few deep breaths before grabbing a piece of broken steel from the nearby wreckage and throwing it to the side to distract whoever it was shooting at them. The sight of the projectile hitting the steel gave him the chance to jump out of cover and aimed the gun straight at the last place he saw the flash.
"Bang." Lyle muttered while pulling the trigger.
"BANKG!"
...
"Damn!" I blinked as I looked at the damage behind me. The rooftop access that I had used as a makeshift protection was reduced to a smoldering rubble. I knew that I was in trouble the moment I took a glimpse at the gun that guy pulled out in front of me; in that brief second, the information came to me and I found myself dashing to the side in time to avoid the white ball of energy that was aimed for my head and ducking for cover when it hit the wall and blew up spectacularly.
I had no time to admire the damage, because I could see the gunslinger aiming again to fire another round. Considering how much of an explosion that was from the distance covered, I had to get closer to stop him using the gun. I immediately jumped off the building in time to avoid the second shot, landing on the rooftop of the next building and started jumping towards the shooter while firing off several swords at him. Despite the severity of the situation, I could not help the corner of my mouth lifting at the challenge ahead of me.
Time to go hunting.
...
"Here he comes." Lyle holstered the Desert Eagle and took out both the sword and his other gun as he watched with narrow eyes. "It seems to be one person doing all of this."
"Hmm, that is some serious speed he has. I think he is as fast as you." Creed commented while watching the figure getting closer by the second. "Those projectiles though, he seems to be using swords as makeshift arrows. Is that even possible?"
"One way to find out." Lyle got into a stance only to pause briefly as his eyes focused on the individual coming to him.
'The person from the academy, the one who made the shards react weirdly…' Lyle narrowed his eyes as he focused his attention on him. It seemed that it was not a coincidence that he was at the academy, this was an unknown factor to be dealt with. Lyle leapt forward in time to intercept the red-haired teenager and used his gun to block a strike from a white scimitar.
And thus, the first meeting between the Magus Killer and the Church Slayer began on the battlefield.
...
That settled it. My luck stats were definitely E-Rank.
These two fallen exorcists were clearly used to dealing with any type of combat situations, since even my surprise attacks did little to distract them from me. The gunslinger in particular seemed more determined to come after me, most likely to stop me from using my arrows on them. Even as I moved away to make distance, he continued to come after me quickly, ensuring that he was close enough to hit me if possible.
"HAHAHAH! Don't forget about me!" The white-haired individual from before came up on my behind and swung the double-bladed light sword at me. I quickly projected a sword right behind my back to block it, concentrating my attention on the gunslinger who took the opportunity to aim the gun at me. I blocked the shot aimed for my head and aimed Kanshou for the leg, only to be blocked by his shot. I swung Bakuya at his arm only to be blocked by his gun, which he used to push it out of the way before aiming it at my leg. I immediately jumped up to aim a kick for his head, but he quickly caught the foot with the hilt of his sword while switching his aim back to my head. I quickly twisted my position to hit his head before getting back to a stance.
Great, of all the people I could go against, I had to go against someone who uses gun kata as the combat style. That was practically a different version of my fighting style! It was cheating!
"Shirou! Get ready!" Ise's shout was my saving grace as the gunslinger briefly looked to the direction of his voice, giving me the chance to throw both my swords and leapt away to safety.
"He's clear! Let them have it!" The area lit up brightly as light spears filled the sky above us. The two fallen exorcists looked up with widened eyes before the light spears dropped down on them with the fury of heaven.
"BOOM! BKLH! ROAH!"
I quickly got into cover as the first of many spears made contact with the ground and exploded spectacularly in the area. That set off the next few spears and blew up the surrounding trees and the canal nearby. Within seconds, the entire area was getting completely pulverized by the light spears.
"Nice timing." I commented as Ise made his way to me and the explosions continued on for a short while.
"No problem." Ise gave a thumbs up while looking over his cover. "I think we got them, but we better keep this up for a while."
"Mind filling me in on our two guests?" I asked as the others came to our side.
"The gunslinger you were fighting with is Lyle Wallner, the creep with the white-hair is Creed Diskenth. They are here trying to hide from the group of exorcists because they stole some Excalibur Shards from the various churches in their group. Creed is using one of them called Excalibur Transparency to fight us earlier."
"I doubt the sword that guy is holding right now is an Excalibur."
"That man is arrogant in thinking that he did not need the sword to fight us after stealing Mimicry away from us." The blue-haired girl called Xenovia grabbed her sword tightly as she looked at the exploding grounds. "I hate to admit it, but he is good."
"Well with any luck, that should take care of them right?" Ise remarked before pausing at me. "Shirou, why did you just face palmed?"
"… Ise, did you forget my lesson?" I asked in a strained tone.
"Huh?"
"BROORAR!" A sound resembling thunder resounded loudly and momentarily silenced everything else as a red ball of energy shot out of the torrent of light spears and barely grazed Mitelt, surprising her and halting her onslaught. In that moment, I could see the glimmer of a barrier where the exorcists were, and once the spears stopped we could see the gunslinger standing up with the Desert Eagle equipped in his hand.
"… Never say the job is done until you do all the checks." Koneko said flatly.
Yup.
...
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