A Nascent Kaleidoscope.

Chapter 264: Chapter 248

Yasaka grimaced slightly, letting out a sigh. "I don\'t know much. The only official response from the devils is that Lady Gremory and Millicas – Lucifer\'s son, had gone missing. There are lots of rumors and hearsay that accompany it."

"And that\'s a complete bullshit answer." I snorted.

"Without a doubt." Yasaka didn\'t deny it. "It makes them sound more in control than saying that they were kidnapped or taken. There are several rumors, some ranging wildly from Hades being the one who ordered it, to the Angels. The more sane ones tend to point towards the Old Satan Faction like I said before."

I couldn\'t help myself and started pacing around the room.

"Wilhelm, are you okay?" There was a hint of concern in her voice. "You seem oddly invested for not even knowing them, especially after.....everything."

"I know it\'s weird." I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "It\'s just...for the first time I\'ve really thought about the fact that I have a half-brother. I knew about him, even when Okita mentioned him before, but I guess it really sunk in at this point. He simply existed before, now....it\'s like he\'s real to me and....." I stopped my pacing, looking at her. "He\'s Kunou\'s age...."

I\'s probably projecting Kunou\'s own situation onto him as well, which didn\'t help matters.

Her eyes softened considerably. "The rumors about the Old Satan Faction are more or less verified in my eyes. The fact that many of their.....holdings have been utterly demolished in the last few hours speaks volumes on how the Satan\'s are seeing things."

"Should I even do anything?" I asked, wanting some advice. Was it appropriate for me to meddle in this mess again?

"Politically, probably not. Morally and realistically.....well, I think you\'re a good man and will help out just because you can." Yasaka replied with a smile. "You\'re the same man who saved our Kunou, who helped out my people when they were in trouble."

"So, what do we know?" I pulled up a seat on the other side of her desk.

"Surprisingly, much more than the Devils do." Yasaka smirked. "I\'ve gotten quite a bit of information out of our prisoners. The Hero Faction was a sub-faction under the umbrella of a faction known as the \'Khaos Brigade\'. And that\'s Khaos with a \'K\'."

I ran my hand down my face. "So stupid."

"I know." Yasaka sighed.

"I think I remember a few things about them. A mix of Devils and others that wanted war or something?" I was thinking about my inherited memories. While fractured in some places, they did provide some context for a suprising amount of things. "Which means the Old Satan Faction."

"Right on the money." Yasaka nodded. "Old Satan Faction is one of the pillars of the group, or so I\'m told. And the Devils should be more or less in the dark about them currently, so they\'re looking in all the wrong places."

"The Dimensional Gap." I breathed out. "I vaguely remember their bases being located there."

"You\'re right once again. The Hero Faction also had their base in the Dimensional Gap, and they knew the location of one of the other faction\'s bases that they interacted with."

"Unlikely that this specific base will be the one out of many that they tossed their prisoners in." I leaned back in my seat. "And despite how idiotic they seem on the surface, the fact that the hero Faction only knows collectively about one other base means there\'s likely a suppression on information even among their own numbers." I tapped on her desk, thinking about my best course of action.

"All valid concerns. But there\'s a simple method that\'s presenting itself." The corners of Yasaka\'s lips curled up.

"I\'ve always subscribed to the idea that the simplest methods are usually the correct ones." I matched her smirk. "There has to be someone at the base who knows something, or another base somewhere else. So that leaves me with the most direct and simplest method of all."

"Keep knocking them down until you find Lady Gremory and her Grandson?"

"Bingo." I snapped my fingers.

"I don\'t think I need to say it, but I will just because I care and worry about you. Please be careful of that Dragon that has made the Dimensional Gap its home..."

"Yeah." I grimaced. "Going to stay away from the big fuck-off dragon that is conceptually made up of humanities dreams. As interesting as it would be to meet such an entity, I\'d rather stay far away, unless Meridia is in slapping distance."

That dragon was fucking terrifying, even as reality defying amalgamation of fuck you I am now. I could maybe survive a hostile encounter with it if I didn\'t depend on my Magic to run away immediately. And even then, to what extent could its abilities reach? Does its dream aspect mean it can access the Kaleidoscope if it wished?

That\'s not a question I want answered when a Dragon that can destroy the planet is chasing after me.

Definitely staying far away from that thing.

Thankfully, it seemed content to just keep to its own little part of the Dimensional Gap. The space that exists around all dimensions tied to this world. Sorta like a buffer for all the attached realms like Olympus, Takamagahara, Asgard, and even the various underworlds. It could be looked at like the ocean with each \'realm\' acting as a land mass to put it into perspective.

"So you have the coordinates?" I finally asked.

"Of course." She replied instantly. "I didn\'t think I would have any use for this information so soon. I was keeping it for some potential negotiations at some point, but I think this is a more productive use." She began to rummage around in her desk until she took out a little booklet. "Lets see, I wrote down the teleportation coordinates here, will these suffice?" She pushed it towards me.

"These are perfect." I quickly memorized them.

"Are you going to go alone?" She asked, there was a hint of concern that flashed across her face.

"I think everyone else is busy at the moment." I tapped my chin. Jinn, Scáthach, and Raikou should still be playing with Kunou still and I don\'t want her fun to be interrupted. Artoria was with Rin over in Skyrim, as was Meridia. And for obvious reasons, neither Yasaka nor Merida would be coming along for something like this. I could ask Mordred or one of the others, but I don\'t think I\'d need it, besides..... "I won\'t be alone." I smiled brightly, taking out my hat, letting my companion jump out. "I have all the backup I need."

Yasaka lowered herself to look at my familiar in the eyes. "I\'m counting on you to take care of my man, Sir Wiggles."

My rabbit just twitched its nose in response.

"Oh, and Wilhelm." Yasaka sat back up, her expression shifted from amusement to something resembling disgust. "These people are the worst sort. There\'s no need to hold back on your....methods."

"Don\'t worry." I waived my hand to the side, a cascade of a myriad colors filled the room. "I never intended to." I flashed her one last smile before leaping through with my Familiar on my head.

***

I landed softly on a floating chunk of earth. This place was.....disorientating for the uninitiated. There was a reason it looked similar to applications of my Magic. A regular person would die within moments of stepping in here. The concepts intertwined with this place made it the anti-thesis of life. The nothingness that enveloped every inconceivable corner of this strange space.

To just persist int his environment, you needed to ward away the concepts with some manner of mystical power. Be it, Touki, Demonic Power, or even Magical Energy. They could all stave off the consumption and destruction that clamps down on every living being.

My Aura flared around me protectively. I had other methods, but I was fine to let my Aura shoulder the \'burden\' as it were.

Sir Wiggles, as befitted his position, didn\'t even notice the effects as his Aura flared instinctively.

I looked down upon the target of my ire. I tweaked the calculations a little bit so I wouldn\'t fall literally right ontop of the base.

I could see a large barrier around it, anchored to another, larger, floating rock.

There was the thought to just unleash a full power Ether Canon right into it.....but I needed information. So...it looked like I would be getting my hands dirty.

"Sir Wiggles." I patted his head. "Your job is to destroy any Teleportation Arrays around the base, and not their counterparts coordinates." I also sent my thoughts through our mental link to better help him understand. Even if they were destroyed, I was confidant I would able to trace them to their designated target in case they lead to another base. Otherwise, it was to stop people from running away.

I doubted anyone here was like me and could navigate this place with the same ease my magic granted me. I could only image the intense calculations needed to set up permanent Teleportation points in this place.

Letting my wings come out, I glided down to the edge of the barrier. I hovered my hand over it, getting a good look at what I was working with. While I would normally just say fuck it and blow my way inside, I didn\'t want any runners too soon so...slightly stealthy it was.

"Feim." I whispered the Dragon Language as my body became ethereal and was enveloped in lightning. With ease, I passed through the barrier without any warnings going off.

"Shoddy work." I muttered, shaking my head. It didn\'t even ward off intangible enemies. Frankly, that\'s just bad foresight. That was standard practice back home where such things were nearly nonexistent in the greater world, much less here where you can literally call up a ghost if you wanted.

"Sir Wiggles, you\'re up." I looked up at him. Without another thought, he rocketed off my head with a crackle of lightning, disappearing towards the building.

I had confidence he would find a way inside easily with his size. Afterall, it was clear that this barrier was mostly used to make this place habitable in this strange place.

Well, may as well go knock on the front door~

It was only a small walk to the other side of the large building. There were even guards, though they looked like they were about to go asleep.

I didn\'t even make myself scarce when they jumped to their feet as they saw me approach.

"HALT!" One of them shouted, a spear in his hands. He leveled it at me. "Who are you, how did you get here?"

"Did you guys not get the update?" I questioned as I took a few more steps forward. "Come on, I\'m the new guys." I pointed at myself.

They glanced at each other. "We weren\'t told about a new person coming." I saw his hands tighten around his spear.

"For fucks sake." I face palmed. "How else would I know how to get here and walk right through the barrier?" I made my eye roll visible to them.

They relaxed slightly, as they seemingly thought that over. The spear wielder scratched his head. "Yeah? I guess that makes sense. Stay here, I\'ll go get the boss."

"Wait." I called out.

"You need something?" He eyed me.

"Yeah, you forgot my sword." I smiled towards him as Dawnbreaker flew out of my ring and pierced right into his heart.

The other one, the one who had been silent nearby, his eyes widened as he tried to gather his Demonic Power to actualize a spell.

"Don\'t worry, I got plenty to share." My other swords flashed out at all angles, running him through, the one through the lung caused a spray of blood out of his mouth when he gave a half cough half death rattle.

Never even heard a single word from start to finish.

"Now lets see..." I walked up to the spear-wielder\'s now lifeless body and rummaged through his clothes. "Ah hah!" I took out a little Talisman-like device and crushed it. "Figured they\'d have some way to remotely trigger any magical alarms."

I didn\'t spare the two Devils I just killed a second glance. Stepping over their bodies, I entered the building that could be mistaken for a fortress. And lucky for me, it was big enough that they labeled where each hallway went to.

\'Labs\' sounded like an important place, lets start there~

***

There was a.... noticeable lack of bodies left in my wake. I was almost disappointed as I reached the \'labs\'. While extremely large and robust, this building was sparsely populated, and I thought there wasn\'t much emphasis put on this specific one.

At this point, I didn\'t care if any alarms sounded as enough time had passed. I could feel through the link that Sir Wiggles had performed his job admirably, so no one was running away anymore.

Regardless, I pushed open the doors and walked inside. A single man turned towards me, a white lab coat on him. He turned his nose up, looking down on me immediately. "Finally!" he threw his hands up. "I\'ve been calling for an assistant for an hour! Do you Neanderthals not understand that I\'m at a critical point in my research? No, of course you don\'t." He scoffed. "Well, did you bring my next batch of test materials or not?"

I looked around his lab, and there were a significant amount of body parts propped up everywhere. And most noticeable were a few large tubes that looked to be growing some sort of creatures inside.

"Great, an idiot." He groaned. "Do.You.Not.Understand.My.Words?" He repeated with a scowl on his face.

"Interesting work you\'re doing." I rubbed my chin. "Creating chimeras using the process to make Homunculi. But it seems like you haven\'t figured out the conceptual repulsion between various species yet. Though you\'re on the right path using Humans." I pointed at a specific one in a test tube.

"W-what?" He blinked

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"You....understand my work?" He still seemed surprised.

"Of course, it\'s not that difficult." I rolled my eyes.

"Not that difficult!?" His face turned red. "Do you not see what I\'m trying to achieve here!?"

"Oh I see." I nodded. "However, I noticed one particular problem."

"Please, as if I would create any mistakes."

"Admittedly, it\'s not a problem others may see. But it\'s certainly one I find issue with."

"And enlighten me, what \'problem\' have you discovered."

"Well....." I raised my hand up, pointing back towards one of his tests. "That one right there, about the size of an infant, yeah?"

"Yes, what about it?

"Body parts need to be removed from living beings for them to be most effective." I hummed, looking around the room once more. "And I absolutely despise when people use children for things like this." My face darkened considerably.

He opened his mouth, about to speak, but my hand clamped over it. "I never did catch your name."

"Mmmmffmmmfm!" He garbled something.

"Oh well, it doesn\'t matter." I flicked my hand, lightning discharging towards the various devices around the room, causing them to short out or otherwise rupture. "Don\'t worry, I just want to have a little chat."

***

Second Chapter, making up for missing Friday.

If you want to read 7 chapters ahead or support me, visit my /astoryforone