I sigh as I stand, looming over Charla, and rub my forehead in exasperation.
"Y-You, damnable, b-brute…!" Charla curses with gritted teeth, as at this point, her face has gone completely red, and she's writhing futilely on the ground, with rings of light wrapped around her ankles, thighs, torso, and shoulders, all to hold her in place.
Why yes, she is still very much naked.
Also yes, her struggling does nothing besides make her extremely curvy and voluptuous body jiggle and shake in front of me.
"Stop giving me such a perverse stare, pagan b-brute…!" Charla bites out, but any heat she attempts to put into her words is immediately evaporated by the way her egregiously sexy body looks wiggling while bound up.
Honestly, I don't think she understands that she just keeps making this worse for herself.
I click my tongue down at her. "Well. Ya know. I gave you the option to come quietly." I begin, again, for what feels like the fourth or fifth time, "But no, you just had to keep trying, huh? Even when your sword is pretty much just a useless hunk of metal."
Charla dared to appear legitimately offended. "A 'hunk of metal' that will rend your divine flesh from your putrid bones, yes!" She hissed, like a particular feisty cat.
I continued staring down at her through half-lidded eyes, causing her to continue glaring, even as her face appeared on fire.
Yeah, despite it all, this girl's zealotry levels are off the charts, just straight up. Immediately turned down my offer, despite her clear fear and weariness, and went for my throat again anyway.
Even while bound up as she is now, she's still trying to fight. Which is a problem, because the way the Dying Wish worded our deal, I get the feeling if I try and force my way into her head, that'll count as hurting her, and that child will come back full force.
I resist the urge to click my tongue again, instead rubbing my chin, and even though I'm looking down at her, my eyes don't wander anywhere, as it's my mind that's elsewhere.
The easiest way to force Charla to yield, without harming her directly, is to go for the others in her little group instead.
My senses extend outward for a brief moment, finding the barrier blanketing the area still up. Ideally, I'd start there.
Problem: I have no idea who put the barrier up, and no way of finding any of her other friends without forcing my way into Charla's head.
Well, actually, hold on. Charla is their leader, right? What if I use her as the bait to draw out the others, wherever they are, into attempting to rescue her?
If she has a following like Cao Cao, then they might legitimately try to pull off a 'heroic' rescue, right?
Well, that's assuming they like her enough. But if nothing else, they'd at least consider her Sacred Gear powerful - if not useful enough to continue whatever her plans are, but maybe for their own reasons, assuming they aren't loyal but come back anyway for this or that reason.
Regardless, probably a pretty good chance they'd show up for her, at least some of her group.
And, well, even if she is heartless, a good leader would see the logic in exchanging lives for information, right? After all, if I wipe out the rest of her group, there's no way in hell she's going to be able to build back enough to fulfill whatever her plans are.
That's the idea, anyway.
It's the only one I have at the moment, but really, it's going to have to do. If it doesn't work, I'll just keep 'molesting' her with my eyes until she caves.
I blink, my mind made up, and wordlessly, I reach down toward her.
"W-W-What are you doing, d-don't, don't you dare-" She squeaks as I pick her up by her waist and throw Charla up and onto my shoulder, giving her a pat on the back as I do.
"Just remember," I cheerily remind her, "you could've had clothes, or at least something to cover yourself with, but you decided not to by being bad. That's on you~!"
"S-Shut up!" She sputters, futilely attempting to kick me with her feet.
It doesn't work, not even slightly, not even close. Meanwhile, I resist the urge to, with all my might, smack her straight across the ass. The only thing really stopping me from treating her like the brat she is is that damn Dying Wish, and our deal.
I take a second to huff, cursing the little brat alongside its bratty owner, before turning and looking out across the broken manmade fjord.
Yeah. This place will do nicely already, won't it?
After all, from Plain Jane's head, I know her group has some sort of flying, teleporting boat. I don't know the mechanics of how it works, but it had guns, so assuming those things can fire wouldn't be too big a stretch, yeah?
On top of that, if a fight breaks out…yeah, best to do it far outside of town then.
It's just a shame I can't tell everyone back there that the enemy's leader has been captured, yeah?
Oh well, they'll have to wait. Them being mobilized might be safer, anyway, until this is all completely over.
"Honestly," I abruptly say, reaching down to pick up Another Longinus off the ground, raising it in the air like the hunk of metal it is, "I hope your team liked you as the 'Great Emperor,' or else this entire thing is about to get far more painful than it needs to be."
"T-Tch, what are you blabbering on about, pagan?" She huffs, trying to turn around and get a look at what exactly I'm doing. "A-And unhand me, and Another Longinus! As if the Dying Wish can be prodded into fulfilling the whims of a pagan!"
I stop for a second, my eyebrow raising. "That's exactly what you did during our battle, though?" I point out, "You used my own wish against me for a good fight."
She stops for a second in turn, before immediately committing to another futile attempt to kick me.
"S-S-Shut up!" She demanded with quite possibly the most outrage and embarrassment I've heard from yet.
Aww, she's so cute, I almost want to keep her. Like I kept Kunou that one time. For brat correction. It's a shame I won't likely see her ever again after this.
Regardless, I promptly tune Charla out of my ears completely, as I focus on the golden sword of Another Longinus. Now, how am I supposed to make this thing do what I need it to do without breaking it and possibly killing Charla?
I have no idea. Honestly, the feeling between it and the True Longinus is so completely and utterly different that you'd think Another Longinus deserved to be called the truer one instead.
Even in a 'powered down' state, so to speak, I could still sense the sheer divine potential shimmering just underneath the surface of the weapon, it being especially focused on the…pommel?
Wait a fucking minute.
My memory recall goes utterly mental as I start filtering through some of the most random and obscure bullshit I picked up before even waking in this world.
Is…is Another Longinus just the DxD version of fucking Joyeuse, Emperor Charlemagne's sword? If my memory recall still suffices, Joyeuse, in myth, had a shard of the Holy Lance embedded in its hilt, either the upper part or pommel, based on the source.
My eyes narrow at the entirely golden sword, with a bejeweled hilt. In myth, Joyeuse was also described as having a golden, jewelled hilt.
As I stare at the sword, I can almost feel the thing give the equivalent of a sweat drop. Yeah, you little shit, I'm onto you!
"Do what I want." I utter to the sword, "Or I'll tear the pommel off and throw it under my bed. Complete the collection, as it were."
I hear Charla sputter at my threat, as the sword in my hands does the equivalent of a yelp, its divine power spiking wildly before getting more focused, back at me, as though threatening.
"Oh, relax, you damn child." I huff as I hold the sword up. "One wish. It won't hurt anyone directly. I just need you to make a call to her friends."
Another spike of divine energy, as though surprised, before it settles again. Eventually, the power shudders, and I get the feeling of the equivalent of a 'nuh-uh!' from it.
My eyebrow twitched, and I brought the sword back down, my hand sliding off Charla as I reached for the sword's pommel.
Another energy spike, the sword shimmering with light, as though giving a warning.
I grabbed the pommel regardless, and I could feel the divine light underneath the metal shimmer with a thick tension as I did, ready to burst at any moment.
"You remember the deal," I uttered, my own honey-gold divine power bubbling underneath my skin. "I can't hurt her, but you never made the same deal for yourself, now did you?"
Truth be told, I have no idea what tearing that shard of the True Longinus out of the sword will do to it, but judging by the fact that her weapon already seems to be incomplete, well, probably nothing good, based on the sword's reaction to my threats and actions thus far.
At that, the power within the sword seemed to shirk back, as though struck. I got the general feeling of indignation, the pouty sort that screams 'that's just not fair!'
"D-Deal…?" Charla parrots, her struggles settling as she tries to figure out what the hell I'm talking about.
I shrug with my free shoulder, completely ignoring Charla. "Wish yourself out of it, then." I state, "After all, that's what you do, right? I already gave you a way out." I lift the sword into the air again. "Just do it so we can stop delaying the inevitable already."
Reluctantly, oh so very reluctantly, I could feel the divine power in the sword pull back, as though in contemplation, before giving the energy equivalent of a sigh.
I could still feel it, pouting, with its arms crossed, almost seeing the child that is the Dying Wish turn away from me, and if it could finally have a face, at that moment, it'd be a frown.
A radiant light bursts forth from the sword, and I could feel Charla still in shock as it enveloped us. I feel something tug at my heart, and realize it's the sword, asking for my Wish.
I open myself up to it, just enough for it to see. It's a rather simple wish after all.
The feeling of it being grasped directly felt extremely odd, like someone looking into the deepest depths of my being and pulling out something from nothing.
In the end, I guess that's what a wish is, isn't it?
I can almost feel the Dying Wish as it grasps my desire, looks over it, grows confused for a moment, before realizing, giving me the mother of all side eyes.
I guess, despite being a child and being rather naive, at least on the surface, they aren't completely dumb, it seems.
In any event, with great hesitation, the divine aura burst forth from the sword, sending a pillar into the sky, almost like a beacon, and just as quickly as it flickered with life, it ended with a bright flash, sending golden sparkles cascading across the sky.
I blinked dark spots out of my eyes, as the sword immediately went dormant again. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even really feel anything happened there.
There was just light, and then that divine potential was used up, but it didn't feel like something happened. At all?
I take a second to glare at the sword in my hand, and just as I'm about to consider ripping the pommel off anyway, my senses catch something.
Something coming through the barrier.
"Y-You…fiend…" Charla uttered, voice trembling with rage, "I don't know how, but brutishly brow-beating the Dying Wish into fulfilling your demands…!" She's practically seething at this point. "Just to call them!? I'll have your head on a spike for this!" She nearly shouts, her efforts to escape my grasp redoubled.
Yet still, do absolutely nothing.
With a huff, I toss Another Longinus to the side and drop Charla on the ground right next to me, the platinum-blonde-haired girl shrieking as she falls and hits the dirt.
Once again, my head turns toward the sky as a gap in space opens up, and my eyes widen.
Plain Jane never did get to see the full thing. Only the deck.
What came out of that hole? Was a whole warship, a massive ancient-looking one, from either the First or Second World War.
Despite how old it looked, like it was picked up fresh off the bottom of the ocean, the massive battery on its starboard side turned smoothly and almost immediately aimed straight down at me.
My eyes narrowed as I felt an extreme amount of aura being channeled into the battery's cannon.
My mind filters through my senses, finding that despite its size, the ship doesn't have nearly that many people on board.
A fair few grunts, about on the level of those random mooks Cao Cao just kind of had with him that I knocked out en masse, with there only being a handful, maybe four to six, of people of actual note.
Unfortunately, I couldn't give a fuck about the mooks at the moment.
A flash erupted from the starboard battery, and an absurdly large blast of bright blue power fired from the cannon, heading straight for my position.
In response, my aura bubbled underneath the surface of my skin, and I braced myself, one foot sliding back, as I concentrated all that aura, my divine power, into my fist.
The power rippled underneath my knuckles as I breathed, and right as my vision seemed to turn all white, I struck.
The blast abruptly halted as its surface rippled like water, with gold and bright orange flames seeming to flicker across its surface, the entire shape of the attack wavering.
Then, I stepped forward and put my back into it as I punched.
Like a baseball against a bat, the blast exploded back in the direction it came, arcing straight back around.
The other batteries were only just beginning to charge up their own blasts when the return fire struck the bridge, and-
BOOM. The sky lit up with a vibrant flash of white and sparks of gold, as the entire ship seemed to pop like a balloon.
My eyes narrowed as my senses told me that although most of those onboard, specifically the mooks, definitely died, the stronger ones aren't quite there yet.
Oh, they got hit. I could feel it, and now without their ship? It wouldn't take long to hunt them all down and butcher them.
There is no escape, not anymore.
I turn, looking at Charla, who looks at the ship's shattered parts blazing across the sky with her mouth wide open, eyes shaking ever so slightly.
For once, she has nothing at all to say, and I kneel to her, getting her attention by grabbing her by the hair, causing her to stiffen and grunt.
"Good thing not everyone on that ship died, yeah?" I state to her casually, and I see the way her eyes seem to light up, ever so slightly. "Accept it. It's over. You're done here. Give up. Or I will make sure the rest of them die." I lean in ever so slightly closer, my eyes spinning. "Unless, of course, their lives are worth sacrificing, too?"
Charla averted her gaze from my eyes, tilting her head away from my gaze as much as she could, instead preferring to look off into the distance.
As glowing, emblazoned warship parts rained down around us with thunderous crashes, she uttered, so extremely quietly, yet it was somehow heard, crisp and clear above it all.
"Fine. You win, pagan." Her body trembling with wrath, her voice completely bitter, "Do not kill them. We surrender."