Chapters 76-80

It was the next morning, and Azazel and Penemue were both smirking at me. I sat down next to them in the empty dining hall. They had acquired what looked like a mini breakfast feast from somewhere, and I immediately started piling food on my plate to join them.

"Someone had fun last night, huh? And most of the morning too, apparently," Azazel said while wiggling his brows.

I turned my head to the side and blushed. Being locked away for 1000 years had made Hela quite ravenous. I think our activities went on for over 12 hours straight… Goddesses had some serious stamina. What was worse was that when we exited the room all that time later, the floor just outside the door was soaking wet…and it wasn't water. According to Hela, Sif had been listening in almost the entire time. Apparently she was down bad, and was a lot more interested in me than her stoic self let on. I'd need to speak with her later about all that. Hela had told me that while she intended to truly court me, she still knew I was a Fallen Angel and we weren't the most—er—faithful race there was when it came to having only a single partner. Hela told me she had no problem with that if I was bringing more beautiful women to the bedroom in the future. I could only shudder at the thought of her officially meeting Natasha…

"You're not pregnant, are you, Layla?" Penemue asked me out of the blue. "You were spacing out for a second there…"

I spat out the juice that I had just raised to my lips to sip. "WHAT!? No, I'm not—I don't think…" I hoped I wasn't, at least.

[You're not. Your body can only get pregnant if you intend to.]

There was the system chiming in and saving me from an existential panic. Penemue raised her hand and cast some magic on me and sighed in relief afterwards. "Oh good, you're not."

Wait a minute… Why would they even suspect I was pregnant in the first place? Hela and I were both women, and it's not like I said anything about her using 'that' spell in the bedroom. I gave the two of them a glare. "Were you two spying on us!?" I said angrily.

"Pfft… of course not. We wouldn't do that. Right, Penemue?" Azazel said while not quite meeting my eyes. Penemue had trouble doing so as well. I glared at the two of them but decided to drop it for now. I would have vengeance and find a way to embarrass both of them later though…

…

A few hours later, I found myself standing back at the Bifrost. We had flown over Asgard instead of walking through its streets. The rioting had calmed quite a bit, but it hadn't fully stopped yet. Hela was going to have her hands full dealing with all of that.

"Are you sure you have to leave so soon?" Hela whined as she wrapped me in a tight hug. I ignored the fact that she was also blatantly groping me in front of everyone as well. Over her shoulder, I could see Sif glaring daggers at Hela. Loki had wisely decided to stay in the palace lest the people of Asgard catch sight of him and try to attack. His mother, Frigga, had stayed with him. After a few more seconds, and with some effort, I broke our hug. I didn't want to immediately leave so soon as well, but I had to.

"I'm afraid so, Hela. I have to get back to Midgard and take care of some things." There was no way I was letting Norman Osborn take back MY hard-earned company. He'd ruin a whole bunch of my plans if he did.

[You literally stumbled upon all of those shares by luck though…]

'Yeah, well, I spent points on my Luck stat to make that happen… Hence, it was hard work.

I also wanted to check in with Tony, possibly wipe the New York section of the Hand out, and see what the Death Eaters over in England were up to. I had a lot on my plate at the moment.

"Good luck, Layla. Try not to get up to anything absurd, although given your current track record, I'm sure you will anyway. Ah, you remind me of a younger me…" Azazel remarked. He and Penemue had decided to stay in Asgard for a couple of extra days. Azazel needed the technology here to help him rebuild his artificial sacred gear. Once he acquired all the parts he'd need, they would come and join me.

"The Bifrost is open to you, Lady Layla. Give Thor my regards," Heimdall said as he sheathed his sword into the podium and a blue portal materialized nearby.

"You can tell my idiot brother he's free to return to Asgard whenever he wants. It is advised that he doesn't, however, until he regains his powers. I will see you again soon, Layla." Hela smiled at me before I stepped through the Bifrost to return to Earth.

XXX

"This feels like it's taking a lot longer than I remember," I said out loud as I gazed all around me. I'd been traveling through the rainbow light for a while now. The trip up to Asgard had only taken a few minutes, and this one was taking well over 10 right now.

[Weird, nothing seemed to be wrong with the portal before you stepped inside.]

I couldn't argue with that. The portal looked like it was working fine, and Heimdall should have noticed if anything went wrong. Maybe the journey down was just slower than up? It's not like I was an expert in Asgardian portal technology or anything. I felt like I was still moving, and the rainbow lights were still passing me by at crazy speeds. There was nothing I could do but float here and wait...

An entire extra 20 minutes later, I finally saw the end of the tunnel. Finally, I was arriving on Midgard. That took WAY longer than it should have.

CRASH!

[-100HP!]

"Ooof! What the hell!" I grunted in pain. Instead of landing gently, my body had been slammed into the ground hard. Now I KNOW that was NOT supposed to happen.

CRASH!

"Argh, my arm!" A familiar woman's voice shouted behind me after a second crash echoed out.

"Sif! Holy shit, are you okay?" I exclaimed.

[No, she's not okay… her left arm is facing the wrong direction.]

Oh shit, it was. That wasn't good! Sif was clutching her broken arm in pain. I ran up to her, and Twilight Healing manifested itself on each of my hands. I focused the green healing aura onto Sif's and willed her to be healed. I could feel my MP drain noticeably. It seemed the broken arm was the least of her injuries. She didn't have my durability, and that impact had damaged some of her insides as well. Thankfully, I have the best healing Sacred Gear to remedy that.

"Healing magic?" Sif opened her eyes as I soothed her pain. A look of relief appeared on her face. "You are just full of surprises, Layla."

"Why did you follow me, Sif? Weren't you needed on Asgard?" I asked. Had she jumped into the Bifrost right after me? Is that what threw it off? That shouldn't have made a difference.

Sif looked a bit guilty as she responded. "I-I wanted to spend more time with you as well. Hela came in and snatched you up so quickly… I felt jealous." Sif admitted bitterly. "As for myself being needed on Asgard, I am not. I was never the most popular Goddess. I actually had something of a negative reputation for how I acted for the past few hundred years…"

I smirked. She had tried to get one up on the Goddess of Death by following me to Midgard. With Asgard currently on fire, Hela would be too busy straightening out her people for the next few days to interrupt Sif and me. "What did you do that made people not like you?" I asked.

Sif looked shy. "I may or may not have threatened bodily harm upon any harlot who tried to win Thor's affections," Sif admitted before looking at me in panic. "I never actually went through with it though. I now realize, as well, why Thor never wanted to be with me. I tend to get… clingy with my love interests. I will do my best to not be as intense with…" Sif trailed off and looked at me hopefully. I knew what she was going to say.

"You won't get too clingy with me?" I teased her and she shyly nodded. "I don't mind honestly." I said. It seemed like the blond goddess might have been a bit of a yandere. She never seemed to go fully off on her love rivals though.

…

Heimdal felt some sweat start to form on the back of his neck. What was taking so long. It had been a shock when Sif had decided to slip past Hela and hop into the Bifrost after Layla, but it wasn't a big deal at the end of the day. Yet, something strange happened after Sif jumped in… Layla and Sif never touched down on Midgard. With his Farsight, he could clearly see the rainbow beam make contact upon the desert of Midgard, and yet neither of the women had arrived with it. Where did they go?

"Is something wrong Heimdal?" Hela–his new ruler–asked behind him. "Is that harpy Sif already trying to put the moves on my future Queen?" She spat out angrily.

Asgards guests, Azazel and his paramor Penemue also looked concerned.

"Um… Layla and Sif disappeared."

The three other people took a moment to contemplate what he just said. Heimdal braced himself as he knew he was about to get yelled at.

"""WHAT!?"""

XXX

Layla, where are we?" Sif asked me after I had finished healing her.

That was a good question. We had not ended up back in the desert like I thought we would have. Heimdal was supposed to set us down right outside the town where Thor was staying with Jane. That had not happened. Instead we had landed in some luscious forest in who knows where. I inspected the trees and plants all around us and sighed in relief. I at least recognized all this foliage. That meant we had still landed on Earth–just not where we intended. That wasn't exactly a big deal. I still had my sling ring after all. I could just portal us back to Puente Antiguo. "It seems like Heimdal needs to get his eyes checked." I joked as I reached into my inventory and extracted my sling ring. "Just give me a second and I'll open a portal back to where Thor is." I said to Sif who nodded.

I placed the sling ring on my finger and started rotating it in the air… And then I kept rotating it. Nothing happened. No portal formed in front of me.

[Uh oh… don't panic.]

I felt a bead of sweat roll down my brow. This wasn't good. My sling ring wasn't working. No, it was worse than that! I couldn't access the dimensional energy that powered the ring on my finger at all!

[It's not just you having performance anxiety. Wherever you ended up…there's no dimensional energy around you at all. It just doesn't exist here.]

"…Fuck." I cursed out loud before stowing my ring away. I wasn't even aware there was anywhere on earth these rings didn't work! You could even use them in the Sanctums and those were warded against every single kind of hellish intruder!

"Something wrong?" Sif asked me in concern. I explained to her that the ring on my finger was not working. Wherever we ended up, we were stuck. Sif looked concerned, as she should be. There was dimensional energy even in the pits of space. Where were we that there wasn't any at all around us?

"We should get moving then. It's still light out, but we don't want to spend a night in the woods if we don't have to do we?" She asked me and I agreed. First, I needed to find out where we should even go. I spread my eight black wings wide and took off into the sky. I looked down below and saw forest in every direction, even a few hundred feet high. Wherever we were, it was in the middle of nowhere… I kept flying higher and higher and the air continued to get thinner. Luckily my body could now survive in a vacuum environment. Eventually after a few thousand feet up, I found signs of civilization.

"Is that freaking Kyoto!?"

[Looks like it…although…]

Somehow Heimdal had missed the mark so badly we had ended up in Japan of all places. A country that currently had a kill order on me because I killed the Beast's son and pretty much declared open war on the hand. That was just freaking perfect, wasn't it?

[I don't think you'll have to worry about the Hand showing up anytime soon.]

'Oh yeah? Why is that?'

[That isn't the Marvel Kyoto… It's the DxD one.]

I let that sink in for a moment before I muttered a string of curses towards the sky. Well, wasn't that just awesome? "Since when can the Bifrost punch through the dimensional gap itself!?" At least I knew where we were, but it was arguably one of the most dangerous places possible at the moment. The threat levels in DxD were a lot higher than Marvel… at least on Earth that was.

Now knowing where we were, I started descending downwards to meet back up with Sif. As I dropped a thousand feet my senses picked up a large magical signature approaching her position. It was heading towards her fast. "Dammit!"

CLANG!

I made out the sound of steel clashing against steel. Whoever had approached Sif so rapidly was as hostile as I expected. I flew lower until I could finally make out who she was fighting. It was a Tengu. We'd barely been near Kyoto for a few minutes and the Yokai were already on us! In fact, we weren't even that close to Kyoto really!

[That's some pretty good wide-range detection magic they have.]

"I have no quarrel with you creature! Stand down!" Sif wearing her golden armor and brandishing her sword had just deflected a slash from a Tengus spear.

"Liar! This is Kyoto territory. Yokai territory! How dare you intrude here! I bet you're here to try and kidnap our princess again. You won't succeed!" The Tengu brandished his spear and lunged forward towards Sif again. She successfully paired again before she spun around and slammed the pommel into the Yokais head. The Tengu slumped to the ground unconscious. Sif noticed me descending to the ground right after.

She had a victorious smile on her face. "Layla! I know not what manner of creature this is, but it and its fellow ilk shall think twice the next time it tries to face me!" She sheathed her sword and smiled at me expectantly. Clearly, she was expecting praise of some kind. I opened my mouth to give her some, but another voice cut me off.

"Is that right? Well then, how 'bout the leader of the 'ilk' faces you herself." A woman's voice called out before I felt a massive amount of power crash down around us. Whoever this was they weren't playing around. They were in the peak of ultimate class!

[Name: Layla of the Fallen]

[Title: Angel of Hope]

[Level: 8]

[HP: 4100]

[MP: 850]

[Vigor: 110]

[Strength: 30→35]

[Intelligence: 85→90]

[Luck: 30]

[Skills: Observe 3, Angelic Mastery 4, Acting 3, Light Manipulation 5, HP to MP conversion]

[Perks: Never Tell Me the Odds, Mana Siphoner]

[Drawbacks: Sin of Lust]

[Available Free Stat Points: 10]

[Skill Up Point: 0]

I summoned a Lightspear in my hand and dumped 5 points each into Strength and Intelligence to up my speed and power. Whoever this was, had some serious power. This was going to be a tough fight…

XXX

A wave of blue fire surged forth from the nearby treeline. Sif yelped in surprise at the sudden attack. I jumped in front of her and conjured a Lightshield. With my [Light Manipulation] skill now at level 5, I was able to conjure these strong shields for only 20 MP! The blue flames slammed into my shield. I grunted at the force of the hit, and I felt my MP decrease by a bit extra, but my shield held.

"Hoh? You were able to block my attack. That's quite impressive for a crow with only 8 wings. Your skills won't save you though! Not after what your kind did to my daughter!" The woman's voice echoed out around us. This time it was laced with anger. I couldn't pinpoint where she was, though. All I saw around us were empty woods. She sounded like she was coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. She had to be employing some kind of illusion magic.

"Using such cowardly tactics to face us? A simple witch like you can't beat us!?" Sif declared while brandishing her sword towards the woods. I wanted to facepalm at that. Sif was apparently not that great at sensing magical power. If she was, then she would know that this woman was clearly toying with us. That attack wasn't even close to what someone at the peak of the Ultimate class could put out.

I started using my upgraded [Observe] skill to try and find our hidden opponent. I wasn't able to see them, but in my vision, I noticed a hazy outline to our left. I conjured an overcharged Lightspear for 10 MP and hurled it in that direction.

BOOM!

An explosive blast echoed out where my Lightspear collided with our enemy's quickly conjured magical shield! I felt that I caught them by surprise with my attack, but I didn't actually injure them at all.

"Wow, Layla! That blast was amazing. You leveled dozens of trees. Surely, the cowardly witch has perished!" Sif cheered for me. She went to sheathe her sword.

"Don't let your guard down. She's not even hurt!" I yelled out. Sif stiffened and did as I told her.

"Layla?" The woman's voice called out questioningly. As the smoke from my blast faded away, I could see who we were facing. "Is that who you are?"

"Shit…" I muttered out. It was an incredibly stacked and beautiful nine-tailed fox woman. It was Yasaka, the leader of the Kyoto Yokai… "Lady Yasaka? Can I ask why you are attacking my friend and me? We're not even technically in Kyoto, just the forest nearby," I said. We weren't even technically trespassing in Youkai territory yet, not unless we entered Kyoto city unannounced.

Yasaka took a moment to look at me before she let out a sigh. "I apologize. I thought you were another group that I recently had a scuffle with… I am wondering what Gabriel's missing sister is doing in Japan, though," Yasaka asked.

"Gabriel?" Sif asked me. "I thought your sister was Penemue."

"Sif, I have like a million brothers and sisters," I replied.

"WHAT!?" Sif exclaimed in shock. I think I broke her right there…

I turned back to Yasaka, who was giggling at us now. It seemed that our short scuffle had ended. She didn't look like she wanted to keep fighting us at least. "I'm sorry for attacking you. Yesterday, we had some intruders in Kyoto. They tried to kidnap my daughter, and she was unfortunately poisoned," Yasaka said before shooting me a glare. "Some of the attackers consisted of Fallen Angels.

Ugh, of course, it did. What was with my race and always causing problems with everyone else? I sighed before replying. "On behalf of the Fallen, I can only apologize. I can also promise that the perpetrators will be punished when we find out who they are," I said with a diplomatic voice. I didn't think this was a coincidence. Our race's leader, Azazel, accidentally disappears himself trying to rescue me and a day later, members of our race launch a raid on Kyoto. They were probably just waiting for such an opportunity. I'd even suspect them of sabotaging his artificial sacred gear, but frankly, the majority of Fallen Angels are not tech-savvy. I couldn't think of anyone who'd be able to do that in the first place.

"That's a start…" Yasaka said. "But it's not enough. If you really want to make amends, then I want you to get in contact with your sister Gabriel."

"Gabriel?" I asked. "Why her?" I didn't remember any interactions between Heaven and the Yokai from my memories. Heaven didn't even have that big of a presence in Japan since there were that many followers of Father in this country.

Yasaka scoffed. "You're clearly very important to her. The church put out a 10 Billion USD reward for any information that could lead to your safe return after Azazel's supposed experiment gone wrong. The whole supernatural community was up in arms about it. That's a staggering amount of money, after all…"

Hell yeah, it was! I wonder if I could turn myself in to collect!?

[Worth a shot?]

"Ok, yeah, me and Gabriel are close. What do you need from her?" I asked again.

"I need her to send the Saint Asia Argento to Kyoto," Yasaka grimaced. "We've tried everything, and nothing so far has been able to purge the poison from my daughter." Yasaka explained with tears in her eyes. "We even bought a phoenix tear for 100 Million USD, and it didn't work! My only hope is the legendary [Twilight Healing] sacred gear at this point."

Huh? Only [Twilight Healing] could save her? Now wasn't that a convenient coincidence? It seems my 30 points in luck was paying off.

[Quest Issued→Heal Yasaka's Daughter Kunou from the deadly poison afflicting her!]

[Reward→ Level Up! Yasaka's Favor.]

XXX

A bit later, after assuring Yasaka that I didn't need to contact Gabriel and that I could heal her daughter myself, Yasaka led us out of the woods and towards a teleportation formation that was waiting for her. I had forgotten these were actually a thing since on the Earth Marvel, I'd just been using my sling rings or apparition. The dimensional gap blocked the sling rings from working, and unfortunately, I'd never really practiced apparition or angelic teleportation–which was basically the same thing but sounded cooler.

[Bet you're regretting not practicing angelic teleportation now, huh?]

'Kind of.' The sling ring was just so superior I never bothered learning to teleport on my own. Even Voldemort, with massive magic reserves, can't apparate across the planet without risking maiming himself…

The three of us stepped inside the magic circle, and a flash of light later, I found myself staring at the interior of a Japanese-style home, complete with tatami floors and shoji sliding doors.

"Interesting architecture." Sif commented as she looked around curiously. I supposed this all would be a bit of a culture shock for her.

"So where's your daughter?" I asked.

"Kunou is this way." Yasaka briskly led us down a hallway towards another wing of the building. Outside another door, two male fox yokai stood guard. Both had only three tails each. "Thank you for your diligence, Maru and Koharu. I'll take over Kunou's safety from here," Yasaka said to the two. They bowed to her before leaving.

"I didn't know there were male kitsune." I said.

Yasaka nodded. "Yes, they are much weaker magically than the women though and are typically kept in our clan compounds for protection. Those two standing guard were more ceremonial than actually for Kunou's protection. She is the princess of the Kitsune and Kyoto Yokai faction, after all."

"So your men sit around all day and are solely used for procreation? How absurd." Sif scoffed.

"I mean, isn't that pretty much what the majority of women on Asgard do? You're kind of an outlier, Sif…" I said. Sif blushed. I think she took my words as a compliment when I was more of just stating a fact.

Yasaka gave me a puzzled look. "What about the Valkyries? They are all women, and their might is well known. I've heard tales that there's a young incredibly talented Valkyrie mage that goes by Rosweise who has become Odin's personal secretary."

"Odin's secretary?" Sif asked, confused.

"She's talking about a different Asgard, Sif. Not the one you're from. I'll tell you about it later." I explained. Yasaka shot me a curious look, but I waved her off. Sif nodded. I had no idea why a second Asgard existed on Earth DxD. All I know is that it had been here basically from the start. It's possible the DxD Asgardians were from another timeline and fled here to possibly escape their version of Ragnarok. I wouldn't know unless I asked the perverted DxD Odin though. I wasn't exactly jumping to do that either considering how detested the man is by pretty much every female supernatural being in the world. This was the man who made an innocent Issei Hyodou into the perverted protagonist he was in only one meeting. There was also no known way Odin didn't know he was corrupting the future Red Dragon Emperor as a child either. A god of his level would easily have been able to see the Sacred Gear hidden in Issei's soul.

I put those thoughts away for later. I had a little fox girl to heal right now. Getting on her smoking hot mother's good side was also a bonus.

I approached Kunou's bedside and cringed at what I saw. Her skin was almost purple, and she was taking ragged, harsh-sounding breaths. Yasaka explained that Kunou was in constant pain from the poison and that she had to be placed into a magical coma; otherwise, she'd be screaming right now.

"This is sick. Who would do this to a child?" Sif asked.

Yasaka shook her head. "We don't know their group's name. There were one or two fallen with the group, but the strange thing was that the group that attempted to kidnap her included many different races besides them." She explained. In any other circumstance, that would be a great sign that different races were starting to get along with each other. In this instance, though, it was bad. The failed kidnappers were obviously the Khaos Brigade. It appeared that their fallen angel members decided to take advantage of Azazel's sudden disappearance to launch this attack way earlier than they would have in canon.

I summoned [Twilight Healing] and placed my hands over the girl. A green glow enveloped her body, and I willed my Sacred Gear to purge the poison from her body.

"But that's… How do YOU have that?" Yasaka asked me accusingly as she watched me heal her daughter. Maybe she suspected that I stole this Sacred Gear from Asia Argento? She made no move to stop me from healing her daughter, though.

"This was a gift from my father to me, Lady Yasaka. You can rest assured that I did not steal this Sacred Gear from any human. It was bestowed upon me exclusively." I said. That was the excuse I had come up with if anyone ever asked about it in the future. They wouldn't exactly be able to argue it either because "God works in mysterious ways" and all that. Yasaka still gave me a look of suspicion and I've no doubt she'd use her information channels to verify my words later.

Kunou's complexion started to clear up, and her skin began to shift from sickly green to a more normal skin tone. Her breathing also drastically started to improve.

[-200 MP]

Whatever poison the Khaos Brigade used on the girl was nefarious and extremely deadly. To compare, it didn't take nearly that much MP to fully heal Tony Stark from his palladium poisoning. At the same time, though, the poison wasn't immediately lethal. They clearly wanted the girl to live for a while.

[Probably to force Yasaka to help them in return for a cure.]

'That's what I was thinking as well.' Which means… they'll be back soon to offer such a deal to Yasaka without knowing that I've already cured her daughter.

XXX