DxD : Emiya Shirou

Really?

I mean really? I know it was my fault for asking if it were possible for my life to get anymore insane that it already was but I didn't expect the universe to take it as a personal challenge. I swear if I didn't know God was dead I'd have been convinced that some higher power was trying to screw with me.

There sitting in the park bench before me was Asia, laughing and talking animatedly with the person she was sharing the bench with. She was so immersed in the discussion that she hasn't even noticed that I was here. 

Now that in itself wouldn't have been a strange occurrence. Asia always had a knack for starting up conversation with complete and utter strangers and in a matter of minutes they would end up talking like old friends.

No, it wasn't what she was doing that surprised me but who she was doing it with that was the problem

I turned to look at the person sharing the bench with Asia. Kokabiel. The Fallen Angel himself Kokabiel was sitting right next to Asia, less than an arm's length away. And the guy looked like he was having the time of his life. Have you heard an Angel laugh? No, not laugh but giggle. That was what Kokabiel was doing, giggling his little Fallen ass off as he swapped stories with Asia.

As Asia gestured enthusiastically with her arms, something that she held in her hands caught my attention. Is that a –

"Yahoo~, Shirou." She cheerfully called out to me, waving her hands in an attempt to catch my attention even though I was less than six yards away and staring right at her.

Yup, that was definitely a can of beer alright. And going by the other one in Kokabiel's hand it looks like she decided to share. Oh Joy.

...

"-And that is why you must never," Asia emphasized her point by pointing at him with her finger, "ever look up two girls and cup on the internet. Trust me, sometimes forbidden knowledge is forbidden for a reason."

Kokabiel nodded solemnly at her words, as if he was receiving the words of the gospel from the mouth of Christ himself. "I promise you I shall head your words and never...ah what did you call it again... 'google'? Yes google! I promise to never google that phrase."

And as I watched all of this from the park bench across from theirs I finally began to understand what drove people to drink.

When I first came looking for Kokabiel in the park on the off chance he may show himself, I planned to confront him on the Excaliburs. I had expected many things to result from our confrontation. From a peaceful discussion to an outright fight to the death. But this, I never expected anything like this.

What made this worse was the T-shirt that Asia was wearing. It had the caption 'Unlimited Blade Works: The Hype is Real' printed on it. I knew showing her my Reality Marble was a bad idea but I couldn't resist the urge to show off.

So as I sat there with my head cradled in my hands, I thought back and tried to figure out the exact moment that my life stopped making sense.

"You know, when I first heard that you left the Church I had been intending to recruit you." I was drawn away from my thoughts as the conversation between the two began to take a more serious turn.

"I must confess I was rather disappointed when I discovered your reincarnation into a Devil. Not only due to a loss of a potential ally but because I feared a question I had would remain unanswered." Kokabiel looked as peaceful and relaxed as he always did as he leaned back into the bench and watch Asia.

"I never expected a chance of us to speak let this and it would be remiss of me to ignore this opportunity. So if you'll be kind of to permit me to question you on a personal matter."

"Sure," she chirped back cheerfully as she waved her fingers at him, "go right ahead."

"Thank you." He inclined his head slightly before his feature took a more solemn appearance, "Why did you leave the Church?"

…I had to admit I was curious too. Despite knowing about her history it was always due to the bits and pieces she let slip in her conversation or from second hand sources. I never talked to her about it, not wanting to pry, and she never brought it up.

"I am well aware that you had the option to stay. That the priests in the church were more than willing to cover up the incident with the Devil." Kokabiel shrugged with a disapproving frown, "After all it would not be the first time that they covered up a scandal. They had plenty of experience with the trouble their priests seem to find themselves in.

"And that was for ordinary members of the church, for a Holy Maiden I have no doubts they would have gone through great lengths for you to stay. So why, why leave when you didn't have to?"

"Hmm, why did I leave huh?" Despite of the seriousness of the question, Asia still looked as relaxed and cheerful as ever. Tilting her head back she looked up into the clear blue sky while she kicked her feet into the airs like a child. "Well, I guess you can say it was all thanks to these things."

She held out he hands and with a flash of green light, a pair of rings appeared on the middle finger of each of her hands.

"Twilight Healing?" Kokabiel sounded just as perplexed as I felt, "You left because of them?"

Asia nodded her head with a 'yup' before dismissing the rings and throwing her arms over the back of the bench. "I had always wondered," she mused, "did Twilight Healing make me the way I am or was I always like this and that was what drew them towards me.

"A Sacred Gear chooses its wielder, and they always select one that resembles them. So do you know what it means to become the bearer of Twilight Healing? What are the traits that a person needs to have to qualify for it?" She turned towards Kokabiel as she asked.

"A desire to heal and help? A kind heart?" He guessed.

Asia shook her head, "Nope, its understanding." she answered, "Understanding is the most essential trait. Kindness and wanting to help is merely a side effect that stems from understanding. It's not surprising if you take a moment to think about it. After all you can't heal what you don't understand.

"Twilight Healing simply doesn't work like that. I can't just walk up to a coughing man, wave my Sacred Gear over him and just expect him to get better. Even if the cough does go away that doesn't mean that his illness is cured. 

Often a cough is only a symptom of the problem not the problem itself. So how can I cure him when I don't know what I needs to be cured?

"To truly fix something you must be able to recognize what is broken, that is why understanding is needed. 

I spent years studying medical knowledge and all I the information I could get on the human body to learn how to use my Twilight Healing and it was only after years of effort that I am able to use it on the level I could now.

"At first I could barely fix even cuts and scrapes. It took me three whole years to learn how to properly fix shattered bones and internal bleeding, and another three years on top of that to finally learn how to cure illnesses caused from viruses and bacteria, and I have only recently reached the point of where I can regrow entire organs though I'm still not quite good at it. 

And I still have more to learn, I have no idea how to fix genetic disorders yet, among other things.

"But understanding the body is not enough. You need to understand people as well. Understand how they think and why they behave the way they do. 

After all there are more to ways to hurt a person than to wound their flesh or shatter their bones, and the right words or a kind smile can heal just as well as any medicine or magic could at times, sometimes even better.

"That is why I was always watching people. As I was looking over them from my place during mass I would watch the people prey, during the small breaks I had in the hospitable between healing of patients I would watch their families as they waited anxiously in the waiting rooms, or through the glass out of my room's window I would watch people pass on by as they lived their lives. 

I was always watching. Trying to understand them, to know them. Before too long I became very good at it, almost absurdly so."

She lifts her hands towards her face, the sunlight falling between her fingers and casting a shadow of her hand over face. She started intently at the spot where Twilight Healing would form if she calls for it.

"That is why I'm not sure if it was me or these rings that gave me this ability. I need only to observe a people to comprehend them, even just a few minutes is enough for time for me to understand a person more intimately than their closest friends and family.

"A handful of minutes are all I need to learn exactly what I should say to help a person or to hurt them, to understand what makes them tick better than they know themselves. Keep me in their presence long enough and no one could hide their true nature from my eyes, not anymore at least."

"While rare there are times that I only need so much as a single glance to understand a person, especially when they're the straightforward types." She smiled at me then, "It was like that with you Shirou. I didn't even need a whole second to figure you out. You know underneath it all, you're an astonishingly simple person."

…Was I hearing things or did Asia just call me an idiot?

She turned back towards Kokabiel and said, "So imagine, what I saw as I looked upon my fellow people of the Church. 

What I realized as I looked upon the sea of clergies, priests and nuns. People who swore themselves to God, who promised to do only good and speak no lie, to abandon all of the world's vices and dedicated themselves in the services of their fellow man and to put their well-being above their own."

Ah, I can see where this was going and from the sorrowful look Kokabiel was giving her it looked like he did too.

"Liars. Liars and hypocrites the lot of them." She dropped her hand with a bitter laugh, something that sounded so wrong coming from Asia.

"You know when I was a little girl I lived in this little out of the woods orphanage. One of the caretakers there was a nun, and she was the sweetest little old lady you'd ever seen. Every night when she tucked us into bed she would tell us about all the places she's been to and the things she's seen.

"Her parents were hikers and backpackers you see, and as a young girl they would take her along in their trips to all around the world. From the peaks of the Alps to the Sahara plains to the grass fields of Africa, she would travel to all these places and see the wonders they held.

"And it was what she saw there that made her believe in god. She would tell us about how she would stand on top of a mountain peak, so high up that the clouds were beneath her and the entire world fell down around her like panting. So close to the roof of the world that it felt as if she only needed to stretched her hand out and stand on her toes she'd be able to touch Heaven's beginning.

Or when she camped out at night by the side of lake so large you cannot see the end of it. How the stars would reflect off its still surface as if it were a mirror, and when she would look across the lake towards the horizon she could not tell where the earth ended and the heavens began.

It was when she saw these wonders that she began to believe in God. She would tell us that God was everywhere, not just in the pages of a book or within the walls of a church, but out there in the world he made. 

You can find him in the light of a sunrise or in the calming sounds of a running stream or even in a field of flowers. That to find God all you must do is look at the world around us and you'll see him reflected in his work.

"That is why I have always dreamed of seeing the world. Even after I had been discovered as the bearer of Twilight Healing and taken to the Vatican I still dreamt of it. Even though they told me the good book is all I needed, I still believed to find God I must look for him out in the world and not in a church run by men."

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