DxD: Ascension - Redux

Chapter 61: Assassin

god i love dramatic chapter/scene ending lines they're so fun

Serafall Memorial Hospital, Lilith, the Underworld

Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, stood over Luci's unconscious body in an operating room, inspecting her wound. He'd personally requested that the Argento girl not heal her in order to get a good look at it. It appeared to be a stab wound through the abdomen- in through the back, out through the front. But for an ancient devil as powerful as he'd heard Luci was, simply being stabbed should've been a minor inconvenience at worst. Which meant that something else was going on here. Puzzled but deciding to go ahead with the healing, Asclepius adjusted his gloves, preparing to begin the procedure, when he was interrupted by someone entering the room. He looked over his shoulder.
Zach Praktum closed the door behind him as he entered, already wearing a surgical gown and all the other necessary articles. "Hey, Dr. Asclepius. Sorry to intrude."
"Praktum. Are you sterile?" Dr. Asclepius asked. "How did you even get in here? This room was heavily guarded."
"If I wasn't sterile, I wouldn't have come in. And the guards let me in because I asked nicely. How is she?" Zach walked around to Luci's other side. He ran a gloved finger along the stab wound. "Hm..."
"She's stabilized, and while we're in this enchanted room, her condition won't worsen. But even after I heal the damage, the sheer holy power involved will probably keep her comatose for some time. What are you doing here? You're not a doctor, healer, or anything of the sort."
"I'm here to inspect her from a forensic angle," Zach answered. "Not trying to heal her. That's your job. I'm here to figure out who stabbed her, what they stabbed her with, and why they did it."
"Usually I'd smite you for getting in the way of my procedure, but..." Asclepius sighed. "You're Sirzechs and Azazel's golden boy, so they'd probably smite me right back if I did. Do your thing." He stepped back to let Zach work.
"Uh-uh, don't go anywhere, I might need your wrinkly brain to bounce things off of." Zach looked closely at the stab wound. "If I had to guess, it was a katana that stabbed her."
"How can you tell?"
"A katana is a single-edged sword. They have a dull, flat side that's thicker-" Zach pointed to the upper part of the opening, then ran his finger along its short length to the lower part, where the two sides of the wound came together in a vertex. "-and the sharp, thin side that you use for slashing. You wouldn't typically use a katana to stab someone, but if you're in a hurry, it'll do the job. From the looks of it, the attacker was trying to work quickly. Blade through the gut, pull out, get away."
"I see. But then it could be any single-edged blade, yes? Why are you certain it's a katana?"
"Good point. But look." Zach measured the opening in Luci's abdomen with his thumb. "The size of the opening. It's maybe an inch and a bit, yeah? That's the width of a typical katana's blade. I could be wrong- there's a million different swords out there- but that's what I'm gonna go with. While you were inspecting her, was there anything that seemed off? Poison, unique residual auras, anything at all?"
Asclepius nodded. "No traces of poison. But auras, yes. There was quite a curious mix, if I'm being frank."
"Hit me."
"Well, I first sensed that the weapon was a Holy Sword, and one of great power. Excalibur, Caliburn, Durandal, or another sword equivalent to them created this wound. And I detected residual traces of an extremely powerful angel's aura as well- a Seraph or someone of similar power. But there was a third aura, a fainter one, that I couldn't make out. Whoever that third residual came from was taking care to hide their aura, but they must've been an amateur of the technique seeing as they failed to hide it entirely."
Zach's eyes glowed blue as he activated Aura Vision. Based on what he saw, the doctor's assessment was correct. "Hit the nail on the head," Zach agreed. "Add that to the fact that there's no sign of a magic circle arriving or departing near the attack site, and I think I'm getting a pretty good idea of what happened."
"What's your theory?"
"The person wielding the Holy Sword wasn't a Seraph themself. A Seraph or Seraph-level angel empowered the weapon to affect Luci as bad as it has, leaving residual traces of their aura behind. They probably masked it slightly so we can't determine their identity with just this, but left it open enough that we'd start suspecting all three surviving Seraphs equally," Zach guessed. "As for who did the actual stabbing, it was someone in the service of- or otherwise loyal to- the Seraph that empowered the sword. I can say only two things confidently about their identity. One is obvious: they're a Holy Sword user, although anyone strong enough can become an artificial user nowadays, so that's not much to go on. The other thing is what concerns me more: it has to either be someone who lives in Kuoh, or someone who's been planning this out for a while and did the proper recon ahead of time."
"How do you figure that?"
"Like I said: no magic circles, portals, or other transportation magic had been recently deployed on school campus prior to when you and your paramedics arrived. So if the attacker wanted to make a quick getaway, they would've had to know where they were going, meaning they've either spent a decent amount of time in the school- pointing to a student or faculty member- or they've scoped it out beforehand- pointing to a trained assassin, but I don't think this person was an experienced assassin at all, so I'm leaning toward someone associated with the school."
"What about a motive?" Asclepius asked. "And why didn't they kill her?"
"I'll answer the second question first. The way I see it, there are two possibilities. One: they wanted to send a message, use Luci as an example to stay out of their way. Although that could've been accomplished by killing her, so maybe she'll have something to say when she wakes up. Two: whoever stabbed her, this was their first time performing an assassination, so they lost their nerve right at the last second. But they had to be decently capable to A, sneak up on Luci; and B, know exactly where to stab so there's severe enough damage to keep her out of the picture for a while without dying. After all, even if she- sorry, they- lost their nerve to make the kill, they couldn't return to their master having done nothing at all."