God Slaying Blade Works

4

It was a small room in which they met, one underground and beneath a temple in a small and unimportant village in western Japan. However it was a special room, one made by sages in ages long past using secrets and methods lost to the ages. Within this small chamber they could be assured that their discussion would not be overheard. Entire pantheons of gods could try to scry what they said and would only hear meaningless static.

Within this room sat seven figures, four men and three women, all were dressed in traditional Japanese style, Kimonos, yukata, traditional shrine vestments. However all their garbs were made form the finest materials, and if one looked closely you could see were mystic designs had been sewn into the clothing and were then artfully hidden.

Those gathered here represented almost three quarters of the ruling council of the History Compilation Committee, the secret organization that had overseen and controlled all supernatural related matters in the nation since the Meiji period.

Seishuuin, Kuhoutsuka, Renjou and Sayanomiya, every one of the four ancient families had at least one representative present.

It was unusual for even one such meeting to be held in as long as a decade, that this was the second such meeting in less than a year was utterly unprecedented.

But then it was also unprecedented for two such freshly minted god-slayer kings to be in the same country, let alone the same city. Certainly Campione sometimes took spent time in close proximity, and this could be dealt with via duels or diplomacy. Sometimes one of the devil kings would challenge another for right of some land of country, it had been known to happen in the past.

But never in history had two such young supreme rulers set themselves up in the same city and then proceeded to simply ignore each other. From the point of view of the Committee it was like a tiger and a dragon sitting in the same cave and not noticing one another, an unnatural state of affairs that would lead to disaster as soon as normality reasserted itself.

On the other hand though it also presented an opportunity the likes of which they knew had not occurred in the history of their organization.

Two Campione, TWO, were within their sphere of influence. Already Kusanagi Godou had shown himself to be a reasonable man. His temperament lent itself to gentle steering, not manipulation of course. There had been those in the past who had tried to control Campione, and in the places where that had taken place there were still locations were plants refused to grow.

No, control was out of the question, but the incident with the Gorgoneion and the Heretic Goddess Athena had proven that Kusanagi-sama was at least willing to work with them. If they could arrange a similar relationship with this new god-slayer . . .

"Very well Gendo, what can you tell us?"

The man who spoke was one of the men, he was the current head of the Sayanomiya family, and was accompanied by his son in law. The man he was addressing was the eighth person in the small chamber and the only one not a member of the ruling council. He was, however, one of their best agents, and had spent the last week covertly observing the eighth Campione using a variety of mystical and technological means.

The agent in question was seated in the seiza style at the end of the room's low table facing the council. In response to the question he pulled out a small laptop and set it up on the table with the screen facing the council members.

"The first thing that I can safely report is that whatever his plans for the future Emiya-sama does not appear to be pursuing any kind of aggressive course. Since arriving in Japan a week ago he appears to have mostly concerned with building up a largely mundane power base. He has used the Authority gained by his defeat of Hades to acquire considerable wealth as well as a number of resurrected servants. So far he has recruited such servants as will serve an immediate and useful function.