246Rewritten as of 30/09/21
"Talking"
'Thinking'
"Telepathic conversation"
Sacred Gear
[Epis]
(Ddraig)
{Albion}
*Sound effect*
Chapter 1: His first step into the Supernatural
"My dream has come true o' little brother of mine~!" Issei cheerily said as he slammed open the door to my room and sauntered in. "I can finally experience YOUTH!"
Despite knowing what happened, I pretended not to know as I put my laptop to Sleep and faced my brother who was practically glowing. "Oh really? What happened?"
"Hehe~ an extremely cute girl asked me out today when I was heading home~!"
"Good for you."
"I know right~!?" He's too high to note the sarcastic tone in my voice. "She's soooo cute that I fell in love with her at first sight~! And she has biiiiiig boooobies~ hehehehe~!" He wrapped his arms around himself and wiggled like a snake.
"Of course that's where your priorities lie. I bet you would've turned her down if she didn't have any."
"Do you know what she said?" He ignored me. "'Hyoudou-kun! I love you! Please go out with me!' Kyaaa! I couldn't say no to such a beauty like her now could I!? So I, the great Harem King, Issei Hyoudou accepted to go out with her this Sunday!" You don't even have a Harem!
"Okay! Okay! Now calm down! You're creeping me out!" I moved to my bed and pushed the study table chair towards him. Once he sat down I started my questioning. "Now, that's nice and all, but tell me this. Are you sure it wasn't a prank? Or a result of penalty game that her friends set her up with?"
"Yup! There was no one around us, I looked high and low but found no one! It was only the two of us on that bridge, when the sun was setting, drap-"
"Okay, okay, I get it, no need to delve into poetry that you killed people with from the cringe."
"Hey!"
"Anyway, Baka-nii, are you sure that the girl- sorry what was her name again?"
"Yuuma Amano."
"Right. How can you be so sure that the girl genuinely likes you?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Well, here goes nothing. I'm gonna try and convince him into not going into the death trap that is the date this Sunday. "Let's face it. You are a well-known pervert. In fact, you are the only one regarded as "Women's Enemy" out of the Perverted Trio. So tell me, what makes you think she genuinely asked you out? What makes you think she isn't luring you into a trap where at the end of your date she'll kill you?" He gasped at that. "Think about it. If she were to kill you, the supposed "Women's Enemy", society would see her as a "Hero". And after you, your so called "friends" will be next. She would be doing a community service by getting rid of you and your friends!"
"Impossible! Yumma-chan will never do that! An innocent maiden like her will never do something like that!" Ah, finally the annoying glow around him vanished. "You're lying! Yuuma-chan is too pure and sweet for that! She's also got amazing boobs! You're just jealous that I got a girl-"
"Did she even give you her phone number?" I interrupted him mid-rant, he paused and shakily pulled out his phone looking through his contacts. When his soul started the leak out of his body, I realized that I hit the bullseye.
As far as I can recall without resorting to my notebook of Canon events- 15 years can be enough to forget many things about the source material, I don't have perfect memory you know?- neither the LN, Manga nor the Anime had ever shown if Raynare had given him her phone number.
"S-She didn't…"
"Hm…?"
"She didn't give me her phone number…" Issei slumped over in despair as a dark grey cloud formed over his head and started raining. "Uwaaa…! How could this happen to me!?" Cause you don't recognize a flag for what it truly is?
"Baka-nii, why don't you ask her at school tomorrow?"
"But… she's from a different school…"
Okay, there's the cue, now let's see if he uses his brain or not. "Which school is she from? Surely it isn't that far from here?"
"I didn't recognize her school uniform…"
"Okay, stay quiet and hear me out alright?" He nodded. "It should be pretty much obvious that you've been had." I raised a hand to stop him from talking. "Firstly, she is from a different school, one that is who knows how far away from our one. Secondly, she didn't give you her phone number, only asked that you go out on a date with her this Sunday. Thirdly, no one, absolutely no one says "I Love You" when they confess to a stranger. Do you get where I'm going with this?"
Issei slowly nodded, eyes wide, skin pale and sweaty. "She was pranking me." Good boy!
I nodded. "That's right. She's pranking you. For all you know, she wouldn't even show up on your date, making you waste your entire Sunday waiting for her and then she would show up the next day…" I paused making him gulp as he leaned forward with trepidation in his eyes.
"In the next day…?"
I did the Gendo poseTM. "She will show up with a handsome man who is filthy rich, and tell you, 'I'm sorry Hyoudou-kun, but I've found someone better than you, and by better, I mean this stud I'm hanging from the arm of.' Get it? She will rub herself against him and deeply enjoy the despair you will be in, then walk away calling you things like 'filthy virgin', pardon the language, 'tit obsessed pig' and many more. In the end, you'll be left alone desiring death." I stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry Baka-nii, but you've been played for."
Issei paled losing all his colors and turned into a husk. His soul left the body and tears rolled down the cheeks. 'So easy…' I quickly grabbed the soul and shoved it back into the body and watched as his body inflated back into its proper shape, mass and volume before regaining all the colors.
I patted his back in faux sympathy. "Now, why don't you go take a bath, eat something light and turn in for the night? Maybe today's incident will be your imagination?"
"Yeah… I'll just do that…" Issei stood up and walked out of my room for all accounts looking like a zombie. "Good night…"
I wanted to retort that dinner wasn't served yet, but held my tongue, as he is now, he won't even respond.
Once he left the room, with a small application of Magic, I shut the door, sat down on my chair, opened the Laptop and got back to my digitalized paperwork.
Being the Queen of a Maou comes with lots of responsibilities, one of them being paperwork. Fortunately for me, my paperwork is digitalized and thus it takes less time to complete compared to those that do it in the old fashioned way.
As for my King, it's none other than Serafall Leviathan, the Maou in charge of Foreign Affairs. It's been two whole years that I've been her Queen, yet not much is known about me in the Underworld other than three facts:
I'm the youngest among the Maous' Queens. I'm decently talented in Magic and CQC. I have a Longinus-Class Sacred Gear.
[You're evil you know?]
'No idea what you're talking about.'
[She'll be dropping by here tomorrow morning won't she? You know that, yet you crushed his hopes and dreams.]
'Well, you know how I am, so you shouldn't be surprised that I did something like this.'
[He will think that you were the one fooling him into believing that falsified truth out of jealousy for being single. He won't take you seriously anymore after that.]
'That's the plan, Epis. I want him to think like that, because if the date ends up like it did in Canon, and he's reincarnated into the Tomato's Peerage, then he'll know better than to diss my warnings.'
[Hmm...what makes you so certain that the Tomato will reincarnate your foolish brother into her Peerage? What if she doesn't?]
"Then I'll start peeling the Tomato."
If ordinary people found out that I have a voice inside my head that I regularly talk to, they would think that I have Schizophrenia. They would be concerned/creeped out and advise that I get myself treated, but then again, they would say that because of their lack of knowledge and awareness of the Supernatural side of the World.
While having a voice inside your head isn't a common thing in the Supernatural World, it isn't exactly rare either. Some Sacred Gears have spirits or souls of a physically dead being sealed inside them, so the users of said Sacred Gears, and the spirit/soul inside it tend to communicate with each other.
As far as I know at the current moment, there are only five Sacred Gears that allow this phenomenon to occur, all of them being Longinus-Class Sacred Gears.
Going from top to bottom, first comes my Warlord Nightmare, a High-Tier Longinus-Class Sacred Gear that houses the soul of an ancient being of unknown origins named Epis, the Extinction Queen. Similar to True Longinus, Warlord Nightmare can also kill Gods in its initial form. However, contrary to Canon, Warlord Nightmare is the first Sacred Gear that YHWH had created, and the strongest one at that.
I awakened her some time after my 10th birthday and had been training under her in Magic and the usage of her own powers since then. Unfortunately I have yet to unlock the Balance Breaker even after five years as according to Epis it was far too strong for my body to handle, even though it was enhanced by the Queen Piece. But the thing is, there's a lot of things that I don't know about her. Her origins, history, and how she got sealed into the Sacred Gear are unknown to the entire world. Not even Heaven has extensive records on the Sacred Gear and in extension, her. I had asked her about it but she had made it clear that she did not wish to talk about them in a rather calm and kind manner, so I never brought it up as she had also guaranteed that this secrecy won't be a hindrance of any kind in the future. Though she did mention one thing: King Gilgamesh was her previous host before me.
But I digress. The next four are all Mid-Tier Longinus-Class Sacred Gears.
The first two are Boosted Gear and Divine Dividing. Both of them houseing the souls of the Heavenly Dragons Ddraig and Albion respectively, thus the fire-breathing winged Lizards can talk to their hosts and vice-versa. After that is Regulus Nemea, containing the spirit of the Lion King, the Nemean Lion Regulus. And finally there is Canis Lykaon, housing the spirit of King of Arcadia, Lycaon turned into a Wolf.
To my knowledge, all of these Sacred Gears are that which allows us to communicate with the beings sealed inside them by YHWH.
"Issei! Izayoi! Dinner is ready!"
As per my routine, I woke up at 5:30 AM and started meditating. I expanded my senses across the entire Kuoh Town and checked up on everyone's Ki to find out about any kind of anomalies.
Having done that, I went to the front yard with a bokken in hand and started going through my Kendo and Iaido katas, and after that I did the Karate katas. Even though the Karate I learnt is simply meant for sports due to its non-lethal nature, under Epis and Serafall's Rook's guidance, I turned its nature to lethal.
With my morning training done, I freshened up and donned the school uniform, except I wore the waistcoat instead of the blazer. Eating something light for breakfast, by 7 AM I left home with my large bento in hand and headed towards school.
Now, classes start at 8:30 AM, so I could come to school at around 8 AM or later, but instead I arrive at school by 7:10 AM. As for why?
It's because I'm the Disciplinary Committee Head, so I have to come to school earlier than the rest of the students bar the Student Council, or StuCo as I like it call it in my head.
The Disciplinary Committee is a branch of the StuCo with its office right beside the latter's. It is rather new as it was introduced this year with only seven members so far. Me being the Head, a second year student as the Vice, one third year, two second year and two fellow first year students as Enforcers.
Our job is pretty simple as there are only three tasks that we carry out:
Detecting and examining some behavioral problems among students. Meeting with misbehaving students (i.e Perverted Trio) and clarifying the negative effects of bad behavior on their life. Taking suitable action towards students' misconduct.
Other than these three, there are some light paperwork and weekly reports to the StuCo President.
In the morning, I and my Vice alongside Sona and Tsubaki stand on both sides of the school gates to regularly greet and check the students for objects they shouldn't be carrying such as Magazines, (fashion or otherwise).
We also check if any student are violating the school dress code, if they do, they are made to stand by the school gates as punishment and then are forced to fix their dress right in front of everyone. No one repeated the same mistakes ever again, especially since it was someone as infamous as me in Kuoh Town who enforced such a rule.
The Enforcers are made to patrol the school grounds, before and after school starts and ends, for any abnormality or catching anyone who sneaked past us in the morning, or kicking out those not a part of the Clubs hanging around after the end of the school.
We are the ones to deal punishments to the Perverted Trio, with them often ending up being either the target practice for Archery Club, practice dummy for the Karate or Kendo Club. Sometimes, I even make sure to keep them after school to clean the entire school- Issei had arrived late yesterday because of that.
I made it a strict rule among everyone in the Committee to arrive by 7:30 AM and get to work, because that's when the school gates for the students open. If they are to arrive late, they must let me or my Vice know ahead of time.
Once everyone arrives, we head out to our posts and carry out our duties, and then go to our respective classes by 8:25 AM.
This has become my routine at school since the third week of the school's first semester started.
"Heeeeeey~! Izayoooi~! Hold uuuuuup!"
It was when I was heading outside to eat my lunch that Issei called out to me.
"What is it Baka-nii?" Matching my gait with his, I led him to my lunch spot under the shadow of a large tree beside the Old School Building and sat down.
"Hehe~ Guess what?"
Opening my foot tall bento divided into three compartments, I answered, "I was right about Yuuma Amano pulling a prank on you?"
"Nope~! She actually meant it when she said she loves me and wants to go out with me! Look!" he pulled out his phone and showed me a number saved as 'Yuuma-chan'. "She even gave me her phone number! Turns out she was so excited that she forgot to give me her phone number!"
'Yeah, right. As if.' More like the mere thought of having his contact info repulsed her to the point of pretending to forget about giving him her contact number.
He glowed again just like last night and shot me a happy grin. "In fact she herself came to our house this morning to walk me here to school. So there's no way she's deceiving me! H-Hey, what's with that sad look on your face? Are you pitying me?"
He looked so proud of himself with this morning's incident that I couldn't help but pity him. He's gonna get killed and he doesn't even know it. "Aren't you ashamed?" Ignoring the inevitable, I decided to poke fun at him as I finished the food on the first compartment of the bento.
"Huh? Ashamed about what? And please drop the pitying look, it hurts." It's meant to dumbass.
"Baka-nii, you, a man needed to be walked to school, escorted by a woman, where instead it should be the other way around. That's why, I'm asking if you're ashamed of yourself or not."
"Hey! Her school is far away from here and since mine is closer, she decided to walk me here." I blankly stared at him as I drank the chicken soup from the vacuum flask.
"Even if her school is on the opposite end of Kuoh Town from our school, it's you who should be escorting her." Although I have to admit that Raynare's done a smart thing. The fact that she showed up to escort him to school implants the faux illusion of how serious she is about dating him. 'And my brother is completely unaware of it…'
[Give him a break. He doesn't even know that the Supernatural actually exists. For all accounts, he's just a normal human.]
'One who had the unfortunate luck of being born with a Sacred Gear in him, a Longinus no less…'
[Life isn't fair, you should know that well.]
'Good job stating the obvious.'
Well, it's not like Epis is wrong. Heck, if I was in his place, completely unaware of the Supernatural, then I too would've been excited at the prospect of a date with a beautiful girl. But alas, tis not meant to be.
"Fine, fine, I'll walk her to her school starting tomorrow." Issei rolled his eyes pocketing his phone. "Anyway, you should find yourself a girlfriend too you know? I mean, if I can find one, then you can find one too can't you? Especially with how popular you are. Maybe you should ask Serafall-san out?"
"Baka-nii, if you weren't a Pervert of the highest caliber then you would've been asked out a lot of times. Sure you may look average-"
"Ouch!"
"-but you have a good enough personality to cover up the lack of 'bishounen' vibes around you. If you weren't a pervert, or at least didn't try to invade a girl's privacy, self-proclaim yourself as the 'Harem King' and declare your love of breasts loudly to the entire world, then maybe you would've had better friends than those two monkeys that you call friends. It's alright to be a pervert, heck, Serafall herself is a big pervert-"
"Really!?"
"-yes, but only in private. It's fine to be a closet pervert, people will, at worst, laugh you off instead of hating you."
"Ohhh! I see! I see!" Do you now? "Okay, but what about you? Any plans on asking Serafall-san out?"
"There's no need for that."
"Huh? You're already going out!?"
"The term 'going out' is an understatement." I shot him a grin of utter smugness. "You see, Baka-nii, I and Serafall have a relationship that transcends the one of mortals like you." Ignoring Epis's snort of amusement I continued, "Serafall and I are connected to each other on a spiritual level. Everything I feel, she feels. And everything she feels, I feel too. Therefore, neither of us need to ask each other out, for we know what exactly our hearts want. All we do, is merely act on our desires and love for each other."
*Sob* *Sniffle*
I paused and just stared at my brother who was on his knees- 'No wait, it's me who's standing in front of him in a T-pose…'- crying rivers of tears as he looked up at me in awe, hands clasped as if… praying to me? I ignored Epis who was laughing her ass off from inside my soul at the scene and just asked, "Are you okay?" This is too weird, even for me.
Issei nodded and pulled out a handkerchief before blowing his nose with it. "Yeah, I'm… *hic* just overwhelmed and awed by your passion. I never thought that kind of love exists outside of fiction-"
"Harems exist only in fiction too at the current age, so don't think you can have one in real life." Unless the government does anything to increase the birth rate of our country.
"-I hope I'll have the same relationship with Yuuma-chan like you do with Serafall-san, if not, then better!"
Yeah, no. You're gonna die on your first date and get traumatized.
"Good luck with that."
"Yeah…"
The school bell then decided it was time and rang ending the lunch break. "Well, Baka-nii, don't get yourself into any kind of perverted shenanigans. You've got yourself a girlfriend, try to control yourself, okay? You don't need her image of you to be ruined do you?" Not like you have one to begin with, but oh well.
"Yeah, you're right! See ya later Izayoi!"
"Yeah, yeah…"
[…'a relationship that transcends the one of mortals' huh?]
'I'm not wrong though.'
[…doesn't make it any less weird.]
I suppressed the urge to snort. What I told Issei about my relationship with Serafall is true to an extent. It's not that we are actually connected on a spiritual level, rather, it's just that we understand each other better than anyone else, better than Sona and Issei.
There's no secret between the two of us, I know everything about her past, just like she knows the fact that I'm a reincarnated person from an alternate universe. Of course I didn't tell her about my condition right off the bat, but rather made her earn the trust to learn about it.
As of now, our relationship hasn't been officialised, more so because of me than her. Serafall had wanted the entire World to know about our relationship, but I requested that she didn't reveal it now. I want to become a High-Class Devil, if not, an Ultimate-Class Devil first, then reveal our relationship to the world.
Serafall was reluctant in agreeing to it as she honestly couldn't care less if she, a Maou, had a Low-Class Devil for a lover. What matters to her is that we love each other, status be damned. But I was insistent on it, I want to avoid unnecessary scrutinizing from the Elders of the Sitri Clan and the Old Devils, for that I need to prove my strength to them and Kokabiel is the perfect scapegoat for that.
I've trained with Epis and Serafall a lot. Neither of them held back against me and went all out from the beginning, so I'm confident I can take Kokabiel head on and win. Also, it helps that killing him increases the chances of my promotion to Ultimate-Class Devil. So there's that.
'Oh well, if things go according to the plan, then everything will be fine. But then again, I just might tempt Murphy.'
"Hey Izayoi, got a moment?"
I blinked twice and looked up from my place on the couch of the living room at Issei who looked quite serious, and bothered with something.
"Yeah, sure, what's up?"
"Can we go to your room? It's best if we talk there…" he looked at the kitchen where mom and dad were washing the dishes. Is it about Yuuma? Why can't we talk here…?
Nevertheless, I shrugged and got up. "Sure." I started heading upwards to my room and Issei followed me in. Like last night, I sat down on the bed and he took the chair. Seeing as whatever Issei wants to talk about seems to be a serious matter, I activated the sound blocking barriers to give him more privacy. "Okay, what's up? You look constipated."
"You know who Rias Gremory is right?" I nodded feeling like I know where he is going with this. "Well, how do I say this without sounding stupid…?" he scratched his head and looked to the side. Did he really plan on talking to me about this without a sound plan?
"Why don't you start from the beginning?"
"Yeah, let's do that." Issei took a moment to prepare himself and nodded. "After classes ended, that pretty boy Kiba came to my class and told me to come with him, cause his club President Gremory-senpai wanted to talk with me." Oh ho? So she's making her move now instead of later when this doofus would die?
"Then?"
"He took me to the Old School Building and led me to the Occult Research Club, where Gremory-senpai and her boobs were waiting for me, ehehehe~"
I slapped him. "Focus!"
"R-Right! So, she then told me weird voodoo stuff like her being a Devil and what not. She told me she could make my dream come true and make me a Harem King, but that it would take time. All I would have to do is become a part of her… family that she calls her Peerage? Yeah, that and I have to become a Devil too." He snapped his fingers. "Also, she told me that there's this Sacred Gear thingy in me that could make me powerful."
"What did you do?"
"Eh, I told her to give me some time to think about it."
I blinked. Wow, Scenario #3 came true in this timeline huh? And to think he didn't accept the offer…
[Maybe he has enough sense to not ditch his girlfriend for a Harem?]
'Could be possible.'
"So why didn't you accept it? I'm sure she presented some proof to validate her claims. If she claimed that she can make you a Harem King, then why didn't you jump at the… golden opportunity? Knowing you, this is rather strange."
He slumped over and looked disturbed. "Yeah, she did provide me with a proof." He pointed to his back. "Bat wings popped out of her back. Bat wings! Himejima-senpai also showed me that Magic exists! Magic! And that Kiba bastard created a sword out of thin air!" Then he started crying abruptly. "Koneko-chan outright ignored me! What should I do Izayoi!?"
'Go die in a ditch.' Is what I want to say, but who knows? He might even end up doing it.
"So? Why are you talking to me about this? I'm pretty sure Gremory-senpai told you to keep these things a secret…" I narrowed my eyes at him. "…unless she also wants me to be in this Peerage of hers?"
"Well, it's true that she told me to keep these a secret, but you always told me to think things through, right? Contracts, offers, business deals and stuff are always more than they appear to be. That's what you beat into my skull, so I thought I would think this through." He grabbed his head and grimaced. "But thinking all this stuff hurt my head, so I thought I'd talk it out with you, since you're the smarter one of the two of us."
Glad to see my lessons are paying off. "You do know that everything you're talking about sounds like someone with Schizophrenia or something would say?"
"Yeah I know, but you're the one who always talked about possibilities. So why don't you think of this as a possibility?"
I sighed. What to do? To reveal the truth or not to? Decisions, decisions… on one hand I want to make my debut in style by defeating Kokabiel, on the other hand, I'm getting tired of all this hiding. Hmm, maybe I should... 'Y'know what? Fuck it.'
"Izayoi? You there?"
"Baka-nii, remember what I told you the next day of my 13th birthday?"
Issei scrunched up his face and nodded. "Yeah, you quoted DIO and said that you were abandoning your humanity. Now that I think about it, what did you mean by that?" Ah, it's unfortunate that he can't connect the dots, but it's not like it matters.
"I meant it in a literal sense." I stand up and spread my arms to the sides pointed diagonally downward. More like the pose Golden Frieza did upon his transformation. "You see…"
*FWIP*
Issei gawked and fell out of his chair at the sight of my six bat wings. "Wha-!?"
"I have become a Devil on the night of my 13th birthday."
Note: Izayoi's past, how he grew up, his training, his interactions with Serafall etc will be shown through interludes.