179Of Metempsychosis and Paranoia, Calculations and Preparations Spin-Off
Deviation
Chapter 1
A/N: For those who have already read the main story, as you will guess, this chapter is mostly Interlude 1 of the main story. However, do not worry, as this chapter is quite different than the interlude about halfway through. So please be patient and read this chapter to the end before commenting in the review section that it's no different than the main story. As compensation, I'll upload the second chapter within three days instead of next week.
Many thanks to Javis R. Yeriel for being my Beta reader!
"Talking"
'Thinking'
"Flashback/Technique/Command"
Sacred Gear/Weapon
Romaji/Emphasis
Note: In my stories, "Life Force" is used to refer to the number of years a person has remaining. For example, "The 'Technique' drains portions of his Life Force to deal the desired amount of DMG." This means that as a result of using the 'Technique', 'n' number of years has been reduced from the amount of years he would've lived without using it. "Ki" on the other hand is referred to as a type of Energy similar to Mana and Demonic Power.
How would you feel when you realize that you've been given a second chance at life?
A chance where you get to live an entirely new life from the very beginning with an unknown end?
A chance where you can become the ideal human being, aware of your faults in your previous life?
A chance where you get to do what you want to do without anything holding you back?
A chance that would let you have no regrets?
What is it that you'd feel knowing that you have a chance that many have wished for, desired for?
Ecstasy? Joy? Happiness? Or despair? Loss? Sadness? Most would feel the first three and a rare few would feel the latter three; and some might even feel something from both sides. But me? At first I felt joy, something that soon turned into despair and then determination.
Joy because I get to live again after dying young, not even hitting my 20s (at least I didn't die a virgin!). Joy because this time I won't be the disappointment that I was to my parents in previous life.
With the knowledge of my last life, I'll have the upper hand among my younger peers and get ahead of them in everything bar one or two subjects. This time I will become my parent's pride and joy.
That very same joy turned into despair when I realized that I was not reincarnated in a normal world. It was a world that I was extremely familiar with. A world that I laughed at and roasted from behind the screen, and now, it is that very same world that will turn into the source of my stress.
High School DxD. The world where breasts defy logic and fuck Physics in the ass without lube.
Now, many would argue with me about this since the theme of this very world is about the power that breasts hold (for Issei only). They would say that I should be happy because I get to experience the paradise outside of Heaven. To those that believe in this, fuck you damned hormonal imbeciles! Just because I've been reincarnated to this world doesn't mean everything is going to be rainbows and sunshine! This is my new reality and as someone who's quite realistic and logical, I know that life tends to royally fuck you up when you least expect it.
So no, I'm not pleased to know that my new reality is about breasts and their marvelous powers.
Many could argue that I can just go on my merry way with my life away from the main cast and their Supernatural shenanigans. Trust me, I'd do that in a heartbeat if I could, the keyword being 'if'.
How can I stay the fuck away from the main cast when the main protagonist is my older brother by 23 months?!
At least the name that my new parents chose is one of the many that I actually liked.
Izayoi. It means "16 days old moon". This name is the only consolation that I've had from birth no matter how insignificant or weird it sounds.
Now, knowing who my older brother really is and the role that he'll play in this Universe- DxD is no longer an anime or fiction to me, but reality- I'll have no choice but get dragged into his mess of a life.
And even if I don't get involved directly, Rizevim will eventually reveal the truth about Issei to me and our parents by kidnapping us to the Underworld. With Issei being the classical Shounen protagonist- even if the series doesn't fall in the Shounen category- it made sense for his parents to accept the fact that Issei was no longer their flesh and blood.
But here? Where's the guarantee that our parents would be readily accepting of the fact that their son died, became a Devil, and died again foolishly taking Samael's poisoned arrow instead of dodging it, only to return back to life because of two of the Strongest Beings actually taking enough of an interest in him to give his soul a new body? This timeline that I'm a part of isn't an Anime, Manga or LN. It's reality. That stuff just can't happen!
Moreover, how can I be so sure that this timeline will follow Canon? How can I be sure that tragedy won't strike me early in the life, or even around the time period that canon starts at? How can I be sure that Issei will actually be reincarnated by Rias Gremory!? But with me here, what if it is me who is the protagonist? What if I am the Boosted Gear holder?
There are so many "what if" scenarios that I can think of, that it had become hard for me to breathe. The SI-OC fanfiction stories that I've read in FFN and AO3 made me paranoid to the point I'll end up being an insomniac.
Life isn't fair, no one is born equal. Reality is cruel and sooner or later it will kick me in the nuts. So all I can do is prepare. So with determination, will power and grit, I'll prepare for the worst. I'll prepare myself Saitama style and hope that everything goes smoothly until I'm ready to face the supernatural head on. Hopefully Saitama's power logic would be applicable to me.
Once I gathered myself, I immediately drew up a mental plan of action. I want to be prepared as much as I can just in case I get myself involved in the Supernatural side of this world. However, before I get down to the power building, I need to write down everything I remember about Canon into notebooks, and possibly use codes for everyone's names too. I don't have photographic or eidetic memory, so over the years until the start of Canon, I am most likely to get carried away and forget things, so having something to look at to remember things will definitely help in the future. For that, I'll need to learn Japanese first and 'watch' English TV shows and express an 'interest' to learn it.
With that out of the way, I decided to learn Kendo and Karate to cover the non-magic portion of combat. For the Magic portion of combat, I decided to meditate and search deep inside me if I have any Sacred Gear.
I did have one, but I didn't know what it was as I was only a bit above a year old in age when I learnt of it, so I doubt I'll be able to pull it out until I'm seven years old at least. Depending on the type of Sacred Gear I have, I'll have to tweak my plans later on.
As for how I learnt that I have a Sacred Gear? Well, I'll get on to that matter later.
Since I couldn't use my Sacred Gear at that age, I decided to make do with the next best thing. Ki Manipulation or Senjutsu as it was introduced in this world. Kuroka had mentioned that the most basic method of learning Senjutsu is through meditation and quietly releasing my own Ki to try and sense the natural Ki of my surrounding. So all I did is lie down on a comfortable place and pretend to sleep and focus on following Kuroka's instruction down to the letter.
Sounds simple enough, but in reality it isn't so simple.
Because of my human physiology I had a hard time tapping into my Ki reserves. Once I learnt how to tap into my reserves- when I was two years old after trying for a year- I tried to release my Ki to the surrounding as slowly as I could.
The first several times I passed out after releasing my Ki to the surrounding, but once I got the hang of it I repeated the process many times until it became an instinctual thing to do.
Then I tried to sense my surroundings and worked on expanding my senses to detect the Ki of others. Over the years of practice, I became a walking radar of sorts to the point I could count and tell how many people were inhabiting Kuoh Town since my range covered almost the entirety of Kuoh Town. At first it brought me headaches but soon enough I got used to it.
With the non-magic portion of combat of my "Survival Plan 101" covered, I concluded that I needed every bit of information that I could get my hands on. So I decided to keep on reading books on Mythology and History to have basic knowledge and understanding of all the factions out there no matter how unlikely it is for the information to be true- I blame Ishibumi for the fucked up mess that the Supernatural world eventually becomes.
Then there's the matter of which faction I'd ally myself to.
There are many factions to choose from. The Biblical Faction consisting of three sub-factions, The Shinto Faction, The Olympians, The Norse Pantheon, The Hindu Faction, etc.
Though considering what happens in the latter quartile of the series, I wouldn't have much of a choice in choosing a faction, which is if I become involved with the supernatural. But, if I did have the option to choose, then I'd aim for the Underworld- as in becoming a Devil under someone's servitude- or the Shinto/Youkai Faction, if not, then Grigori. Or I could remain independent as a freelancer or mercenary for hire with my back open for attacks.
It's not like I favor the Devils or anything, it's just that becoming one would make it easier to become stronger what with the power of imagination and all that shit. But if I were to remain independent then all I'd have is my CQC skills and Ki Manipulation, and no one to be protected by.
There're so many things to consider that I wouldn't be surprised if I've accidentally shortened my lifespan from stress, dying like King Gilgamesh did in Nasuverse by overworking, if that doesn't happen then all of my hair will turn grey early in my life or I'd become bald like Saitama.
What I wouldn't do to make life easier...
I won't talk much about my time with Irina and her family.
It wasn't anything noteworthy, if anything, it was annoying with how much Irina wanted to hold me, cuddle with me and poke my chubby baby cheeks, then keep on babbling non-sense in a language that would kill Eldritch abominations. Exaggeration much? Yeah. Do I care? No. As much as l like kids, I wasn't exactly in the state of mind and body at that time to look after a kid who was physically older than me.
At least it was amusing to watch Issei mistake Irina for a boy, the girl, I'll admit, looked cute- just like any other pouting child would- for being mistaken as someone of wrong gender.
It was quite dramatic when the time for the Shidous to return to England came. Tears were shed, wailing of children were heard and snots were mixed. Hugs and kisses (platonic ones) were shared. And a promise to reunite in the future was made too.
That's all I'm gonna say about the Shidous. Wait for Excalibur Arc to begin to learn more.
I decided to conduct a little experiment- I'm nine by the way at the moment. It was mainly to determine whether I had any aptitude for magic or not. If I do end up with an aptitude with Magic, then I want to try out a few… stuff to see if they work. Now, I don't understand much about DxD's human magic system, all I know is that equations and circles are involved. Therefore, I decided to do it the old fashioned way (in my opinion).
Incantations.
Since I don't exactly know how magic or the Mana in my body and the surroundings feels like, I decided to try out two things at once. First is as mentioned, get a feel of my Mana and get familiar with it. Secondly, see if the Kido from the BLEACH franchise by Tite Kubo works in this world. It may sound stupid for me to try out things from other franchise, but hear me out.
I am damn sure someone had a hand in my reincarnation into this particular world, and that someone isn't God since he's dead in this world, and the one that I believed in back in my previous life wasn't known to pull this kind of shit. So either, they have some big plans set up for me to face by the time Canon rolls around (or earlier); or they want me to genuinely enjoy this new life of mine- which I highly doubt- and have thus tampered with this world's system to allow me some leeway with the shit I plan on pulling.
If it's the former, then my experiment won't work and instead blow up in my face, but if it's the latter… hehehehe~ then I'll have the time of my life, granted that person has given me access to what I would want from them if they had asked, and that is, the logic that applies in BLEACH. Mainly the Kido and some other stuff that I'd rather not talk about until I've actually found out about them.
Now, as I was saying before: Incantations and Mana. Incantations helps the inexperienced spell casters learn how to properly regulate the flow and amount of Mana into a spell. Since I don't know the feeling Mana gives off, doing an incantation would not only carry out its primary objectives, but help me get a feel on the Mana inside me and my surroundings. Therefore I decided to try out one of the weaker and safer spells of Kido. Namely the Bakudo ones. So I started with Bakudo #9: Horin.
Suffice to say, the experiment was a massive failure proving the former half of my theory about that person/deity correct; if not, then it'll be both and that's not fine, because one of my many dreams didn't come true! And I don't want to die young again!
Knowing that I can't do Kido made me so sad, disappointed and depressed, that Issei became concerned like any older brother should and took me out to eat Ice Cream in hopes of cheering me up. It worked enough to relieve him but not enough to make my disappointment disappear.
Six months later, I finally found out what my Sacred Gear is, and I wasn't disappointed.
Blade Blacksmith, otherwise known as the rip-off of Shirou Emiya's Unlimited Blade Works, and the Holy counterpart of Sword Birth.
But soon a problem reared its head after I was done riding the high of potentially becoming the 2nd coming of Shirou Emiya and sorta-Gilgamesh.
I was able to create several nondescript Holy Swords, but the question is, how did I create them seeing as I lack a Mana Reservoir for the Sacred Gear to draw upon in order to create the swords? Is Blade Blacksmith using my Life Force to create the swords like how the Boosted Gear and Divine Dividing's Juggernaut Drive feeds on the Life Force and sanity of the wielder to sustain itself? If that is the case, then shouldn't I avoid using Blade Blacksmith?
Or should I? I mean, I don't want to die young, but that doesn't mean I want to die old either. I want to die when I'm around 50 years old more or less, so I guess I could go ahead and keep on using Blade Blacksmith in short bursts to prevent the consumption of my Life Force? Or I could use it almost on daily basis but at the same time making sure to draw in nature's Ki into myself? But that itself presents another problem. What if I go insane from the malice and evil that is mixed in nature's Ki? Then wouldn't I end up attacking my current family and wreak havoc in my neighborhood until someone decides to put me out of my misery?
The way I see it, either option ends leads to me dying way too soon on my current family. If I was an orphan living in an orphanage then I would've gone ahead with both plans, but since I'm not, either of them are out of consideration.
But if I don't start training with Blade Blacksmith now, wouldn't I end up dying either way in a battle in the future? This way I am only delaying the inevitable, right? So I should start working on mastering Blade Blacksmith right?
"…"
"…"
"…"
In the end I decided on training with Blade Blacksmith twice a week in short bursts. It would be a slow and long progress, but at least that way I'm making some progress right? So it's fine! Hopefully.
My training with Ki Manipulation is coming in good though. I can finally use Touki, but can't keep it up for longer than two minutes, and that's by remaining stationary. Making the slightest of movements would cause my concentration to break and Touki to vanish, so I'm going to need a lot of work with that.
That aside, I've progressed leaps and bounds in Karate and Kendo. Both of them were rather easy to pick up and master, but my progress with Iaido and Kyudo was slow as not only did I pick them up after I manifested Blade Blacksmith, but both required more discipline, something that I've always lacked in my previous life and a bit in this one as well. So I've got a long way to go before I master these two.
But I do believe, that by the time canon rolls around, I would be more than ready to face minor threats like Raynare and co. But after them, I would need to have Koneko and Yuuto as my sparring partners, the latter for his speed and the former for her strength and durability.
To celebrate my 11th birthday, we went on a family trip to Kyoto, one and a half day before my birthday. We would be there on a four day trip, going around all the tourist attractions and then return home. Normally, I wouldn't have mentioned this, but for the sake of the story's progression, I'll just skip to the main part.
I've crossed paths with not only Serafall Leviathan, but Yasaka as well.
How? It was on the third day when we were heading towards Kyoto Imperial Palace that I crossed paths with them. I recognized Serafall on first glance, I mean, how could I not? She was wearing that twice damned Magical Girl outfit suspiciously not drawing attention to her. But Yasaka? I didn't recognize her at first, not because she was hiding her fox ears and tails, but rather she looked vastly different from what the LN and Anime portrayed her as.
Yasaka literally stole my breath away with her beauty. She was tall, quite close to six feet if I'm not wrong, with a voluptuous body and skin tone close to mine- milky white- in similarity but different. Her hair of liquid gilt cascaded down her straight and poised back, and her eyes shone like the sun, her facial features were both angelic and ethereal and her lips were curled in a smile that looked both gracious and mischievous. She was wearing a scarlet kimono with white and yellow floral patterns and a golden obi. I don't know how my family didn't notice her, but I'm willing to bet it had something to do with Youjutsu. Her beauty in this world made the LN and Anime's one pale in comparison.
Her eyebrows weren't those round things that had signified nobility, instead thin and long, and her eyes were a bit narrowed.
Why I was the only one to notice her beauty is a question I didn't know the answer of, but what I did know was that, I couldn't detect anything from her, I couldn't sense her aura. I could sense Serafall's aura just fine, it was suppressed but not completely gone, unlike Yasaka's. It was as if she was just a ghost walking side by side with Serafall.
As for how I am so sure she was Yasaka? Serafall had blatantly called her by her real name instead of a fake one. But I could be wrong as they could be a pair of imposters, thus SUS and not so trustworthy.
But this isn't exactly how I crossed paths with them. No, as I mentioned earlier, I was with my family walking towards the Kyoto Imperial Palace when I felt two pairs of eyes on me.
I quickly expanded my senses and felt something dark, sinful and non-human ping in the back of my mind. I looked in that direction, only to meet the purple eyes of one Serafall Leviathan wearing that damnable Magical Girl outfit and the golden ones of Yasaka.
She and Yasaka were both just standing close to a tree ten meters at my 4 O' clock blatantly staring at me, not even bothering to look away. Serafall had instead waved at me and I couldn't help the grimace on my face. The very same grimace that transformed into amazement once my eyes landed on Yasaka, Serafall had pouted at it while Yasaka winked at me! I would've been in a trance staring breathlessly at Yasaka if Issei hadn't shaken me asking what I was doing spacing out in the middle of the road.
I looked at him once and then looked at the tree, only to see them gone, as if they weren't even there to begin with. I shook my head and instead lied to Issei that I had seen something interesting which left after seeing him. Not a lie, since a Maou and a Leader were shamelessly staring at me, only calling out to each other loudly- somehow going unheard by everyone except me- but otherwise quietly conversed not even taking their eyes off of me. That was when I knew they had taken an interest in me due to reasons unknown
Almost a year later, one of them acts on their apparent interest in me, which is also be the time a misunderstanding of mine gets cleared, side-by-side with learning their reasons for doing so.
6:36 AM, 13th December 2004
Kuoh Central Park
3rd Person POV
It happened just a couple of minutes after Izayoi reached the park to do his daily workout after a nice long jog around the town.
Fog suddenly appeared and covered a part of the park surrounding him in all sides, locking him away from the world outside.
Izayoi tensed, expanding his Ki Sense across the perimeter of the fog and stayed alert for any kind of hostile intent and action. Spreading his legs slightly past his shoulders, Izayoi lowered his center of mass and held his left arm beside his face, and right arm at his hip intent on creating two Wakizashi's using Blade Blacksmith to defend himself.
For several long seconds nothing happened, until he sensed a hostile intent up and behind him. Quickly turning around, he raised his right arm instantly creating a Wakizashi held in a reverse grip to block another one from his attacker, grunting as his 11 year old body buckled under the strength of the attack from a pink-haired female…
"…Ninja…?"
Izayoi muttered in confusion breaking the lock and jumping back to create some distance between him and the ninja.
"Why are you attacking me?"
"…" The ninja remained silent preferring to observe Izayoi.
"…not one to talk, huh, Ms. Ninja?" Using the standstill between the two of them, Izayoi took a moment to observe 'Ms. Ninja'. After taking a proper look at her, he grimaced as he noticed the two fox ears atop her head and the five fox tails swishing lazily behind her. 'Prolly on par with a High-Class Devil or close to one. Better not underestimate her…'
Not willing to die so soon, Izayoi took a deep breath and exhaled, then covered himself in the aura of his Touki, immediately ducking as Ms. Ninja sailed over his head feet first in an attempt of a dropkick to the face.
Spinning on his feet, Izayoi switched the Wakizashi in his right hand with a Katana and slashed at her, following up with a stab from the Wakizashi in his left hand as she leaned backwards to dodge the Katana. But Izayoi didn't stop with a stab. No, with a loud command of "Shoot!" the blade of the Wakizashi burst forward increasing in length to punch through her skull, only to miss as Ms. Ninja turned out to be more agile and faster than Izayoi expected, landing a roundhouse kick on his face that would've fractured his jaw if he wasn't using Touki.
Izayoi shot backwards and crashed through the fountain, landing hard behind it with a pained grunt, the back of his tracksuit in tears. Much to Ms. Ninja's pleasant surprise, Izayoi immediately shot up from the ground, locked his sight on her and burst towards her over the shattered fountain, killing intent radiating off of him. She lazily blocked the first strike from the Katana in his right hand, hiding her surprise at the strength behind the swing, and grabbed his left hand stopping the stab towards her liver. While his attacks were painfully easy to read and react to for someone of her caliber, the places where he aimed were certainly capable of killing or fatally injuring her.
Done with her observation, Ms. Ninja reared her leg and arc kicked him on the left hip, pleased at the lack of the sound of bone breaking. She flicked her wrist breaking the lock of his Katana and her Wakizashi before Spartan kicking him back past the shattered fountain. She hummed not moving from her position as she heard him wheeze, and cough on the ground before getting back on his feet with a groan.
Standing up, Izayoi switched the Wakazashi in his left hand with three Kunais and threw them at her. As he expected, she expertly dodged them, but then blurred right in front of him, her fist mere inches from connecting with his face. He jerked his head to the side at the last moment, her fist grazing his cheek cutting a thin line under his right eye as he rolled away before throwing three more Kunais at her.
While Izayoi was shocked that her fist was able to cut a line on his cheek, even though he had two layers of protection over him- a second skin made of his Ki and Touki- he didn't show it on his face, prioritizing his life over the discovery. He would later ponder on how she was able to pull it off without using her own Touki- he will be damned if the Gobi-no-Kitsune didn't know how to use Touki- assuming he survives from this encounter at her mercy.
Ms. Ninja then turned invisible right before him making him panic before she landed another arc kick on his face sending him tumbling away. She pressed on the attack for a minute straight striking from random directions as Izayoi desperately tried to guard himself before he roared throwing his hands to the side, and a wave of raw, destructive Ki burst out of him in a sphere creating a crater beneath him, and this time throwing her backwards at a tree that she hit hard against in her surprise.
Of course she recovered quickly and stealthily walked towards the crater to check up on him, now visible to his eyes.
From his position in the center of the small crater, Izayoi glared up at her as he panted on all fours before standing up on wobbly legs and manifesting his Touki with a grunt of pain which flickered constantly expressing his tiredness.
Clearly impressed, Ms. Ninja couldn't help but raise her eyebrows at him.
Izayoi weakly smirked and rasped out, "I… ain't done… you damn… vixen…!" He weakly raised his right hand pointed at her, ten Katanas manifesting by his sides before they shot forward at her faster than his thrown Kunais did.
Ms. Ninja once again displayed her agility and speed as she dodged all the swords before hurriedly raising her Wakizashi to block the two-handed swing from Izayoi. Unimpressed, she raised an eyebrow at him. Izayoi only grinned and said only one word-
"Burn!"
-then there was fire everywhere.
A/N: In this spin-off, Izayoi's appearance will not be based off on Marisbury Animuspere, but instead Evan from King's Raid. As for the Ms. Ninja? Look up Darkbolt Jonin, then slap a pair of fox ears and five fluffy fox tails, and done! Oh, and if any of you think that Izayoi is too strong for someone his age, then wait until Chapter 2, then you'll find out why.
Character Profile(s) as of Chapter 1
Name: Izayoi Hyoudou
Age: 11 (29)
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Date of Birth: 16th March 1993
Height: 4'6"
Weight: 41 kg
Power(s): Ki Manipulation
Abilities: Touki, Swordsmanship, Martial Arts
Equipment: Common Sacred Gear - Blade Blacksmith
Name: Unknown, Ms. Ninja (proxy)
Age: Unknown
Gender: Female
Race: Kitsune
Date of Birth: Unknown
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 52 kg
Power(s): Senjutsu and Youjutsu displayed
Abilities: Swordsmanship and Martial Arts displayed
Equipment: Wakizashi