Chapter Zero: Kore wa Shonen, desu ka?

Issei

I was walking home alone after school, hands in my pockets and happily reminiscing on the day's memories of Gremory-senpai, Himejima-senpai and Koneko-chan as I wondered if I would manage to complete my new eroge that night, when I stepped onto the street where my house was and stopped cold at the feeling I suddenly received.

It was a shiver, a shiver through my whole body that set my nerves on edge. A warning of danger? I'd felt something like this sometimes when I got caught peeking at girls, but this was on a whole other level. Was this something from my Devil senses?

One way or another, the feeling was coming from my house. My house, where my mother was!

Imagining my mother in danger, I immediately ran to my front door and pulled it open, stepping inside and untidily tossing my shoes aside as I walked quickly toward the kitchen.

What had happened? Had my status as a Devil been revealed? If so, who to? Who by? Fallen Angels? The Church? God? Any of those could be dangerous - if they were like Freed or...her, then they would definitely kill anyone around me just for knowing me! My mother, who gave birth to me and raised me…

I walked faster.

I remembered the corpses that sick bastard Selzen left in his wake. That blood, all those cuts and wounds...that wouldn't happen to my mother! I wouldn't let it happen!

My mother wasn't in the kitchen, and my heart stopped for a moment. Then I heard laughter coming from the living room and quickly spun on my heel, marching towards the sound.

My mother was sitting, smiling, apparently unharmed. I breathed a sigh of relief even as I noticed the other three people in the room with her; one of them was sitting beside her and laughing at something in the book my mother was holding (oh no, not the album again), while the other two were sitting on the couch opposite.

Two of them, including the one beside my mother, were girls with foreign features while the third was a guy who reminded me a lot of Kiba but even girlier. Dammit, if strangers were going to turn up in my house couldn't they all be cute girls? Two cute foreigners didn't make up for having a damn handsome in my house!

My mother was talking about some picture she was pointing out when I walked in, not noticing me until I spoke up. "M...mum?"

She blinked, looking up. "Oh, Ise. Welcome back." She paused. "What happened? You look pale."

I didn't answer for a moment, just standing in the doorway and meeting the three sets of eyes coming from the strangers. They were all foreign, apparently; each looked around my age with a rosario hanging around their neck, but in looks they were completely different. The girl in the chair beside my mother's had chestnut hair in twin-tails while the one on the couch had blue hair with a green mesh. Her eyes were hard to meet; they made the uneasiness in my stomach even worse.

In contrast, the guy's eyes were smiling slightly, like he was part of a joke no-one else was getting. They were a really bright green, brighter than even the jewel on Boosted Gear, and between them and the short, bright blond hair he sported I just wanted to beat him up. Dammit, a guy like that travelling with two cute foreigners? There was no way there wasn't at least a love-triangle going on there! A damn handsome achieving my dream before I did...where was the fairness in this world?!

Still, I didn't say anything, even though I wanted to. The white robes all three were wearing, combined with the rosarios and the feeling they each had to them...these weren't normal people. Were they related to the church? Exorcists, maybe? Shit, I couldn't fight them alone - especially not in my house with my mother sitting right there!

My panic was cut off when the brown-haired one spoke up. "Hello, Hyoudou Issei-kun."

Huh, she was smiling at me; it made her look even cuter than before. The damn handsome had a small smile in place too, though it looked more like he was laughing at me than happy to see me - the bastard. The girl with blue hair…she was glaring at me. She was beautiful, but her scary eyes made it really hard to appreciate that…

And so did the wrapped bundle leaning against the arm of the couch beside her.

The feeling of foreboding danger...it was definitely coming from that. A weapon? It was probably a weapon - and with the unpleasant feeling on my skin coming from it, it was probably meant to destroy Devils.

I still made an effort though, offering the girl a fake smile. "Nice to meet you."

Oddly, the look in the girl's eyes changed and she looked puzzled. "Huh? Don't you remember me?"

…?

The girl pointed at herself, which didn't change anything. I didn't recognise her at all; I was sure I would have done if I'd known her, but she didn't ring a bell.

My mother flipped through the album and pulled out a picture, handing it to me as I just looked confused. Surprisingly, it was the same picture that had set Kiba off before; the one that had a man holding a Holy Sword in it. Except my mother was pointing at the boy who I was friends with as a child, rather than anything else. "This is her - Shidou Irina-chan. She was quite the tomboy back then, but she's grown into such a proper young lady that even I didn't recognise her at first."

...I took a moment to pull my thoughts back together as I looked back and forth between the picture and the girl sitting beside my mother. Excuse me? This girl was the boy who lived in the neighbourhood years ago and used to play with me? I'd mistaken her for a boy back then?!

"Long time no see, Ise-kun." Irina-san smiled. "So you mistook me for a boy? I suppose it can't be helped - it took me a while to start acting like a girl." For some reason, she shot a very pointed look at the damn handsome on the couch. In return he rolled his eyes and looked away, which made Irina-san huff before she turned back to me. "But then, I suppose both of us have changed a lot since we last saw one another."

I froze again as she met my eyes. "I guess it's true that you can never guess what a reunion holds in store."

She knew. She definitely knew I was a Devil now.

...dammit, there went the 'childhood friend' flags. How was I supposed to become a Harem King if things like this kept happening?!

"Oh, I don't know, Irina," the damn handsome suddenly spoke up. No honorific? Didn't he know how to speak Japanese properly?! Or was he just a douchebag using his good looks to entice the girls he worked with?!

Damn handsome! Stop cheating and let the rest of us have a chance!

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," he continued. "Maybe you two should catch up? We have some extra time still and it's probably best to try and get stuff like this out of the way before we get to work."

This guy...was he trying to get me alone with Irina-san so she could kill me? It...didn't actually seem like it - the girl with scary eyes might be glaring at me but the damn handsome wasn't acting that way at all, and Irina-san genuinely smiled at me. They weren't trying to be alone with my mother either, since they had already been here a while before I arrived home. So what was he doing?

Irina-san perked up at the suggestion, nodding firmly. "Right! I must have faith that Ise-kun will still be the same as always!" She got up from where she was sitting beside my mother, walking towards me and reaching out to grab my hand as she passed. "C'mon, Ise-kun! I saw the old park was still there when we were coming here, so let's go!"

I tried to protest as she dragged me towards the door, but I was distracted by both my mother and the damn handsome shooting me thumbs-up. The girl with blue hair had her arms folded and a huffy look on her face as she glared half-heartedly at the damn handsome, but she didn't try to stop Irina-san as she dragged me along.

As we passed the doorframe, I grabbed hold of the edge and managed to stop myself for a few seconds. "Oi, wait!" I called, drawing the...maybe-not-so-bad handsome's attention. "What's your name?" He might be a damn cheater in the game of life, whose natural privilege was an insult to hard-working dreamers like me, but the code of brothers demanded some respect for being a good wingman.

The blond smiled a bit wider, inclining his head towards me. "It's Asia; Asia Ar…" He paused. "Ah, right. It'd be Argento Asia, here."

I nodded to him as my grip on the doorframe peeled away and I was once more marched towards the door. Argento Asia-san. He might have been a damn handsome, but perhaps I wouldn't hate him too much.

Maybe.

Irina

It was strange, how normal it felt to be holding Ise-kun's hand.

As I pulled him along behind me, noting happily that he had stopped struggling without me having to bludgeon him, I could feel the warmth of his grip. If I really concentrated I could feel the rise and fall of veins and arteries beneath my fingers, and there was a warm fuzzy feeling in my chest as I held on.

Despite the fact that the Ise-kun of my childhood had grown up to become a Devil...holding his hand was still everything that I had thought it would be.

I resolved myself once more, clenching my free hand in front of me. This latest test of faith, I would conquer as I had all the others. I was a proud Exorcist of the Protestant Church, and I wouldn't let something as simple as this stop me!

I would definitely win Ise-kun back over to the side of God...but first, I should deal with our watcher.

I reluctantly let go of his hand as we reached the park where we used to play as children, taking a few more steps forward once I did before turning to face him. Or, more accurately, to face his shadow, which stood out as being far too cohesive for this sunny time of day. "It's rude to spy when a girl drags a boy off by the hand, you know?"

Ise-kun seemed surprised, spluttering a bit at some thought he had, but I was paying him less attention than I was his shadow.

As Ise-kun looked on in growing shock, his shadow darkened even further, distorting before it rose out of the ground and became three-dimensional. Then the shadows peeled away to leave behind a slender blonde wearing black slacks, a white button-down shirt and a black jacket that hung to mid-thigh rose, who draped an arm over Ise-kun's shoulders with a casual motion. They tilted their sunglasses down to regard me with ruby-red eyes. "What? Can't a concerned sempai keep an eye on their kohai, little miss Exorcist?"

I regarded the blonde steadily, though part of me wanted to smack them with Mimic for getting so close to Ise-kun when I hadn't been able to even see him for so long. Instead, though, I settled for examining them like I would any opponent.

They called Ise-kun 'kohai', but looked like they might actually be younger than him - so, they were Ise-kun's senior in something. Hiding in someone's shadow like that...there were a few races with powers that could do that, but the bright-red eyes and pointed ears made me think vampire. Except the sun was still out and high, and any vampire powerful enough to ignore it would have been much more noticeable than the blonde was.

The most obvious thing though, I only noticed when I bemoaned another girl being so close to Ise-kun. This person...was a mirror image of Asia.

Maybe Asia would find them interesting?

I put the thought to the back of my mind as I spoke again. "You seem a little young to be Ise-kun's sempai, blondie-san." I deliberately kept my voice cheery and upbeat; Asia called it 'ditzy', but to me it was just my normal voice. I had to admit though, it made irritating people much easier. Which was good; irritated people talked a lot more, in my experience.

However, the new arrival seemed unfazed by my voice. "True, true. However, I have been Rias Gremory's Bishop for...what, seven years now? My, it has been that long, hasn't it?" The Devil let their arm drop from Ise-kun's shoulder as they sauntered around to stand at an angle to us both. "Now, as miffed as my King is at the perv-" They jerked a thumb at Ise-kun, who yelped in protest. "She would have my hide if I let him walk around with an Exorcist, childhood friends or not."

I kept smiling even as my link to Mimic curled around my mind like the tail of a sleeping dragon. "Blondie-san, if you're going to follow Ise-kun everywhere and dictate who he can and can't speak with...I might start making assumptions about the kind of relationship you two have, you know?"

The youth let out a snort. "Now, now. Nobody said he couldn't talk to you. I'm just the chaperone. No offense to Hyoudou-kun, but I'm not sure he's prepared for all that firepower you're packing." They gave me a pointed look over the top of their shades.

My smile faltered a bit and my eyes narrowed. Saying that like I might try to hurt Ise-kun...they was definitely using my own tactic against me, weren't they? And they'd rolled with my innuendo too, where most teenagers would have gone red in the face and dumb in the head. Ise-kun's face had certainly turned a fairly bright shade, though the way his eyes darted between me and the blonde told me that he was still thinking.

What a troublesome person Gremory had following my friend…

"Well, if you're just watching Ise-kun then you could do that fine from over there, couldn't you?" I asked, gesturing towards a small copse of trees at the edge of the playground with a flick of my head. They had been a lot smaller when I was last here…

The blonde inclined their head, like a fencer acknowledging a touch, and replied, "Very well. I, Gasper, will allow you your privacy. If you need anything, simply ask, and I, Gasper, will do what I can to help. Either of you." With those words, the now introduced Gasper shifted into a cloudy, mist-like state and floated over to one of the trees, then reformed to stand ominously on one of the branches.

Could it be that this person was a Chunnibyō like Asia as well?

Oh, well. There would be time for that later; for the moment, I was mostly alone with Ise-kun after seven long years, and we had a lot to talk about. How he'd ended up as a Devil, for one thing...and maybe just what his relationship was with that Rias Gremory. I remembered him saying something about amassing a massive harem of girls back when we were kids, but surely he'd have forgotten about that by now?

Right?

-x-x-x-

As I talked with my childhood friend and I grew more and more incredulous, I could definitely feel that Gasper's eyes on me.

They were laughing.

I was right with my first thought; this troublesome person was exactly like Asia.

This is a story all about how,

Our lives got flipped, turned upside down.

We'd like to take a minute, there's time before you go,

So we'll tell you all how we became the Shitlords of Kuoh.

In a whole other world, born and raised,

Never did we think here is where we'd spent the rest of our days.

Nothing to do but become our best,

(As an aside: one of us guys now has breasts.)

We'll hone our minds and bodies, but we aren't ashamed to say;

The most potent weapon in our arsenal is "You're mom gay."

AN: This fic is a two-man project by myself and my friend xanothos, a fellow writer of fics people seem inexplicably fond of, with the excellent help of Magery, the brain behind 'Of Gods and Monsters', the Raynare quest. Expect seriousness intermixed with shitposting galore. Most of this story will be from our perspectives from this point on, just to warn you. We've pre-written chapter one, but our update schedule after that is completely fluid, so we'll see what the future holds.

(As an aside for anyone who also reads Music of the Spheres - basically, the reason it hasn't been updating is because I woke up one day, looked at it and suddenly found that it really wasn't what I wanted it to be. So, I started re-writing it, and I've posted what I've done of that so far on Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity. I'll be posting it here too once I finish the next chapter, but I'll be leaving the original Music up for anyone who still wants to read it. My apologies for the long break and suddenly springing this, but my muse just refuses to work with Music as it used to be now, and I haven't been able to change that.)