"So there's nothing more that can be done?" Suimei asked as he carefully slipped his white dress shirt back on, having decided to forego the school uniform's blazer today for no reason in particular other than not wanting to wear it, along with discarding that stupid ribbon that came with the uniform. He might catch a warning or detention from some member of the Student Council for his blatant disregard for the academy's rules but he didn't much care anymore. Such things weren't worth worrying over, especially now.

The dark-haired teen cast a dull glance at the x-rays that were still shown upon the screen, the most prominent ones being a set of images that displayed a set of lungs that looked, to put it nicely, chewed upon. To put it honestly, they were utterly ravaged and Suimei had known, and felt, as much before he'd taken even one step into the hospital for his routine examination. He had been coughing up blood for some time now, and physical exertion constantly left him gasping for breath, which would then set off one of his debilitating coughing fits that left his body wracked with pain.

"There are some experimental treatments and drugs we can put you on but other than that, no. Your illness still isn't one we fully understand at this point and time. The closest parallel we can draw to it is an incredibly aggressive form of tuberculosis, one that progresses far faster than anything we've seen before and has rejected all usual forms of treatment and medication. Your lungs have taken the most damage thus far but its begun to show signs of spreading to your bones and kidneys as well. Because of the speed with which it's progressing, it's only a matter of time until it travels to the membranes surrounding your brain and spinal cord. Once it reaches that point, it is undoubtedly fatal."

The doctor's tone was strictly professional, not displaying any overt emotion one way or another despite the subject matter. Very surgical, almost robotic in a way, not holding anything back or trying to sugarcoat his words. Suimei respected that. The man knew how to distance himself from his work, not breaking down or getting all teary-eyed just because he was essentially telling a 17-year old that he had run out of options and was going to die, likely sooner rather than later. All the better for him, it would have been awkward if the situation somehow wound up with him having to comfort the medical practitioner.

Still, experimental treatments? Nothing but false hope and they both knew it. Doctors couldn't even pinpoint just what exactly it was that he had, so how could they dream of curing it? All they could offer him were empty promises, false hope, and, eventually, their condolences once they failed. It wasn't as if a transplant was on the table either. So long as his body housed his unique illness then there wasn't a way in hell any hospital board or doctor would approve such a procedure. His sickness would destroy a new set of lungs just as they had done to his own, and what was the point in providing organs to a dying man whose body would only ruin them soon after? Better for them to go to someone that actually stood a chance of surviving and making a recovery.

"I see. Nothing for it then," Suimei said with an uncaring shrug of his shoulders. What was there left to do? Cry? Scream? Try to plead with the man, as though if he reversed his diagnosis that would magically fix him? He went into the examination room knowing that, inevitably, one of his visits would end in him being given his death sentence. Today just happened to be the day. "How much longer do I have?"

"Assuming your health stays at it is now? In the best case, you have one year. If your condition worsens drastically and you continue to deteriorate? No longer than three months, at most."

That actually caused him to wince ever so slightly. That little time? How unfortunate. The worst part was, in all honesty, he probably had even less than what the doctor was telling him. In as little as six months he had gone from completely healthy to being told he would die within a year's time. Whatever illness that was rampaging through his body was ramping up, moving quickly to destroy him from the inside out. If it continued its pace he'd be lucky to make it to the end of May, and considering April had only just begun that wasn't saying much.

But, in the end, it didn't matter anyway. He still had his backup plan. Whether or not it actually worked, that was another matter entirely. If it didn't, he was dead regardless. If it did, he was possibly still set to die young. Even still, at least the latter carried the chance to live, and to live to an age far beyond the reaches of any human being at that. Who was he to deny such an opportunity? This diagnosis meant nothing other than the fact that he would now have to hasten his plans.

'Tonight. Definitely tonight.'

"Wonderful. We're done here then?" he asked rhetorically as he finished buttoning up his shirt, leaving the uppermost buttons undone to expose his collar. Another citation in the making, this one for wearing the school uniform improperly, but, again, what did he care? He'd just been told he was going to die, what could some power-tripping kids at his school do to him? If they tried anything he could always pull out the get-out-of-jail-free card of "I'm literally dying" and dodge any sort of punishment. After all, who wants to be the asshole that reprimands a man on his last legs?

Suimei turned on his heel and moved to leave the room. He was late to school and, as tempted as he was to simply cut class (both today and out of the remainder of his life), it wasn't as if he had anything better to do at the moment. Besides, he had to give his two friends the joyous news that he would be leaving them all of his personal belongings once – 'If,' he mentally corrected himself. His death wasn't set in stone just yet. – he finally kicked the bucket. It wasn't as though he had any family left to leave his possessions to anyway.

"Yakagi-san, if I may offer some advice?" The teen stopped in the doorway and glanced over his shoulder at the doctor. He was a taller than the average man, but other than that he wasn't someone you could easily pick out from a crowd. Plain, average, nondescript, take your pick of which word you wanted to use. "Get your affairs in order. If there's something you wish to do, don't wait another day. Even if your condition improves somehow, your life expectancy has been drastically shortened. Don't waste the time you have left."

Get his affairs in order and take care of his last-minute business? He had already been planning to. He just needed to make one little call to see his last-ditch effort carried out. Whether it worked or not, that was out of his hands.

Still, the boy couldn't help but chuckle. Life advice from his physician? That had been unexpected. And here he thought the man was utterly detached to his circumstances. Seemed the good doctor still had some heart left in him after all, he was just smart enough to not get too attached to his patients to the point of becoming overemotional. Good for him.

"I'll keep it in mind. Have a nice day, Amai-san."

"How'd things go?" Motohama inquired hesitantly as he finished his lunch, not knowing how to break the ice other than to just come out and ask. He normally had the tact and social graces of a charging rhino but even he knew to handle this with some level of delicacy. His friend had been in bad shape for a while now and every time he returned from a hospital visit the news was rarely, if ever, good news.

"Pretty good. Thanks for asking."

"Really?"

Was that hope Suimei detected? Time to crush that out. He really was a heartless bastard sometimes, but it wasn't his fault. Their over-the-top reactions were just too much fun. Besides, he was the one about to check out, that meant he got to poke fun at anyone he wanted. That was one of the exclusive rights he got in exchange for being terminal. Not a very good trade, but he'd take it for now.

"Psych, I lied. I'm actually dying."

Motohama and Matsuda both choked at the cavalier attitude with which he dropped such a bomb. "What the hell do you mean you're dying?!" the latter cried out, looking at the dark-haired teen in shock. Said boy just continued to eat his sandwich, not really reacting to their shared surprise. "I thought you said you were getting better!"

"Say it louder, why don't you? I'm pretty sure there are a few people across campus that didn't hear you," Suimei mumbled through a mouthful of food before swallowing. "And I never once said I was getting better, I said there were days where I felt better. There were also a lot of days where I could tell I was getting worse too. And considering the only thing worse than 'sick' is 'dying', there's not really a lot of wiggle room. Not sure why you two are so surprised."

"Isn't there something you can do? Some sort of treatment or medicine they can give you?" Matsuda asked in a more subdued voice, still reeling. How could he be so casual about this? Suimei just told them he was dying and it was like he didn't even care. That must have meant there was still something the hospital could do for him. His friend wouldn't just quit on life, he was too stubborn, too hardheaded, for that. Their fearless leader, though both he and Motohama wouldn't be caught dead calling him that while he was in earshot lest he let it get to his head and inflate his ego, was never one to give up on anything once he set his mind to it.

Suimei sighed. He supposed he could at least throw them a bone and let them into his plans on some level without fully explaining everything. They wouldn't have believed what he was going to do anyway, not the full truth of it. They were just normal humans and he, well, he came from a slightly more distinguished background.

"There's still one last experimental trial I can sign up for. The only problem is that the people in charge of it are incredibly picky and choosy about who makes the cut. They're only taking on fifteen applicants and of those fifteen slots, three or four of them are already taken. Even if I get in, there's no guarantee it'll work. Hell, it could just make things worse."

Technically not a single lie in his words, especially that last bit. Changing his physiology and soul from a human being's to that of a more demonic nature could very well kill him anyway, or warp his disease into some sort of supercharged supervirus, but it was a risk he was willing to take. Between definitely dying or possibly dying, the choice was rather obvious. Just because he had made his peace with dying (or so he liked to tell himself whenever he woke up in a cold sweat with his heart doing its best to pound its way out of his chest) didn't mean he'd go quietly when there was at least one last road for him to take.

"Well do it then! Do whatever you have to do to stay alive! You can't just go and die before all three of us achieve our dream of having a harem, man!"

"Uh, all three of us? That's you twos dream. And if I'm stuck staying alive until the day you two can manage to get not just one, but multiple, girls to even go out with you then I might as well go searching for immortality." Suimei tapped an index finger against his chin while he pretended to think. "Though, I still don't think that would be enough time. Maybe until the heat death of the universe? By then there should be at least a few girls that are incredibly desperate and would accept a pair of idiots."

"Hey, screw you! Just because you're about to buy the farm doesn't mean you have to be a dick!"

"Don't insult our dream, you bastard!"

"Just for that, if I die you guys aren't allowed to have my stuff."

And within a single moment, things were back to normal, any sort of seriousness or grim air about their conversation dispelled within an instant.

The trio quickly devolved into arguing with each other, Suimei smirking all the while. The reason for their arguments was a revolving door of topics on everything from their respective attitudes and why none of them could pick up girls, which was better between breasts, ass, thighs, and legs, their grades and who was doing worse than who, to who was stronger between Son Goku and Saitama. This kind of normalcy was nice and, even more importantly in his opinion, familiar. A reprieve from the constant intrusive thoughts that his plans wouldn't go the way he wanted to, that his death was approaching with no way to stave it off, that everything he was doing was pointless, that it'd be better to just spend what little time he had left just enjoying his life, and other such unhelpful, spiteful little wonderings.

"You're just an impossible guy, you know that?!" Matsuda said while pointing a finger at Motohama accusingly, tearing Suimei from his thoughts. He must have zoned out and missed some part of the conversation. "Now come on, I don't want to be late and you need this more than I do at this point!" the boy with the shaved head proclaimed before grabbing Suimei by his arm and proceeding to drag him in the direction of, if he was remembering correctly, the female locker rooms.

"And what exactly do I need?" he asked, allowing himself to be dragged along, his eyebrow quirked upwards in confusion. He had a feeling of exactly where this was going and how it would play out, especially with the way Motohama was smirking as he followed closely behind the two of them.

"If the treatment doesn't work then we gotta make sure you see as much high-quality T&A as possible before you croak. The Kendo club should be changing about now and I found a new spot for us. Don't die on us yet, bastard. We can't lug around a dead body to see Murayama's huge tits or Katase's fine ass!"

Suimei laughed to himself, running a hand through his hair in amusement and exasperation as he tried to keep up with his friend's pace. He tells these two there's a very real possibility of him dying and their priority was getting him to see some naked girls.

'Some things never change.'

Suimei sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow, taking care to not accidentally poke his eyes out or cut up his face with his clawed hand or the sharpened edges of his gauntlet, as he looked at the pentagram he had just spent the past hour drawing in chalk on the concrete pavement of his basement. There were still a few symbols that needed to be drawn, then he needed to flip to the page in his father's notes to find the family crest of the demon he was trying to summon, but he was just about finished. He took a moment to breathe before continuing his work, his thoughts drifting to everything that had led him to where he was now.

At first, the boy had considered simply tracking down a possessor of a certain Sacred Gear and having them fix his body. He had then been told that wouldn't work nearly as well as he hoped. Twilight Healing could heal the damage the disease had done to his body but it wouldn't remove his illness outright. He would have to stay tethered to its wielder for life, constantly requiring their care whenever his condition worsened. And should the day ever come that said wielder decided they were tired of dealing with him? Back to square one, he goes. As such, he discarded the idea almost as quickly as it came to him.

Besides, the only currently known and active possessor of Twilight Healing was, if the information he had purchased was correct, some nun in Italy, but she was so closely guarded by the Vatican that there was practically no hope of getting close to her. The Church only handed out their "healing miracles" to those that were "deserving" of them, which meant if you didn't have the same belief system as they did then you were shit out of luck. And considering he had little belief in religion as a whole despite his knowledge that God was very much real, as well the Church's viewpoint of magicians (that weren't in their employ) being "heretical", he got the feeling they wouldn't be too welcoming or in a rush to open their doors to him.

With Twilight Healing being a no-go, Suimei briefly toyed with the idea of crafting or otherwise acquiring a homunculus body devoid of its own soul as a makeshift "container" for his essence. Taking it a step further, he could theoretically extend his lifespan for as far as he wished, so long he could continue transferring his soul to a new vessel. Unfortunately, that idea had also been shot down, this time by his "partner". He informed Suimei that, while he did have the ability to transfer the boy's soul into a new body, the human most certainly wouldn't be able to achieve any sort of immortality with such a method.

You see, human souls had a maximum set limit to them. An "expiration date", if you will. To go past that, even by one year, would take a miracle. To try and live multiple full lifespans, especially with such a crude method as just shifting his soul around from body to body? A complete impossibility. The soul, just like the body, aged. It would have been, as his red-scaled friend put it, "putting a finely-tailored suit on a corpse". Assuming he made it to old age, all he'd be doing is moving his decrepit, slowly rotting essence into a fresh container, and that wouldn't last very long. His soul would begin to break down and it would slowly drive him insane, until it could take no more strain and collapsed entirely. At that point, there would be no afterlife for him whatsoever. You can't go to Heaven or Hell if your soul is utterly destroyed, after all.

Not to mention the talent and ability required to create a new body for himself was so far beyond his capabilities that he'd probably die before even coming close. And trying to buy one, or purchasing the skills of someone more capable than himself to make one for him? The costs were astronomical, and not just monetarily. Creating artificial humans was an art strictly forbidden by just about every faction out there, or so was their stance publicly as he had no doubt there were groups within factions looking to bolster their ranks by any means necessary. Regardless, to even inquire about such things would draw attention from those you most definitely didn't want attention from, and one question spoken to the wrong person could very well end with your head rolling on the ground.

So they put that idea back on the shelf.

[It was a stupid idea, to begin with. If immortality was really that easy then don't you think there would be a lot more magicians from ages past roaming around? I'm pretty sure your father would have used such a method if it wasn't utterly idiotic.]

Suimei sighed and rolled his eyes. After days of being silent, his partner finally decided to butt in and make himself known once more. Could he have picked a worse time? Probably. At least this time he wasn't on the toilet or in the shower. "Yes, Ddraig, you've told me a hundred times already. I get it, it wasn't my brightest moment. Give me a break, I was dying and desperate," he said, choosing to not address the remark about his father and how he wouldn't have made such a mistake.

The dragon wasn't wrong; his father had been far smarter than he when it came to anything related to the supernatural, paranormal, or magic as a whole. Granted, Suimei's father, Yakagi Kazami, had spent most of his life teaching himself magic with just old tomes to guide him. A self-taught magician, a man who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps.

It was inspiring and, in a way, the motivation for Suimei to continue his father's legacy as a second-generation magician. Suimei couldn't allow the man's work to go to waste. He was already behind, only learning of the existence of magic two years prior when Kazami detected that his son had a Sacred Gear and assisted him in manifesting it. Now that his dad was gone, dead and buried for just over a year now, he had an obligation to take up the mantle of his ambition and fulfill it to the best of his abilities, even if his education on all things magic-related hadn't been completed.

[You're still dying and you're still desperate. That's why we're going through with this.]

He couldn't really argue that point. Still, desperation fueled many a great achievements and ideas in history. His just hadn't been one of them.

Y Ddraig Goch, the Red Dragon Emperor of Domination, and several other titles he barely cared to remember. The dragon's soul had been with him since birth, sealed within the red gauntlet currently adorning his right arm all the way up to the elbow. It had been the dragon's wisdom and knowledge, along with his father's information and notes on the supernatural world, that had led him this far and allowed him to discover the solution to the issue of his rapidly approaching demise.

Ddraig had put forth his own solution, one of slowly converting his body's damaged parts to that of a dragon's. It was an offer he made to all his previous hosts, though it was typically in exchange for power rather than to save their life. It would have been a slow process and done piecemeal, his human form needing time to grow accustomed to the sudden influx of power he would receive before sacrificing another portion, but it would theoretically allow him to survive. And, if they had more time, he might have taken the offer. Unfortunately, they didn't. By the time Ddraig managed to change all of the afflicted areas to that of a dragon, his illness would have made it to his brain and infected his nervous system, and the Red Dragon Emperor wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to help him there. The dragon claimed that he'd never before had a host that offered their brain as a tribute and he had no idea what would happen. For all he knew, Suimei could become a rampaging beast that would cause havoc and destruction until he was killed.

Seeing as that wasn't an outcome either party was particularly fond of, they put that on the shelf as well.

A few more back and forth exchanges later, the both of them brainstorming a way to save his life, and they both came to the same conclusion that his human body would have to be forfeited, traded in and upgraded to a different type of being altogether, one with a biology strong enough that weak things like human ailments couldn't affect it. From there, they could find a method to heal his damaged organs and he would be back to normal, if not better than ever before.

Werewolf? Rejected. Not only would that require him to actually find a werewolf, the furry, secretive bastards, there were no assurances that if he found one it wouldn't go berserk in its transformed state and try to rip his throat out rather than just give him the bite necessary to turn him. Werewolves that could control themselves once they shifted forms were a rare breed and he wasn't about to play a game of guessing whether the one he found was in control of itself or not.

Vampire? Rejected. He actually did know where to find them, a step in the right direction, thanks to, once again, his father's old records. They were primarily located in Eastern Europe and had split into two separate factions over a dispute on who should lead them. Regardless of their issues, there was no way he would become a vampire. Their kind looked down on those with "impure" blood, and as far as humans that were turned into vampires? They were treated as lower than dog shit. He wasn't the most prideful of persons but he would never accept such low social standing.

Thus, there was only one real option left for him to take. Find a High-class Devil and offer his services to them in exchange for becoming one of their servants, at least until he reached High-class himself. Low-class Reincarnated Devils still had the issue of being treated like second-class citizens by the more fanatical, blood purist types of devils but at least he could move up in the Underworld's society. Some work here, a few victories there, a bit of political schmoozing later, and he'd be sitting pretty for the next couple of hundred years as a High-class Devil in his own right.

Only one problem barred the way; what devil would be desperate or insane enough to reincarnate some human that they had never met before? Even if he was in possession of a Longinus, he was an unknown factor in the supernatural world with no reputation or history to speak of, and his father had never made any attempts to contact any of the several Magician Associations so it wasn't as if he could fall back on his family name. For all the devil he asked knew, he could very well be the type to wait to be reincarnated, kill his new "master", and abscond with his freshly minted powers and body, free to do as he pleased. It wouldn't have been an especially rare event, devils even had a title for such people. Of course, Stray Devils – a terrible term in and of itself, to be honest. It made them sound like animals. At least allow them some dignity, even if they were typically nothing but traitorous and treacherous scum that turned on their masters for their own selfish desires. – also tended to be apprehended and summarily executed soon after their escape, with the only exception being someone by the name of Kuroka.

He had spent several months and a small fortune searching for information on the Underworld, its society, and any possible dirty secrets that would allow him to sway (or blackmail, if need be) a High-class Devil into turning him. His life had been put in danger several times, he had to travel out of town on occasion, and he had been required to come into contact with some of the scummiest individuals he'd ever met masquerading as information dealers, but he received exactly the type of info he had been looking for. He'd found the perfect devil to call upon, one that hailed from a family famous (or infamous, depending on who you asked) for the affection and care they showed their servants. And, hilariously enough, she had technically come to him, though neither of them had known it at the time.

Rias Gremory.

High-class, pureblooded, and daughter to the current head of the Gremory clan. She was arranged to wed the third son of the leader of the Phenex clan, as had been decided by their fathers before the girl had been born. She took umbrage with the arrangement, declaring that not only would she not marry the Phenex, she would see the contract broken one day. That hadn't gone over well with the other parties involved but it suited his purposes just fine. If she wanted to break the arrangement then that meant she would one day challenge Phenex to one of those barbaric "Rating Games" their kind were so fond of, despite being little more than modernized gladiator fights with magical powers, as the means to do it.

She'd lose, of course. Her "peerage", Chess-themed groups comprised of a High-class Devil and up to 15 other individuals, numbered in the low single digits while Phenex was in possession of a full set. Even if she managed to overcome the numbers advantage, she likely had no way of working past his regenerative abilities. Gremory was up a creek without a paddle, lacking both in numbers and the sheer power to crush the Phenex's faux-immortality beneath her heel, otherwise, she would have simply challenged him immediately and destroyed him. Instead, she had retreated to the human world (likely in the pursuit of bolstering her ranks), Japan to be specific, and there was talk that she was to marry him upon graduating from college.

"Ddraig, let's start using Boost now," Suimei said as he finished up drawing a perfect copy of the Gremory clan's crest in the center of the ritual circle. He focused what little mana he had to power the summon and brought his desires to the forefront of his mind. Ddraig would do the rest and provide what he was missing, he just needed to give things a jump start so that the girl knew he was calling her and no other. Just a little something to get the devil princess' attention, get her to stand up and take notice of his call.

[Alright, but don't forget that your body's in rough condition as is. Your limit's been drastically reduced, so don't even try to go over it. I don't think the Gremory girl will enjoy teleporting here and stepping in whatever's left of you if you explode.]

"Got it. Try to keep an eye on my vitals. Would be a shame if I had a heart attack at the last minute. Though, I guess she can bring me back from it so that would be fine too? But then it'll take even longer to explain myself, and dying in such a lame way sounds like a pain..."

[Focus, kid.]

"My bad. Whenever you're ready," the boy replied before doing as the dragon said, centering himself and refocusing his mind. There couldn't afford to be any mistakes at this point. Too much was riding on this, for both himself and the devil he was summoning.

That arranged marriage between Gremory and Phenex would not be happening.

[BOOST!]

After all, she'd soon have the power of a dragon at her disposal.

[BOOST!]

Dragons did not lose to preening peacocks that fashioned themselves immortal phoenixes.

[BOOST!]

And besides, standing idly by while some girl, whether he knew her personally or not, was forced into a marriage she didn't want wasn't his style and would have gone against the ideals his dearly departed father had passed down to him.

[EXPLOSION!]

"Showtime."

Rias Gremory was having a rough week.

Scratch that, she was having a rough month.

First, she had to deal with that complete and utter bastard Riser making an unexpected visit, claiming he wanted to check up on his "soon-to-be wife". Just thinking those words made her skin crawl in disgust. Was it not bad enough that the date of their marriage was growing closer and closer by the day? Did he really have to drop by the human world, a place he vocally claimed to detest due to its "impure" and "disgusting" air, solely for the purpose of tormenting her? Yes, he did, because he was Riser Phenex and she was sure that that man existed solely for the purpose of trying to make her life as miserable as he could.

If that had been all then she could have dealt with it. She abhorred Riser with every fiber of her being but putting up with him was all she could do at the moment, at least until her peerage was ready and she could challenge him to a Rating Game to break the engagement their parents had set up. She lived to see the day where his pride would be crushed and driven into the dirt, even preparing a small speech for the exact moment when she'd blast his head off and retire him from the Game.

But no, her woes didn't end there because Sona had raided the entire school to gather those with the most potential and place them in her own peerage. Not just the high school division they were in but the college division as well! Granted, it wasn't as if she done it overnight, it had been a gradual process with more than enough time for Rias to respond in kind, she just hadn't for some reason. To this day Rias didn't know why exactly she had just stood to the side, doing nothing while her own choices slowly dwindled to zero. Was she expecting someone, some miracle, to just fall out of the sky and into her lap in a manner similar to the rest of her peerage members? Was she truly that naive?

Regardless, she had all but run out of options and was scrapping the bottom of the barrel now. Anyone that had even the slightest hint of potential, a connection to the supernatural, or the possibility of possessing a Sacred Gear was placed under observation. They all fell short of expectations for one reason or another but at this point, she really had no other choice than to pick at least a few of them and make do with what she had. There was still time to train them, to cultivate their talents before she graduated college. Her final year of high school and a maximum of four years of university, five total years to whip them into shape. Would it be enough? It would have to be.

Then finally, the cherry on top of the spiraling mess that was becoming her life, the Fallen Angels were moving about in her territory. Not openly, and they hadn't made any hostile moves as far as she was aware, but it was disconcerting. Akeno hadn't taken the news well, for obvious reasons, but thankfully she refrained from putting forth a suggestion like simply capturing them and grilling them for information as to what they were doing in a High-class Devil's territory. So long as the Fallen Angels did nothing to spark a conflict then Rias would leave them be.

So, here she sat, alone in her club room while the members of her peerage were off completing their various assignments for the evening. Her options were limited, her time even more so, and her hope was being eroded away to nothing. How in the world had she let things get this bad? She had come to Japan with several goals in mind, one of which was finding someone (or several someones) worth bringing to her side. Kuoh Town was practically a magnet when it came to attracting the supernatural and paranormal, and yet by the time she had finally decided to buckle down and go recruiting all the worthwhile prospects had been snatched up, either by other devils or separate factions entirely.

And now she was feeling a small tug on her demonic power, one that informed her that someone was trying to form a pact with a member of her peerage. She was half-tempted to ignore the call in her awful mood but something about it intrigued her. Whoever was performing the summoning had an incredible amount of desire and a substantial amount of power if they were calling upon her directly, a High-class, even if it was likely inadvertent. Something like that warranted her attention and who knows, maybe fulfilling a contract herself would be the change of pace she needed to break her out of her funk. It could possibly even give her an idea of how she should proceed going forward, and Satan knew she needed one.

When the light of the summoning died down, she took the time to observe her surroundings. She had been summoned to a dark room, someone's basement by the looks of things. Already not a good sign, and she was pretty sure this was how horror movies started.

That aside, what had truly caught her eye was when she gazed down and saw that someone hadn't used one of the flyers her familiar handed out to form a pact but instead had personally drawn their own summoning circle. Such knowledge, the art of summoning devils, was something all but lost to normal human beings. Had she been summoned by an eccentric with a strong fascination in the occult and wished to try their hand at calling upon an otherworldly being?

Rias heard a voice, a young man from the sound of it, speak from behind her. "Not bad, not bad. Got her on my first try too. And you said I'd fuck it up somehow, Ddraig. Shows how much you know." The unknown voice paused for a moment as though he were waiting for a response. "Oi, don't get snippy, you stupid dragon! I told you I'd get it right on the first try and I did!" Another pause. Who in the world was he speaking to? Dear Satan, had she really been summoned by someone insane? She really didn't need this right now. And what was that about a dragon? "So what if it took me a while to draw the circle? Would you have preferred I did it wrong and summoned somebody else?! Just shut up and go back to sleep if you're going to be an ass!"

The redheaded devil sighed and turned around slowly, prepared to defend herself. Her eyes widened in surprise at the sight that greeted her. This boy, her summoner, couldn't have been older than she was, possibly even younger! He was wearing the Kuoh Academy student uniform as well, though he had discarded the blazer and ribbon that went around the collar, and was wearing a pair of (to her amusement) fuzzy blue slippers rather than the customary brown dress shoes. His build was slender, similar to Yuuto's, and he stood a few inches taller than her from her estimation, perhaps two or three inches at most. The black hair that sat atop his head was an unruly, unkempt mess, with side bangs that fell to his chin and a fringe that came down across his forehead before forking to the left just above the bridge of his nose. There was a smile on his face, one that spoke of immense satisfaction, and his dark eyes reflected the same emotion. What truly draw her attention was the red glove that went from his right hand up to his elbow. It exuded an aura of power that put her on edge.

'Is that a-'

"Rias Gremory, Kuoh Academy's Number One Beauty, High-class Devil, heiress-apparent to the Gremory clan. My name is Yakagi Suimei and I am, as you can see," the boy raised his gauntlet-encased arm, his fist clenched tight as if to show off the green jewel set in the back of the gauntlet's hand, "in possession of the Boosted Gear, the Red Dragon Emperor's Gauntlet. That makes me this generation's Red Dragon Emperor. It's nice to finally meet you."

Rias mind froze, her eyes widening at his declaration. This guy, he was the Red Dragon Emperor? Not only that, but he attended her school as well? And she hadn't somehow picked up on any of that, despite the fact that he had clearly manifested his Sacred Gear already?! On top of all this information, he knew what she was as well as her status. Just who in the hell was he?

"The reason I've summoned you here tonight is for a pact, one that will be mutually beneficial to both of us. I wish to enter your service and become a devil in your peerage. I believe 8 Pawn Pieces is the going rate for reincarnating a Heavenly Dragon, no?"

Huh.

That miracle she had been wanting really did fall into her lap, just like that.

She was so going to rub this in Sona's face the next time she saw her.

So, the stories in the DxD section are usually "OC/MC is dying due to Raynare/Stray devil/other circumstances and summons a devil to save their life inadvertently" so I just decided to put a spin on that; rather than Rias approaching OC/MC, flip that around and have him pushing her to make a deal instead by taking advantage of her hopeless situation.

Going to also make this clear now, I don't know squat about medicine, illnesses, etc. I created a fictitious illness that can be likened to tuberculosis but isn't it exactly. Wanted to get that out there in case some med student, for whatever reason, reads this and gets pissed, which I wouldn't blame them for, to be honest. Best to cover my ass while I've still got time.

And, just for my sake because I'm not too sure I explained it properly, here's a rough timeline for Suimei's life up to this point: lives as a normal human being (birth to 15 years old) → learns about the existence of magic and has his Sacred Gear summoned (15 years old) → father dies (16 years old) → contracts mysterious and fatal illness (16 years and X months old) → summons a devil (17 years old)

Looking for a co-writer/beta/someone to bounce ideas off of 'cause I'm winging this shit so hard you'd think I was a Fallen Angel. Review and leave feedback if you want to see more.