The day flew by him in a strange fog. He knew what was going on around him, but it was almost like it wasn't his life, that he was witnessing.
When Issei had woken up the next morning, he couldn't believe his eyes.
He was back where he belonged.
In his home town, With Rias and the rest of the peerage.
'Not all of them…' He thought sadly.
Asia was still dead.
And it was a slap in the face of what he couldn't do.
But he was back, alive and mostly intact. So he had to do what everyone else did. Deal with the stress of his failures, and try to move on, no matter how hard it would be.
That first morning he had woken up in Rias' arms. She was holding his head into her bare breasts, as if she were afraid that he was going to disappear on her again.
When he had managed to get himself free, she whimpered his name in her sleep. It sent a wave of conflicting emotions through him. Happiness that she was thinking of him, and guilt that he had worried his king and master. He was supposed to be the protector, at least that's how he had wanted to be.
But he'd been nothing more than a burden, a hinderance ever since his reincarnation.
That would end.
As soon as his body was back to 100%, he would train tirelessly. He would make sure that none of his other peerage family would be harmed because he was too weak or too slow.
He would burn anything that stood in their way to ash.
Issei had returned home with enough time to shower and return in time for class. But he hadn't counted on his parents reaction.
He'd seen the posters on the telephone poles during his walk, but it hadn't really clicked in his head.
His parents had no idea where he'd gone, when he'd return, who he was with….nothing.
They were left in the dark. Both him and Asia had left in the middle of the night and never returned. And 2 weeks later, he strolled in alone while his mother was in the kitchen.
She'd looked at him like he was a ghost coming to say that he'd passed on. The look of shock and fright was unmistakable.
"Hey mom. I'm home."
She'd leapt out of her seat, placing a cautious hand on the scarred visage of her son to make sure that he was in fact real.
Once she had determined it for herself, she wrapped her arms around him so quickly, that he didn't have time to steady himself.
A supernatural body was nothing compared to a worried mother.
"ISE! You stupid stupid stupid…." She started sobbing into his shoulder.
Issei held his mother, basking in the care and love she offered.
His time in that dungeon made warm emotions feel like a distant past.
"We didn't know what happened to you or….. Issei honey….Where's Asia?"
The sobbing stopped, and she pulled her head back to look at her son.
His pained expression gave her enough….but she needed to hear it, just in case she was coming to the wrong conclusion.
"Mom…That night, Asia and I stepped outside. We just wanted to talk without waking you two. Enjoy the night air." Issei tried to spin a plausible story on the spot.
if his mom was this worked up, then it meant that Rias hadn't been in any state of mind to alter their memories.
"We were taken, I don't know by who, I don't really know where we went. The blindfold never came off."
He gave a tale of being chained to a wall, which was true. Being whipped, beaten and asked questions in a language he didn't understand.
And then Gunshots, his chains being broken before the blindfold slipped off, just enough for him to see out of the corner. And there she laid, her body burned and laying absolutely still as he was dragged outside.
"Asia's dead…."
-LineBreak-
And thus started the strangest day at Kuoh Academy.
Issei walked back to school, not having any of his books or supplies with him.
He figured that it would be enough that he was there in the first place. Not that any of the staff would understand.
He walked through the gates, and almost immediately people took notice of him.
Or more accurately, the marks on his body.
"What the hell happened to the perv?"
"He looks like shit."
"He probably got into some weird BDSM fetish."
Their comments were hardly registered. He just continued walking towards the main building.
Issei stopped just outside of the main building, taking a calming breath.
He wasn't sure that he was prepared to see anything that had to do with Asia yet, but he had to start somewhere. He would just do his best to ignore everyone, for his own sanity.
"ISE!"
A familiar voice called out from far to his left.
Issei turned to see Rias sprinting towards him at a speed that she should not be using in front of normal humans.
Her could see the trail of liquid flowing from her eyes as she ran, and quickly collided with him. She held him close, one arm around his back, the other on the back of his head, pressing him into her cleavage while she nuzzled into the top of his head.
Issei was still trying to catch up to the rapidly developing event. And before he could, she pulled herself back.
A step backwards gave her the space she needed to place a hand on each side of his face, pulling his lips directly into contact with hers.
In front of half of the student population.
And as expected, they freaked the fuck out.
Neither of them cared though, lost in their own world as they were.
Rias didn't pull back as he might have thought she would. Instead she reaffirmed her hold on him, pulling him deeper into the kiss, prodding his lips with her tongue.
It felt like an hour later when they pulled apart. Out of breath.
Rias wiped at her eyes and looked at her pawn his sad yet happy eyes.
"How could you… You just left without a word, I had no idea where you were. I just got you back Ise."
"Sorry Buchou. It won't happen again." She picked up on how coarse his voice still was.
She wanted details on where he was… and what had happened to him, but now wasn't the time.
"Are you sure you up to going to school?" She asked instead.
He nodded. His expression was mostly neutral, only the hint of happiness in his eyes told her that Issei was happy that she was with him.
The murmurs around them were starting to be heard.
"I think I need this. To get back to the normal routine. Some of it will be hard, but i'll get through."
And before Rias could say anything else, Issei stepped away and walked into the building and out of sight.
"Is Rias really into the perv?"
"Did he blackmail her into doing that?"
"I bet his absence was a hoax."
Rias felt her blood start to boil at the comments around her, regarding her pawn. But she would hold her emotions in, they had no knowledge of her world. And Issei had given them very good reason to doubt him before. They just didn't know him like she did.
-LineBreak-
The day was grating on his already very worn nerves.
The populace of his classroom had taken to badgering him about where he'd been, what was with the scars, and the girls wanted to know where Asia was.
He said nothing. Not even to his two perverted buddies. He ignored them all.
It was what he needed to do.
All he wanted was peace and quiet. To be left alone to mourn the loss.
Dark, isolated, alone. Like the dungeon he was chained in.
Without the fire, pain and dismemberment of course.
"Are you sure you don't want the pain?"
Issei snapped his head up towards where the teacher was rambling on.
The voice was all too familiar. The soft and caring tone, mixed with the haughty and arrogant.
It was them.
He thought it was only a nightmare.
She…they…couldn't be haunting him while he was awake, could they?
His head snapped in each direction, drawing some attention from a few of his classmates. but he didn't see that blonde and black haired illusion.
The bell rang to signal the end of his math class.
"Hey Issei."
One of the voices he really didn't want to deal with right now spoke up.
Aika Kiryuu.
Bespectacled female pervert of Kuoh Academy. Relentless in her questioning. He knew he wouldn't like whatever it was that she was going to ask.
He had a hunch that he wouldn't be able to hold it together. But he would pray…to the devil kings, buddhas, dragons, shinto, greek, norse…whoever would listen, that he could control his emotions in long enough to appease her.
She sauntered over to his desk, a hand on her hip, the other on his desk as she leveled a snotty look at him.
"So where's Asia? You didn't keep her up all night did you? Did you at least make sure she could walk straight this morning?"
Just like he thought, she went right for where his mind had tried to steer clear of when it pertained to the blonde girl. She had been like a sister to him…family. It didn't matter that they didn't know each other that long. She was important to him.
"Since she's been living with you, i'm sure the two of you have been getting it on all the time. I hope you're being gentle with her. She's a gentle and naive girl, can't be exposing her to some of the raunchier stuff you're-"
"Stop." Issei said in an almost imperceptible voice.
Aika smirked, tilted her head towards him, with a hand cupped to her ear.
"I'm sorry, what was that? I could have sworn you just said that you bent over your kitchen counter….My my, I hope you cleaned up afterwards, that's certainly not sanitary."
"Hmmmm, well that certainly sounds like it would have been fun, if I wasn't burnt to a crisp that is." Their voice came back.
Issei grit his teeth to try and bare with it.
Aika took his silence as an admission. She started to display her own chest and run her hands over her body in a show of what she thought must have happened to keep Asia from school.
"I bet you held her hands down over her head. Didn't even bother undressing her, just pulled her panties to the side and plunging your-"
"SHE'S DEAD!"
Issei couldn't hold it in anymore. It was too much. The voices, the taunting. It just brought him back to the last two weeks, where he would scream in agony. Waiting for relief was a foreign concept, he had to make it happen.
Do something to make it stop….anything.
"DOES THAT SATISFY YOU? THAT'S WHY SHE'S NOT HERE! SHE WAS BURNED ALIVE, I HEARD HER SCREAM! SAW HER SKIN TURNED TO CHARCOAL! I SAW A GIRL I LOVED LIKE A SISTER REDUCED TO A LIFELESS SACK OF CRUNCHY FLESH!"
He wasn't sure when he stood up, but he was yelling right into the wide eyes of Aika Kiryuu as the rest of the class was dead silent, looking at the marks on his body in a new light.
In his rage, he didn't care if they knew what happened to him, didn't care if he told the world about the secret realms that surrounded their own.
"THESE LAST TWO WEEKS….I'VE BEEN IN CHAINS! BEATEN, BURNED, CUT, SLASHED! YOU THINK YOU'RE FUCKING PERIOD CRAMPS HURT?! WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE VOICE GOES OUT FROM SCREAMING FOR HOURS ON END! AND JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT'S OVER, THEY TURN YOU OVER, FACE FIRST AGAINST THE WALL YOUR HEAD HAS BEEN BANGING AGAINST, TRYING TO GET AWAY, JUST TO START ALL OVER AGAIN!"
Tears streaming down his face without his knowledge, Issei stood there, staring into her eyes. Waiting for some sort of reaction.
He should've known that this would happen. He had the worst reputations in the school, so of course he was going to get the third degree about any little thing they could dig up.
They stood there, motionless, for an unknown amount of time.
Someone regained themselves and had tugged on his sleeve gently, not wanting to be on his warpath.
A shuddering breath left Issei as he slowly turned his head.
He saw the short pink hair, and immediately prepare himself for another attack.
Katase. One of the Kendo girls that loved to beat on him.
Her eyes were worried, for what he wasn't sure.
"She's…..really gone?" It was unusual to her voice as quite as that.
His rage had dissipated mostly, allowing him to regain his normal thought process.
At Issei's nod, he saw her pink eyes glisten. And suddenly he felt like an asshole.
Asia was her friend, and he'd just told her that she's dead in a rather cruel fashion.
He saw the hitch in her breath, clenching of her jaw.
Issei wouldn't have stopped himself even if he knew there would be a beating on the other end.
He pulled Katase into a hug, wrapping his arms around her shoulders tightly.
She didn't even resist, too distraught by the news.
Her hands were up against her face to hide the tears spilling forth.
The class watched on as the two held each other, mourning their loss.
When the bell rang for classes to resume, Issei had decided that he was in no shape to maintain his usual schedule.
So he left.
Out and into the old school building to wait for his friends. Hopefully they would bring him some peace.
END!
Short, I know. But that's the plan for this story. I'll do my best to keep the updates quicker.
We'll skip up to the familiar forest next chapter, I just felt this was necessary.
