AN: Hello everybody, and I actually got this one submitted on time~

Praise me.

Also praise the 18 Favorites and 29 Follows that I somehow have now! Not sure what drew you guys in enough to actually read this and then want to read more, but thank you for your faith and I hope that I don't disappoint.

I've actually had this one written up for over a week already (writing ahead for the win!) so I mostly did a thorough edit to make sure that it was up to scratch and remove any lingering typos.

Since I haven't been missing for months, there isn't as much to say about this one, but the big thing that I definitely want to mention is something that I was pretty sure I mentioned in either the chapter 1 or chapter 2 Author Notes, which I accidentally deleted when I re-uploaded those. The big thing is that...

I have no idea how relationships work and yet I am trying to write one help.

I have basically minimal human interaction outside my family, and am admittedly anti-social in the first place. I haven't even seen an actual dating relationship in real life. I think. Maybe. I'm 70% sure that my brother might be dating someone, which tended to mean seeing neither of them for long stretches on end. (Marathons, hikes, and fireworks, all strictly PG I can assure you.)

So basically, any actual dating or relationship knowledge that I have is from books or TV. What I'm trying to pull off is making something seem 3D and filled in when all I've seen myself is 2D facades. Not to say that author's romance can't be realistic, but I have no idea if it is or not. So if I mess up something, please let me know. Just because I don't have the knowledge is no excuse for turning out something that seems totally fake and plastic.

The other thing is that I'm going to go ahead and call out psychominer for their help with this story. We've been talking via PMs and they've given me a bunch of ideas for this story that hopefully you guys can see later. So a quick thanks/public-harassing to you, my good person.

Just a quick PSA, stealing is wrong and don't do it.

And a possible attempted-suicide trigger warning in this chapter. It doesn't actually happen, but a character considered it off-screen. It is only mentioned in two sentences, but I don't want to take any chances.

Disclaimer-because-I-forgot-last-chapter-oops: I do not own DxD and probably don't even own whatever mangled amalgamation I'm going to twist it into.

It seemed like an eternity before I felt anything again. As life slowly began to return to my limbs I could faintly recall the sensation of simply drifting, being free and loose from everything, but it seemed to flee from me, dissipating as quickly as I tried to grasp the memories.

And then I was alive again, wide eyes looking upwards into the night sky while a harsh voice berated me.

"Idiot! Idiot idiot idiot idiot! What happened to coming back to me alive, huh!" Something slapped my cheek but I could barely feel the sting. I could tell that the hole in my chest was gone, but it still felt like something was missing.

I tried to reach up a hand to check the area, but my body couldn't move. All I could do was lie there and listen to Kioko's tears, feeling my heart break a little more at each one. "Doing something stupid like trying to protect an enemy! Only you would be that stupid! Stupid stupid stupid stupid!" Her breath hiccuped and she paused for a moment, before resuming. "I had to feel you die again! And I knew you can't be revived when you're a devil! It was even worse than last time! I was about to kill myself when I felt you come back!"

I managed to twitch my right hand slightly and focused on that until I could shakily reach it upwards and cup her face slightly, her skin feeling so warm against my own cold. I could feel as she latched onto it, pulling it deeper into her cheek as she continued to cry, but no more words emerged.

I could see the figures of the rest of the peerage around me, staying silent as they watched my prone figure and suddenly felt a burst of shame. I'd done what I was sure was the right thing, protecting the devil, but I'd put no thought as to Kioko or the others, basically telling them to kill me. What was I thinking? I hadn't been, so filled with selfish self-righteousness that I'd tossed everything else to the wayside.

As soon as my mouth and vocal chords could work, I licked my lips and croaked out "Sorry." It wasn't just for Kioko. As much as I had said that Rias didn't care about me or her other servants, she was the only person around who could have brought me back. I could still see in the dark and feel the vague energy running through me, so I was still a devil. Which meant I owed my life to her. Again.

"Sorry," I repeated, falling silent. The next few minutes were spent listening to Kioko's weeping and internally kicking myself in the head. Would have done it physically too, but I still couldn't move and wasn't sure my foot bent that far.

When my girlfriend's sobs had died down to the occasional hiccup and I could stiffly move again, Rias stepped forward, a somber look on her face. I was sure that she was going to start telling me how I had put her peerage in danger, but I was surprised when instead she bowed low to me, her crimson hair cascading down around her head.

"I must apologize to you, Kado-san," she said, sounding sincere. "I had received some advice to treat my servants more strictly and let them know who was 'king' in the relationship, so to speak. I still had some residual anger at you, and let it affect me in the worst way possible. I would never sacrifice a member of my peerage, my family, to another devil, and I can only reflect that it was my actions and casual attitude towards you that made you think that."

She straightened back up and I was taken aback by the fire I could see in her eyes. "I, Rias Gremory, of the house of Gremory, vow that I will never release my peerage to anyone or anything, whether it be to another devil, time, or death itself. All that I ask of you is that you help me to do the same, to protect my family."

Faced with that conviction, that pure fervor in her eyes, what could I do but chuckle softly, closing my eyes and pretending that the tear running down the side of my face wasn't there. And so what if it was! I had just come back from death and was allowed to shed a tear of relief! "Apology accepted, Master. This pawn shall serve you to the end of it's days." Which actually might be pretty short at this rate.

The rest of the peerage stepped forward in turn, declaring their own oath, one by one. "This knight shall never surrender and will always wield his sword for his master and friends."

"This queen shall always teach and guide her fellow peerage members, in the best ways she can, fufu~."

"I will protect you. Even pervert-senpai."

And finally, Issei. "This pawn swears that I will never stop running forward! I will protect Buchou, Akeno-senpai, Pretty Boy, and Koneko-chan! I'll even protect the stupid weakling!" Ouch. "And I will continue to get stronger until I…" don't tell me… "become the harem king!"

When faced with something like that, what else can you do but smile?

Something had been bothering me though. "So if I die as a devil, there's no way to bring me back, right? So how am I still alive? And a devil?"

Rias answered that one with a slightly disgruntled tone in her voice. "Stray devil Vaizor saved you."

"…come again? Same evil lady who stabbed me in the back?"

A voice suddenly near my ear viciously whispered, "Oh, so now you're done protecting the topless enemy devil?" …Yeah, I was going to pay for that. And everything else.

Nodding, Rias continued. "When she attacked you, she directly impaled your evil piece, bringing it out of your body. I can only guess she did it on purpose, trying to let you die as a human, but I can't be sure. Without an evil piece you still weren't completely human, so you'd be banned from heaven, but you wouldn't exactly be a devil either.

"So I was able to revive you using the same evil piece. I'm not sure it's been done before, so I don't know if there will be side effects from becoming a devil twice, but I can safely say that it won't work a third time, even if your evil piece is extracted." She shrugged helplessly. "You might even die if your evil piece is removed, since it's basically the only thing keeping you alive at this point."

Throughout her explanation, the grip Kioko had on my hand was slowly tightening, until I swore I could feel my devil-enhanced bones scraping together.

I couldn't help but mentally curse myself again. She'd just started working on a possible way to extract the evil piece so I could become a full human again, but this would completely ruin any chance of that route.

If we wanted to live together or die together, she would either have to lengthen her own life, or do something bad enough to send her to the same place that devils went when they died. Which was dissolving into nothing, so still not much point.

In one fell swoop, I had broken the promise that we had made, putting my own life in direct danger without considering the consequences, and now she was paying for my stupidity.

Stiffly working my body up to a sitting position, I brought my left arm up to give her a hug, but she pushed my arm away as if it was going to bite her, standing up and beginning to walk off, shoulders shaking and fists clenched.

I tried to clamber onto my feet, but had died too recently and my legs couldn't support the weight yet. I punched the ground angrily, feeling the bits of grass stick to my fingers, and bit my lip as I was forced to watch her walk away.

I had the feeling that if I couldn't fix this or do something about it now, our relationship as it currently was would be ruined.

I could feel hot tears starting to gather in the corners of my eyes when my vision was suddenly blocked by a back settling down in front of me, Hyoudou Issei's determined face looking back at me. "Come on, stupid chivalrous idiot. I can't just sit back after saying that I'd protect you."

I could only give a watery smile and wrap my hands around his neck. How could I have ever thought that these guys were heartless monsters? I vowed to do everything I could to make up for my mistakes from that moment on. A useless pawn I might be, but I was gonna be the best useless pawn in the whole underworld!

He gathered my legs up in his arms and with a grunt of exertion, stood up and started running after Kioko. His devil-enhanced legs caught up to Kioko before too long and then slowed down to keep pace with her as I leaned over, feeling another pang of guilt at truly seeing her tear-streaked face lit up by devil-vision.

"Kioko, I'm-"

"Cut it, you jerk," she said, still wiping her eyes but her voice was clear. And very angry. "You didn't even think of me when you went and did something that stupid. No matter which side was right or wrong, you'd end up dead. It was only luck that I didn't lose you for good this time."

"I was-"

"Stupid and an idiot, I know." She interrupted again. "I called you both names about a hundred times while you were lying in front of me, barely breathing!"

She stopped and whirled towards me and my carrier. "You have no idea what that feels like. I was this close to killing myself because you had died!" She held up two fingers almost touching, and it felt like a punch to my gut. Did I really mean that much to her?

I stayed silent this time, just letting her yell at me, the feelings of self-loathing in my gut climbing higher and higher.

"We made a promise, didn't we! And then you went and broke it without a second thought! You put protecting an enemy, someone you were supposed to kill in front of me and in front of your own life! How can I ever trust that you won't do the same again? How can we be a couple when I can't trust that you'll ever put me first? We have fun, but I don't think I can handle this!"

I was just reaching the spiritual level of a cockroach when Issei, my friendly neighborhood wingman suddenly spoke up, not quite facing Kioko.

"I think I get what you're saying, Horikawa-san. He hurt you really badly, and I know this is none of my business, but I can't just stay quiet."

He took a deep breath and continued. "Yeah, Kai-san was really stupid and didn't trust Buchou or the rest of us, and he almost got himself killed. But before he turned into an idiot, he faced away from the fight, you know?"

He adjusted his grip on me and I could tell he was nervous by the tight grip his fingers had on my legs. "I mean he thought that Buchou was gonna feed him to the stray devil, but he didn't run, and he didn't even look at her boobs! I mean, he must really love you a lot to do something like that."

I was pretty sure both mine and Kioko's faces were identical pictures of shock, but Issei went on, finally turning to look Kioko in the eyes. "And even when he tried to save her and said something really dumb about becoming a king or whatever, I…"

Issei took a deep breath and continued to gaze directly at her. "…I thought that Kai-san looked really cool right then, you know! I always say that I'm jealous of people like Kai-san or Kiba-san who have people that like them, because I think that something like you guys have is special! And I don't want to see my peerage member lose something that important to him or you! So won't you please forgive Kai-san!"

I will deny to the end of my days that I was crying then, but on a completely unrelated topic, if anyone ever asked for a recommendation of character for one Hyoudou Issei, I would step forward and tell anyone listening that he was one of the best people that I knew.

Kioko looked directly back into Issei's eyes for a minute, before she averted her gaze, her lip trembling slightly. "I already know that, Issei-san." Huh?

"I know how cool he is when he's saving someone, and how courteous he is with women and with me." She spun around to face the other way.

"That's why I can't help but hate myself a tiny bit for falling in love with him even more when I hear he did something like that! If I love him more and more when he risks his life, how can I be his girlfriend and still keep wanting him to do things that put his life in danger?"

I was frozen in place, my mental gears spinning but catching nothing. She… she what? Wut? Wat? Huh? I couldn't seem to grasp what she meant, but was listening with rapt attention as she went on.

"I want to be there for him, and I want to protect him, but I'm afraid that the more I love him, that one day when he really does die protecting somebody else, that I'll never be able to let go! That I'll do something awful because I love him so much! I could change the world, I could raise seas, enlarge forests, I could kill cities of people! I don't want to be a monster because of him, but part of me is leaping at the chance to be a monster for his sake! That I'd do anything for him!"

Issei shook his head, confused. Honestly I was too. Was it possible to love someone that much? I didn't even think we were barely leaving the "like" word yet. "I don't get what you mean by killing people or the trees or whatever, but I can't believe that love is ever a bad thing."

He took a pose, momentarily letting go of my right leg and I realized I could move it again. "That's why I'll make sure that all the women in my harem love me, so that-"

"Hey Issei," I said, frantically trying to wipe the tears in my eyes on his uniform shoulder. "I think my legs can work now. You okay with leaving me and Kioko alone for now?"

Luckily he stopped at the hint. "Ah, sure, Kai-san!" He let me down gently, making sure that my feet were underneath me, before giving me a thumbs up as he left.

After a moment of hesitation, I called after him and said a phrase that I never thought I would ever say. "Hey Issei! Good luck with your harem!"

His head turned to face me with the biggest smile I had ever seen, his eyes shining. He gave me one more thumbs up and then started jogging back to where the other devils were.

Refocusing on Kioko, she was standing just a few feet from me, her head down and blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail that draped over one shoulder. Her hands were clenched into fists, but I couldn't be sure if it was anger or something else.

Taking a few wobbly steps forward with my shaky legs, I enfolded her into my arms. "Yeah, I'm an idiot and stupid, and I probably will die that way. So please take care of me and keep me from doing anything like that, because I want to live the rest of my long devil life with you. I love you, Horikawa Kioko. Forever and ever, though I'm an idiot, so I'll probably forget sometimes. Please always be there to remind me."

I heard a muffled murmur from the girl in my arms and loosened my embrace, letting her get some distance. "Sorry, what was that?"

She looked up with a bright red face. "I forgot you were there when I said all that. Please forget it all!"

All I could do at that was hug her tighter and laugh, long and hard into the night sky, using her warmth to distract from the aching feeling in my chest. And I was sure that I didn't imagine the "I love you too, idiot." That emerged from my girlfriend.

S~~~S~~~S~~~S~~~S~~~S

A few minutes later Kioko helped me back to the rest of the group, who were discussing something around a perfectly round and perfectly smooth crater in the ground. As we got near, they stopped and turned to regard us. My stupid mistake was still all-too-fresh in my mind, and I nervously scanned the faces of the gathered devils.

Koneko was actually showing emotion for once, surprising enough. Apparently she'd run out of candy and was pouting. As childish as it was, it reminded me that the only reason that we were still out was because they'd waited for me to be revived and then to talk to Kioko.

Kiba's face seemed placid as ever, the same easy grin on his face, but he looked almost too relaxed, compared to his his usual alert and straight posture. Akeno was basically the same, casually smiling but somehow it seemed off.

Issei, hashtag best wingman, looked clearly upset, his frown only growing more pronounced as he saw me coming. Whatever was happening, he didn't seem too happy with me right now. Whatever it was, I wanted to see if I could do anything about it. He'd helped me out just now, and I still wanted to pay him back for that.

Rias was the only one that seemed normal, a concerned look on her face as she watched me approach, eyes flickering between my still-weak legs and the arm I had around Kioko's shoulders.

As we got close enough to be considered a part of the group, I opened my mouth to ask what they had been talking about, but reconsidered before I said anything. Whatever it had been about, it was probably about me, and they'd stopped talking about it when I got close for a reason. I was intensely curious about what the subject had been, but I was going to be a good servant now, and that started by not asking awkward questions that they probably didn't want me asking.

So instead I took a deep breath and asked "What happened to Vaizor?"

I was instantly whacked on the back of the head by Kioko and was the recipient of several cold stares or sighs. Even Issei looked a little upset at that, though it could just be a remnant of the earlier conversation.

I held up my hands in surrender, going on the defensive. "Hey, I'm just curious. If she got away, then we're gonna have to hunt her down again, right? Or is this," I poked at the edge of the smooth crater with my toe, "the remnant of a self-destruct function?"

They all seemed to relax slightly at that, Rias breathing out a small sigh of relief. "You might not have been aware, but Vaizor had a sacred gear that lets her adapt and get stronger every time she kills someone. That's why she had been killing so many people in the area, probably saving up for the inevitable fight."

Sacred gear? What's that? Sounded like some kind of special ability, but I'd better wait until after she was done explaining to ask. Rule number two of being a good servant, don't interrupt Rias.

"When she killed you she became healed and resistant to Akeno's lightning," my master continued. "So I just killed her." And then she shrugged, like it was no big deal.

"So wait," I asked, raising my hand like I was in school, "you just killed her, that easily? Why didn't you do that before?"

Rias held out her right hand and a dark red orb that seemed to almost radiate destruction appeared above her palm. "This is the power of destruction, my family's inherited power. It devours almost anything in an instant." As if to demonstrate, she lightly tossed it to the side, where it ate through a few inches of ground in seconds before she dissipated it.

Issei interrupted at that point, waving his arms as if to illustrate the fight. "Yeah, Buchou was really angry after you died, so she had Kiba and Akeno lead her away from your body before just blasting her! She finished her off super easily!"

A hand on his shoulder from Akeno reigned in the excited boy as Rias continued. "I originally had Kiba, Koneko, and Akeno attack her first, so that I could demonstrate the power of the various evil pieces." Then she cocked an eyebrow at me and asked "And if I had attacked her with my power of destruction before, would you have jumped in front of that, too?"

I cringed a bit at that, actually considering. I could feel the sense of death coming from it, so I probably would have had doubts, but yeah, I would have probably still tried to protect the stray devil anyway. And have done absolutely nothing for my efforts and life.

Then I still had one more question. "The other thing, what's a sacred gear?"

Rias looked to Akeno, who quickly explained "He asked to leave before I told Ise-chan about his, so he isn't aware yet."

Rolling her eyes slightly, probably at my previous antics, Rias put one hand on her hip as she explained. "A sacred gear is an artifact that is given to humans by god. Many people go their entire lives without awakening theirs, but if they do, the sacred gear can have a variety of effects. For example, Ise?"

Issei eagerly stepped forward and extended his left arm. Screwing his face into a mask of concentration, he blinked and a red gauntlet manifested on his wrist in a flash of green light. It looked like it had a large jewel embedded into the back of it, as well as two large horns that ran back along his arm. He held it up as though it was the holy grail, obviously proud.

"This is my sacred gear, Twice Critical! It lets me double my strength." To give an example he took off running, and then a few steps away, I heard a voice call out [BOOST] just as Issei's speed picked up dramatically. I wasn't an expert by any means, but I would say that it was about twice as fast as before.

Making a large circle around the yard, Issei skidded to a stop next to the group and dismissed his sacred gear. "Pretty cool, huh?" He almost looked like a puppy at the moment, eager for praise after performing a trick.

Rias cleared her throat, bringing the attention back to her. "The other kind of sacred gear is an internal type, one that is, well, internal. For example, Yuuto?"

Kiba stepped forward, looking completely at ease. "My sacred gear is called Sword Birth. It allows me to create any kind of demonic sword that I wish, each with a unique power." To demonstrate, a sword suddenly appeared in his hands and he performed a few swings with it before it vanished. "It's not that powerful," he said sheepishly, "and it mostly depends on how good the user is with a sword."

Not powerful or not, that was way cool! You weren't a man if you didn't harbor a love of swords somewhere within you. Most heroes, especially of fantasy novels, always had a sword of some kind, often magical. And here was someone with the ability to create magical swords!

I squinted at Kiba, causing him to shift a little. "Are you secretly the main character of a novel?"

He looked surprised, but easily responded. "Not that I'm aware of, why do you ask?"

Still not entirely convinced, I continued to stare and asked "Could you say "trace on" for me really quick?"

Kiba looked entirely confused now, but I was certain I heard a gasp from someone else in the group. A quick glance around didn't reveal who it was though and I returned my attention to the knight. He shrugged his shoulders and said "Trace on." without any inflection or pause.

No glowing green lines appeared on his skin, or black and white swords manifesting, or a gender-bent king of England, so I guess that theory was null.

"Could you say 'I am the bone of-'" I was interrupted by Kioko whacking me on the back of my head, a pretty clear indicator of her mood.

I was kinda relieved, actually. She hadn't said much since her little confession earlier, and I was worried she was still upset or angry. She was still being quiet, but her hitting me meant that she was at least engaged in the conversation and willing to step in if I went too far.

Glancing at her by my side, she still seemed down, with tear stains remaining on her face. I really would have to do something to make it up to her. No, a million things. For all the times that I hadn't up till now.

Facing the circle again, I had just opened my mouth when Rias interrupted me, an apologetic expression on her face. "I am sorry, Kai-san, but I already checked when I first resurrected you. You don't have a sacred gear of any kind. I'm afraid you're a completely regular human." Then she corrected herself. "Well devil, I suppose, but you get the picture."

I cleared my throat, a little sheepish that she had so clearly guessed my question. "Actually, I was going to ask if all of you had sacred gears. Like your ball-of-death-thingy and Akeno's lightning. Or even Koneko…" I realized that Koneko had left at some point during the conversation and cast a worried look at Rias.

"Koneko just left to get some sleep. There's still school tomorrow after all, and it's past nine at night." Rias wasn't concerned, and after remembering the crunching sound I had heard before from Koneko's attack, I supposed that I didn't need to be either.

"We'll probably break up soon, but as far your last question goes, Akeno uses magic to achieve her elemental spells, and my power of destruction is a family ability, not a sacred gear. Koneko has no boosts except for her rook piece."

I nodded, before refocusing on something that she'd said. "Wait, did you say magic? What's magic can I learn please teach me." I took a few steps forward and put my hands before me in a begging gesture.

My admittedly slightly desperate plea was cut off as Rias raised a hand. "It's late enough and I am not going to spend the next hour explaining the finer points of magic to you. Ask again tomorrow and I'll see if I have enough patience. Best that you get to your house for the evening though."

The group broke up, Kiba, Akeno, and Rias all heading off in one direction towards their lodgings, while Issei complained loudly about having been teleported there and having to walk to his house. I took Kioko by the arm and had just begun to walk off towards the nearest bus stop when I heard Rias call out from behind me.

The red-haired devil shouted out, "It doesn't involve magic circuits though!"

A wide grin spread across my face as I yelled back "Nerd!"

She sputtered for a moment, before hollering across the yard, "You started it! Nerdier!" Then she stomped and walked away again, seemingly insulted.

I laughed out loud as me and Kioko started to walk again. "Haha, she gets it! Now that's a master I can be proud of!" My master was an otaku! Who would have guessed it? Now I'd have to see how many references I could fit in every conversation with her.

I was humming happily when I heard Kioko mutter something from beside me, head tucked down. I immediately leaned in closer, trying to hear. "Sorry, what was that?"

I heard it the second time. "You changed."

My hand automatically started to reach for my chest as I heard the words, but I forced it back down. "What do you mean? You didn't mention this when we talked just earlier."

She laughed bitterly. "I'm your girlfriend, that means I know you better than anyone. You were being polite to her. You didn't interrupt, and you were actually listening. You didn't do that before."

I knew she was right, I'd had to stop myself from interjecting something in the conversation multiple times. But that didn't mean I'd changed, right? I ran a hand through my hair, trying to figure out how to explain it.

"She just saved my life, Kioko. I did something stupid, insulted her and her family, and then died making the enemy stronger. Even after that, she saved my life when she didn't have to. I owe her something for that, and if it's a little extra courtesy, then I can live with that."

"She saved your life before, didn't she? She revived you as one of her pawns? Why is it different now?" She rebutted, gaining some energy.

I didn't get why she was so worried about this, but I did my best to explain. "The first time I'd saved her other servant from death. This time I had done something dumb and even put her servants in danger. She had no reason to bring me back to life, but she did anyway."

Kioko didn't seem to think that was enough though. "So be thankful, but why change? She revived you, not a faceless mook to order around. So why act any differently?"

Turning to face Kioko, I tried to look into her eyes. "Why is this so important to you? What makes you so worried?" Yeah I was being polite, but that normally wouldn't be enough to rile Kioko up this much.

My girlfriend looked into my eyes, back down at her shirt, then back up to meet my eyes. "I'm jealous." She spoke in a small voice, as if she was scared of rejection.

Before I could comment, she released her arm from mine and backed away a few steps before continuing. "I fell in love with you because I saw you save someone, and Rias just saved you. I was relieved the first time when you seemed the same as always, but you changed this time."

She peered forward, as if looking for an answer in my eyes. I wanted to step forward and hug her, but I was still considering what she had said, suddenly reconsidering my actions from earlier in the night. Had I fallen in love with her? Had I changed somehow? I found that I couldn't tell. I felt the same, but was it just too early to tell?

As if she could detect my indecision, Kioko took another step back away from me before she resumed. "I don't want to be left behind. You're a devil now, and I can't change that. It's permanent. But I still want to spend every minute of it with you." There was a steely look in her eyes and I suddenly remembered what she had said earlier that night. 'I could change the world, I could raise seas, enlarge forests, I could kill cities of people.'

Before she could say another word I ran forward and embraced her in a hug, just like earlier that night. "I can't tell if I've changed because of being brought back again by Rias, or if I like her. But I know that I love you, Kioko. I told you that earlier, and I say it again. I might like her, but you will always be first in my heart. If I ever leave you, please kill me, because it would be putting me out of my misery." Please, book quotes, don't fail me now!

I heard Kioko take a shaky breath, but interjected before she said a word. "Hey, you haven't met my family yet, right? Want to come over and see them?" I started pulling her along, still half-hugging her, and she didn't resist. Things had changed tonight, but I was going to hang onto this as hard as I could.

End AN: Surprise, just because you're already in a relationship doesn't make everything turn out well!

Somewhere along the line, the original plan for Kioko to be a stalwart support and for them to actually have a good relationship fell apart and now it's gone all wrong what have I done.

So you guys can probably tell from this chapter already, but I plan to wreck them even more later so I'm gonna point out a thing or two for now so that I don't get confused readers later.

No. 1: Kado doesn't love Kioko yet. I considered adding another paragraph at the end to make this clear, but it just seemed so OOC for him that scrapped it. He definitely likes her, but he doesn't truly love her yet, even though he's trying to make himself believe that he does. Words are cheap and romance is slow, guys. I do hope that it works out for these guys, but I seriously have no idea except that it'll go downhill at some point and I don't know if they'll recover.

No. 2: Kioko is seriously in love with Kado. I'm not sure if I can exactly call it love, but it's the closest that Kioko knows it as. It's honestly borderline infatuation, as you might be able to tell when she mentioned that she almost killed herself. Kado kinda brushed it off since he can't really believe that someone would go that far, or just trying to deal with it some other time, but Kioko was serious. She's not yandere or anything like that, but she's not in the best mental state when it comes to Kado right now. (Please don't turn into a tragic horror story, writing.)

No. 3: I have absolutely no clue if Kado likes Rias or vice-versa. This was absolutely not in the plan, but I have no idea where this story is going to go, so even though I had planned to leave Issei's harem how it was, this could be a route it goes down at some point. I won't be trying to set up flags or anything, but I just don't know.

No. 4: Kioko isn't sure of their relationship anymore and neither is Kado. The trust is gonna start breaking down and yeah bad stuff might end up happening. (It is seriously just so easy to make the DxDverse into a tragedy and I need to stop now.)

Okay, on to happier things. Death!

Hopefully I handled Kado coming back to life okay. This was a way that seemed to make some sense to me, and if it doesn't work with the canon evil piece system, I can just call the AU card on it, which does feel really cheaty actually, so if you guys can think of a more realistic idea I might be able to use it instead. Although I do already have little plot bunnies for this event that may breed and make a cute little rabbit-zoo-thing later down the line.

P.S. Isn't it just unfair that I get ideas now that I can use to improve the story later, but any ideas I have later I can't use to fix it now? Hopefully that means that the story gets better and better as time goes on, but it still bugs me.

I also hope that Rias' reason for treating Kado as she did makes sense. He really had made her upset and she's not used to losing control like that. So she tried to reign him in and show him that he couldn't be the one in control, and it was really only the situation that made it go so badly. Without the fight, they probably would have been able to get it figured out in a few days or a week without the problems that this event caused.

Final note, wingman!Issei is best Issei. I tend to really get into my characters heads, so most of the parts that I mentioned Kado crying were the parts that I seriously did start to feel tears come to my own eyes. I will confess that I didn't care much for Issei when I first started this project but had no plans to bash him. I'm liking him more and more as I read the LNs and write this though. Hopefully he'll get cool moments later too.

Please send me any questions, comments, or ideas you have!