Level 18
His parents had laughed and reminisced fondly after hearing Gen's first "phase" of his plan, saying Gen was "going back to his roots", but honestly? There was nothing funny about it.
Stakeouts had always sounded cool in the movies, but that's only because all the parts where the police watch literally "nothing" happen aren't included. Even the "dynamic stakeouts" were just as bad, as they combined the never-ending boredom of the stationary stakeout and the false-excitement of following someone without letting them know you're there, creating the worst kind of stakeout.
Atago and Valerie had just learned that Genshirou's childhood has been filled with time periods that wouldn't be out of place among the most boring moments in all of humankind history.
Whilst it was definite proof of his dedication, patience and sheer will they wouldn't be able to add that to their list of reasons why they love him until after the day was over.
Simply put, they were almost regretting signing up for Genshirou's "main plan", instead of the one that involved placing them far our of danger.
"Oh. Mein. Gott. He even eats a potato chip like a fucking psycho." Genshirou shook his head with visible disapproval as he spied on the Fallen Angel from the top of the mountain they were hiding in.
Valerie was lying on the picnic mat bored out of her mind. Atago was in a similar mental state, leaning on the back of her boyfriend with her head slumped forward to observe the ground.
"Uhhhh…" Atago groaned, "Let me see that." She took out her own magical pair of binoculars, adjusting them to the spot Genshirou was focused on.
"That's it!?" What she saw filled her with utter disappointment. Yes, the target looked like a psycho, but there was nothing interesting in watching him snacking on his potato chips while the kids under him played on the beach.
Moving the focus slightly to the left, she could see one of the Genshirou clones in disguise, monitoring them and even speaking with one of the kids without any suspicious movements being made whatsoever.
Clearly, the supposed Sacred Gear expertise that was to be expected of a Fallen Angel, doesn't seem to mean anything when a clone body was involved. Atago was of the opinion that the target wouldn't even notice Gen's Sacred Gear even if he stood right in front of target, but of course, her lover would never believe that and would not take such a risk.
"Shh! Don't give our position away." He shushed her quietly.
"We are literally outside the town. On a mountain! How can we possibly give our location away?!" She stood up and gestured to the lack of intelligent life surrounding them to illustrate the point.
"You can't be too careful. We are approximately 10 km away, remember? That's practically nothing. I can cover that distance in 3 seconds tops at my current speed. Who knows how much faster these crazy multi-pair winged fallen angels can be? I'm already taking a huge risk by putting this measly distance between us and him."
Atago stood there with her mouth wide open for a good five seconds while Genshirou continued his long-range observations in addition to his close-ranged observations via clones and smaller "shadow relays".
After she realized he wasn't joking at all, she put her binoculars back into the bag, took a few steps to where Valerie was lying on the picnic mat and then laid down beside her.
"Only you could consider a distance like this as nothing…" She muttered with incredulity leaking into her tone despite her own knowledge countering such traitorous thoughts. Genshirou wouldn't lie about his capabilities to her, and with what she had seen thus far, it was completely possible for him to have overtaken many powerful beings within the speed category by a number of magnitudes without noticing it.
Atago always thought that he had some unrealistically high expectations for what constituted as powerful combatants after he introduced the "Ophis Serious Attack" as a benchmark to all his abilities. The amount of effort and progress he had made since the last times she saw him fought seriously, back in their estate and that mountain battle, had eluded her completely.
While they trained together, it was very apparent that he was holding back significantly, yet even then it never occurred to Atago that his definition of "balanced" training apparently meant a proportionate increase in speed relative to all his other capabilities, if not more so. She had no full measure of his actual capabilities since it was, as he said, "too deadly" to showcase properly.
"Pffffhaaaa!" Hearing a strange sound, Atago turned her head, and watched as Valerie attempted to blow a leaf that had fallen on her lips up into the air while keeping it that way.
"Oh! I know." Genshirou suddenly took out a balloon from his inventory. Atago didn't want to ask why he had one in there as he would give an answer that would likely irritate her at this moment. "Let's try to keep this up in the air with just our heads."
Even without turning his body, he was well aware of their current states and what they were up to, as his recent suggestion was too on point to prove anything else.
Atago felt a little guilty for thinking that he was a little selfish for letting them be bored like this, she should have known he was always thinking about them like this. And to begin with, it was their decision to commit to his method of doing things and his rules so they could have at least follow through it.
"You don't have to play too." She attempted to give him an out.
"Nope. Game starts now. Boop." He placed the balloon on his head and sent it flying.
"Ooh! I never played this game before." Valerie quickly stood up and positioned herself to bounce the balloon of her head. "I got it! It's up there."
Genshirou then, without taking his eyes off the fallen angel even at this distance, moved into position and bounced the balloon back up. The way he waddled in an exaggerated manner to reach it made her chuckle a little.
"Well, if you're okay with it, it's my turn!" As she began to play, Atago was reminded of the times where she played volleyball. Her prior experience made it a lot harder to play, however, as she had to resist the urge to use her hands to get the spherical object.
A few minutes later...
"I'm getting it- oh no! The wind!" Valerie laughed as she ran after it without a care in the world.
"Don't run." Atago quickly spoke a warning with a tone not unlike what she reserved for her younger brother when they were younger.
"Careful, don't trip!" Genshirou yelled out, tearing his eyes away from his observation target, then moved instantly, appearing right beside Valerie after she almost fell down upon tripping on a large branch, "Are you alright?"
The blonde girl nodded, the smile Valerie stayed on her face as if she wasn't surprised at all, "Quite so. Thank you." The dhampir allowed herself to be pulled back up, and pecked him on the cheek for his efforts.
The smile that appeared on his face was slightly more natural than his usual ones. Atago took it as a good sign that he was effectively adjusting his over-guarded reactions to a more relaxed one.
Genshirou had been visibly twitchy with his hands and feet during the days when he wasn't as "ultra-aware" of everything and was still unused to romantic affections. Compared with back then when they first started dating in winter, he has managed to cut his adjustment time by two to three times, which is good progress!
"I guess not having to worry about safety like this with you around is a worthwhile trade-off." Atago smiled at the pair, "You're going back to observing Potato Chip Sensei again, aren't you?" She made sure to put on her best pout.
While Atago may gripe over Genshirou's over cautiousness (having her "surprise" hugs from behind being made ineffective really sucks) at times, the payoff has always been worth it. That didn't mean that she wouldn't try to get him to relax when she could.
If he were really serious about it then she would let him do what he wants and accept it, he would do the same for her, it's the little concessions that allowed them both to show their love for each other.
"I've finished the necessary defences and have placed sufficient observation resources. Even if he were to directly attack us right now we'll likely be safe behind my instant shadow swap technique." Ah, she had to get the details on that later. She wouldn't do it now or he'll end up launching into a very long explanation in how he derived and created that ability.
"Oh my! And here I was, almost thinking that you couldn't bear to look away from your quarry." Atago joked.
"Not to worry. I enjoy keeping my eye on you ladies far too much to give that up." He grinned cheekily and winked back at her, setting her heart aflutter.
Valerie displayed visible happiness with a smile and girlish giggling, "My dear hero, you may gaze at my form to your heart's content."
"It is with great humility that I accept this privilege." His words were accompanied with an exaggerated bow.
The two of them enjoyed this dragon/hero to love-struck princess dynamic far too much.
"Hmm… so why is your current observation resources sufficient for… what's his name?" Atago found herself stuck on the Fallen Angel's name… which none of them really bothered to remember.
Genshirou took out the hotel guest list from his inventory that he printed out, "... I can't believe he's using his actual name. It's Tamariel, typical. I swear, at least a third of them must have a name that ends on "iel". One more letter off and I would have thought he developed the Elder Scrolls series."
That was a video game reference that she didn't get. All she heard about the series was from Gen, and as per usual, he was only propagating memes about it.
"Well?"
"I managed to re-allocate enough resources to get another clone up and running after I scouted a couple of pathways to the lab. That, and the defences I mentioned earlier."
So there was another clone nearby performing his previous self-appointed duties, Atago pondered upon that thought… then considered asking if he could get another clone up here since she was in the mood for a quick gangbang after the fun and games.
She held back on account of more pressing concerns, but he seemed to have noticed her intentions, as the smirk he always reserved for whenever her lust would flare up a little was plastered right on his smug face.
Focus! Atago reigned in her thoughts and decided to focus on the case.
Knowing him, he had likely swept the city and found the main entrance early on, only to have not been satisfied with that, and proceeded with scouting out for every emergency exit to prevent a "recurring villain" scenario. He had likely already prepared some anti-teleportation measures and had wanted to make sure any last-ditch escape through secret passageways would have been covered as well.
She gave her thoughts on the matter, getting a big "Yep!" from him along with a smile filled with approval that made her really happy.
"Are we going now?" She asked, getting a shake of the head as a response, her mood dropped a bit as she wondered if she had missed something and had given a stupid answer.
"No, not now. There's no point. From the dregs of energy I can sense, everyone down there is already dead. So we can just skip the "find the survivors and then be horrified at the revelation" phase." There was no surprise in his tone of voice even as his grim determination seemed to settle upon his face.
He took a deep calming breath and his smile was as big and honest as always. "It's best to wait for him to show us the way in. Well then, since the balloon is missing-"
"Noooo! Ballooney!" Valerie looked like she lost her favorite kite after remembering the lost balloon.
"I can't believe you gave it a name so quickly." Genshirou quickly transformed into a Tsukkomi.
"Gen, be nice, it was her first balloon." Atago internally winced a second after she finished her sentence after realizing just how pitiful that sounded.
"Uh, I have more in here...Oh, I also have Helium tanks, so we can have some floating ones too." The girl who had never held a floating balloon in her lifetime cheered happily as Genshirou speedily prepared a couple for her.
Atago was about to ask why he would have something as random as that in his inventory, and then she remembered his science experiments to use his abilities to decompose matter to create… energy. The science side of his training regimen has been a pathway to many abilities that many would consider to be… overpowered.
It took her a couple of seconds to process those few thoughts of hers.
"Nooooo! I don't want to hear it! No more tragedy of whoever the fuck is unwise!" She screamed in an attempt to banish the memes from her mind.
Genshirou had turned around and looked at her with a wide smile.
"Hahahaha! Good." The sadist in bed cackled at her then clapped once, no doubt re-enacting a famous scene from Star Wars. Even so, that last word of his was enough to make her body remember it's "training". He had been sneaking the word "good" in all manner of tones whenever he could whenever he fucked her brains out, the fact that it had such an effect on her filled her with disgust for enjoying being treated like a dog during those periods.
Sensing her reaction, he quickly continued and seized the initiative.
"Your disgust has made you aroused. Now fulfill your duty and take your place beneath me." She knew the tone he used well enough and before she could even respond to his words with her own, her body had reacted faster.
It took her a second to realize she was already on her knees.
Even though she swore to not let him have his way if he were to use memes within a time frame of one hour, the idea of letting him get away with it, or simply giving up on the matter and surrender to her own desires had won out over her dislike for this kind of talk.
She could take solace that she was the one that referenced it first, so it was her fault, and it was only right that she took her punishment for it.
Wait! How did this happen?! She's more controlled than this!
Atago had almost realized her nonsensical thought processes but by then she had already taken his dick into her mouth.
Apparently not.
Atago had been more thoroughly trained by her master than she thought, having little idea of the true extent of it all. She hadn't even batted an eye at the sight of Valerie pleasuring herself while watching them both, her thoughts on how far she must have fallen to have only felt more aroused at the fact she wasn't troubled by it only served to enhance her pleasure further.
Before long, she ended up in a state with all her holes filled with cum, to the point where Valerie jested about making an "instant loss 2-koma" image in "honor" of her.
She had lost track of time and had only stopped when her future husband told her to stop. As the haze of lust cleared away, it dawned on her that he had just prevented her from licking his cum off the ground, preserving what little dignity that she had left.
Out of breath and just recovering for her lack of control over herself, she spoke in a hushed tone with disbelief and perverse fulfilment in equal measure, "What have I done?"
He towered above her and smirked triumphantly, "You are fulfilling your destiny, Atago. Become my sex pet. Learn to experience the depraved pleasures of the flesh." That sounded wonderful in Atago's mind. It was only natural, she was already his bitch in more ways than one, getting a more advanced title for it was appealing to her.
"I will do whatever you ask…. Wa-wait a second! Mm-" Curiously, it wasn't the content of his demands that she was concerned about, rather, it was the fact that the whole scenario sounded far too familiar to her liking.
He didn't allow her to take back her words and sealed her lips with a kiss. Quite frankly, she didn't want to take them back either.
The dhampir voyeur even acted as a witness and made some handwritten documents for them to sign just to make it look "official", reading their mutual desire and predicting their needs. Atago made a note to get Valerie an extra special gift for her thoughtfulness and prompt action.
She supposed that it would only be proper to return the favor in the future… At any rate, the purpose of the "contract" was to act as a humiliating reminder to make their future couplings even more pleasurable. Already, she was losing herself in her perverted fantasies, she entertained the thought that she might have gone into heat early… then dismissed it quickly after checking her body.
"Oh dear, I seem to have forgotten to record it." Valerie grumbled about the lost opportunity even though she definitely had some incriminating images on her phone now.
"It's better that you don't no matter how much we may want it. Such videos have a tendency to find their way to the public in my type of career." They had that much in common with human politics, as her experiences have led her to believe such.
Hearing a strange slapping sound, Valerie and Atago turned around, finding themselves watching the surreal scene of Genshirou and a clone of his taking turns to slap each other's face.
"You idiot!" "Fuck you I'm with stupid." "I am you." "Not yet." "It's idiocy then." "Ahhhhh!"
"Haaa… can someone explain what is happening?" Atago raised her voice to get their attention.
The two of them looked back at her and spoke at the same time, "You're naked."
"Oh wow, I wonder who could be responsible for that?" What? He was begging for sarcasm when he tried to avoid the question.
"I think he's wondering why you haven't put your clothes back on." Valerie interjected.
Atago looked down, noting her nakedness, and shivered involuntarily at her shamelessness. "A-anyways-" She didn't bother to cover up in order to sound confident, although if she had to be honest with herself, she was enjoying this far too much, "What are you bashing yourself over?"
The two of them sighed and then there was only one of them left, the clone disappearing out of sight in an instant, "I, uh, had something important that I wanted to tell you and Valerie. I kind of forgot that I committed myself in my head to tell you tonight but well… it's the sort of thing that causes a truck-load of drama that needs a couple of chapters to resolve. So yeah, bad timing when we're going to be relying on each other later on."
If he was more blatant with his references to Shounen Jump then he may as well wear a black gakuran just to cosplay as a certain Good Loser.
"Oh yeaaah…" Valerie seemed to have remembered him mentioning it at some point.
Atago vaguely remembered that he wanted to talk to them about something important, then completely shifted the topic to the fallen angel immediately after. "Oh my, well, out with it."
"Okay, may as well… so you see, I actually lived in an alternate Earth, died via a car accident involving a truck, and got reincarnated into this world that I recognized as an ecchi battle harem light novel world after hearing my given name. For the sake of coming clean, I'm the side character that was always supposed to be chasing after the main character's shadow, Valerie is the MacGuffin for the bad guys trying to fuck the world up, the author couldn't be bothered to expand on the Shinto and Youkai faction since he chickened out of making them just as weird as he made the other factions so as far as I know, you weren't mentioned at all."
She should have been shocked at the unpretentious admission. There were many things she should have been feeling, thinking about, questioning and conforming but… somehow, she could tell that the truth of his past meant very little to him. And the fact was, that it meant very little to her just as well.
Outside of the non-painful, much more comedic version of trauma he had for trucks and his "gut-feeling" of certain tropes about to be enacted upon the material world… there was no real indication of him treating life and the people around him like a character that got reincarnated in a dating sim game, like all those villainess otome game reincarnations that are all the rage nowadays.
There was not a single person among his small circle of family and friends that he did not cherish in a real, genuine manner. His pursuits of power to keep everyone safe was but one of the many tangible evidence for that.
"...Huh. That makes a lot of sense. Well, I'm glad that I can just chalk up your absurd capabilities to someone that knows how to level grind." Atago decided to lighten up the mood so that Valerie's ruminations will not cause Genshirou undue worry, "If I had to be honest, I was kind of hoping that was the case, and well, I had my suspicions." He's been dropping hints like crazy considering what he had said to her father along with his actions, both intentional and unintentional, was any indication.
"H-how so?" He asked, surprised but not wary of her intentions, as he no doubt could feel that her heart was in no turmoil whatsoever.
She had been waiting for this. If she excluded the really obvious reincarnator traits that she had seen then...
"You put down English as your first language when we were filling up online forms to order your Star Wars merchandise." "That could mean anything." They were lying on a bed playing on a computer and ordering things online on it that time.
"You listed down an address all the way in some other country before going back to correct it to your home address." "Uhhh…" She initially rationalized as his hideout for training, then recalled he used English letters to type it all out and it was all the way in a different country within the SEA region.
"Your backup email address is basically an entirely different full name, with a 90's birth year at the end of it." "Stupid nostalgia." If there was any sort of backup email name he would have went with, it would have been Prequel meme inspired, not some random name he never mentioned in her presence.
"Specific comments about Tomoe and Momo being underdeveloped minor characters in "canon" under your breath…" "Oh yeah, you were coming around that corner on... I forgot that your hearing improves with the rest of your abilities." That was a big slip that she didn't think too much about.
It was at this point that Valerie spoke the question that had been plaguing her mind since he told them all of this.
"Elaborate on your thoughts as you came to Romania."
An open-ended one, but from what she had known from the couple of "self-insert" fanfics that Genshirou complained about for a couple of other series, and what he had apparently known about this world (he damn well knew how to not give a damn about so called power "limits")... it was an appropriate test.
Genshirou left nothing out, from how he heard about the activities of vampires from the Church and to his liberation of those within vampire territory.
"If you were to ask whether I specifically rescued you with the intention of securing your power or preventing untold damages by future villains, then the answer is no. I stopped properly reading the light novels and focused on summaries due to being busy at a certain point in my previous life, a couple of volumes before the part where the main character, his friends, including Gasper…"
"Wait! Gasper is fine?!"
Oh! That's Valerie's only friend before she met us! Atago remembered that during a conversation she had with the girl.
"He's a crossdressing shut-in that's afraid of people, a reincarnated devil in Rias Gremory's peerage who is made up of equally damaged people, why no one has gotten any therapy at all is anyone's guess… so yes, he's fine, largely… from certain points of view. Before you ask, he isn't in the human world yet as he'll only move to a sealed room in Kuoh Academy for his first year of high school. He's a year younger than me, so if you want to see him without drawing attention from the devils then you'll need to wait a bit."
The lack of professional mental help sounds like the typical Japanese way of dealing with problems. Atago could certainly see how that would have come about considering her own reading list in manga and light novels. It's like characters have a tragic backstory just for the sake of the story.
"Oh… okay. Thank you… continue, please." Valerie seemed genuinely relieved to hear all that despite the rather concerning implications.
"Where was I? Oh yeah, I'll just tell you about what happened in that timeline first so that you have some context. Long story short, you got way worse due to Marius's experiments, the vampires got backstabbed by the shittiest devil dad in all of current history, you had your Grail stolen by them, they used it to revive and modify armies of evil dragons, oh, and the Apocalypse Beast or whatever you call it sealed by the Biblical God somewhere in the Dimension Gap at the cost of his life. Which by the way, is so stupidly overpowered that they considered getting the strongest god to fight it for them, and still resulted in untold number of deaths among the supernatural world, unless said being was a devil because the author is fucking biased towards them. Valerie, you were basically confined to a sick bed with a fuck ton of machines for who knows how long, until they finally collected all your soul and stuffed it back inside you. And yes, the story continues, and now as far as I remember, the Underworld gods, gods of death, and other discontent gods are trying to assert their dominance without the Seiba "T-pose" by ruining everyone's lives. Oh, and the author went ahead and said that if he didn't know how to continue the story, he'll end it with the Hindu faction as the final bosses."
"Oh shit." Atago had involuntarily blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
Valerie was less educated on such matters, but even she knew how grave things could get.
"Yes! This is what I'm talking about. Until I can protect everyone from that level of bullshit, then I'm hardly strong enough. Anyways, continuing on…" He looked at Valerie straight in the eye, "Since you were pretty much a plot device in my head, I didn't even remember you until I felt your presence in the castle. And after that, the first thing I thought about was how to help you get better while getting you out along with everyone else. I only thought about the implications later on and resolved to keep you safe so that you can live as normal a life as possible, even if I didn't believe trouble won't find you no matter how hard I try."
Everything he said was pretty much in line with the reason why he decided to take care of Valerie personally, outside of the fact that Valerie had something to do with a reviving item that's classified...as… the Grail. Oh. Ooooh.
By the time Atago properly sorted out just how fucked up everything would turn out, she caught the sight of Valerie lunging at Genshirou, at his lips, hugging him tightly even as she released her emotions through lots of passionate kisses.
"As what you have said is true, you will always have my trust."
Ah right, it must be easy to confirm such things when you have "lol, I can see your soul" intention detecting cheats.
Atago didn't even feel like calling Valerie out for the memes considering that she had partook in it as well on this day.
"I have one more question." Atago raised a single finger up to illustrate her point.
"Ask away." Genshirou looked really happy that everything had turned out well. Considering that he had a hot young woman all over him after all that, she could understand why he would feel that way.
Taking into account everything he had said about the future, the grave implications, Genshirou's admiral efforts to live life the best he can for everyone's sake, their current happiness and many more things… there was only one more thing that Atago would like to know more than anything else at this present moment.
"I need to know how you looked like in your past life."
If he met certain requirements then he could transform his clone for specific types of roleplay.
"...Why?"
"Let me help narrow down what I'm looking for. Did you have dark skin? Were you over forty? Bald? Fat? Have a large bitch breaking dick and-"
His response to her desire for some "safe" (Still Genshirou) NTR related play was to push her down and spank her ass like the bad girl she was.
"Aaahn!"
"You slutty bitch in heat! I'll fuck your NTR guy delusions out of your mind until the only thing you can think about is the daily cum meals you'll be eating out of the bowl." He growled angrily with not a small amount of anticipation. Quite frankly, Atago was more eager than he was in turning those thoughts into reality.
His punishment and insults only made her feel hotter. Ah, such a well-trained pet she had become...
"Aaand… it's recording now." The blonde gave us the thumbs up.
It would be a very long enjoyable time before they ended up sneaking into the lab.
