O-Issei-O

I gave up trying to focus on today's lectures about fifteen minutes into first period. I'd be a bit hard pressed to pay attention, given all the existential crises going on inside of my head right now.

I might not have realized it last night, but summoning Toujou-san opens up a massive number of questions, and problems. Chief among them is that I summoned someone out of thin air in a way that was clearly not natural. Sure, the flier could have some micro transceiver that communicated my desire… somehow. The flash and pop could have been some sort of pyrotechnics. What there is no answer for is how she managed to get into my room, let alone the house, undetected. There isn't a crime problem in Kuoh, but we do still lock the front door at night.

So that leaves me at a very unsettling conclusion. Even before considering that Toujou-San literally blinked out of existence in front of me on her way out, the best solution to how the other events unfolded is preternatural in nature. There is at least one person in this building with me right now that can almost certainly teleport. That is the only supernatural ability that I have personally witnessed, but I wouldn't be any more surprised if there were further things Toujou-San could do. Maybe they really could "Make your dream come true…"

And it really must be a 'they' now that I think about it. Toujou-San was not the one who was handing out the fliers yesterday after all. Either she has 'mundane' helpers, or there are others like her around. That is a scary thought.

And there comes the second existential crisis of the day. What exactly did I invite into my home last night?

On the flier, the term used to refer to what was to be summoned is 'Akuma': Devil or Demon. Now that I think about it, neither of those really have positive connotations. Beyond that though, there are some serious theological concerns to consider here.

Standard, run of the mill 'Demons' do not present much of an issue. Many faiths have general 'demonic' antagonist figures. The confirmation of demons and beings that refer to themselves as such doesn't really shift much for me. I'm not super strongly religious anyway, but I at least keep up to date as far as who believes what.

Devils on the other hand cause a much more significant issue. Now, these people could just be claiming the title of 'devil' for some reason. That is the simplest explanation, and the one that causes the least headaches. The troublesome explanation is that these things somehow are devils, as in the biblical devil. That would, in effect, confirm the veracity of at least one of the Abrahamic faiths.

There are billions of faithful in the world that follow Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, the three components that make up the Abrahamic family of faiths. I'm sure that nothing good would come of it if the relatively small percentage of zealous believers found irrevocable proof that their faith was undeniably real… or that it was false. A 'relatively small percentage' of billions is still in the tens of millions after all.

Yeah, no, I'd rather not be in the middle of a holy war right now. Or any time for that matter, thank you very much. That being said, I may need to reconsider my stance on religious matters. Eh, I'll pencil in some soul-searching time right between my weekly mental break down and bi-monthly exploration of the pits of despair. Sunday at 19:30 it is then.

O-0-O

Getting up out of my seat at the start of lunch period, I decide to stretch my legs a bit. Staying cooped up all day certainly isn't going to do me any good. Yeah. I'll take a bit of a walk before heading up to the roof to eat my lunch.

Passing through the crowd unnoticed, just another face among a hundred others, I roam the halls of the school, and my thoughts start to wander.

'What is my place in the world?'

'Am I ever going to be loved?'

'Why do I bother going through the motions if no one even cares?'

'How much has been hidden from me… from everyone?'

'How much is there beneath the veil…'

I look up with a start as I realize that I'm the only one left in the hallway. Guess I passed the cafeteria then. Wouldn't really make sense for people to be here right now, they'd much rather be eating their lunch than pacing the hallways.

I am glad for the distraction though. This was supposed to be time for me to calm down, not to go even further down the rabbit hole. I swear, I am going to go completely crazy one of these days. Rounding the corner into the next hallway…

I immediately turn around speed walk in the direction I just came. I do not need to run into her right now. She hasn't done, well… anything, as far as I'm aware, but it's still scary knowing someone has magical abilities. My reaction has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she thinks that I am some kind of depraved pervert. Nope, none at all. Just ignore the ninety-five percent of the pie chart marked 'scared of opinion of underclassman that I definitely was never attracted to' and I am telling the perfect truth. Totally the truth.

Am I going to avoid Toujou-San for the rest of my time at Kuoh? No… of course not! That would be ridiculous! It will just be most of my time here of course! I'm sure I'll manage to forget about the stupid things of done eventually. Right?

Shaking my head, I head off to the nearest stairwell. Lunch period is almost half over already, and I do still need to eat, so up to the roof it is. Let's hope there's nothing world shattering waiting for me up there.

O-0-O

There was nothing world shattering for me up there. Really, nothing important happened for the rest of the day either. Just me being far too jumpy for my own good. I did end up having to avoid Toujou-San on my way out of school, but I suspect that that will become a part of my normal routine from now on anyway. Apologizing to her and clarifying my actions like an adult? What is that? Who are you? Go away. I'm perfectly happy avoiding the problem for the rest of time.

Can't do that for my homework though. Another day, another ass kicking out of physics.

O-Rias-O

Classes let out a few minutes ago, and I'm on my way down to the student council room to talk to my friend, rival, and fellow High-Class Devil and Co-Owner of Kuoh, Sona Sitri. Of course, to anyone who isn't a devil themselves she's either Kaicho, denoting her role as Kuoh Academy's student council president, or in the case of an especially brave (or stupid, it's usually stupid) individual, Shitori Souna – her alias in the human world.

I considered taking an alias when we first came to the human world on a long-term basis, but honestly, it would have been more trouble than it's worth. For all that I could have been in danger of having my name recognized, the Ars Goetia is publicly available after all, it's never happened as far as I can tell. Honestly, people these days are too lazy to care even remotely enough to look up my name in a book. Probably helps that anyone interested in me is more so interested in my body than my family, but that's neither here nor there.

Reaching the student council room, I take care to knock, announcing my presence, before entering the room containing the majority of the devil presence on campus. After all, I front my peerage with the ORC, so it should be no surprise that the Student Council and Sona's peerage are one in the same.

You see, I have four members in my peerage: my queen Akeno, my rook Koneko, my knight Kiba, and my Bishop Gasper, five if I include myself as king. That goes back down to four though, considering that I have to keep Gasper sealed in his room due to his tenuous at best control over his sacred gear. 'He really would be useful to have on the field but… no, it's too dangerous right now. I'll help him after I'm free.'

Sona, on the other hand, has six members in her peerage, up to seven if she includes herself, including her newest addition, a pawn taking up four pieces. These are: Shinra Tsubaki; her queen, Kusaka Reya and Hanakai Momo; her bishops, Meguri Tomoe; her knight, Yura Tsubasa; her rook, and Saji Genshiro; the aforementioned pawn.

All told, she's allocated nine of her fifteen evil pieces, while I have only allocated four of mine. Certainly, I have started off with a very promising talent core. All of my precious peerage members hold extraordinary potential… if only they could grasp it. 'One day, soon, I can taste it, they'll make their breakthroughs…' Of course, that's not to say that Sona's peerage is lower quality than mine, but she certainly has some more 'normal' people in her peerage than I do. Quantity has a quality all of its own though, and each of her pieces are highly skilled in their chosen field, for their age at least.

Looking around the council room, I can see everyone hard at work, Sona first among them. It is the beginning of the school year, and it makes sense that it would see the most work for something like the student council.

"Good afternoon Rias," Sona greets me without looking up from her work, "Care for a game of chess?"

"Of course, how could I say no?" It would be a bit of an understatement to say that chess is one of Sona's hobbies. It's more like 'Sona is a chess god who will play anyone and crush their dreams at the same time'. Years ago, she was in my situation, and ended up getting out of it by challenging her fiancée to a chess match. Either out of ignorance or straight up pride, he accepted, and proceeded to lose spectacularly. Following that fiasco, it's a quite popular rumor among the more gossip prone devils that Sona will marry the first man who can beat her at chess. The truth is a bit less scandalous of course, she's only obligated to consider for marriage those who can beat her at chess. A slight distinction, but certainly an important one.

Laying out the board, Sona taking black, I sit down across from her. "How are your student council duties treating you today?" I ask, while starting with a standard opening. Chess is the normal back drop to our conversations, so she takes the question in stride.

"A bit more work than normal, but nothing that I wasn't expecting," she says examining my moves thus far. I'm sure she is at least two steps ahead of me, but I don't really mind. I'm not that prideful that I'd get upset over a master beating me in their chosen field.

"We've got the club budgets coming due soon though, and I swear, some of the people submitting requests have the reading comprehension abilities of a toddler." Well, someone's annoyed Sona. Wouldn't want to be them right about now. "We make it perfectly clear that requests for food are off limits, and yet every time, at least one club applies for nothing but food. I mean come on, it's on the sheet 'Funding for food will not be approved'. You'd think the people trying to fund the clubs they're supposedly invested in would at least read the things they're filling out."

"Well yes, people are quite lazy. The person who reads all the things they agree to these days is a rare one." I idly respond, trying to give Sona at least a semblance of a fight in this game. I can usually put up a decent showing, but today's been a bit of a rough patch in that streak. Really, she's decimating me right now.

"How is your training for your Phoenix problem coming along?"

"Ah yes, that." I really should have expected this would come up, but I was kind of hoping that it wouldn't. I really don't like talking about this, about my Fiancée. Riser Phenex is, well, about the closest thing you could get to a pile of sentient garbage as far as I can tell. Incredibly rude, incredibly perverse, and most of all, he talks about himself in the third person. It's all 'The great Riser will do this', 'Riser will annihilate you', 'you are Riser's.' I mean, who even does that?

It is safe to say that I do not want to marry the man child I'm currently engaged to, but without my family's support, my father is the primary proponent of this whole farce in the first place, it's pretty much an open secret at this point that my fate is going to be decided via a rating game. And that's where Sona's question comes in.

"We're coming along. We're still training as much as we can, but I'm not certain it's going to be enough", I sigh. "To be honest, I think we may have hit a plateau in our abilities. I'm confident that between the four of us, we can defeat everyone but Riser and Ravel, but… that's not enough, now, is it?"

I'm serious in my assessment too. Over the past few years, since it's become obvious that I would eventually be fighting a rating game with my future on the line, my peerage and I have spent every moment possible trying to get ready. Strength and conditioning, magic training, strategy, and tactics, all of these have seen a massive increase in time dedicated to them over the past two years… but there's just a slight problem with trying to beat Riser, even if I'm bleeding myself and my peerage dry trying.

Riser is the rising star of the Rating games. He has a full peerage, an experienced one at that, but even that wouldn't necessarily stop me. I was serious when I said I thought we could beat everyone but Riser and his sister Ravel. Riser's peerage may be good, but I also wasn't joking about my peerage having serious talent 'if only they could access more of it' at their disposal. Riser and Ravel though… they pose a bit more of a problem.

It's a rather simple one at that. As the name may imply, Riser and Ravel Phenex share many of the traits of the Phoenix, most troublesome among them being the fabled immortality. Quite simply, no matter how much damage we can do, it won't really matter against someone who can come back from completely lethal injuries in a heartbeat.

"Well then, you're in quite the bind, aren't you?" Sona responds sympathetically. I really am. There really isn't a good way to get around straight out immortality when the objective is to cause what would be a lethal injury to someone. The rating games were originally war games after all, wouldn't do to instill soldiers with something silly like 'mercy' I'm sure the logic went.

"I might be able to find something useful if I could recruit in the underworld… but with Riser's and father's meddling, I'm pretty much stuck with humans in Kuoh for my recruiting pool." Remembering that I'm sitting in a room filled with Sona's reincarnated human peerage, I quickly add, "Not that there's anything wrong with that of course, but it certainly would be easier to find someone with more developed esoteric abilities in the underworld." It is true though, both of the losses that Riser has taken in all of his rating games so far have been forfeits immediately after they began. He really isn't fooling anyone that this was anything less than building favor with other politically powerful devils, but it's not like anyone really minds. We are devils after all, graft is practically in our blood. That some of that favor was pretty much immediately used to keep me from recruiting in the underworld stings slightly more.

"Well, I'm sure you'll come up with something eventually Rias," Sona consoles me, "Checkmate in two, by the way," before immediately claiming victory over me.

Checking over the board, I can confirm that yes, Sona will win in the next two moves, with nothing I can do to stop it. Conceding defeat, I reply "Indeed it is, I'll concede now. Thank you by the way. Knowing I have your support, if not anyone else's really means a lot to me."

"I'm sure your brother could blow this whole mess away if you asked him to…" She suggests.

"Absolutely not, you know why I can't do that. I will deal with this mess myself and I will not drag Sirzechs though the mud to do it." This is my mess, and I'll clean it up. Not that Onii-san could intervene even if he wanted to. Stupid laws, keeping down 'corruption' and 'nepotism', when have those two ever hurt anyone?

"Sure, sure", she remarks dryly while putting away the chess set. "Now, did you come down here just to chat, or did you actually have something to talk about?"

… Why did I come down here again, I ask myself, wracking my brain. "Ah, let me check, I know I had something important to ask you, but it seems to have slipped my mind…" I trail off while I pull out my notebook. Let's see… write to mother; no, look for ways to help Gasper; no, the totally normal nothing out of the ordinary person named Hyoudou Issei that Koneko had absolutely no weird experiences with on a contract last night who also happens to claim to attend Kuoh without my noticing; no, go shopping; no…

… 'Ok, what was that?' Written in my notes is 'Hyoudou Issei: Claims to attend Kuoh Academy, avoided Koneko's senses, canceled contract', and yet my brain filled in… something else, it's probably not important. I am fairly sure that that is what I came down here to talk to Sona about though, given the 'talk to Sona' note right below it.

"Alright here it is", I begin, "Is there a 'Hyoudou Issei in attendance at Kuoh, Sona?" I inquire. I'd usually know myself, but I don't technically have a copy of the enrollment records, so I'm just relying on my memory and my peerage to know everyone. Sona, being pretty much the head administrator of Kuoh academy, student or adult, has access to all records, so she is the definitive source for questions like this.

"No, no there is not", Sona replies instantly, looking a bit Indignant that I would ask her such a basic question. "I know the names of everyone enrolled here, and 'Hyoudou Issei' Is not one of them."

"Could you at least check the files for me?" I definitely don't pout even a little at the dismissal. That would be unbecoming of a lady such as myself.

"Why should I? As I said, I have perfect memory of everyone enrolled here. Hyoudou is. Not. One of them." Ok… looks like I've hit a nerve here somehow… maybe Sona think's I'm questioning her memory?

"Could you just humor me, just this once?"

"And why would I do that? I don't need to. There is nothing in those files that isn't already in my mind." Sona's getting quite heated now, and I'm definitely stepping no landmines… so best to just cut to the chase.

"An individual named Hyoudou Issei, who I will agree, neither myself nor Koneko had ever heard of before, summoned Koneko for a contract last night. Upon her summoning, Koneko was unable to detect the individual claiming to be 'Hyoudou Issei', in any manner, until he revealed himself to her. The individual then revealed that he could identify Koneko on sight, without having been introduced." Sona's paying rapt attention now, any of her previous hostility having evaporated completely. "The individual then went on to claim that 'We', referring to himself and Koneko, 'both attend Kuoh', though he qualified that statement by saying that the two had never actually spoken or interacted before. He then proceeded to immediately cancel the contract he had set up, stating that he had been expecting 'someone he would never have to interact with again.'"

I can see the gears turning in Sona's head as she works through my shortened version of Koneko's report from last night. Finally processing what I had told her, she responds, "Is there anything else of note about this 'Hyoudou Issei?"

"Oh, yes, I almost forgot, he was wearing a partial Kuoh uniform at the time Koneko was summoned. That and the contract used had been produced the same day, and we were only distributing relatively near the school yesterday."

"Hmm… that is troubling then… I suppose I should at least check to see whether he's in the records, but I can tell you now, It's unlikely. I don't remember seeing, or signing any documents related to a Hyoudou Issei," Sona remarks as she gets up to search her records.

The mention of signatures is of great importance here. You see, when a devil signs something, they infuse a tiny amount of their demonic power into that signature. Of course, we are capable of signing things normally, but there isn't really a reason to. The additional demonic signature atop the written one takes basically no power at all, and provides a guarantee many, many times stronger that a document is authentic. It would take an absolutely massive amount of demonic power to forge another devil's signature, and in practice, it would be easier and simpler to go any direction but forgery to achieve illicit ends. In effect, the practice of forging signatures is basically non-existent among devils, so you can be pretty much absolutely certain that if a document bears a devil's signature, they were the one to sign it.

Having pored through the record cabinet for longer than normal, hesitating a bit more than I would expect along the way, Sona finally returns to her desk with a folder. On its tab, 'Hyoudou Issei'. Opening up the file and sifting through its contents, Sona is more shaken up than I think I've seen her in a long, long time. "I have never seen these documents in my life Rias." She states emphatically, handing me the folder to peruse, "But that's my signature on the pages."

It's clear as day, right on the page. The definitely authentic page at that. 'Hyoudou Issei: Second Year'… Someone's been in my school for two years, and yet neither myself, my observers, or the most orderly record keeper I know have ever heard a lick about him?

"Something strange is going on Rias… something very, very strange indeed."

I can't help but agree.

O-AN-O

Well, that took longer than expected. For all I'm here saying left and right that my upload schedule would be inconsistent, even I wasn't expecting it to be… checks calendar … almost a month between uploads. Now, it is getting towards the end of the semester, so schoolwork is picking up, but that really isn't the only reason that this chapter took so long.

This chapter kicked my fucking ass seven ways to Sunday. Seriously, the damn thing really didn't want to get written. There were a few weeks in there where I didn't even look at this document, and I honestly thought I might be abandoning the story already. Don't worry, I'm not planning on doing that anytime soon anymore, but there were points where I was close.

I'm still not particularly happy with this chapter, but it was either get it out the door or keep bashing my head against the wall for the next two months trying to make it perfect.

But yeah, Issei realizing some of the implications of what he's done, and Rias and Sona having a nice chat. Nothing abnormal happening at all to anyone ever tm.

Anyway, feel free to leave constructive criticism, (I can feel I'll need it on this one especially) and thanks for sticking with this hot mess that can arguably be called a 'story.'