Hello there any and all reading this. I would just like to state that this is the very first story I have ever made, so bear with any rookie mistakes I may make and feel free to give me criticism and any tips on how to improve.

I will try to replicate most of the canon characters' personalities to the best of my ability with a handful serving as the outliers. These outliers will consist of side characters who may have their personalities and/or histories tweaked in favor of the story.

There are going to be numerous OC's in this story serving as both minor and major characters. So if you absolutely disdain OC stories, this is your warning. That aside, I hope I don't leave (too) much of a bad impression via this story.

To give a time frame for this story, it begins between Gasper's training and the Leaders' Summit.

I do not own High School DxD or its canonical characters. Those belong to Ichiei Ishibumi solely.

Renewal.

"My patience for this realm has run dry," spoke a disembodied being.

The call sounded more an amalgam cry than any form of speech. Structureless echoes of both human and beast, masculine and feminine, aged and young, all merged into a chaotic unity whose disarray created a thundering clarity. There was no semblance of emotion in its tone: no pity, no joy, no bitterness, nothing even close to emotion. It was as if the sound came from a creature incapable of feeling anything beyond an eldritch apathy.

Confusion swept the worlds of life and death as the voice rang in the ears of all, no discernible source or direction to associate it with. Some turned to each other, hoping something could put a name to the speaker. Some looked to the skies above, believing some divinity beyond themselves was calling to them. Yet, no low being could've produced a sound so alien. Likewise, no deity or any alike could've held responsibility for the concussing words whose force alone overshadowed pantheons. They, too, looked to the skies in uncertainty, the people and beasts under their banners standing dazed and confused. The voice boomed once more: this time much louder and more overpowering than before.

"My Vessel shall be the last thing you all will witness," the voice spoke, its cadence punctuated by a ripple through all concepts, all laws, all matter.

It tore through timelines, allowing glimpses into worlds ruined and prosperous. Yet, in every looking-glass into another branch in the tree of time, beings both strange and familiar looked to the sky as if the voice reached them as well from beyond temporality. It permeated spatial foundations: erasing energy, consuming entropy, and shattering the nothingness between somethingness. Colors incandescent and beyond any known spectrum tore through the inky blackness of space like fire to parchment, burning the barriers between dimensions. Foreign worlds bled into each other, causing conflicting physical laws and realities to collide in utter chaos. This all happened too fast for anyone or anything to process the madness. There was no warning, no foretelling of this calamity. Even if there was, none could've ever prepared for mayhem of this magnitude.

All eyes turned to a sole point in the cosmos: a small, irregular glimmer that seemed to beckon the living, dead, and anywhere between to bear witness to it.

It shone more like an eye in the dark than a twinkling star. Also unlike a star, it fluttered about and behind the speckled dark as if it existed beyond the farthest outskirts of the universe. The way it moved seemed without reason or rhythm, almost like the aimless buzzing of a disoriented fly. Its speed seemed impossible given its perceived distance, its own residual light trailing behind like an afterimage. Suddenly, it ceased all motion.

A simple snap echoed.

A sudden, blinding light erupted from the tiny glimmer and consumed the skies. It shone brighter than any star and seemed to devour all other sources of light in its expansion. The heat it generated started as a gentle warmth before escalating beyond measure. It grew at a rate that left little time for even a single breath before the light seized its watchers. All of creation looked on, powerless and frightened, as the light destroyed all, consuming mortal and immortal alike through every branch of time and every cranny in space until all was an amalgamate of colors beyond perception. Replacing the wild panic and universal disorder came an utter stillness and pure silence, the latter of which was only broken by the voice and its earth-shattering force.

"With this, your existence shall become naught but a memory. This outcome was inevitable, no matter what you did or would do. As you fade away, take comfort in knowing that you have all played your parts. Now, sink into nothingness and make way for your successors," the voice decreed, a darkness darker than even the abyss of the eternal void enveloping what was once an impossible light. It consumed the radiance like a beast devouring its prey whole. All ended in a meek whimper, reduced to less than nothing in fractions of a second.

Then, beyond explanation, a mass teeming with fleeting lights like the embers of a stubborn, undying flame emerged from the infinite abyss. Within it, two inklings of color appeared—a red blip of light and a hungering darkness—before a substance of countless forms and colors weaved itself into the mass.

The voice, now a glimmering light within a sea of chaos encased by infinity stretching on in all directions, questions the potential of the light beyond its own. It observed the mass through its domain, pondering the infinite possibilities that might come from the mass. Countless orbs of light swirled around the sentient glimmer like an enormous galactic spiral.

"It has begun," the voice spoke in a softer tone, comparable to a mighty thunderclap even at lower volumes. It eagerly watched the mass beyond weave creation into itself once more, becoming like the other countless lights that flocked and fluttered around the formless being like moths to a flame.

"Another Renewal."

That is it for the prologue.

After-edit Note: These prologue-type chapters are probably going to be a bunch of word spaghetti with how overly complicated all the words are. That is just how it has to be if I'm tackling anything cosmic-oriented. Do note that this should be pretty much exclusive to these types of chapters by the end of my editing. The standard story chapters will be simpler to read (compared to a readability grade of 10 for this chapter, standard story chapters should hopefully be around the 6 to 8 range by the time my editing is done).

I will be changing around some already established canon. I'm not sure how much exactly right off the bat, but I can say for certain that there are minor characters such as Penemue and Tamiel and some semi-major characters who don't really get much spotlight such as Ramiel who will become subject to my tweaking.

I will do what I can to leave the main cast at least semi-consistent with how they are in canon.

I am uncertain of how much I am willing to tell without spoiling what I have planned for this story, but there will be a multitude of new powers such as new magic types and exclusive abilities for angelic beings, characters that will greatly expand the roster of Fallen Angels, and concepts such as Nephilim.