Phase 1 - Gula

Chapter 1 – Resurrection


Blue eyes snapped open.

Wet fog settled upon his eyes, obstrucing the details of his surroundings. The world was blurry, shrouded by an opaque curtain. Tired tears and dots converged in the corners of his eyes and flowed out. A few blinks later, the visual information began to flow in uninterrupted.

His gaze was out of focus. But he still expected to see the dull white color of his room's ceiling upon waking up. It was missing.

Another strange detail made him breathe in deeply through his nose, trying to pick up familiar scents.

The smells supplied an answer to his muddled mind; nothing was familiar. The musty scent that clung to his bed sheets was nowhere to be found.

A distinctive, softer vanilla fragrance floated around him instead. There was the sweet smell of incense and newly cleaned, sterilized floor hovering on his tongue. They were unknown aromas, and they didn't belong to his house.

He noticed the fast, labored beating of his heart thumping against his chest. He felt so tired that the strong ba-dum of the organ shook his head. A searing migraine settled itself inside his skull. It was a terrible throbbing not unlike a time bomb. Each painful pulsation was one number counting down on the ticking clock before his skull inevitably exploded, spraying the walls red and grey with his blood and thoughts.

He twitched under soft smelling covers. Tremors travelled across his body and he wasn't sure if he was the one moving or if they were the ones making him curl and twist.

He tried to control his breathing. The seconds went on. A crushing weight inside of his chest burdened his spine. It made the task of filling his lungs with air difficult. He couldn't gather enough oxygen to even speak. His skeleton felt like solid cement. It was almost impossible to budge without exerting terrible force on his tired limbs.

'…What the… Why do I feel so tired…'

The left side of his body was senseless too, he realized. Electric jolts travelled throughout his form, accompanied with shivers beneath his skin. Every heartbeat felt like being zapped by a current. It didn't help that the left half of his body heated up in response to his palpitations.

His mind, though… his mind was the most affected. Although he was actually eyeballing the ceiling, the images his sight was registering were from a past incident. His senses were still overwhelmed, stuck in a previous occurrence that had left a permanent impact on his psyche. Blinding flashes of what had happened intertwined and messed up with his perception of time and space. Reality and fiction mixed, and sooner or later, there was no difference between one and another.

Even though he was smelling perfume, feeling the softness of the bed underneath him and seeing a normal ceiling, his brain didn't quite catch up to those things.

No. He was experiencing something else, remembering something else that any other sane yet fragile mind would have forgotten for sanity's sake itself. Things so horrid and terrible they would remain as nothing more than illusions, or unspeakable nightmares.

It was the sound of wicked laughter and insults, the smell of burning human flesh, the sight of crimson blood.

It was his blood. His brother's blood.

Everything came back to him in a split of a second.

Yuuma.

.

.

.

"I'm… I'm in love with your brother!"

.

.

.

The date.

.

.

.

"Oh, right! I'm going on a date with her next Sunday. Wish me luck on my first romantic trip!"

.

.

.

Issei.

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.

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"Do I have to repeat it, Issei?"

.

.

.

The pain-

.

.

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"-Will you die for me?"

.

.

.

-And their death.

His body twitched upwards in one violent jolt. The confusion was short-lived, quickly replaced with anxiety. He wasn't in real danger. But the suddenness of his awakening and the horrifying experiences nestled in his memory forced him in a state of great alert.

His right hand grabbed his chest.

Ragged breaths escaped his lips and it was such a strange sound to hear in the stillness of the room. Issei did the panting in their family. Ayame couldn't fathom why he couldn't breathe well, until his mind admitted to a bizarre fact.

Everything came crashing down. He gasped.

His lungs constricted on air that just didn't want to go down in his bloodstream. Dots swam in his vision.

Shortness of breath, heart beating too hard, disorientation… he was hyperventilating.

The hand on his chest clenched, scratching the skin underneath the clothes. Maybe it would go through the hole in his chest. The bleeding, rotting hole that was scorched through him.

Morbidly enough, there was no hole. And the worst part was that it wasn't the only element out of place.

His right hand seized his left arm.

Ayame took ahold of it, and gripped it strongly, seeking a sensation, a feeling, anything. His nerves sent no such thing to his brain. It was numb, a piece of cold meat that might as well not been there at all.

He cringed ever so slightly at the sounds of flesh and bone being slashed apart, replaying within his ears.

That arm wasn't supposed to be there.

Perplexity kept puzzling his clouded mind. Nothing made any sense. He couldn't connect the dots.

A core idea was buzzing in the back of his head. Something he was completely sure of. Macabre and appalling as it should have been, his mind avoided all doubts and erroneous beliefs, and accepted such dreadful ideas.

"…I died."

The words he mumbled to himself were not a simple question directed at the ether. It wasn't a half-assed plead of confirmation to make sure he was right about what he thought happened, only for someone to prove him wrong.

He knew it. He died.

The pain was real, for he could still feel it even when the blood and the charred meat weren't before him. Yet, against all logic, he found himself on a bed, relatively unharmed and alive… but the recollections of that event stood out like a sore thumb inside his consciousness.

He was in bed. He was alive.

So why?

Why did it feel so wrong?

Was he actually losing his mind? Did pondering about his worthlessness so much turned him into an actual madman?

He couldn't make sense of anything.

After what it felt like years, Ayame recalled that the walls, the smell, the bed, everything was alien to the usual environment he lived in.

Ayame stared at nothing, lost in thoughts. Except this nothingness, as he perceived it after a few blinks, was a blue wall and his bedroom definitely did not have blue walls.

His right hand lost strength and fell on the bed. He tried to ignore the heaviness weighting down his muscles, forcing his torso to remain upright. Ayame began to analyze the unknown surroundings despite his bewilderment.

The bed he occupied wasn't big enough to contain the full length of his tall body. His toes were almost sticking out of the edge. Pristine white sheets, well ironed to boot, covered his form. The bed was probably unused given the firmness of the mattress.

His stiffened neck creaked loudly as he turned his head to look around the room. Polished dark wood was the material for the floor. One could see that it was old wood, but the work done on it made sure it wouldn't rot very easily. There was a nightstand alongside the bed, a lamp on top of it. Some forgettable furniture was strewn around here and there.

The only window was on the left corner of the room. Sunlight peered through it, slowly warming up the mute ambient.

Hung on the walls were pictures. They were fancily framed with wooden and golden decorations. Even though they were far away for Ayame's tired sight, he could still make out feminine faces on them.

Ayame kept looking, and he noticed something else. The detail that stood out the most was a cross on the wall, just in front of the boy's bed. His vision refocused on it, and his memories took a bit of seconds to recognize the figure. A detailed carving of the Messiah could be seen on it.

Moments passed in silence.

"Where the hell am I…?"

Just as his train of thought was coming to a halt, the only door in the room was opened. His attention was drawn to it. Shyly, very carefully, a person hidden behind the large door slowly pushed so as to not make too much of a ruckus. The young man watched the movement with indifference. He couldn't muster the strength to frown. His back straightened on its own, tensing at the new arrival.

Black and white clothes emerged from the gap of the open door. A pair of hands grabbed onto the edge of the door, and soon enough, a head peeked from that spot.

Deep blue eyes scanned his form from afar.

Ayame blinked. The person blinked back.

"Oh, it seems you're finally awake, mister," came out the upbeat realization. The person sported a feminine voice, almost a timid whisper. "Sorry to intrude."

The door fully opened.

It was a woman. A very young woman, slightly older than Ayame, it seemed. A black and white veil of some kind covered her head - a 'habit', if he remembered correctly. Wavy brown hair smoothly flowed out of the veil and followed the form of her body, adhering to her curves. Her eyes were of a vivid blue color, not especially different from his own. The rest of her body was simply covered with black robes

Hanging from her neck was a silver chain and lying on her chest and connected to the same chain was a cross.

A nun?

"I can tell by your face that you seem confused, young man," said the woman with a warm smile. "Do not worry! You haven't been kidnapped or something as nefarious, although I do admit any reckless lady would want to capture a face as pretty as yours, hahaha!"

He ignored the half-joke, half-flirt. The sheer impossibility of the situation became more and more insufferable. He couldn't understand anything.

He tried to blink his tiredness away, and proceeded to voice his questions with a raspy tone.

"Where am I? Who are you?"

Her smile didn't falter. She made a quick bow, one leg hiding behind another and arms linked beneath her chest as she gracefully spelled out her name for him.

"Ichika Koharu, nun extraordinaire and faithful believer at yours and God's service. May the Lord bless you."

Her head lifted up a little as set her her gaze on him. Her matured, calm manner of talking didn't quite match the grain of silliness she sported. She reminded him of a mother happily dialoguing with her child, if anything.

She straightened her back and coughed in her hand. "Now, as I said, you seem to be confused. I will clear any doubt you have, but first, I need you to answer a little inquiry of mine," she stated calmly. "Do you remember what happened to you before you woke here?"

The boy blanked out, taking some moments to digest the question. His eyes diverted to an unimportant direction, trying to gather his wits and deny any knowledge that would come off as unreal.

"No. I don't remember anything."

Seconds went by, and Ichika only remained a silent statue before Ayame's poor answer. He avoided looking at her directly. He had no composure to hold prolonged eye contact just yet. Her face was pensive, unreadable.

"…I see," whispered the woman with a dejected look, which Ayame took as a sign that his pitiful lie had worked.

He wanted to believe she had not seen through him. He wanted to believe in a lot of things right now. The laws of the universe that made certain no one could make a magic spear out of nowhere and kill people with it were one of his disintegrating beliefs.

He tried to regain some clarity before speaking. He needed answers. At the same time, his exhausted body urged him to sleep soon as possible. But no, no he couldn't do that yet. If this wasn't a nightmare to begin with, there would be no point in sleeping and then waking up again. This was reality and he couldn't escape from it.

"You still didn't answer my other question. Where am I?" he croaked out slowly.

"In a convent, my dear," the nun immediately answered. Ayame had to do his best not to grimace from how ludicrous that response sounded. "You showed up very late at night in front of our door, all bloody, dirty and tired. You barely had the strength to stand. We—me and a few other sisters—had to help you in. It was quite the gruesome sight!"

Okay, this didn't make any sense, answers or not.

If Ayame took his memories to face value, he had a hole blasted through his chest, and his arm was completely torn apart. Lack of oxygen, loss of blood, loss of organs, shock… many things could have been the cause of his death. None seemed to be bad enough to stop him from walking in the middle of the night and miraculously reach a convent, of all places. This was preposterous in all senses of the word.

It was as preposterous as thinking that, perhaps, his brother was also well and alive despite dying, killed by that woman - was Yuuma Amano even a woman or a monster in disguise, actually?

Ayame squared his jaw. He tasted something bitter and blinked rapidly. Stupid people like Issei couldn't die easily. They were too stupid to understand the laws of the universe and die like any other normal beings.

Or at least what's what he wanted to believe. He had to prepare for the worst.

He focused his gaze on the nun.

"You didn't even think about calling the police when I arrived here?" he inquired tiredly, his amusement taking an irritated turn. "That sounds careless. Should I be worried about other shady-looking people you decided to bring in out of the kindness of your heart?"

She actually laughed at the boy's remark, and Ayame perceived it as slightly insulting. He was being serious. Even if she wanted to lighten up the mood, the teenager wasn't particularly eager to fake he was doing fine as much as he wanted answers.

"The police was unnecessary, dear. What would have they done? Arrest you? Interrogate you? You meant no harm to us, so calling the authorities wasn't needed. You were just a poor, lost lamb who needed care and attention, like all our guests. We were better suited for the job. In worse conditions, we may have called someone else."

She approached with firm and elegant steps while making sure to not get uncomfortably close.

"If you have indeed committed a terrible crime that requires police intervention, then it's not in our jurisdiction to judge you. It falls upon you to confess your sins and turn yourself in. Seeing as you can barely move or speak, I take it you're just confused and mistrustful, which I can understand…"

Ichika approached Ayame a bit more. She inclined her body towards him. Her face loomed a bite away from his, a kind and welcoming smile on her lips.

"...But if you try anything against me or the other sisters, then we will call the authorities without a second thought." Her warning was followed by a wink. "While we wait for them to knock on our door to take you away, we will beat you unconscious. I hope it is clear enough, dear."

Having dealt the silliest ultimatum Ayame had the displeasure of listening to, she straightened her posture as if nothing happened. Upon seeing his baffled expression, she began giggling like a little girl.

His fuzzy mind, dumbed down by the rapid succession of confusing events, still couldn't grasp the idea of Ichika Koharu.

One thing he couldn't get out of his head was that Ichika acted... motherly? He couldn't explain it, but it was something along those lines.

She reminded him of someone. But who, exactly…?

No, such baseless thoughts didn't matter right now.

"What I do find interesting," Ichika continued speaking, "is that you weren't injured. However, your clothes were absolutely ruined, without mentioning the blood on them. Are you sure you weren't involved in something dangerous, dear…?"

He sighed, tired of questions he couldn't give an appropriate explanation to. Some things, he couldn't simply answer. Others, he could answer, accepting he would then be swiftly sent to a mental ward. It wasn't anything anyone would believe without labeling him as a madman.

"Nothing I can remember, no."

Ichika stroked her chin in thought.

"Hmmm, aren't you one of these kids who go to these late night parties… Eh, how are they called…" she murmured to herself, and then snapped her fingers as her eyes lighted up. "…Orgies, I believe?"

He just opted to remain silent. He locked eyes with her as if to make sure she was joking.

"…No."

Ayame's plain answer was met with more giggles. The nun stuck her tongue out in a playful manner.

"Just kidding, dear. I don't live in a box, and you clearly don't look like one of those street punks I have seen around."

…Even if it was a joke, the boy shivered at the simple thought of it. He couldn't imagine himself participating in sexual hijinks or even have that much of intimate physical contact with anyone. It was simply not within his interests. Ayame reckoned his minimal worth as a human being would plummet to the bottom of the bucket if he decided to let his body do the thinking instead of his mind.

Besides, who'd want to be with someone as lazy, unfriendly and neglected as him? He was a twig, unappealing in physical terms as well. There was just no chance.

"You sure have a crude humor for a nun," the brunet told her, trying his best to fix his disheveled hair with his working hand. The fingers sent shivers down his spine as they got through his brown locks, pulling his hair.

"And you sure are a special kind of prude for someone so young, dear," she rebutted swiftly. He flinched slightly, and grumbled under his breath. He wasn't in any mood to partake in childish banters with a strange nun.

"As you can see," continued Ichika, "we have lent you some spare clothes. Going around with those rags you were wearing last night would have been outrageous, really. You can keep them, since they're for charity. Though we wouldn't mind if you brought them back someday!"

Ayame's eyes widened a little.

"Wait…" The implications on such phrase perturbed him a little. "Charity clothes? Doesn't that mean you-?"

The woman tilted her head, eyes down with an apologetic expression. She understood his fears as repulsion from the sole idea transformed his face accordingly.

"I'm sorry, dear. You didn't look like you had much energy to do anything. I took it upon myself to take off your previous clothes and change you into something better. Don't worry, I didn't look!"

The boy's eyes bore into her soul as clear disgust twisted his features. He couldn't believe someone actually stripped him off and he wasn't able to do anything about it.

Suddenly, something made her quirked lips drop a little. "Oh, actually… I completely forgot to ask for your name. Could you grant me the pleasure, my dear?"

He looked away. He debated giving a fake name. Then, realized there were too many people in his town and he was too much of a ghost for his true name to make him recognizable. It certainly wouldn't stir a nun that probably spent more time in her convent than outside, gossiping about boys covered in blood coming to her humble abode.

"…Ayame."

Ichika clasped her hands together at the mention of his name, mouth agape.

"Ayame… as in, 'Iris'? Like the Iris flower?" she reasoned. A small nod of his head rewarded him with the nun smiling gleefully once again. "That's so cute! But… isn't that a girl's name?"

He had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. It wasn't the first time someone questioned his name. His parents were waiting for a baby girl as their first child. Apparently, the ultrasounds weren't particularly effective to discover his actual sex. His parents had put their money on a female name, thinking they couldn't lose when they had a fifty percent chance of being right. Of course, they had lost their bet. Seeing a little boy come out after nine months of blessed silence didn't stop them from using 'Ayame' with him.

It had gotten him his fair deal of insults. Everyone thought he was a tomboy when he was younger. At least he had outgrown his cracking voice.

"It's none of your business," he finally grumbled out.

Ayame was growing tired of this whole ordeal. There were things he needed to do. Staying in a convent wouldn't solve anything.

But, something bothered him. Surprisingly, it didn't have anything to do with the unnatural circumstances surrounding last night, or the incredibly disconcerting fact that he managed to drag himself to this place.

As a cold breeze coming from the gaps of the window entered the room, he noticed the absence of warmth around his neck. Noticing such subtlety, which was, all in all, awful, he looked down his body.

The shirt he was wearing was different from before. His pants, baggy and a little discolored, were also different. There weren't his clothes, as Ichika had clearly pointed out before.

A lump got caught in his throat.

Cold sweat ran down his cheeks.

He slowly turned his head around to stare at the nun.

"Where are my old clothes?" he sinisterly grinded out. His hand went too his neck, useless trying to provide warmth. His digits felt unbearably cold against his thumping carotid.

Ichika shifted. She tilted her head in thought. "Oh, those? They were ruined, so we didn't think you would need them anymore-"

Every bodily function he had to assess things logically stopped. Blindness took over his sight. He moved reactively.

Ayame's right hand applied pressure on the poor woman's arm as he grabbed her wrist out of nowhere. He brought her closer.

"Ouch… what are you doing…?"

Ichika's eyes met Ayame's again. She didn't react quickly, but once she did, it was clear she was frightened.

His eyes, sharp and filled with enmity, glared at her. It was barely held back anger, one ready to make the boy in front of her lose all his remaining rational judgment. A wrong word and it wouldn't have been surprise for him to do something drastic.

"I'll change my question, and I hope you can give me an answer that satisfies me," he enunciated slowly. "Amongst my clothes, there was a scarf - a black scarf, with some golden. Where is it now?"

Either because of fear or intolerance to the mild pain Ayame's hand was causing, Ichika stammered an answer right away.

"W-We didn't throw away your clothes, yet. We figured you would still need your boots if you decided to go home, and your scarf didn't seem particularly ruined. I could fetch them for you…"

Anger faded. Exhaustion returned. The furious person that for a moment seemed about to snap became the tired, unresponsive teenager from before. And just like that, he let go of her. His body went limp against the headboard of the bed.

"I would like that, yes," he murmured. He offered no excuse for his demeanor.

The white linen that made a makeshift curtain for the window rustled with the wind. Ayame focused on the soft movement.

Ichika shifted gently, producing a rustle akin to the one that emanated from the curtains with her long skirt.

Ayame didn't turn back to look at her. He understood his actions had just labeled him as a dangerous individual or at least, as a choleric one. He didn't care.

The atmosphere had gotten uncomfortable. But between gaining a person's approval and regaining his precious scarf, the priority was clear. He needed it back at all costs. Ayame wasn't about to ask nicely for something that should have been glued to his neck.

Ichika finally let out a long exhale. "...You got a little scary back there, dear. Try to not do that again, else we actually call the police, hahaha…"

It had the benefit of trying to be a joke to ease up the broken mood, but it was to no avail. At least she was taking it lightly.

Ayame glanced at her form the corner of his eyes. "Whatever. Just bring me back my things and we're done here."

"Yeah, yeah, oh young master."

Rustles indicated that she had finally left his bedside. Ayame was left to his own thoughts. More and more questions kept popping up inside of his mind, and the more he tried to understand his ordeal, the less he actually did.

The only thing that felt real was the lack of warmth around his neck and the dancing movements of the curtains.

The best option would have been his house – he couldn't stay in a place that wasn't his own much longer. He really needed some safe space to think in peace.

After five minutes or so, the nun reappeared in the room. With two fingers, she held the boots Ayame had been wearing. They were indeed stained with blood. The stains were not crimson anymore, but a dark brown.

His attention was taken away from how he would explain the stains to his mother by the object the nun held in other hand. It was a piece of cloth black as night. His precious, precious scarf. Ayame observed it like an eagle would to its prey.

Wordlessly, the woman left the boots at the bed's feet. Then, she extended the scarf towards Ayame.

The boy snatched it without a second thought, almost yanking Ichika towards him with it. He stared at it silently.

"…Hahaha, that's a silly reaction. Do you like that scarf so much, dear?" She questioned innocently.

He didn't respond right away. His eyes visibly softened as he looked at it, though his expressionless face was still present. Yes. No. It was precious. There were not a lot of things that were precious in his life. He needed to cherish the things that truly had any valor.

Ayame swung it over his nape, and tied it around his neck in less quickly.

"It's nothing you should be concerned about," he said, showing his unwillingness to say more about the matter.

She hummed in response. "I suppose it is something personal for you, so I won't push. Oh, these are your keys. We found them in your pants."

He seized said keys too, although not as violently.

Walking back to the door, she glanced at him.

"Do you need anything else? I wouldn't recommend you to go home just yet. You still look… How do I say it… fatigued?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I'll do whatever I want. As far as I'm concerned, your usefulness ended when you gave me my possessions."

It was a definite, cutting answer. Ichika wasn't needed anymore. Her eyes visibly saddened upon hearing him speak of her like that. Ayame, of course, couldn't care less about a random person's feelings when he had his own repertoire of problems that needed immediate solving for his peace of mind.

"If that is your wish, dear Ayame…" she murmured. "...But please stay behind, okay? I'll prepare you some breakfast and then you can go on your merry way."

After murmuring her plea, she simply left.

He stared at the door for a prolonged amount of seconds, expecting no one else would enter. Once he was completely sure, he started to move.

Putting up his boots was hard with a disabled arm. He managed to finally do it, but the process was uncomfortable.

After stumbling a little like a clumsy drunkard, he maintained a firm footing on the ground. Instead of going through the door, he looked behind him.

The window didn't seem locked. He could easily open it and go away. It was wide enough for his shoulders to go through it. It was tall enough that he wouldn't have to crawl or crash on the ground afterwards.

Ayame hesitated. He could go out this way. He could also use a door like a normal human being. He wasn't Issei who preferred to hang out around keyholes and badly covered windows to peep. He had never attempted to leave anywhere through a window. However…

"…All things considered, I would prefer to not stumble on anyone right now."

He had 'died' the night before. Using such means to go unnoticed couldn't be weirder than that. No one would care if he disappeared anyway.

After a bit of struggle and fiddling with one hand, he opened the window and left the premise.


- ~DxD~ -

Jumping over the fence of the convent had proven to be a somewhat difficult task, but nothing some effort couldn't fix. Nobody took notice of him.

His body didn't take the morning stroll very kindly, protesting at every opportunity when anything that remotely grazed his skin made him shiver. It wouldn't have been far-fetched to claim he had a fever.

Despite his sense of direction being hindered by the exhaustion, he managed to find his way throughout Kuoh. He was lucky it was still early in the morning. Most of the city's population was still sleeping and comfy in their beds. Having anyone find his drained corpse marching across the streets would have been a pointless occurrence.

Sooner or later, his feet dragged him into the residential areas. Many of the houses looked similar. Fortunately enough, there was always a plaque on the front of the houses with the name of the family living in them.

He found his, after probing a little and forcing his eyesight to do more than just recognize hazy forms.

He approached the entrance of his home, not especially interested in going unnoticed. He took the keys out of his pocket and carefully divided them.

The brunet found the one he needed by feeling alone. One, two, three times the small piece of metal tapped against the flat of the door, until Ayame steadied his grip and found the keyhole.

The teenager didn't do as much as fit the key inside and turn the doorknob. Immediately after, there was the sound of quick foosteps.

Ayame would have jumped a few steps away in warning, had he been a less fatigued soul to notice.

The door smacked Ayame's face as it opened. He stumbled back a bit.

Before he had time to make any questions, two arms wrapped around his neck.

"Ayame! My baby boy… Where have you been?!"

The young man was pulled into a hug for a considerable amount of seconds. Energy to deny the gesture and strength to push away the other person were things his body and mind didn't possess.

The embrace was broken. Glassy blue eyes bored into him with worry.

"Where have you been, Ayame?" repeated Nozomi. "I called you a million times and you never answered your phone. You forgot it again, is that it? You scared the world out of me, young man! Why would you go out an entire night without telling me?! How do you think I would have felt if something happened to you?"

…By the looks of it, he hadn't been out for more than a day. He wasn't one to simply disappear without giving explanations, so a preoccupied mother was the nicest of any other result.

"…I had a sleepover with a friend," he answered right away and with the most deadpan tone of voice possible.

His mother's sad face changed into a confused one. It was to be expected. 'Ayame Hyoudou' and 'friends' weren't words anyone put together in the same phrase.

"A…friend?" she questioned him after letting go of his shoulders, signaling him to come inside with her wringing hands. He did so while avoiding her attentive gaze observing him. "…But you didn't tell me anything about a sleepover. And who is this friend, Ayame?"

The boy went inside and took off his footwear at the entrance. Ayame did his best to hide the bloodstains on his boots from view. He swallowed a lump before responding.

"…His name is... Himejima. Akeno Himejima. He's more of an acquaintance from school, in truth, and the sleepover was a last minute decision. Since I never had one before, I didn't think it would be much of a problem. It was just a… new experience."

Akeno was the first name that came to mind. Of course, he couldn't tell his mother that she was actually a woman, and that there was no sleepover in the first place. If she asked more questions, he would be found out. Ayame was sure he would never need to invite Akeno inside his home though.

It was a terribly stupid lie, very poorly thought. However, he was tired and had other priorities at hand. He couldn't waste time arguing with his mother about his 'improvised outing'.

"I did forget to take my phone with me, but I assure you, it was fine. I slept well and managed to come back before school," Ayame assured one last time.

It was the cherry on top of a cake of deception. The brunet hoped she ate it with gusto despite its particularly misleading taste.

Nozomi closed the door and started massaging her temples.

"…Okay, okay. It seems you're fine. But don't ever do that to me again mister, understood?" warned the woman with lingering frustration. "I couldn't even sleep through the night without getting worried about you. And your father was all like 'let him do what he wants. He's a young adult and one or two nights away won't make a difference'. Honestly, that man is so carefree sometimes…"

Ayame nodded in response, trying to give his mother some semblance of mental tranquility at the idea he wouldn't disappear again.

However, something else caught his attention.

"What about Issei?" Ayame inquired while maintaining an indifferent façade. "I'm not the only one who broke the home's unofficial curfew."

The image of Issei's impaled body was all to present within his consciousness. The vivid nightmare of his younger sibling vomiting blood and falling to the ground lifelessly weren't things to be forgotten from a day to another. So why...?

"Issei?" Nozomi intoned the name, and the lack of change in her expression was enough response before her speech continued. "Your brother hasn't set foot outside the house in the whole weekend, son. He's still asleep."

Perhaps his surprise was too contained for it to be considered normal.

"…Are you sure?"

She cupped her chin in thought, almost as if she was not sure how to respond.

"I… I think?" she responded with another question, which confused him further. "I mean, I haven't seen him go out at all. I'm sure of it…"

The boy could see she was not lying, or at least, not purposefully. Her eyes were looking to the sides, like she wasn't privy of the answer to an obvious question.

There was only one way of knowing for sure.

"Let's see if Issei's in his room," he stated. Not wasting more seconds than needed, he steadily began stalking throughout the house with a tense posture and walked upstairs. His mother followed behind with rapid steps.

"Eh… W-Wait a second, Ayame. I'm going too."

Sooner than later, they reached the door to Issei's room.

He didn't know what else to expect at this point. Issei could be inside of his room, sleeping and dreaming about women like the lecherous idiot he was. The probability of not finding him there was also present. He had to know.

His left arm was still paralyzed. He moved the right one instead, and grabbed the doorknob with a shaky grip. A clicking sound was produced as he unlocked the wooden obstacle that separated him from the truth.

Dim light from the hallway forced its way into the dark room. It didn't manage to illuminate enough for the teenager and his mother to see clearly. The brunet quickly started tracing with his fingers along the wall, and found the light switch. He flicked it-

"Wake up, Issei."

"Kyaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!"

…And soon enough, an exaggerated scream powerfully echoed from the far end of the room.

An annoying ringing buzzed in Ayame's head. One of his eyes twitched. Seconds after brushing it off as a mild pain, he opted to observe the ridiculousness his unsuspecting action caused.

From the only bed in the room, a being squirmed and trashed around desperately beneath his covers.

"…I-I swear girls, I wasn't trying to peek on you! Don't kill me!"

The human Ayame unmistakably recognized as his younger brother, Issei Hyoudou, escaped from the non-lethal hold of his blankets.

On top of that…

"Issei! Put on some clothes, dear!"

Issei wasn't wearing anything on top. His exposed chest, not very muscular for that matter, was for all to see. By the looks of it, even though the covers were still on him, he wasn't wearing anything beneath them either.

Issei had a long list of mind-boggling perversions, but sleeping naked didn't appear to be one of them. The start of a new trauma was barely hidden with crumpled sheets and Ayame was beginning to regret his apparent coming back from death to witness the horror.

"Eh…?" he said while looking down at his body. He actually blushed. "Wh-What the hell…"

Nozomi shook her head exasperatedly. She put her hands on her hip. "Issei, you know I would never judge you for any guilty pleasure you have, but try to be careful in the way you walk around. Someone may enter in your room and see things they don't want to see!"

He blushed even more furiously and babbled, further ashamed by his mother's embarrassing reproaches. "B-But I don't remember sleeping naked… And besides, this is my room! You're supposed to knock before gettin' inside, mom!"

Even though his reply was bold, a slight blush was on his cheeks.

Nozomi sighed one last time. "Ah, sheesh… Just get dressed, kiddo. You too, Ayame. You both have to go to school, and I think we all have experienced enough weirdness for one morning."

The woman disappeared from sight moments later. The older brother watched her go away. An uncomfortable silence settled firmly after.

Ayame turned his head and stared at Issei's form. He pointedly tried to analyze his body, searching for any possible clue that sold him out as an impostor. Unnervingly enough, he didn't find any. There wasn't blood, or a hole in his stomach. He wasn't injured at all. This was a bona fide impression of Issei Hyoudou if Ayame had ever seen one before. Most probably, this was actually the real Issei.

The younger teenager stared back at him disinterestedly, scratching his head.

"Good morning to you too, bro," he said sarcastically. "It's heartwarming you decided to wake me up before I did, but… I kind of need to get dressed and all? I would really want to talk, but… I'm tired."

"I can see that," simply responded Ayame. After going over the situation in his mind again and again, he decided to be direct and ask. "Issei… Do you remember what happened yesterday?"

"Uh? Well, didn't you know already?" he responded, a little puzzled. "I went on a date with Yuuma and… and I… eh…"

He cut his sentence midway. At first, there was an unsure look in his eyes. As if he, like his mother, was trying to remember something that should have been obvious.

Issei's pupils contracted for a brief moment, reaction that didn't go unnoticed to the other brunet. Rapidly, a sudden smile covered it up.

"…Eh, you know what, it's not that exciting anyway," Issei continued naturally afterwards. "We just did some stuff, parted ways and… that's it!"

Ayame was aware of his brother's mannerisms. In any other situation, Issei would be telling him all of the good things he went through in his first date with a breathing, willing female ever in life. This was openly different. The thought of a girlfriend was, and has always been, a source of happiness for him.

Now, he just pushed it aside as if it was nothing.

Or… not nothing, exactly. Maybe it was the opposite. Maybe, it was so confusing that Issei just wasn't able to put it into words the moment Ayame asked him.

It was no definite answer or evidence. But Ayame trusted his instincts. He had the feeling Yuuma Amano had been a shady individual. He wasn't too far away from uncovering what really happened.

"Fine, then." Ayame turned around. "Make haste and get ready for school."

"Yeah, whatever you say, big sis."

The blue-eyed teenager left his not-dead brother alone.

Nobody seemed to remember the crucial parts of the last Sunday. Their mother didn't seem to really remember her children's whereabouts as they happened. Issei wasn't essentially convincing in his dispassionate description of the date. Ayame himself had doubts regarding his gruesome death, and the fictitious elements surrounding it.

The teenager had some time to ponder about what happened to him before school would call them with its dull bells.

Yuuma Amano – that strange creature that firstly posed as a young, innocent high school girl. She wasn't human at all. The things she did weren't some sort of cheap magic trick, some kind of illusion. They didn't appear to be at all. He felt them with his own flesh; saw them with his perfectly working eyes. Things like her giant, shadowy wings, fluttering and moving like real appendages, which bent the wind to their will; those spear-shaped lights, capable of cutting through tissue and bone as if it was a hot knife cleanly slicing through butter.

Unreal as it seemed, those weren't the doings of humans at all.

A feeling that could only be described as grim amusement swelled up inside of his chest.

He wasn't exactly confused anymore. He was just skeptical. Skeptical about the situation and the way everything remained so normal when it shouldn't have. There was no way of knowing if he actually died or if everything that led to his death was real.

It was intriguing; almost imaginary, even. However, and above all, it was… interesting.

It would have been easier to say he was, for all intents and purposes, completely insane. That all of the things he experienced were just incredibly realistic hallucinations, product of his dysfunctional mind. That all the types of pain he suffered were the mere figments of a madman's imagination. That he could simply go back home and act as if nothing happened. What was stopping him now, anyway?

But he knew better. Even without having full knowledge, to think everything was just a nightmare was... a disappointing thought.

Deep inside and putting aside his memories and the objective proof, he strongly biased himself towards the thought that everything had been indeed real. He almost desired it to be, like a child blowing out the candles of his birthday cake and wishing for a miracle.

At some point—maybe a few years ago, maybe a few seconds ago—, he realized how cold his body had become.

During a significant fragment of his life, he felt frigid, unmoved by the world around him. Nothing was enough to push him to do something out of his norm. It was a coldness that didn't just stop at the physical aspect of it. He was almost freezing up inside, slowly dying, inaction turning him into a statue of ice, human-like on the surface only.

But this was different. This was stirring up something inside of him.

If it was real, could he...?

It would have been better if he didn't jump into conclusions right away, though.

Dead or not, crazy or not, going to school was still his responsibility.


- ~DxD~ -

The generally annoying environment of Ayame's school was more bearable than usual. Unfortunately, it wasn't because the students of Kuoh Academy had suddenly learned about common decency or maturity. That was another utopic dream he wished with all of his being was real. In contrast with another certain matter, he had the assurance it would never come true.

Ayame didn't pay much attention to other people, as always. However, his focus was on something instead of nothing at all.

It surely wasn't the first time in his life, as he had been an impressionable child once. It did feel like the beginning of an experience.

He went around the problem again and again, thinking about possible explanations.

Yuuma mentioned something – A 'Sacred Gear'. From the looks of it, it was something dangerous. She didn't specify if it was for him or her.

Moreover, the boy wasn't exactly sure what a Sacred Gear was. She did say that it was inside of him, so maybe… it wasn't something specifically material? The girl manipulated some kind of energy, of power. The possibility wasn't far-fetched.

Whatever a Sacred Gear was, Ayame had it, and with it, he also had a target on his head. And it was a big target.

She did say that there were 'higher beings'. Could there have been others like her in Kuoh...?

That notion was reinforced when the girl said that she got orders to kill them, both him and his brother. Someone was calling the shots. It seemed it wasn't her.

Unfortunately, that's all he could come up with. Without a better understanding of the context of this situation, Ayame could only do so much.

He avoided bumping into other students as he stepped inside the academy with second-nature movements. He took ahold of his scarf as he dived inside of his mind.

'I could just wait to see if Yuuma actually shows up again…' But that would be dangerous. If she was the monster he remembered her to be, then he wouldn't have any means of defending himself. '…Or maybe I should search for information about her. Sitting around doing nothing isn't going to satisfy me. Yet, there's still the matter about what to do once I find out what's happening…'

Curiously enough, he couldn't finish conducting his absentminded stroll before he felt something that made his skin crawl.

It was like being stared at from afar by a wild beast, hidden, ready to pounce and bite the head off from his body.

…Such feeling wasn't much different from the feeling that Yuuma Amano exhibited so naturally, so mysteriously. Nonetheless, it was more ominous, agressive.

He distantly recognized it as a familiar presence. A familiar presence that once presented itself as dignified and well-mannered. Now, it was anger, impatience.

It took him a moment to realize it. It was too late when a hand fell upon his shoulder, not even squeezing it a lot. Yet, he felt as if a chunk of heavy metal fell upon his body, crushing him down into an unrecognizable human paste.

"Good morning," greeted a composed feminine voice he had almost forgotten. "Would you mind coming with me for a second?"

Ayame spun towards the source of that voice. Red hair and emerald eyes were enough for him to remember the name, and surely enough, more things began to make sense.

Rias Gremory had a stern expression. Not serious, but certainly not relaxed. Her lips were pursed. Her look, a piercing glare, perforated into his body.

"…Gremory," the boy intoned with monotony to acknowledge her. "What do you want? I don't have time for you or whatever you want to say to me-"

"On the contrary, Hyoudou-san, I'm not giving you an option." Her voice had strangely echoed within his ears and brain, sending shivers throughout his body. It was menacing, opressive.

Rias was doing anything, except joking around. Her image was overlapped with another high school girl's asking him for romantic advice, and his mind began to spell 'death' in response.

"Now," she spoke again, "follow me. I want to talk with you for a second."

The brunet complied wordlessly. He already suffered the consequences of not caring about the obvious signals of danger, lethal danger. He wasn't going to commit the same mistake twice and die like ignorant cattle.

Silently, Rias walked forward, while Ayame followed behind in a similar manner. Other people walking in the hallway turned their heads to stare in awe at the sight of the redhead. However, she didn't seem to care about them in the slightest. They didn't notice his form either. Like her shadow, he only followed and almost mimicked her gallant walk, doing his best to not be showered with the curious stares of the students.

She led him outside of the school building, to a secluded place. He didn't ask nor complained about it.

With no students around, and just the sounds of nature around, she finally stopped.

The young woman turned around, hands limp yet strangely tense. Ayame didn't make any sudden action, unwilling to appear nervous or reckless in front of her.

When the sole action of breathing became unbearable and almost unneeded, Ayame voiced his thoughts.

"What do you want, now? I'm sure you haven't taken me outside just to talk about life or wish me a good morning."

Moments passed. Rias closed her eyes in thought.

The ambient was calm. So calm in fact, that Ayame hadn't realized he had been forcibly rammed against the wall behind him until seconds after it happened.

He sucked in a sharp breath. One or two blinks later, he realized his situation.

Rias had suddenly closed a distance of a few meters in a minimal span of a couple seconds without alerting him. She also managed to overpower him with a single, even elegant push.

She put a hand on his chest, restraining his repertoire of movements.

"…Honestly, I really dislike this kind of brutish approach. I prefer civil conversations and fair agreements. But after yesterday's incident, I'm not in a good mood to offer anyone much of a choice."

Rias put her other hand close to his stomach.

Before he could even speak, he saw firsthand the vivid manifestation of certain death.

A shining black-red orb, big as a marble, appeared from nowhere.

It floated, between Rias' hand and Ayame himself.

Death was just centimeters away from him. If that thing touched him, if it barely caressed a little string sticking out from his clothes, the boy almost definitely believed it would kill him.

No. 'Kill him' was a childish, chaste way to describe what would happen. It wouldn't just kill him and turn his body into a corpse. It would wholly, absolutely annihilate him and any trace of his person he had ever left on that planet. He would permanently cease to be anything, and that would have been a sweet thought if he was specially set on not dying right now.

"I'll cut to the chase. Ayame Hyoudou is dead. I saw his corpse yesterday." Her bold, intense statement was met with absolute silence from the aforementioned dead teenager. "I knew he couldn't be saved, despite any effort I put into doing it. Yet, he's standing here right now, before me."

The orb grew, little by little. It couldn't be bigger than the girl's hand. Yet, its weight was surely greater than her hand, and his microscopic existence for that matter.

"Who are you? What are you, exactly?" she questioned with a voice that didn't leave room for discrepancies. "Your answer will determine whether you live or not, and I would prefer to not have another body on my hands, even if that means protecting this school and its students from an unknown enemy."

His deep blue eyes didn't flinch. His face didn't show any sign of perturbation at the clear threat.

His mind and body were almost disconnected. Whereas his flesh carcass failed to inspire any sense of hurry or fear, his mind was on overdrive.

He forgot how thrill, and fear, and excitement felt. He forgot how anything felt. He forgot how to feel. But deep inside, those weren't unknown concepts to him. He had experienced them once.

This was what he wanted. The loud thumping of his heart gave proof that he was still there to face it. The numbness inside of his mind was proof that he needed to face it.

The creeping smile on his face confirmed his intentions, an unspoken challenge in front of the inevitable.

He hit the Jackpot. He would have been damned and should have deserved to die in the spot, without anyone ever remembering or caring about his pathetic life, if he didn't take advantage of the great opportunity that now lay before him.

This was actually going to be fun.


~Author's Note~

And that's it for today.

One quick thing I wanted to clarify, is that I wouldn't recommend my readers to jump into conclusions very quickly. While I appreciate the effort, please keep in mind that I'm trying to deviate from the norm and do something that may be different. Until that happens, I want you to not be stuck in just one idea! Anything you have in mind, as long as it makes sense within the context of this work, is gladly accepted.

For that reason, please review! I always take in account what my readers say, and while I do admit I take my time to answer, that doesn't mean I don't pay attention to them.

That's it for today. Be ready for more later on!

(8/12/2019)