Armored Hero: Hagane

by Mikatsuki Augus

By now you know how it goes right? You die, reincarnate and somehow turn into some kind of op character in a differnt world, much like in any other Isekai, excepet it wasn't the same for me! I was literally born without powers in a world where everyone (almost) has them, even the most useless! Well, I had to merge brain to find an alternative path and become a Hero.

5. It couldn't get worse than that

Sorry if it took a long time, but WhiteDragonSky was busy between work and university, so he had little time to correct the chapter, but here it is! let me know what you think, and if anyone wants to be a beta reader please let me know, the next chapter has been ready for a while, but it needs a revision as you have noticed from the previous chapters before corrections. Having said that, happy reading and let me know what you think!

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To say that I was annoyed was an understatement. After a relatively pleasant day where Izumi was making progress, gradually lowering more and more the power she drew on of One for All after each use, back home Benkei forced me to dress well for a family dinner. He had even dressed in traditional clothes for the occasion.

'Family. That word is enough to make me shudder in disgust. I don't hate Mai, Nodoka or...my 'father,' but we are practically strangers. As far as I'm concerned, my parents were my grandparents in this life as well, since like the previous one, they pretty much raised me. I don't even hate my previous biological father, but being constantly traveling for work, well, I almost couldn't really see him as a 'father' figure, rather as an acquaintance. I respected him because he had always gone out of his way for me and my siblings, despite the fact that life had always thrown us one bad shot after another, but that's where the story ended. Thanks to that bitch who had brought me into the world during my former life, there was always a wall between us siblings after their divorce, and even though we had grown up in the same house, we couldn't be in the same room without arguing for more than 30 seconds. With my previous father the situation was similar. He did home-work, work-home for twenty years, taking care of us since the waste of oxygen he took as his wife was just a leech who had been cuckolding him for years, hence why he had to take care of us even while he was hundreds of miles away. He ended up in the hospital several times for breakdowns, even though he had my previous grandparents to help him, whether it was to take care of us while he was away or with financial aid, but it had gotten to a point where he couldn't keep up with everything and easily lost his patience for anything that got him worked up. So I tried to interact with him the bare minimum because I really needed my peace and quiet, as I also had my own problems between bullies in middle school and other jerks in high school, the inability to go to college because of financial problems, and all the difficulties in looking for jobs that no longer looked like legalized slave contracts without a degree. Then again, we lived in Italy, so my expectations were perhaps too high.

The situation with Sakurajima Gorou is so alike that many times it has not made me sleep at night out of nervousness. He is a brilliant scientist, and he didn't let his ex-wives send me away, but again, that's where my gratitude ends, because despite how good he is at his job he really sucks as a father. The first year of college (and he was strongly against me skipping elementary, middle, and high school) I helped him several times with some projects concerning quantum physics, which then led him to meet Hank Pym. It had impressed him enough that he came here to Japan to recruit him personally, just so you can see how well he actually does. Because yes, while I helped him, he hardly ever needed it. His problem is that sometimes, in his haste, he gets lost in a glass of water, so he doesn't notice little details that would have put his work together much sooner than he normally did.

This fact led him to nag me to go with him to America, to work together at Pym Technologies, while I studied at MIT for the remaining four years before graduation, just to keep me happy. The thing is, I didn't want to leave because I wanted to continue learning the family's techniques, which he disagreed with, as he didn't want me to 'waste' my childhood following a 'useless and unattainable dream,' a fact that only led to more arguing and yelling. At one point he tried to contact the teachers to convince them to throw me out, since legally he could do nothing as I was not in his care; which only ruined what little respect I had for him.

He spent most of the year in America, so on top of the fact that he was never there for me, although I never considered it an issue, he had also been absent for my sisters, who with two toxic mothers were in serious need of a parent who would not exploit them simply to make money.

So yes, for me 'Family' had only ever been a strong source of disturbance.

Benkei and baa-chan always tried to reunite the family, to no avail because of the hatred that existed between the adults and me. Out of respect for them I always tried to rein in my tongue to avoid insulting my sisters' mothers in the rare cases we saw each other or Gorou, but it never went well. I really tried, also making use of heavy doses of calming agents and antidepressants, going to therapy to manage anger and doing meditation to try to stay calm even in situations where I would kill someone in cold blood without hesitation or regret, but there was just no way to make things work. Of course, I had not passed for a drug addict certain times only because of him, naturally, but he was always one of the main causes of fallouts during the first decade and a half of my second life.

For this reason baa-chan never tried to force me to interact with them, despite the fact that she wanted us to gather at a table during a day of celebration, to behave like a normal family. The constant quarrels hurt her more than I did, as she knew I was forcing myself just because I was grateful to them for welcoming me when I had no one, and it's something she took to the grave with bitterness, leaving me with another regret among the many things I couldn't do or did wrong, which I will not be able to remedy.

By then Benkei had also resigned himself to the fact that things would remain what they were, despite his silent attempts to reunite us, in memory of baa-chan, on the most important occasions. I consented to the attempts that over the years had turned into unnecessary stress that would lead to painful migraines, panic attacks or anger, depending on which period you want to examine. And he was sure like death that it would be so tonight too, but for that stupid old man's sake I would endure a nightmarish night again, which would culminate with me leaving with a migraine after yet another fight, which would most likely completely bury any kind of relationship I had with that man.

Because despite all the will and patience I put in every time they try to get closer, I was really tired of reliving the same pattern again and again.

Because I knew that every time Gorou tried to meet me, it wasn't to see if I was still alive or anything, but because he wanted me to go work with him or he needed something from me. And I really have had enough of being just a possible solution to his problems rather than a child to support.

Tonight would really be the last chance for him to redeem himself.

"We arrived"

I am distracted from my thoughts when I see the destination. We are at the Park Hyatt, and after taking the elevator, we climbed to the fifty-second floor, where the New York Grill is located, one of the most renamed restaurants in Tokyo. It's expensive being a luxury restaurant, but having been the number 4 pro hero for a long time, and before that a soldier as well as an exorcist, Benkei didn't lack money, and technically neither did I, despite using most of my savings to design and build the suit. The view is spectacular, of course, since at this height you could see the city illuminated at night.

That sight, however, did not distract me from the fact that something was out of place. The place was empty, which I don't think has ever happened since... more than half a century. To enter this restaurant usually, even with reservation, there are literally hours in a row to do, even if you are a VIP. So the fact that there was only one table for five confused me and put me on alert.

"There's nothing wrong, this floor was booked for the next hour just for us" Benkei informs me, walking to the table where a girl was sitting, slightly uncomfortable.

She is attractive, with waist-length black hair that has fringe hanging on the left side with a rabbit-shaped clothespin in the back of the hair, blue-purple eyes and a slender, well-defined body. She is tall enough to be a Japanese girl, 165 cm. She wears an elegant black and long dress, which leaves her arms uncovered and is held tight at waist height by a black leather belt.

"Mai, how are you? Have we kept you waiting?" the old man's usually stoic expression softened slightly upon seeing my sister.

Honestly, I didn't recognize her, almost. She was much more beautiful than she looked in magazines and advertisements. The light makeup and dress had made her look older than she was.

"Ojii-sama" greets the teenager, whose expression brightens even if she tried to contain her joy "I arrived ten minutes early, so don't worry..."

Her voice becomes lower first as her gaze locks on me. I see her heartbeat speed up with my enhanced vision, and although she was trying not to give it away, she was getting worked up.

"Yo" I greet lazily, nodding my hand.

"Ara, you finally decided to show up" Mai declares with a bit of sarcasm, trying to hide her nervousness.

I'm not really offended, but I decide to respond in kind.

"Well, I'm sorry that a celebrity like you we don't have much free time, but even I have my commitments that usually do not include elegant dinners like this, especially when I am informed just twenty minutes before leaving" I inform her impassively, making her gasp slightly for the apparently devoid of any interest response.

"Raiden." scolds Benkei, seeing how Mai had fallen silent as we sat down.

The silence that fell afterward was one of the most uncomfortable and awkward I had heard in a while.

Honestly, I had no idea what to say to her. Almost every single day of the last four years I had spent in the lab trying to recreate the miniaturized Arc reactor that powers the Astrey, or working to accumulate funds for my research. The last year, on the other hand, I devoted almost entirely to my Gundam-themed armor. My 'free' time, on the other hand, was taken up by training, while the years at university followed almost the same pattern. Taking even the earlier years instead...well, I don't think they would like how I used to beat up bullies in college or how I started collecting sources for my experiments after graduation.

In short, I had nothing to talk about that she could understand after thirteen years of not seeing each other.

If that asshole Benkei had informed me beforehand that we would be having dinner with Mai I would have prepared topics to discuss to try to break the do the normal people at dinner in the first place? I had been out to dinner with Ryukyu, Best Jeans, and a few other pro heroes, as well as having been invited by Mirko to her apartment from her assistant (mainly because the stupid rabbit didn't bother to keep appointments, so we had to set her up for the 'boring parts' of the matter, according to her), but it was always just work talk, as well as some idle chit-chat about how the day had gone before getting to the core of the discussion, but it was more courtesy than anything else. Although I was familiar enough with the dragon heroine to joke and tease her after a...certain incident, when we both found ourselves quite relaxed during our meetings.

"So...what have you been doing all this time? I've been trying to meet you for weeks" after a few moments of silence, Mai tries to strike up a conversation.

"...I was working while preparing for the UA entrance test" I reply after a moment, trying to summarize what I did, leaving out the puzzling discovery of the supernatural.

She seems surprised by my answer, and tries to find out more.

"UA? What course did you apply for?" she asks curiously, completely ignoring the waiter who brings bottles of water and wine.

"For the heroes' course" I reply almost diffidently, ready to hear the usual rant that usually comes with my answer soon after.

"What? But you're without-" a warning glance cold enough to send a person into hypothermia stops her, before she could finish the sentence.

Benkei, seeing that the conversation was about to escalate, intervened.

"Well, it's old news. Principal Nezu had already made it clear last week that with the results obtained he had passed, the letter that arrived today only served to make him 'official', so to speak" says the old retired samurai, pulling out of his sleeve my letter of admission.

She opened it and put the holographic disc on the table, turning it on.

The hologram of a certain rodent with expensive clothes appears, surprising Mai more than our brief conversation did.

"Am I a dog, a mouse or a bear? But above all, I am the principal!" Nezu introduces himself with his slogan, cheerful as most of the time "So, let's get straight to the point. This is more of a formality than anything else, but congratulations on passing the exam and finishing in first place."

The image of Nezu comes temporarily from the ranking of the 36 candidate students. I found all the names of classes 1-A and B, except the name of Kaji Koda. Well, I knew someone would stay out if I added myself in previous years, so I couldn't say I was surprised, nor do I really feel guilty.

"108 villan points and 40 rescue points... I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't taken it easy I would have done more" I murmur rather indifferent to the thing.

Katsuki is second with 72 points, just under half of mine. Honestly, I wasn't even interested before knowing where in the ranking I was, since with that the professors check if the candidates have committed at least a minimum to try the exam. In fact, it is quite sad that this is the only requirement. Literally, anyone who trained at least a minimum in the year before the entrance exam, with a school average above sufficiency, had a chance to enter. I would have made it into the top 5 even without my armor all in all, even without the save points, since after making 50 points in the second minute I was getting bored and slowed down to the point of attacking mainly if the bots approached me. Honestly, I thought I had prepared too much this time.

"Then focus on your goal next time if you want to get a better result, idiot" huffed Benkei, taking a sip of sake.

"It was my third time taking that damn exam, so excuse me for being slightly pissed off about scrapping the toys they use at UA..." I decided not to start an argument by saying it out loud, even though I was really close to doing so.

"Huh? But...how...?" confused Mai asked, seeing the ranking with me at the top.

"Well, I don't really need to explain how it works considering how familiar you are with our methods. Normally there would be your Homeroom teacher in the letter video, since the classes have already been done, but I recorded the message because we need to talk as soon as possible." the earnestness of Nezu does not bode well "The Hero Public Safety Commission, or HPCS for short, learned about your armor. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but now you are in their crosshairs and they will try to target you to steal your projects or control you as tightly as possible."

"Just great..." I snort when that circus of idiots seems to have found me immediately, despite the fact that I have kept a low profile in my last few years of activity.

It was going to happen no matter what, and the fact that Nezu didn't even try to hide his annoyance and even included it in the video message meant that they were most likely already investigating me. And we really didn't have a good history, me and that organization.

"Tch, you damn vermin," snorts Benkei irritatedly, doing nothing to calm Mai's growing agitation "Time passes, but they don't miss opportunities to disprove themselves."

"Why would the HPSC target him? Doesn't he run the pro hero system?" the actress asks confusedly, making me shake my head.

"On the surface, yes" I reply with a frown, "In reality they are corrupt to the core. To maintain the status quo they organize assassinations, accidents, tampering and all sorts of legal or illegal tricks to eliminate anything that threatens their influence. The original chairman of the commission has always treated their workers as disposable commodities, mainly using people from the lower part of society to do their dirty work. However, when Pro Heroes' crimes increased and became more organized, the commission was no longer able to deal with them, so it turned to recruiting and using specialized Pro Heroes so that they could move freely when they clashed with other Heroes in public. The current president is not much better than the previous one, since he usually does not lower himself to using criminals but their trained assassins from childhood."

"H-how is that better?!" Mai remains speechless as I reveal the true face of the committee.

Because I had hacked and stolen a lot of sensitive information from the government a few years ago, just as a precaution in case someone knocked on the door for some...projects that could undermine the authority of the HPSC. Although they had incredibly supportive technologies and facilities, their IT security leaves a lot to be desired. I could go into their servers and do whatever I want with my hands behind my back, using only one foot, and they still wouldn't be able to do anything. I have a wealth of information about their under-the-table operations. Between assassinations, kidnappings, illegal experimentation, genetic tampering, and various cover-ups, I had found enough stuff to shut the whole shebang down in minutes if necessary. They wouldn't have been able to trace it back to me thanks to my faithful right-hand man and AI, Prophet, who had even managed to find pictures, names, and surnames of every member involved. Honestly, I don't know if it's my creation that's fantastic or them being stupid enough to keep these things where they could be picked up by those who know where to look very easily.

But Mai didn't need to know, so I replayed Nezu's video message, curious to know what else he had to say.

"Fortunately for you, I have several friends and people who owe me favors in high places, so I have pulled some strings to prevent the HPSC president from taking drastic action, however you will have to be careful and watch your back. It is not above them and their lackeys to resort to illegal measures to try to eliminate you" the dean frighteningly serious warns me. "Considering that this message was sent in the morning, it should arrive during the late afternoon. Come to UA tomorrow, we need to talk about the details of your personalized program for the next three years here, since you are the first quirkless student in the modern era to have entered the hero class. That said, have a good evening."

The holographic disk goes off, leaving me and Benkei with a frown as Mai looks at him with decidedly mixed emotions.

"Mah, they're not the first bastards trying to take me down" I shrug seemingly indifferently "I'll deal with them when they get here"

Honestly, it was a foregone conclusion that when someone as out of the ordinary as me (for better or worse) started to stir the pot they would target me to keep the status quo unchanged, and while I didn't expect it to happen so soon. I knew that sooner or later they would try to take me down, one way or another, however, I am interested to know what they learned and from whom.

"What's...what's this about the armor anyway?" asked Mai confusedly, distracting me from my darker thoughts before I could start snickering to myself uneasily.

"Since I don't have a quirk I built an armor that could replace it" I reply as if it were obvious.

"Huh?" she exclaims even more confused by my response.

"That damn Tony Stark, that's what" snorts the old samurai irritably "After he saw him flying on one of his wrecks years ago, he got in his head to become like him, and started tinkering to build his own armor."

Yes, Benkei was unhappy that I was cutting a few hours of training during the day to work on my projects when I was attending university, and later when I started freelancing. Honestly, he didn't care at all that I was a robotics enthusiast, he only started complaining and grumbling when he realized that I could actually build one on par with Iron Man saying flat out that he didn't want me to build or wear one, ever. Of course, I didn't listen to him, since even with the performance of a super soldier, I would become an underground hero at best. Benkei has never been one to worry about his public image, except when it comes to his integrity as a swordsman, nor has he ever been against the idea of me going to the UA to become a hero, but when he realized how high I could go if I didn't just use a sword he changed his mind and tried to convince me to give up.

It almost seemed like he didn't want me to get to the top. Worse, I knew he wasn't telling me something, but for the life of me I couldn't really imagine what.

"Eeeh?!" she exclaimed shocked, hearing the old man grumbling again about my life choices.

Is it really that surprising anyway? I mean, the only ones who have managed to create Arc reactors with attached miniature armor are me and Stark. Ivan Vanko had managed to create one with the original blueprints, but the only thing his armored exoskeleton could do was fly (although much slower than my Astrey or any armor other than Tony's mk 1) and use plasma whips. War Machine had been modified based on the Iron man mk 2, and the drones were so easy to hack that even Natasha had managed to sever the connection to Rhody's armor that allowed Wanko to control her.

Not to insult her, but while she is one, if not the most skilled spy in the world, I'm sure as hell she couldn't tamper with Stark's armor or mine. And that says a lot about how much the Hammer Industries software sucked.

However, in a world that is full of the strangest quirks, is it really so out of the ordinary to create armor like this? It shouldn't be. There are quirks that boost IQ by leaps and bounds, others that allow you to process information at insane speeds (like Nezu's High speech), still others that allow you to process information as if several brains were thinking about it. Some that directly give you multiple brains or even secondary brains. I would have a list that would last pages to list quirks that enhance a person's cognitive abilities that could recreate armor, and the only explanation I can think of is that industries only think about developing the support equipment for quirks, rather use them for the development of technology in general.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that with the quirks that have appeared in the last century, indeed in the last 50 years, if they had used them to develop even something not related to quirks to make money, by now humanity would be colonizing the moon at the very least. At the very least.

"Yeah, well, the hard part was not building an armor per se, but a reactor powerful enough to power it," I say distractedly.

I mean, I figured out through my very limited magical abilities and with my memory how to build an Arc reactor from scratch, despite the fact that funds were limited to what I was earning, so a group of scientists with similar quirks how long can it take them with government support to create something like that? It took me almost four years.

The Arc reactor is based on nuclear fission, that I had understood even in my previous life seeing Iron man 2, where Tony's poisoning is shown. Any doubts had been cleared up a couple of years ago anyway, when during the construction of his tower in Manhattan there was news that while the owner was out running errands, someone attacked the shipment loads that contained plutonium.

However, the difficult part was to increase the power, stabilize it, and then downsize it. Knowing that Tony was using palladium cells to power it restricted a lot of the ways I could create it, which saved me time and money, so I had to do a lot less research and experiments to make it work. Even I melted down several before I was able to make a miniaturized one that could deliver at least 3.8 giga joules stable consistently without the risk of them exploding under stress.

I couldn't help but sigh, thinking about how many quirks and their wasted potential are out there. How could anyone have missed so many possibilities that are crying out to be seized!

"W-what's going on? Why are you so depressed all of a sudden?" asks confused Mai seeing my change of mood.

"Don't worry about it too much. Sometimes he gets randomly glum because he thinks mankind is wasting its potential," Benkei replies huffing, only making the actress more confused.

"...I see..." she says, completely lost, having no real context to place her grandfather's words.

"So how come Nodoka is not here? Is she still on tour for her band's latest record?" the old man asks, catching my attention.

Mai's expression turns a touch sad.

"Yes. They added some new dates at the last minute for the tour, so she couldn't make it," confirms the girl. "Too bad, she really wanted to be at this dinner."

Yes, Toyohama Nodoka and I have never met before, even though she was my half-sister. Her mother never allowed her to meet me, for the same reason as that bitch who gave birth to me, and did everything she could to keep him from getting close to Mai or me. Her group, Sweet Bullet, wasn't very famous, but it was then taken over by a bigger music studio and had a spike in ratings, so she started getting known and doing real tours rather than small performances like she was doing a few months ago.

Apparently she wanted to meet me for a long time, too, but her mother always prevented her from doing so. From what I understand, after a fight with her she changed agencies Benkei was able to convince her new manager to let us meet without any problems. Apparently, Nodoka's new agent is the daughter of an old friend of Benkei's whom he had rescued several years ago, although he did not give many details about the event.

"Too bad, it's been a while since I last saw her," the retired hero said with a frown.

There was an awkward silence when the conversation suddenly died.

"So...I heard you took a break from the entertainment business two years ago, and went back to school full time," I tried to continue the conversation by changing the subject, since talking about missing members was killing the mood.

I saw her wince slightly when I mentioned her break.

"I...yes. I had some problems with...my old manager, so I decided to take a break to reflect on my career" she replied, hesitating a bit, trying to avoid the subject.

Benkei's expression hardened as the topic came up, and before I could say or ask anything else, a 'ding' resounds through the quiet floor and two people step out of the elevator.

The first is a man in his 30s, pale skin, blue eyes, and spiky black hair with bangs framing his face. 175 centimeters tall (5'8), he wears a black formal suit and rectangular glasses. All in all, a rather handsome man by Japanese standards, but for the Sakurajima family to look good seems to be genetic, or something like that. Yep, that's Gorou.

My eye almost twitches when I see who he is accompanying. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). So, surely they are here on business, and not for anything else.

'Why would I expect anything different from him?" I barely managed to restrain myself from commenting with words dripping with sarcasm as they approach.

'Sorry we're late, we had a bit of a traffic problem' he greets us a little uncomfortably when he saw that my gaze had narrowed on him with no attempt to even hide it.

Not even a Toshiyuki Morikawa-like voice was enough to make the discussion that was about to take place less sour.

"We only waited ten minutes, it's no big deal" Benkei said stoically.

He didn't really look any different than usual, but for those who know him as well as I do, it's obvious that the drooping of his eyelid by two millimeters and a wrinkle line slightly more pronounced than the others was a big enough indicator to describe how irritated he was by their presence.

"Welcome back Otou-sama" Mai greeted him in an almost robotic manner.

Honestly, I watched her through enhanced sight to get a glimpse of whether or not she was annoyed by their presence, and it wasn't exactly a big surprise to see that she wasn't too thrilled to see him either.

"..." I wasted no breath in greeting him, just silently watching as they took their places.

Benkei at the head of the table, Mai and I on one side, and the two newly arrived scientists on the other.

"Well, what can I say, it's a pleasure to finally meet you. Gorou is always talking about you, so I was a little curious to meet you" he begins politely, although he doesn't seem to be particularly happy to be here either, considering he seemed to have swallowed a lemon not long ago. Then he turns his gaze to me "You've grown since we last saw each other boy, it's good to see you again."

"Considering how our last meeting ended, I'd be lying if I said the pleasure was mutual" I reply impassively.

"R-Raiden!" hisses Gorou, startled by my complete lack of respect for the now former Ant Man.

Yes, well, the first time I met Hank Pym was the day that idiot left for America, eight years ago, and we said all kinds of things to each other. We never spoke again until baa-chan's funeral, almost two years later, a few days after my graduation. Then we argued again on the same day once at home, when for the umpteenth time he tried to convince me to go with him to America, and since then I only interact with him if it was strictly necessary. He did not have the decency to wait even 24 hours after his mother's death, and he tried to use my emotional state to coax me into joining him.

And I just realized that I have much less patience than I initially thought tonight. I figured I could handle at least one conversation before we started arguing, but considering how obvious it is that they didn't go back to Japan for pleasantries, I realize only now that I don't want to have anything to do with whatever he has to say despite thinking I had enough mental energy to deal with them.

"We both know you didn't stop by to say hello as you were passing through, so let's avoid pretending anyone cares to be here and get straight to the reason for your visit so I can leave" I say, taking a deep breath internally, trying to remain as calm as possible "What do you want from me this time?"

Pym's eye twitches, witnessing the extent of my discomfort at the mere idea of talking to them.

"We need your...help" the old man seems to choke on saying the word, while Gororu almost breathes a sigh of relief when I didn't immediately refuse and the old scientist was honest in his request, even though he would rather commit suicide than admit that he couldn't handle whatever his problem was on his own, although I already have half an idea of where the conversation will go.

Off to the side, Mai seems confused by Pym's reluctance to ask me for help with anything since she doesn't know him, while Benkei barely managed not to roll his eyes when he realized how the evening would end. Again. It seems he had hoped a little too much that Gorou would be interested in me for anything but work.

There, now I am also realizing that actually he and the ex-wives are much more similar than they seemed. Only the ends changed. Really, they were just made for each other.

"We're working on a project involving a place called the 'quantum realm' and we need someone who is an expert in quantum physics who can help us with the research" Gorou continues, when he sees that his boss had yet to 'catch up' after his admission "You are one of the most capable people he knows in the field, and more importantly, I know I can trust you with the information that-"

"This is not going to work" I interrupt him. They are obviously aiming to retrieve Janet van Dyne and want me to open a portal to do so.

Gundam Nucleus (GN) Drive, or solar-powered furnace. It is a semi-perpetual energy engine from Gundam 00 that I tried to rebuild before the Arc reactor, unfortunately to no avail. A pity, because harnessing the theory of baryonic decay as a source of almost unlimited energy would have been incredibly useful, but the costs for the experiments were simply too high for me to afford to continue the research, so I moved on to the development of the Arc reactor.

He probably must have seen the designs I had discarded while I was in college, and realized that I knew a lot more about quantum physics than I gave it credit for.

"W-what?" my 'father' asks, confused by my interruption.

"Twenty-eight years ago, two Shield agents were sent on a mission and managed to prevent the launch of a Soviet missile against the U.S. by some terrorists" I reply, making the retired scientist's eyes widen. "Janet van Dyne was never found again, but in the S.H.I.E.L.D. data uploaded on the net by Black Widow during the uprising at Triskelion she is marked as 'MIA' not deceased. Also in the uploaded data was research from several years ago that S.H.I.E.L.D., or Hydra, depending on who was working on it, did to recreate Pym particles. Interesting toys I should say: subatomic particles that can increase or decrease the mass, density and strength of the person using them. So I put two and two together, and I realized that Van Dyne had not died on the mission but was trapped in the quantum realm somehow during that mission. Did I miss anything?"

"N-no..." stammered Gorou, surprised that I knew about the situation. Hank Pym thinned his gaze though.

I had pretty much admitted that I knew what the Quantum Realm was and what they wanted me to do, so it was no surprise that the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was wary now. He understood that I knew about their plans, and also that they wouldn't be here if they could work it out on their own, so I had plenty of room to take advantage of that.

If I had been interested in helping them that is.

"So I have to assume that you came to a dead end and came to me. Why?" I ask again. There was no sarcasm, anger, happiness or anything else in my voice. Honestly, I didn't have an ounce of interest in the whole matter.

"Because if I had found a way to get her out of there, I certainly wouldn't have lowered myself to come here and ask a teenager for help" Pym huffs, finally voicing his thoughts.

"No, why should I help you?" I clarify, surprising those present "I get by in quantum physics, but you have been discovering and working on those particles all your life, no one knows them better than you. If you have come here it is not because you have reached a wall, but because you have nothing to show for it and you are asking me to perform a miracle in the hope of saving someone who has probably already been dead for years."

My completely tactless words sent Pym over the edge.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" He shouts, trying to get up to pounce on me, but is held back by Gororu, who tries to hold him down.

While Mai gasps at the old scientist's sudden outburst, Benkei and I did not blink.

"D-doctor, calm down now!" says Gorou, trying to keep things peaceful.

"The quantum fluctuation messes up the plankct scale, which then triggers Ducht's proportion, do we agree on that?" was a rhetorical question, but Pym and Gorou freeze hearing what I was saying "The odds of survival in case she ended up there by accident and then got pulled out was one in a billion, but she's been trapped in there for almost thirty years. We don't even know if and how time is altered in a space that is smaller than an atom. Its maintenance-free suit will have been deteriorating for at least twenty years at the very least, leaving her unprotected. We do not know if there is any local fauna and flora that allowed her to survive until now in the first place. So, assuming and not conceding that it has survived to that point, by some miracle, what makes you think she has not become sick with unknown pathogens while she was there? How do you expect us to find her in a place we know nothing about and can't even get to just yet?"

"I didn't come here to be told what I already know, I came here for answers dammit!" hissed Hank, slamming his fists on the table, while I continued to look at him impassively "If you can't give me what I need, what the hell did I come here for!"

Realizing that my position would remain unchanged, no matter how much he railed, he got up and left without addressing us another word.

"Doctor..." Gorou's call was to no avail, as Pym entered the elevator to leave, but not before giving me one last glare.

Rather than being offended, I am intrigued as I watch him leave. I know he never made peace with the fact that his wife was 'dead,' and I have no idea why he came here, since the only one to go to and from the quantum realm on the same day was Scott Lang. How did they find out then? Perhaps there was another divergence in the course of events in the MCU, since Hank Pym started working on the portal leading to the quantum realm after Age of Ultron and the first results came after Civil War, but, even so, I have no intention of helping him.

Could I have gotten his wife out of that place? I honestly don't know, but since there have been considerable disagreements on several things so far, if there is even the slightest possibility that Janet van Dyne was turned into a zombie as happened in some universes while she was trapped in the quantum realm, then as much as I may feel sorry for Pym, as far as I'm concerned she can stay in there to rot.

The only thing missing in this world is a possible zombie apocalypse, and I have no intention of risking touching that can of worms just yet, not unless I have a 100 percent chance of preventing such a thing.

Benkei looked with some understanding at the other old man in silence, given how similar their situations were. If when baa-chan had the heart attack that killed her when Benkei was home, surely it would have been faster than the ambulance to take her to the hospital and she would have been saved. Two minutes. If the ambulance had arrived only two minutes earlier, she would still be alive.

In the case of Hank Pym, if I had been born 30 years ago, I would not have been against helping him, so he probably would have taken it up right away. I'll let events take their course. In the MCU Pym found her because Janet had possessed Scott in some way. If Wasp contacts Scott again, then it means he is not a zombie and I will help him if he needs it, but otherwise destroy whatever project he has in place since after much exploration he had found her, somehow inadvertently causing the destruction of the world.

"...Even so, we still have to try" Gororu says, looking at me firmly, "If there is even the smallest chance of saving her, we have to try."

"I won't stop you from killing yourself if you really want to, but I won't even move a finger to help you," I reply, again denying the request "School starts next month, so I can't just leave after I pass the entrance exam."

The decision in Gorou's eyes changed to irritation and then confusion upon hearing my words.

"School? You graduated five years ago, what are you going to school for again?" the adult asks confused.

Mai, who was listening to the confusing conversation of which she did not understand even half of the things said, looks confused between me and our father when my graduation was mentioned.

"Graduate? But didn't you have to go to UA?" the model asks confused, not knowing about that little detail.

That irritation quickly turns to anger when she hears her daughter's confused question.

"Are you telling me that you refuse to help us because you are still wasting time trying to be a hero?!" this time it is Gorou who shouts indignantly, causing Mai next to me to gasp, who did not expect the sudden outburst.

"Yes" despite the ice-cold response and apparent calmness, my expression was rapidly shifting to one of cold anger "What? Did you really think that just because you didn't like me 'wasting' my life doing something unworthy in your eyes I would stop? Well, I feel sorry for you, Gorou, but what you think of me ceased to interest me years ago" I clarify any doubts as I get up from my seat to leave "Now that we have nothing more to say to each other, do me the favor of possibly never letting me see you again."

"Raiden, you-"

"That's enough" Benkei's authoritative voice stopped the discussion. The atmosphere after those two simple words had become so cold that even the waiters almost fainted because of how intense the dirty look the old man was giving his son "You really are a disappointment."

"Tou-san-"

"Don't even try to justify your behavior" any argument Gorou was about to give was nipped in the bud "For the past few years I've really been trying to reunite the family that you and those wretched ex-wives of yours have destroyed, but in the end there just doesn't seem to be any way to do it" he says, almost depressed by it "You're really cut from the same cloth, and since you've done nothing but damage so far, don't ever come near our family again."

His words sounded like a stab to the scientist, who looked at Benkei with the most betrayed look I had ever seen on his face.

"They are my children!"

"They are the children you abandoned while you sought your glory abroad" specifies the old samurai "The children who needed you, but whom you never helped when they needed their father, because your work always came first. They grew up without a father, and they can go on living without one, since you care more about your plans than their lives."

The silence in the room was almost deafening. I was completely indifferent, while Mai had mixed emotions about the matter. In Bunny Girl senpai her father appeared for a few seconds in a flashback, but nothing is known about the relationship that Sakurajima Mai had with him. In that, custody of my sister was with our shitty biological mother, who only ever exploited her to make money for her agency, no matter how much trouble or trauma it caused him. Gorou was hardly ever around because of his job, and when he moved to America it was even worse, since not being able to see her with any regularity anymore that woman could pretty much do whatever she wanted with her.

Thus, there were a mixture of emotions fighting in Mai's gaze: anger, reluctance, sadness, with a hint of hatred, resignation, and strange satisfaction. He may be a 'good' person depending on who answers the question, but he was always a shitty father.

Gorou, meanwhile, was speechless and must have felt even worse after he turned his gaze toward us and received only a cold shoulder.

Benkei and I got up to leave, and while Mai hesitated for a moment, she followed us rather quickly, leaving him alone in the restaurant, speechless.

Once we got out of the building, I squinted a couple of times when the Tokyo light started to bother me. In the elevator it was not so bad. I felt the left side of my head getting hot and throbbing, but not painfully as usually happens. This time I didn't even feel nauseous or dizzy, fortunately. Could it be because I finally put my mind at rest and decided to stop trying to make peace with him?

"You guys go home, I...have to run an errand," Benkei says suddenly.

"At this hour?" asks Mai skeptically, still reeling from what happened just now.

"Yes, I figured something like this would happen, so I still agreed to meet with an old student of mine who wanted some advice tonight," he replied with his usual stoic expression, as if nothing had happened.

"Then why were you so adamant about letting me meet him?" I ask with a grimace as I pull painkillers and sunglasses out of my jacket pocket.

"I hoped too much that that idiot didn't screw up" he replies with a grimace that is almost imperceptible because of how unchanged his face has remained "Do you still have migraines?"

"Mild this time" I reply, swallowing the dose prescribed by the family doctor.

"Do you suffer from migraines? For how long?" asks Mai worriedly, disguised with glasses and a hat so as not to be recognized. After all, she is very famous, especially in Tokyo, having acted in shows and been on the front page of famous magazines.

"For a few years now, after the panic attacks ended" I reply with a grimace.

"Were you suffering from panic attacks?!" she almost screams in shock.

"Yes. The psychologist at the time said they were caused by depression and problems dealing with anger. Panic attacks were a consequence, among other things. Apparently excessive stress was to blame" I confirm, shrugging my shoulders "When I stopped taking the medication I started to get pretty bad migraines from time to time, but this time it's pretty manageable."

"This time" she repeats, with an even more worried expression "Are the other times worse?"

"Yes, he usually needs a day or two to recover" Benkei replied before I could, increasing Mai's concern "You go home. I will probably be back tomorrow afternoon."

Bidding us farewell, he goes his way and we go ours.

The silence there, however, was awkward, so I decided to solve a problem that troubled me when I saw it.

"So how come you took a break from the show? Did you need to get away from the paparazzi or something?" I ask after almost half an hour, pretending not to know anything about her problem.

She retired immediately after appearing on a photo shoot where she posed for bikinis. Even if you didn't know, it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that was the cause. Unlike all the other times she had walked the runway, appeared in magazines or TV shows, you could see from miles away that she hated every single second of those shots, no matter how carefree the smile she showed while posing seemed. It simply did not match the lack of light in her eyes at that moment.

"...Can we talk about something else? I don't feel like thinking about work" she asks, trying to be polite and not answer rudely.

"It was a polite and unobtrusive way of asking you what that bitch did" I reply bluntly. I stop when I hear her footsteps doing the same, so I turn to look at her "Although I'm not interested in TV series about teen dramas or fashion magazines, I've never missed a single one of your appearances in the shows you participate in. I noticed almost immediately that something was wrong with your latest work."

"Raiden, really, I don't want to talk about it" she repeats, her voice harder.

"Was it that particular bikini photo album, or was it the straw that broke the camel's back?" I ask directly and tactlessly, causing her to wince again.

I don't really remember what the time line of Bunny Girl Senpai events was like. If I'm not mistaken, Mai was forced by that bitch to take costume photos during her senior year of middle school, despite promising him that she would not let her pose for those kinds of photos, and she was traumatized by that. She withdrew for two years, then during her junior year of high school the canonical events took place.

"I told you I don't want to talk about it!" she says raising her voice a bit, clenching her fists a bit. She starts walking and passes me, but I decided not to let it go.

"So you withdrew to spite that waste of oxygen" I state without really expecting a response, knowing it was so "You realize how stupid that is, right?"

Maybe I shouldn't be so insensitive and insistent on the issue, since I know how much that bitch actually hurt her, but seeing Mai wince every time the word 'work' is mentioned disturbs me. She is my twin sister, and although physically she is only 7 minutes older than me, mentally I am an adult. Worrying about her is my job, and not being able to do it until now has torn me up inside the first few years away.

That's why I want him to get over his problem with the show and get back to doing the work he loves. I know perfectly well how much it sucks not to be able to follow the path one chooses. I have felt discouragement and indescribable anger for years because of my lack of quirk. I have been close many times to throwing in the towel at the worst times, when I felt I was failing miserably and could not achieve the goal I had set for myself.

So how must Mai feel, knowing that she can do the work she loves, but feels she can't do it because of that bitch who brought us into this world?

"Shut up!" she pauses to give me a poorly backhanded smack (which despite everything I definitely deserved, since I could have resolved this in other ways, perhaps) by dropping my glasses "I suffered and thought hard before deciding!"

The slap didn't hurt, I didn't even feel it, and I'm more than sure she felt the equivalent of hitting a block of steel, judging by the spasms in her hand and the tears that surely weren't just from nerves on edge, but my head throbs when the light bothers me.

"..." I didn't interrupt her as she spoke, deciding to let her vent properly.

"I was still in middle school! But when I got to the studio, there were those stupid bikinis waiting for me!" she yelled at me in anger and exasperation, letting go of everything she had been holding in. It was almost painful to see how close she was to bursting. It only took a couple of provocations to cause this reaction "They kept telling me I had to do it because they had signed a contract by now, and I was forced to pose for those perverts..."

Wait, what?

She was too busy wiping away her tears and catching her breath after finally voicing all her frustration to see my almost murderous expression as I took my glasses back, to put them on again.

I will schedule the killers later, now I had to convince her to face her problems.

"Never, there is no reason why you shouldn't continue with your life leaving that woman behind" I sigh, trying to wipe away any hint of anger on my face "If it gnaws at you because of what she did and you want to make her pay for it, then that's all the more reason to come back" She looks at me confused, waiting for me to finish speaking "If going back to show business is what you want to do, then do it. The best way to get back at her is to show him how happy you are while doing what you want to do without her."

"Do you...really think I can do it?" she asks hesitantly, a little calmer.

"...Well, alternatively, I can destroy his career and any chance of getting back on his feet in the future."

My attempt to lighten the mood was rather wacky, and was met by Mai giving me a rather sharp pinch on the cheek, which would have definitely hurt unenhanced humans.

"Don't make fun of me" she said impassively as his eyebrow twitched "Really, did you really have to ruin the moment with that joke? And to think I thought you were cool until a few seconds ago."

...It wasn't a joke, and I was more than willing even to ruin that woman's life (even killing her was an option on the table) in any way I could, within the bounds of legality (although I was pretty sure I could cover my tracks perfectly), however Mai didn't need to know that.

"Ohoh? So you think I'm cool, huh?" I ask with an amused smirk, ignoring the dark thoughts going through my head, seeing how she blushes a little when I specify that detail.

"No, I think you're an idiot who can't read the atmosphere. Mph" to try to cover her embarrassment, she insults me and walks off again.

"You're such a tsundere, huh?" I ask amused, causing her to stiffen "It would all be easier if you were honest with yourself."

Mai trembles slightly clenching her fists, probably eager to retort, but decides not to respond to my provocations and keeps walking, ignoring me.

My amused smile falls as soon as she steps back a little.

"Prophet" I whispered the name of my AI, who had heard everything from the small earpiece in my right ear.

"Do I have to look up all the reports and complaints of stalking, harassment, and rape for the past 20 years against all the staff members involved on the women who worked there, to open a new case for your sister, sir?" my right-hand man asks.

"Yes" I reply, feeling my blood boiling in my veins.

With my memory, forgetting something was physically impossible for me. It is very helpful, but sometimes it is annoying not to be able to forget the whispers of those who taunt you, the teasing, the bad days, and every other moment that has gone wrong since I was reborn. Even now, I remember perfectly what it was like to hear Mai's crying when she was 5 years old as that bitch dragged her away from Benkei's house ringing in my ears a few times when I wondered what she was doing while we couldn't see each other.

That bitch is incredibly greedy, and considering that the agency Mai worked for during her last contract has a pretty good reputation for very well paid salaries, I doubt that the salaries are that high are because they hold their employees in high regard. I don't want to think that he would fall so low as to put his daughter in a room with a group of pedophiles, but you never know how much greed can affect a person, so be 100% sure that they didn't do anything to him. Because in that case, I will make their death so horrible that they will regret not being born asexual.

Or at least that's what I would like to do.

Fortunately for them, I have All Might's number on emergency calls, so the end they will meet at trial (because they will end up there, that's for sure) will surely be less heinous than the one they would have met if I had decided to take justice into my own hands. As cathartic as the idea of strangling and then hanging those filthy bastards with their entrails was, after torturing them in the most brutal ways I could think of for their contribution to traumatizing Mai, I was trying to become a hero...so, reluctantly, I had to leave certain matters to the authorities.

Although I don't think anyone will complain if they receive an anonymous tip alerting them to what has happened.

"How bad does it have to hurt?" asks Prophet curiously.

"So bad that they won't even have the will to cry" I order without blinking.

"Wow, I didn't think of you as vindictive, sir" comments the AI with false surprise, "If I find anything, I'll make sure to ruin them to the point that their lives here in Japan, and possibly the rest of the world, are over."

"Raiden, hurry or we'll miss the train!" Mai calls, looking at me with a frown.

"Coming" It was at that moment that my phone buzzed. As I walked, I saw that Izumi had written to me, asking me to come to UA as fast as I could, since it was important "...the troubles won't end here, will they?"

I walked down the corridors of the empty school except for a few presences like Nezu and some staff members. Apparently, it was not Izumi who wanted to see me, but Sona Sitri. So she contacted me through her since she did not have access to personal information of students, or prospective students as her counterpart in Kouh did.

It seems that someone important wanted to meet me, discreetly, and considering how recently I have entered the supernatural, the only ones I can think of who want to have a word with me are: Serafall Leviathan as Satan of Foreign Affairs since I am not a member of the devils' faction, Sizerchs as Satan of the Interior since the incident with the fallen happened on their temporary territory, maybe even both; while on the fallen side in all likelihood Azazel, since he is the only scientist who might be interested in my armor, although I don't think he will need the Astrey for anything. He was probably forced to come by Baraqiel and Shamhazai. Although the latter helps that lazy ass Azazel with his sacred gaer research, unlike him he is actually very responsible when it comes to taking care of their organization, since their current boss was seriously neglecting work for his hobbies.

Then again, taking care of a faction the size of the Grigori for more than ten thousand years sounds incredibly repetitive, as well as boring. If he really didn't want to carry out that task any longer, wouldn't it have been quicker to give the task directly to Shamhazai, rather than getting kicked off the throne?

However, those two factions are the only two supernatural parties I have dealt with during the past two weeks, and apart from them I don't think there is anyone else interested in getting to know me for now. The only one aside from them would be the Shinto and Yokai factions, but they would definitely have visited my house or warned Benkei beforehand if this had anything to do with my entering the hidden side of the moon.

I thus found myself in front of the student council room. Their function? They organize UA's middle section events, run their clubs, and make sure there are no problems with the alumni. Yes, unlike Kouh academy, they don't have much freedom over their schedule and don't run anything fundamental to the school, since even when they do their work, they are supervised by a teacher, although he or she doesn't intervene unless necessary.

I knocked, and the answer was not long in coming.

"Come in" Sona's authoritative, neutral voice speaks from the room, so I open the door to enter.

Sona Sitri is a bespectacled young woman with a slim figure, black hair styled in a short cut, and violet eyes.

Sitting at her desk, she watches me enter, with her queen by her side. Tsubaki Shinra is a young woman with long straight black hair that extends to her knees, with parted bangs and heterochromic eyes, with a purple left eye and a light brown right eye. She also wears glasses, although like Sona, being a devil she does not need them since she has no vision problems.

Near the desk, neatly lined up in a row, are the other members.

The first bishop: Momo Hanakai. A beautiful young girl with white hair and blue eyes.

The second bishop: Reya Kusaka. She is a thin girl with long brown hair ending in two short braids and matching eyes. She also wears a blue headband on her hair.

The only knight of knight Sona: Tomoe Meguri. Tomoe is a beautiful girl with shoulder-length, reddish-brown hair and brown eyes. Her hair is characterized by swept bangs and a single strand of hair poking out from the top.

Sona's only tower: Tsubasa Yura. is a tall girl with shoulder-length blue hair and matching eyes. She has the basic appearance of a tomboy and has a bishounen face.

Four-piece pawn: Genshirou Saji. He is a young man with short blond hair and gray eyes. No distinguishing marks to report other than being slightly taller than the average Japanese, probably due to reincarnation as a devil.

Sona's second pawn: Ruruko Nimura. She is a short girl with brown hair in long twin ponytails and green eyes. She wears a pair of green clips in her hair and also wears green striped stockings.

Everyone is wearing the UA uniform, and they are as good or bad as I remembered them. Then I looked at the guest who wanted to meet me.

He is a tall man who appears to be in his early twenties with a medium build, black hair, golden bangs, and a black goatee. he wore a dark blue knee-length blazer with a lighter blue shirt, a black vest, and a red tie. He wore faded purple pants and black dress shoes. Unlike the others, he is almost 190 (6'2)centimeters tall.

Behind him is the fallen angel from a few nights ago, Mittelt, who gives me an unassuming look but says nothing. Have the members of Sona's group had more...positive reactions? They seem vaguely interested and acknowledge my existence, unlike the cadre escort. The more bubbly members of the group did not do much to hide their emotions, while the rest were looking at me with hints of curiosity.

Except for Saji. He seems to hate me by default. Well, not that I really care.

"We've never met before, but thank you for coming to this meeting on such short notice, Sakurajima Raiden-san" the Sitri heiress formally greets me.

"It's not a problem Sitri-san, I was curious too to see who wanted to meet with me in such a hurry" I reply with a shrug "Although, considering the circumstances of our last chat, I thought you would show up sooner, Azazel" I admit, closing the door behind me.

Sona's eyes widened slightly, although she hid her sudden surprise well when I claimed to know the leader of the fallen angels and had spoken to him earlier. Tsubaki too, although she needed a few more moments, while the rest not so much. I could practically see half the Sitri peerage resisting the temptation to start muttering to each other, to start talking about theories and conspiracies.

"Oi, human, don't casually talk in such a familiar way to Azazel-sama!" the blonde starts off, going from barely acknowledging my existence to pure disgust in less than a second.

"Mah, Mah, don't worry about these formalities, it saved me a lot of trouble in the end" the Grigori leader swings a hand lazily, confusing his subordinate "As for why it took me so long...well, let's just say I was busy."

"I'm guessing. Shamhazai after finding out that a team of strays was messing around in an area controlled by the maou's little sisters almost got the drop on you, but was stopped by Baraqiel, who then kicked you out of your lab to actually do your job?" I ask rhetorically, sitting down on the couch across from the relaxed man who twitches at my remark.

The eyes of everyone in the room widened at my words, shocked at my complete lack of decorum in front of the leader of one of the world's largest factions.

"Exactly how big is your information network?" he asks with a snort, somewhere between amused and exasperated.

"I didn't need to know what you were doing since our last talk, I think anyone who knows you a little or has heard of you would come to the same conclusion" I reply impassively.

Make no mistake. Azazel has not been the fallen angel at the top of his race until now without a reason. He is not weak, and he is incredibly cynical and merciless if need be. He and the leaders have used DxD's main cast over and over again as bait, improvised strike force and more. Often the plans they apply to them were organized or guided by him, however, it is also true that during the story period he did numerous screw-ups that caused him to lose his position.

First among them: becoming a teacher in Kouh. He could have sent representatives as Heaven and other factions did, rather than quit his job as leader overnight, knowing that his comrades would do it for him. I'm pretty sure this realization really quieted the dissension in the Grigori, since it wasn't exactly a secret that he had moved to the human realm to study sacred gear more than for any other reason.

Ultimately, I would not be surprised if this is one of those times.

"Exactly how bad do you think of me?" he asks, pretending to be hurt by my words.

I was not in time to respond, because a bright pink magic circle, a figure emerges, causing Sona to let out an exhausted sigh, and this time he did not even try to hide all his exasperation.

She is a beautiful girl; looking in her late teens with black hair tied back in two tails and blue eyes. She is 160 (5'2) centimeters tall and although she looks very childlike, her breasts are definitely large. She wears a pink magical girl's dress, complete with wand.

"SO-TAN!" cries Serafall, launching herself toward her sister, who quickly erected a magic circle to defend herself from Maou's excessive love.

"N-nee-sama! Pull yourself together, this is an official meeting for Lucifer's sake!" hisses Sona, embarrassed by her older sister's behavior.

"...are magical girls normal in the supernatural, o...?" I ask Azazel after a moment, loud enough for the person concerned to hear me, pretending not to know who she was.

Sona seems to have noticed my somewhat too innocent behavior, and zaps me with her gaze...or does she try to drown me with a look? Since her element is water. The members of her peerage feel some pity for her instead, probably knowing full well what the Satan of foreign affairs is about to do.

"Eh, let's say she's a different case" he says with an amused smirk when he noticed what I was doing.

Serafall's eyes sparkle upon hearing our comments.

"Nice to meet you . I am the Maou Serafall Leviathan . Just call me Levia-tan " she finishes, doing a classic magical girl pose, winking and making the peace sign above it.

"... meh, I give you a 6 for effort" I say after a moment of initial daze at the short sketch.

"Really, I would have given it at least a 7.5" says Azazel, curious about my statement.

I expected her to do something like that, but it was much more weird than I thought to see her in action.

"Gasp?!" she recoils, as if physically affected by my words "W-why such a low grade?!"

"If you're a magical girl, where are all the pink lights, stars, hearts and other special effects?" I ask impassively, causing her to freeze "The only convincing thing about your performance is the dress, but this way you look like a normal cosplayer who gets into character."

Serafall sustains another critical blow.

"T-this..."

"I mean, devil magic works on the imagination, doesn't it? It shouldn't be hard to do background special effects" I continue, and perhaps just for the sake of breaking the tense atmosphere there, the disguised maou looks at me with an inflamed gaze, much to Sona's horror, begging her sister silently not to do what she was about to do.

Unfortunately, it would be ignored.

"You're right! Let me try again!" she says firmly. She twirls her wand and strikes a cute pose, lighting the room pink with magic, with stars flashing here and there "Miracle Levia-tan is here to take care of the negotiations !"

The lights go out after a few seconds.

"7,7. You need to practice more with the effects, but the poses are okay" I say raising a thumbs up.

The veins in Sona's forehead began to throb seeing how I was urging Serafall to ridicule himself in front of her, while the girls barely held back their laughter; except for Tsubaki who remained mostly stoic, even though her lips were twitching upward, and Saji, who looked ready to explode at the fact that I was embarrassing his king.

Should I ask to do it again with the sister?

"Well, usually my crew is in charge of special effects at the production post, but I guess I'll just practice when I have time" she hums, sitting down on Sona's desk, who looks at her, undecided whether or not to admonish her for 'inappropriate' behavior for a leader "So, how about we start discussing business?"

"That's fine with me, although I really don't have much to say about anything you have to discuss" I say, continuing to sound relaxed "So, what did you want to ask me?"

"Sakurajima-san, regardless of how friendly they may seem, you are talking to the leaders of two factions, so please maintain an attitude in keeping with the place and reason for the meeting" Sona admonishes me harshly.

"I'm pretty sure the only one who really cares about keeping the matter strictly formal is you, Sitri-san" I snort almost amused by the bespectacled girl's words "Despite Azazel's irresponsibility-"

"Seriously, what kind of image do you have of me?" asks the cadre annoyed.

"The one you drew yourself apparently" Serafall replies, cheerful and impassive at the same, somehow.

"Are you going to get involved now?!"

"-If this had been an urgent matter or of any importance not only would they have met sooner, but none of us would be present" I conclude impassively "This whole thing is just a front to make things seem bigger than they are."

Do you really think I would be here otherwise?

"I don't think that-"

"No, So-tan, he's right" before the sister could admonish me again, Serafall interrupted her with her cheerful, if somewhat calmer attitude "This waste of time was mounted because the old satan faction was making problems about an 'affront' suffered by our race from the fallen, and there were idiots actually willing to listen to them despite having no political clout at present. We're just here to make it look like we're taking it seriously and shut them up. It would be annoying to have to suppress popular uprisings after all, but that's Sizerchs-chan's job."

Sona looks at her a little surprised, not expecting her to be taken back by her sister like that.

"Same thing here," Azazel confirms with a frown, "There are too many idiots who have been taken in by Kokabiel and want to go to war with the other factions, the group the boy stopped last week was among them. In the future, if other groups come to mess unofficially feel free to kick them out of town on the sly unless I inform you first. Especially now that he is a fugitive."

This is not good news.

"Kokabiel is a fugitive?!" gasps Sona shocked upon hearing this, while Serafall frowns.

"A-Azazel-sama, I don't think you should be so...relaxed about the matter" Mittelt points out.

"Why not? They can ask the guy to take care of it again anyway if they become a problem" he replies with a shrug, implicitly admitting that he knows I've been asked by Izumi to take care of it "I heard he enrolled in the UA heroes class, might as well use these opportunities to practice or something. Besides, anyone who knows Kokabiel a minimum expected it to happen at some point. I'm warning Serafall in person because I wanted to talk to him about something else, otherwise I would have just made a public announcement."

His disinterested statements leave everyone a little astonished. Even me.

"... How did he manage to stay in charge of the Grigorians for so long?" I ask myself wordlessly, in the face of such mindlessness. Does this imbecile really think I could take on Kokebiel in battle, alone? This goes far beyond irresponsibility.

"I wonder that myself sometimes" Serafall says, giving the other leader a flat look, "Oh, well, whatever. Raiden-chan-"

"Chan?" I raise an eyebrow not so much at the fact that she has called me by my first name, but at the fact that she is using such a suffix to refer to me, since she has just met me.

"Did you eliminate the two fallen dead in that attack on the church that Sona found?" she asks pointing her wand at me, completely ignoring my question.

You know what? Just go with the flow.

"...Yes" I confirm, glancing at the girl in question who does not seem to be surprised by this "There were also a group of stray exorcists with them. I eliminated them all, but one named Freed Sellzen escaped. He was the strongest of those present, although considering the average power of the group, well, that's saying something."

Mittelt looked daggers at me, before realizing what I had just said, and realizing that the guy in armor who had been partying with Raynare&co was me. She blanched, and any complaint she might have had died in her throat.

"Is this someone we should worry about?" the woman in cosplay asked curiously, not knowing him, but the answer came from Azazel.

"Well, he's not that strong. The problem is his attitude," says Azazel "Despite what some in this room think of me-" he gives me and Serafall a dirty look "I've been investigating the missing groups and the moves they make thinking they're following my orders, acting in the shadows to avoid finding ourselves discussing messes like these. Freed Sellzen, from what I found out, is an artificial human created to be compatible with Gram when he was still in the hands of the church. He was a skilled exorcist, who entered the service when he was 12 years old, but at some point he went crazy and became a stray after killing the team he was on a mission with, the devil they were hunting and several dozen civilians nearby."

The information made Sona's group and the two-winged fallen angel move uneasily, while Serafall and I were relatively indifferent to it. The Maou because she will surely have heard countless similar stories during the centuries she has been alive; while I was already aware of the background of Freed, Siegfrid, his sister and the Sigurd project.

"So should we be concerned that he's stupid enough to make a mess where everyone can see him?" I ask, curious if there were any significant differences from what I knew and the state of the Freed of this world.

In the novel it seemed to at least avoid having ordinary people discover the supernatural in spite of everything, so...

"I don't know" Azazel admits.

"Damn..." I mutter, immediately regretting not making sure I killed him.

"It is clear from his psychological profile that he is a psychopath who loves to torture, rape and kill his victims with extreme sadism, does not like to follow orders, and loves to fight," Azazel says getting a little more serious "It would not be out of the question that he could jeopardize the secrecy of the supernatural if he is not kept on a leash, so if you find him, catch him or eliminate him without any hesitation."

"I will report everything to Rias after this meeting" Sona agrees, upset by the new information.

"Mnn...well, there's not much more to say other than what you wanted to discuss, is there, Azazel?" asks Serafall suddenly, confusing everyone.

"Yes" he confirms, returning to his relaxed self after that tense moment, "Boy, what do you think of Italian girls?"

"...I'm going to need a little more context, because I don't think you're interested in knowing what my preferences are on aesthetic taste" I reply confusedly. At first at least.

How the fuck did I not notice that Asia was still nowhere to be seen? Issei met her after the first month as a reincarnated devil, but Izumi has been a devil for just over two weeks, but I twisted events and killed the fallen before she arrived, except for her informant. How could I not think that something would actually change?

Azezel smiles in amusement seeing that I was taken aback by the question, but behind that smile was also...something else, which I could not understand, as it disappeared as quickly as it came.

"I see you understand" he says after a moment, confusing those present.

"What did Raiden-chan understand, Azazel-chan?" asks the shojo maou, curious and almost trepidatious with anticipation

"The main reason I came here" says Azazel a little amused by the woman's childish behavior, "The other thing I wanted to inform you about is strictly related to the mission that group of idiots had started. Mittelt."

The girl stiffens when attention shifts to her, especially when I look at her, even though I am definitely not the most dangerous person in the room.

"R... Raynare and her g-group had two goals: to eliminate or capture the holders of Sacred gear, and to extract one in particular belonging to a nun excommunicated from the church a few weeks ago" she says, stammering a little at first when Leviathan looked at her.

I suppose her fear was normal. She was facing one of the leaders of an enemy faction, and she had been messing around in her younger sister's territory, when Serafall is a known obsessive siscon. Being afraid of offending her and risking getting killed if she said something wrong probably occupied 90 percent of her brain faculties at this time.

The fact that Serafall's smile was too kind didn't help things, I suppose.

"This nun was lured by deception by Raynare who wanted to bring her here, and use an old model of Sacred gear extractor to get it. The girl believed that those fallen ones had been cast out of heaven for excessive love of humans, and apparently they were not bothered by her praying to my father" Azazel continued, when he saw that his subordinate was too frightened to continue "The problem is that even though she has been excommunicated she is a rather adamant believer. The idiot who was supposed to keep an eye on her after I found out what was going on couldn't stand her because of that, so she spilled the beans to him to scare her off, and now she doesn't want to be with the Grigorians anymore."

"..." I looked at Azezel, trying to figure out what the hell he was thinking. I am not his ally, so why entrust me with a sacred gear girl he wants to analyze?

"So I thought, well, there's this guy who's not with any faction, so why not?" he shrugs as if it's the most natural thing in the world "So I put her on a plane to Japan. Since she is not on a direct flight and will have to make some changes, she will arrive tomorrow morning around 9:30. Of course, I will also provide the money to support her."

I blink at this information.

"...Are you crazy?" I said, unable to stop myself from asking. I completely ignored Mittelt and the Sitri peerage looking at me shocked, again, at the bluntness "There are rebels in your ranks who are after her and you put her on a plane, where she can be attacked at any time, surrounded by civilians when you know perfectly well they would blow it up without hesitation?!"

"They kept her segregated in a convent most of her life, so she wanted to take the scenic route" he replied with a shrug, "I just didn't feel like denying the girl even that smallness."

"Although I can understand why, it was damn stupid to send her to a place where they could kidnap her without leaving witnesses, even in broad daylight" I point out to him.

"Oh, come on who do you take me for?" he asks with a cheeky smile, as if the whole situation is something to joke about.

"Are you really sure you want to know?" I ask impassively, making Azazel grind his teeth a little.

Of course, I know that if he gets really pissed off he might vaporize me faster than I could blink, but I just can't bring myself to respect him with an ounce of respect right now.

"Okay, maybe I wasn't very careful with the whole Kokabiel thing-"

"Perhaps?" asks Serafall, whose lips had formed a straight line.

"OK, good! I definitely could have done better! Happy?!" blurts out Azazel, admitting that he didn't handle it as well as he should have "Anyway, I'm not so irresponsible as to send unsuspecting civilians into the crossfire. I sent someone I trust to see that she landed at the airport safely" he snorts, crossing his arms offended "See? Even I can be responsible when needed!"

Sona looked at Mittelt with some sympathy when she sees the blonde slam her palm down on her face, understanding perfectly when she was upset seeing the leader of her faction behaving so childishly. Glance the gothic lolita reciprocates, aware of the bespectacled girl's similar situation after seeing Serafall in person this evening.

"I'd be shocked otherwise" I say, still impassive "However, if your man is who I imagine he is, I strongly suggest you check out the people he hangs out with, because he might come back to bite you in the ass if he's not careful."

After all, even if Vali was an infiltrated agent in the Chaos Brigade and passed information about their movements to Azazel, the fact still remains that he committed crimes unrelated to his mission, from which he was saved by the skin of his teeth by Odin. Somehow.

It was not clear to me how being adopted by the father of the Norse gods cleaned the record of Lucifer's descendant. He was not even under house arrest or probation. Did the leaders know and plan for it? I just can't remember.

He stares at me again with one I can't quite decipher.

"Well, now that we've settled that, I think it's time to go! See you next time!" announced Serafall, standing up cheerfully "So-tan, let's try some choreography together next time! Bye-bye!"

And with that, she disappears using her magic circle to go who knows where, causing Sona to let out a sigh full of resignation.

"Bah, I'm leaving too" Azazel communicated, bringing attention back to him "I've already talked to your grandfather, you can safely host her in your house, although you will have to take care of her."

Without being able to ask what my grandfather had to do with it, he also disappears with Mittelt.

And so a strangely tense silence falls in the room.

So, now I have to take care of Asia and prevent any idiot who wants to take advantage of her from approaching; it turns out that Kokabiel is a fugitive before the church informed the two overseers of Musutafu; and Asia now that she has not been killed by Raynare will not become the bishop of Rias, which consequently will be left with one less piece to use against Riser, which will automatically result in a huge extra pain in the ass for me.

Simply fantastic.

We're already at three pretty big divergences, even though I only got involved in the supernatural once to make a difference, for something I didn't think was really important to the initial arcs of DxD. Sure, I had basically told Azazel that I knew more than I was giving away in some ways, but how the hell did they change things so much? I really have to watch out for the butterfly effect and try not to alter the initial events of DxD too much at least, to make sure that the peace conference between the three factions is there. And also that the events of Kamino occur, so that I can kill All for One and avoid civil war in Japan next year.

"Well, it's time for me to leave, too" I say as I get up to walk out the door, already feeling the gears in my head squeal in annoyance at the idea of adding more trouble to the pile.

"Sakurajima-san, wait a moment" hearing Sona's voice, I turn to look at the stoic girl with a raised eyebrow "Rias wanted to talk to you privately. She didn't attend this meeting for some...reasons, so she asked me to tell you when I was done here if you could spare a few minutes for her before going home."

The 'reasons' were definitely Akeno and her hatred for fallen angels. Obviously, putting a person who has emotional problems related to the fallen ones in a room with one of their leaders was not a very wise move to make. Probably Rias decided not to show up so as not to burden Akeno and hurt her feelings, or something like that.

Her empathy with those close to her is both one of her best qualities and her greatest flaw.

"Mnn...I'm tempted to postpone given that today was not a good night at all, but if it's urgent enough to call me late in the evening I'll take a look at it" I sigh, knowing that she would probably try to recruit me again, somehow, or that it had something to do with her arranged marriage "Is there anything I need to know about that?"

I didn't really bother to mask my annoyance, even though Sona didn't bat an eye at it. With what has transpired, I think she is more concerned about Freed and Kokabiel rather than what is going on between Rias and me.

"Not that I know of" replied the bespectacled girl simply, "I don't want to keep you any longer than necessary if it really has been such a heavy day. Good night, Sakurajima-san."

"Night to you too" I return the greeting out of courtesy and leave.

Rias looked nervously at the time on the clock attached to the wall of the club room. Sona had sent her a message telling her that Raiden had agreed to meet with her, but that he was not in a good mood for pleasantries, so she should not do anything that would hurt her image more in his eyes. Of course, considering how bad things went with the stray, it's hard to do worse.

She had told herself that it was just a low-level stray devil anyway, that with her power and that of her beloved servants there was nothing that could go wrong. Evidently, she had chosen her words poorly, for Murphy is unforgiving. She found out late that Raiden values above all else during action utility. He is not interested in style or show, but in skill and efficiency. Trying to show how powerful her peerage was was the worst choice she could make to convince him, because that sense of confidence and pride she had thinking she had impressed him distracted her to the point that she did not notice Viser's severed arm had jumped out at her.

It was mortifying to hear him scolding her and her family as if they were children who had just made a mess. Which was not too far from the truth. She hated the way he treated them, but she understood that he was worried because they might get hurt or worse if that stray was really slightly stronger or had hidden abilities they didn't know about.

Well, she didn't realize it, Izumi told her (although she's not sure if she was just trying to cheer her up or not), who apparently got chewed up pretty good after trying to use her quirk recklessly and breaking her arms when she thought she had figured out how to use it.

So, it's pretty sure he was worried and he was yelling at them so hard for that, but he didn't know how to show it. He's probably a tsundere, maybe type B. It would be incredibly cute in that case.

However, tonight she would inevitably do something that would destroy any remaining confidence in her. It was obvious that she could not convince him with power, status, and money, so she would try to seduce him.

She had learned a thing or two from Akeno through her private evenings with the queen. She is her best friend, alongside her rival Sona, and they have shared many things together. She is a romantic person, and the fact that as a child she was told stories that ended with a happy ending in most cases had only fueled her desire to find the sweetheart who would see her only as 'Rias,' not 'the Gremory heir' or a trophy wife. That didn't mean she wasn't interested in sex, and her raven-haired friend was only too happy to help her satisfy her curiosity, since she can't apparently do that with anyone equipped with a penis. She could not even use a dildo, since her parents wanted her vagina to remain immaculate for that shitty wedding! She is a devil with needs too!

Apparently they monitor her to the point that if she tries to insert it Grayfia comes so fast that she can't even get the tip in, for Satan's sake!

It was fortunate that she was bisexual. Akeno wasn't particularly interested in girls and certainly couldn't ask such a thing of Koneko-she was too shy for things like that-but the queen loved S&M games, so she was able to blow off steam. Most of the time...

However, with the fact that Raiden was extremely annoyed, so regardless of how much she dressed in sexy clothes and tried to instigate him, she would not have succeeded if he was not in the mood. However, her time was tightening too quickly, as that bastard Riser wanted to get his hands on her, Akeno and Koneko as soon as possible, so...she would resort to deplorable methods that would involve him regardless of his will.

That's why she had sent everyone home. She didn't want anyone to see her doing anything that could potentially ruin Raiden's life. She was disgusted herself as it is, and she didn't want to see the betrayed look on Izumi's face in case she walked in and saw that her crush was taking her. She hadn't told Akeno what she was going to do either. She probably would have offered to take her place to try to convince him, but she didn't want her friend to do something she would regret later, although to help her she would gladly give herself to Raiden as often as the descendant of demon slayers would like.

She didn't even want to think about 'using' their friendship like that.

That is why she had put a powerful aphrodisiac in his iced tea to persuade him to take her virginity, hoping that this damn contract would be broken and Riser would not desire something 'used' by someone else. She had also put much lighter ones in the perfume diffusers, to try to get him gradually aroused and not alarm him, hoping he would think she was the one making him feel this way.

Those aphrodisiacs would have aroused him to the point that he could not control himself with a devil of the opposite sex nearby.

It would be humiliating, she could as well lose the trust of her brother, Grayfia, Millicas, probably her peerage, and surely Raiden would hate her for it, but she won't allow Raiser to get his hands on her loved ones. Nor did she care if her parents would disinherit her for ruining the pact, losing their trust or face drugging a human to avoid marriage.

She no longer cared; she was already beyond the point of no return thanks to them.

Yet her hands would not stop shaking with anticipation.

She didn't mind killing stray, fallen devils or exiled exorcists-she had done it many times before-but this was the first time she would backstab a person who was actively helping a member of her peerage for her own personal gain. Her stomach turned just thinking about it, but it was necessary...right?

"...what the hell am I doing?" she sighed wearily, unable to calm down because of the guilt that was eroding her even before she actually performed the act. Then she heard a knock "Come in."

She sees Raiden still in a suit and tie entering the club room, whose usual expression looked more tired and annoyed than usual, which only becomes worse seeing how she is dressed on the couch in front of the coffee table.

He caught her immediately, huh? Not that the whole theater she had put on left much room for misunderstanding.

I just couldn't stop my eyebrow from twitching. It was obvious that Rias would try to recruit me even though she knew the trouble it would cause, again, but was she so desperate to turn to seduction so quickly?

She wore a very low-cut white blouse, to the point that in addition to giving me a view of her incredible breasts, it left out a hint of her red lace bra. On top she had on a black jacket, a very short black skirt that does not even reach mid-thigh, leaving Rias' long legs well exposed, covered by black stockings held up by garters.

Even the room had been slightly adjusted to whatever his plan was for tonight. The light in the club room is soft, very intimate, and there is a strange scent in the air, very sweet. Roses perhaps? I didn't really know about flowers.

On the coffee table is a teapot, with two cups of tea, ready to be filled.

"Good evening Rai-kun, sorry to call you so late but...I really wanted to talk to you" whatever kind of problem was plaguing her before I arrived was quickly covered by the sensual look with which she was staring at me and the rather sultry words that came out at the end.

I really didn't have the patience for it.

"Funny, I would have gladly done without it" I huffily replied, sitting down on the couch across from her after closing the door. I didn't even wait for her to invite me to sit down, as I seriously needed to get some sleep over everything that had happened today.

Rias if she was bothered by the lack of manners did not show it, she kept that ambiguous, almost hungry look. Well, with words she couldn't, by showing off either, so will she try to convince me to join her with seduction? I expected her to hold out a little longer before trying such moves, so things are two: either she's too impatient; or something happened I didn't know that led her to be so hasty. Maybe Riser will show up soon?

"Would you like some tea?" she asks politely, keeping that sensual tone as if there is no problem.

Honestly, it gets on my nerves. As sexy as she might be dressed like that or it was tempting to at least let loose tonight...it just doesn't feel right knowing she was doing it because of Riser. She's probably up to something as a last-ditch effort not to resort to a raiting game she knows she'll lose, so that means I have to be seriously careful about anything she can use to screw me over and force me to do what she wants.

After all, despite her kindness and love for the family, she tried to take advantage of Issei's unawareness and perversion to get out of the marriage, not realizing that she could really get her pawn into trouble since in the eyes of society, he was 'only' a newly reincarnated devil to begin with. He was not much more important than a pebble on the road or something. Who knew of the repercussions her actions would have? Knowing Riser from that volume, he could very well have demanded Issei's head, given his attitude (along with the fact that he would have had no problem killing Rias's entire peerage before and during the raiting game to force her to marry him), and with the media mess that Rias's rescue had in the underworld, Zeoticus, no matter how much a Gremory considered their servants to be part of the family, would at that point have given Rias in marriage to the Phoenix depriving her of her heir status, having Millicas take over instead; or he could have pleased Riser, ended the marriage business and moved on.

After all, as head of the family, he had to think about the consequences of the heir's actions and the future. Antagonizing a pillar like the Phoenix was not an option for them, especially not one as influential in the market as they were, considering how long a devil can live.

"No, but thanks anyway. I'm a coffee guy, that thing is like poison to me" I immediately and remorselessly decline the offer, causing her to frown.

"Are you sure? I'm good in the kitchen, and wouldn't it be a good thing to try new things?" she asks, lowering herself more than necessary to fill the cups, giving me a better view of her cleavage.

I wish I could say I was indifferent, but I would be lying. Rias is a beautiful girl, she would make even straight girls doubt their sexual orientation. Honestly, I don't regret taking a good look at that milky skin without spots and blemishes, that practically perfect face, and that crimson hair. She also smells good. I could smell it from where because of the enhanced senses.

I don't think anyone can really blame me for that, can they? Definitely not.

Yes, I am partial to albino or red haired girls, although, in general, black is still my favorite color.

"Oh, trust me, I know even too much for my taste about tea leaves and its preparation" I reply without batting an eye, though not without feeling a certain degree of annoyance at her insistence "My grandmother was a rather open-minded person, yet they also liked certain traditions, such as the tea ceremony, so I was forced to drink that...swill, at least once a week" I admit disgustedly toward the end.

She looks at me, a little surprised at my admission. And honestly, so am I. What the fuck has gotten into me?

'Why did I say that? We're not close enough to talk about my private life, besides...am I wrong, or is this room slightly warmer than when I came in?' I blinked, confused by my own remark. The radiators were not on. Maybe I imagined that.

"How about you try this and give me your opinion? Akeno likes certain traditions, too, and in the end it's something I've picked up, too" she asks again, getting up to bring her cup closer to me, again, bending over too much to give me another view of her cleavage, and making sure to sit back down by bouncing her breasts slightly in a rather piquant and seemingly innocent way.

And that sex-

"Okay, what game are you playing Gremory?" I ask, definitely impatient now.

I wasn't imagining things; I was feeling hot because my body temperature rose as my blood pressure rose. The fact that I was having an erection certainly didn't help prove the innocence of the redhead in front of me. Especially not after a performance that made me want to-.

"I don't know what you're referring to" she replied quietly, although I could tell she was starting to get nervous, judging by the way her muscles had stiffened.

"First you tried to buy me, then you tried to impress me, and now you tried to seduce me...I decided to gloss over the subject so as not to make things awkward for Izumi, but I'm really starting to lose patience with your constant attempts to recruit me" I say, as irritation was becoming more and more evident on my face "What do you want from me specifically?"

Of course I knew about her problem, but Rias did not know that I knew about Riser, so, but I am beginning to believe that even here something has changed given her desperate attempts at recruitment. In DxD despite knowing that Issei had possessed sacred gear for over a year she waited until his death to revive him, yet with me she is trying everything she can to convince me to be reincarnated despite knowing that there would be political repercussions for the devils, and I did not even have sacred gear or quirk that could actually be useful to her against Riser. She had also been severely admonished and warned even by Nezu. I want to force her to talk, even though her account will be heavily biased at this point, but I need to know what is wrong, otherwise she will continue to bust my balls and won't stop until she leaves to train for the raiting game.

In addition, there is also Izumi that worries me. If they lose to Raiser they will be forced to return to the underworld and at that point the canon of DxD will go to hell without sekiryuutei in the human world, not to mention Mha, if even the situation down there is different from what I remember...

I really think I have to help her at least train. And maybe she will give me her virginity.

Completely oblivious to my thoughts, Rias's mask begins to crumble as I think about what to do, and my eye twitches realizing that she must have done something to me as I walked in. Was it the perfume in the room? Had she mixed something into the perfume to turn me on and distract me? If so, why? Or did it have something to do with magic? Did she put some spell with aphrodisiac-like effects? Or perhaps she made me slightly tipsy to reduce concentration? At this point I wouldn't even be surprised if it was mild mind control to get me to do what she wants.

When in doubt, I slowed my breathing to prevent whatever I might have inhaled from circulating faster than it was already doing. I also covered myself with a light layer of Touki to prevent any outside influences from continuing to affect me.

"...I...I have an event coming up, and I need all the help I can get before then..." she finally relents and spills the beans "I've been put in an uncomfortable position by my family...in an arranged marriage with a pig I wouldn't wish on anyone, but since he just won't leave me alone, according to the contract that my family and the Phoenix-" she pauses as she looks at me.

"I know broadly how the devils' society works, what pillars are left after the Great War and the Civil War, as well as the major political alignments" I reassure her, continuing to watch her waiting for her to continue.

The major political forces are the new government on one side and Zakram Bael on the other. The Bael clan used to be the most influential one because Zekram was Lucifer's right-hand man, and after the civil war it remained so because he supported the revolutionaries. 'Officially' it was the most influential, but Zekram is the one pulling the strings, the current clan leader, Sairarorg's father was just a facade put on display who on the surface looked great but in reality had no voice over the clan who 'commands' if Zakram opens his mouth.

There would also be the old Maou faction, but after losing the civil war all those who were part of it have lost influence and live in the most isolated corners of the underworld.

Turning to the pillars, before there was a hierarchy to be respected, but now the devils were simply too weak and few in number compared to before, so no one cares anymore. Now it has become just a matter of power and influence. Prominent among the remaining pillars are: Gremory, Sitri, Astaroth, Glasya-Labalos because they spawned the current i Maou; but also the Phoenix because of the phoenix tears, who became more and more important over time.

Healing abilities are rare in both supernatural and quirk, and even more so are those that can heal others, especially those that can restore you to perfect or near perfect health. There is usually a drawback, like draining the stamina that limits healing or after-effects. Devils can heal with their demonic power if they are very close to the patient (or whoever is equipped with it, like succubi and Incubus mostly which are the most touted for healing abilities), while those who can use senjutsu can manipulate the target's life force to make it heal, but there are limits to that and they can't perform miracles like saving those with one foot in the grave. The only two that can do this and are known to the public are Asia's Twilight Healing (which in Balance Breaker can even undo any kind of damage) and Phoenix's Phoenix Tears, which is why they are so infamous (and expensive in the case of tears).

There are limits to those two as well of course. The Twilight is a unique sacred gear and there can only be one bearer at a time; while the tears cannot cure all state alterations, especially if they are more powerful than the Phoenix tear (although this is my speculation, born out of the fact that when he was at Gremory Manor Vali was not given one to remove Samael's poison and had to wait for Son Wukong to extract it for him). From what I have heard, only the high class family that rules the pillar can create Phoenix tear, because they have the more pronounced phoenix traits than the others.

An arranged marriage would greatly benefit the Gremorys, who have the power of destruction thanks to Venelana, and could get their hands on the regeneration of the Phoenix, while the Phoenixes would have a lot of positive publicity and political clout for joining Lucifer's family, as well as having a chance themselves to get their hands on that clan trait. Breaking the contract would benefit neither side.

"Well, then, according to the contract I have a chance to challenge Riser to a raiting game, a sort of duel between us devils, to win my freedom...but I don't have enough power to face him" she admits bitterly at the end, "He has a full set of servants, while I still lack a rook, a bishop, and a knight. Well, we can say both bannermen, since the only one I have is sealed because I can't control it, while Izumi can't use either her quirk or her sacred gear well."

"So you came to me" I state, receiving a nod, "You do realize how ridiculously naive it is to hope that I can make a difference for now, right? Realistically speaking, for now I still can't use senjutsu and all the related branches well, so even with touki I'm only a little faster than Kiba. I'm not good with magic, I don't have a quirk or sacred gear-"

"You still have your armor!" she immediately interrupted me, with desperation seeping from her voice.

"Yes, but it's only a prototype," I remind her "And unless you have an engineer or a blacksmith who can give me quick lessons on supernatural metals and how to work them, I'll have to learn how to use them myself and it will take me time. Not to mention the funds needed to build one..."

"Exactly how much are we talking about...?" she asks hesitantly.

"Will your family give at least a dozen billion yen to help you break up the marriage?" I ask with a raised eyebrow, but I didn't need a verbal response, I only needed to see how she was whitening to realize it.

Considering the exchange rate of the euro to yen should be 0.0071, I spent something around 70-75 million on the Astrey alone, which should be about 10,612,706,947.79 yen. I only have 1,415,027.59 Yen left, I can't build another one unless I do other work for my clients, and even then I worked for years before I could afford to build something that expensive. For the Gremory's it's not an excessive expense considering that it's one of the richest clans in the underworld, but it's also not pocket change that they throw around like it's nothing.

So, considering that Riser's flames could break the scales of Issei's armor, the Astrey will not last if I get hit, even with the Nanolaminate Armor. At least, I'm not sure. I really don't know how hot they are, but it's not too much of a gamble that I can withstand that kind of temperature just to do a favor for a girl I technically just met, no matter how hot she is. Burning alive is not in my plans for the foreseeable future.

"...so you're not going to help me" she concludes after a few moments of silence, her spirits decidedly low.

"I didn't say that" I impassively point out to her, barely resisting the urge to roll my eyes at how much Rias can be sometimes.

"You said you won't become my servant, so what would you like to do?" she asks confused.

"I said I would be of no help to you, but have you by any chance forgotten my profession?" I ask without blinking "I have studied quirk for years, and sacred gear in some ways behaves in similar ways. I can help you train and build support items to help you against him, evil genius."

She blinks like an owl, ignoring the sarcasm at the end.

"This...would help, but I don't think we'll have much time to prepare" she admits with a grimace "Riser is pushing with the wedding, so I'm pretty much under water."

"Is there anything in that damn piece of paper that can stall you?" I ask with a sigh, mentally preparing myself for the sleepless nights ahead.

"No. I've reread and reread it I don't know how many times, but there are no loopholes, so I came to the human world to stall for time and try to recruit people with potential, but..."

"You didn't find anyone suitable to deal with it" I conclude with a grimace, before moving on to the next question, "So what did you do in the meantime to prepare?"

"I ..." she started to answer, but then looked away "We've been training, a little ..."

"Gremory" I call it, hoping that here was a divergence from the canon "Train how?"

"..." I looked at her dumbfounded at the lack of response.

"Are you kidding me?" I ask almost wordlessly "Are you seriously telling me that you wasted years when you could have been preparing to be a schoolgirl?!"

"S-sorry, but I just didn't know where to start! I had tutors for that at home!"

Rias's pitiful excuse only made me feel worse, and I couldn't resist running a hand over my face. Obviously the trait of ojou-sama ineptitude had to appear when it was least needed.

I almost forgot that she was basically a spoiled princess. How the fuck did I forget that? -Because of those big- NOT NOW!

"Just so I know, did you have a plan B in case it all went to shit?" I ask, with still a torch of hope in me that somehow had not yet died.

"...the contract says I must remain a virgin until marriage, so..."

That torch was just crushed by a freaking Iceberg.

"I...don't even know how to comment on this..." I say, somehow suppressing the instinct that was screaming at me to pull my hair out.

"Look, it wasn't pleasant for me either okay! I have needs too, I couldn't even use a damn dildo because somehow Grayfia appeared as soon as it entered my..." she froze, blushing as she realized what she was about to say.

'Tonight I'll probably get the mother of all hangovers as soon as I get home' [though not in the way I expected] I think to myself, mentally drained from the crappy night I've had "So, any other things I need to know about this contract?"

She seemed hesitant, definitely mortified, but after a few moments she decided to speak.

"I...have to remain a virgin, but nothing happens when I do it with Akeno, and she puts some juggling in my a-"

"On the contract, NOT on your sex life!" specific, not wanting to think about other things rather-if she's open to a threesome? - indeed!

"N-no..." she says, before crying to herself about the last speck of her dignity that had gone down the drain.

Screw it, in this heat I'm sweating too much and thirsty as hell. I stare at the cup of tea, reluctantly and with burning hatred, before picking up the cup full of the disgusting stuff and swallowing the herbal liquid along with the nausea that was trying to rise again. Although I had more than a few moments of hesitation in doing so.

Rias noticed it late and did not make it in time to warn me.

"No, the aphrodisiac-!"

I spit it out, but I had already drunk three quarters of it...

"-why?!" I croak, feeling the unbearably sweet taste in my mouth and my body heating up to the point that it felt like it was going up in flames, my head getting lighter with each passing moment.

"E-it was the contingency plan, I didn't think-"

"Then use it at the end next time, not right away!" I hiss at her as my anger evaporates.

She looks...too beautiful to stay angry. Her perfume feels inviting. And she dressed like that just for me, so...