"Speaking"

Doing

Thinking

Other

QUICK NOTE – ALL LINES ARE IN ENGLISH, BAR A FEW LINES THAT NADIA WILL TRANSLATE.

A quick glance reveals little about a man, much less a woman like Nadia Kranjic. Nadia was not that old, at just about 35. With a slender, athletic build, a sweet look with long, brown braided hair, glasses that existed only for cosmetic reason and a temper of a lion, she'd been hired as a teacher. Her school, Kuoh Academy was a rather elite school in Japan. It was really posh and upmarket, and apparently used to be an all-girls school. Not that Nadia cared, of course. See, at least here she was a foreigner that could be safe just by standing out. For someone just as fortunate as her to even be alive, this job as a rather average teacher was her blessing. It was also her curse.

What had happened was rather simply explained as abnormal. Upon the end of her day at work, she had been walking through the town park and assuming that she was not being followed on her way from the school to the crappy little studio apartment she had. She owned it, for one part due to a dislike of rent and also because she never really found anything she could afford closer to her work.

All of a sudden, from behind, she felt a sharp pain and saw a beam of light exiting her body. Unbeknownst to her, the fallen angel Raynare, who had been disguised as one of her students had stabbed her in the back with a spear of light. The pain of it was more intense than a gunshot. Leave it to Nadia to know what that was like, of course. Gunshots felt like heat and pressure then pain. Not a gunshot… I feel I'm slipping away… Please, God. Help me… I don't want to die here…

Little did she know that her call had been answered. Not by God, though. But by forces which would bring her to her calling in life. Unconsciousness, or is it death? One of the two took her as a conversation happened in the background. As her body lay there, another of her students, Rias Gremory stepped into the picture. Well, not quite stepped but appeared.

"You won't die today, miss Kranjic."

Morning came when the alarm clock went off inside Nadia's apartment. After yawning, she turned to her right in order to turn off her alarm clock. What a weird dream, time to… bright red ha… WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING WITH MY STUDENT IN MY BED?!

As soon as she noticed who was in the bed with her, she sat upright and noticed two things. First, all their clothes were neatly folded and on the small table she had. And second, both of them were completely nude.

A cough from Nadia woke Rias up, who faced her history teacher with a rather passive smile compared to Nadia's bewildered face. Nadia knew Rias was beautiful, but she was a student and the two should not have.

"Good morning, miss Kranjic." Rias said, after sitting up.

"Rias, why were we in the bed and naked? If my boss hears about it, I'll get fired and Rossweisse will get confused! This is th-" Nadia started saying.

"For a start, I healed you, we didn't have sex. Second, the headmaster is largely decorative. It is the House of Sitri that helps the House of Gremory to keep in line the school." Rias replied.

"Healed? Also, Sitri, as in the head of the student council? She's a good student but needs to loosen up on occasion." Nadia questioned.

"I will let her know. As for you and your case, well. You, Nadia Kranjic are no longer human. You are a devil, under my peerage." Rias said with a serious look.

The next thirty minutes were awkwardly spent with Rias getting dressed and not being flustered, but Nadia heading into her tiny bathroom to do so. The whole devils, angels and fallen angels thing was explained to her, apparently she was murdered because a fallen angel got confused because she looked similar to a person who held a sacred gear thing. This perplexed her, as to her knowledge she'd fled as an orphan from her homeland – or, rather, what remained of it – with nothing on her whatsoever save for her personal documents. The notion that she would have had this but didn't soothed a slight fault in her psyche.

"Rias, you said healed… does that mean my leg is healed too?" Nadia asked. This healing thing, if it was as Rias said then her leg would be fixed.

"Yes. But it puzzles me as to why you asked." Rias replied.

"Back when I was 6. I got shot in the leg and taken in by a photographer who adopted me and moved me from home to Japan." Nadia replied. "I have no biological family left. None, all killed. You said that a peerage is like a family, and I want it to be right."

Rias had never learned of Nadia's past before. It was something that was never asked. But what exactly had happened was something she did not want to find out.

"Miss Kranjic, I'm sorry for your loss…" Rias said, in response.

"Sorry is all anyone ever says to me, and it sucks. And please, save calling me that until we're in class." Nadia replied as she looked at the time. "Fuck. We're gonna be late."

Rias, who by that time was fully dressed, grabbed Nadia and held her inside a summoning circle, which took the pair direct to the room of the Occult Research Club. "This is something we devils can do."

"I see. So, what is Rossweisse? Is she?" Nadia asked.

"Is she what? One of us? Yes. She's one of my Rooks, alongside Koneko." Rias replied. Nadia burst into laughter. Rossweisse AND Koneko? Surely not. "What's so funny?"

"The drunkard and the one I buy fried chicken for sometimes. Both are yours?"

"Like I said, yes. Akeno and Kiba make up the rest of my peerage, being my Queen and Knight respectively." Rias replied.

"I get it. Is there anything you need me to know about?" Nadia inquired, seemingly distant and somewhat upset.

"Well, apart from my arranged marriage, nothing currently." Rias replied in earnest. See, she was stuck in this arranged marriage but did not want to marry such a lecherous playboy as Riser Phenex.

"If you have no choice, let me try something. I can't end it for you, but I've seen enough to teach whoever it is a lesson." Nadia said, bluntly. To put it simply, she was going to torture this man. Devil or not, she didn't care. Riser was problematic and she needed to deal with him. "I'll be right in assuming he has a queen, too. Contact her, bring her to me."

"Nadia, his queen won't betray him." Rias replied.

"This isn't going to be betrayal. This is more or less corrective adjustments I have planned. How many are in his peerage?" asked Nadia.

"Fifteen. Including his younger sister, Ravel." She replied.

"Fifteen women? What is he, a whore?" replied Nadia.

"He flirts and believes he's the best."

With all of this, she had a cunning plan coming to mind inside her twisted little mind. But to do this would be risky. It could harm her, but there was no other way in her mind to do this.

"Tell me, Rias… are there any angels you personally know of that would do us a small favour? Also, holy water – as long as it's in something, can we devils hold it?" Nadia inquired.

"Nadia, no. I don't know what you're thinking but the answer is no. Riser Phenex is his name. Holy water dampens his regenerative abilities and if he's doused in it, he loses his immortality." Rias replied with a sort of panic.

"All I'm offering is to make him scared of you is all." Nadia replied nonchalantly. "I can make Riser's Riser go to a bad place. If you can make even a moderate communist into a genocidal madman, surely making a horny devil ditch his arranged marriage is a piece of cake. Who even arranged it?"

Rias blushed slightly and turned her head. "That would be my father, the Lord Gremory."

"Sounds like an asshole." Nadia replied.

"He's your boss. I wouldn't say that in front of him."

Nadia was incensed and began towards the office of Zeoticus Gremory in a huff. "Oh yeah? Just watch me."

Once she had reached the office of Zeoticus Gremory, and started pounding loudly on his door, all Nadia could hear were feminine steps on the other side. She was unaware of who opened the door, it being a lady with brownish hair that looked vaguely like Rias. This was Venelana Gremory, but she was not here for introductions. Rather, she was here on a mission to fix… this. The fourth person in the room was Riser Phenex, but she didn't know that.

"Ms. Kranjic, now is not the time for you to be here." Zeoticus said, with all three who were previously in the room sensing that somehow she was a devil born of Rias's pawns.

"End the crap. I want you to call off her engagement." Nadia said, prompting Riser to speak angrily.

"No way, Rias is going to be mine and lower devils like you should not interfere." Riser teased, causing Nadia to give him a cold and irritated stare.

"Shut the fuck up, whore." She said, before returning to confront Zeoticus. Venelana was watching this unfold, as she was not strictly necessary in the conversation.

"As for you, I want you to break it off. Pride in yourself doesn't matter, it's clear she really doesn't want this." She continued. "Ona će izabrati svoju ljubav. She will choose her own love."

Zeoticus pondered, before Riser cockily stepped up with a response. "Yeah well at least she'll become part of making a more pure family."

Nadia was beyond enraged by that line. How dare he say that about himself and Rias!

"Purity? Fucking purity? Listen here," She yelled at Riser, before kicking his knees out into a kneel and pulling his hair back. "I've heard that shit before, and I never want to fucking hear it again. Pure families, a pure people… that's what I heard as a girl back home, back in Bosnia. One day, you're playing with your best friend, the next, she and her brothers are beating you up because you're mixed ethnicity and therefore are scum of the earth and below trash. Give me one good reason not to go all out and hurt you, fucking rabid manslut. You're lucky. All of you fucking are. I came home once to a corpse, because they killed my mother and taken my father and brothers to be shot elsewhere all because of who they were, and my mother for who she loved. Be glad that if you let Rias go and choose for herself then she can still be fucking willing and able to talk to you. Because if you don't, she can choose to not have a thing to do with you. Coward Phenex."

Silene came to the room as all of them, including Rias, who had chased Nadia to stop her and had overheard the statement as she arrived were stunned silent. Riser was stunned as she had shouted this all out whilst humiliating him. Venelana wanted to hug her out of sympathy. Rias had the second-most stunned look on her face, once she realized the awful truth about what her teacher and her pawn had been through.

Perhaps the most stunned out of them all was Zeoticus, as whilst he knew that Nadia was from Bosnia and ethnically mixed, he had not checked more fully. But Nadia did have a point. He doted on Rias, and to think that his negotiation to have Rias marry Riser for family strength might alienate her into hating him was a condemnation of what he assumed to be right for their houses.

"I see…" Zeoticus began, breaking the silence. "Nadia, firstly, release Riser. Secondly, please take a seat. Riser, you are dismissed. I am voiding the engagement."

Nadia let go of Riser's hair and sat down, realizing the gravity of what she'd just revealed. Rias took the seat next to her, whilst Venelana stood behind the desk by her husband. Riser slowly exited the room as Nadia put her head in her arms as she recalled her very painful past.

"Ms. Kranjic, where in Bosnia are you from?" Venelana asked, sympathetically.

"Do you want a specific answer?" grumbled Nadia.

"If you'd like to." Venelana said back.

"A little village, about 25 kilometers or so from the border." Nadia replied. "I won't say the name of it. I refuse, in this situation. What happened there is a true tragedy. I will only say it in class because I want to talk about it in time in an honest way, no holding back any facts."

All three of the Gremory family in the room understood exactly what and where she was talking about and didn't press it further. Zeoticus in particular found a much greater understanding in what he knew now of the World History teacher. He couldn't imagine losing any of his family or harem to anything, much less to losing them to war or hatred like Nadia had. This was getting too dark, so with a smile he decided to change the subject.

"Right, enough of that. My Rias, how is she in class?" He asked.

Nadia, who was relieved in the change of subject calmed down and straightened up. "Generally alright, Mr. Gremory. Always on time, good grades. Her only fault really is that she got scared when I talked about Lawrence of Arabia. I mentioned why camels are the only choice in the region and she was jittery in class when I said I could probably get some camel meat."

Zeoticus nodded and smiled. "Rias has never liked camels. How much is it?"

All this sudden camel talk was too much for Rias, who left the room and went off to class. All of Nadia's classes tended to be in the afternoon anyway, so she was in no particular rush.

"Camel? It depends. It's either as a single meal or in 3 kilogram lots. I'm not going to spend 60,000 yen plus taxes and shipping on 9 kilograms of camel for class." Nadia replied. "At least I do a reasonable job in class. Never let her rook Rossweisse get involved with someone that makes alcohol, she'd run a 60,000 yen tab up fairly quickly if given the chance."

Zeoticus chuckled as both he and Nadia remembered the end-of-year party that he held, where, by the end of the night she was blackout drunk and awoke to find Rossweisse enjoying herself with a bottle of champagne. He had held back on his drinking, as Venelana did not approve of it and making Venelana pissed off would be the equivalent of calling a drill sergeant a miserable cunt in terms of punishment delivered after the act.

Here's DxYugo, chapter 1. Hope you enjoy.