Chapter 4 - Strange Occurrences

( Play Fly to High - Younha, before reading for maximum effect, and fun )

"HE DID WHAT?!" Rias exclaimed, shooting onto her feet and slamming her palms on her desk.

Issei nodded, his hand gestures went wild as he continued telling the crimson-haired heiress about the event he witnessed earlier in the day, "He took him out in a single hit. Really, I'm not lying Buchou, even the pretty boy was there and saw the whole thing,"

Akeno looked at the blonde swordsman, "Is our newest member exaggerating, Kiba-kun,"

"No," Kiba confirmed, shaking his head, "Dan Mori did indeed knock down Keita with a sudden counter-attack by using the elbow to strike the lower Solar Plexus,"

"It was completely out of the blue too," Issei vigorously explained, "He was just being pummeled into oblivion for 40 minutes when he suddenly just moved and Keita went flying. He was so fast too, if Mori didn't freeze in place afterward, I'd never have known what had happened!"

"...You're just a perverted starting pawn, of course you couldn't see his movements," Koneko bluntly said as she snacked on a packet of prawn chips.

"Hey! That was mean!" Issei whipped his body around to face the petite rook.

"...But the truth,"

As Koneko and Issei got into a verbal battle. The other three members of the peerage ignored it, and Rias slumped back into her chair in a thinking pose, crossing one leg over the other while holding up her chin with her hand.

"I see your suspicions were correct, Buchou," Akeno stood by her side, "It seems that Dan Mori, is indeed hiding something,"

Rias remained quiet for a minute, her mind playing out many different types of scenarios regarding the azure-haired boy's identity. Her Queen and Knight remained silent as she racked her brain for potential answers. The only audible noises were Koneko and Issei still bickering on the other side of the Clubroom.

"Unless he has an unknown Sacred Gear," Rias finally spoke, "Then the chances of him being a human dwindles into single-digits,"

"Then it looks like even Mori doesn't know about his...ability," said Kiba.

"What do you mean?"

"After he knocked down Keita, he started freaking out and wouldn't stop apologizing," Kiba explained, "He even poured a bucket of cold water over his head to try to wake him up,"

"Or, it could've been an act as he accidentally used his power in the eyes of the public," Akeno suggested.

"Both are possibilities," Rias bit her lip as she leaned back on her chair, "I need both of you to keep observing him. But be even more discrete from now on, who knows if he's already realized what we are,"

"Yes, Buchou," The Queen and Knight replied simultaneously while dipping their heads.

Mori tiredly peeked through his eyelids, he was back in his room and the "Keita Incident" was already a thing of the past.

Sunlight seeped in through the closed curtains, and the boy didn't know how long he had slept. He looked around for his phone to check the time and found it lying next to his mattress on the timber floor. Mori went grab it but found one slight problem, he couldn't. He was wrapped and constricted by his quilt, trapping his limbs tightly in place and only his head was allowed the freedom of movement.

"Oh, come on," Mori mumbled as he wiggled around, trying to free himself from his extremely comfortable confinement-cocoon.

He attempted to lunge forward to grab the modern communication device with his teeth, instead, he missed, bounced off his mattress, and rolled across the room, smashing into the wall on the other side. The action had inadvertently made the quilt around him tighten even more.

Mori then tried slithering back to his mattress, only for him to smack his face against the hard wooden flooring every time he lurched forward. When he looked back to see his progress, he hadn't even moved more than three feet.

"...It looked so much easier in the documentaries… How do snakes do it? It's so haaard~," He sighed helplessly, as his tears comically flowed down his cheeks.

He shook his head vigorously to rid the thoughts, and a new spark of determination ignited within him. Mori curled his body up with his backside in the air, then released the tension to fully extend forward, and slowly but surely, he inched towards his mattress. It made him look like an overgrown caterpillar crawling across his bedroom but, at least it worked.

Finally, as he neared his desired location, Mori was able to tear one arm out from the cozy cocoon, and reached out for his phone.

"Yess," he cheered when he felt the cold touch of the device's screen. However, due to one arm being out, the balance, along with the weight of his quilt wrapping was shifted, and it rolled away, taking Mori, who still had his phone in hand, with it.

"...Oh no," Mori's world was spinning, but the more he tried to regain control of the quilt, the more violent the rolling became. If only there was someone else in the same predicament as him, in the same room as him, so they could play some human Beyblades.

After smacking into every single inch of his four bedroom walls. Mori and his quilt of death veered off course and started rolling for his dresser. When the blue-haired boy was standing, the wooden structure wasn't that tall, but when he was on the floor being viciously dragged by a three-layered fiber-blanket, it seemed like a towering skyscraper. Mori could only let out a weak laugh as he helplessly crashed into it. Letting out an-

"Eep,"

As he watched the dresser rock slightly before coming down on top of his cocooned self.

"Haaah~, That is the last time I watch Insect Documentaries after 9 PM," Mori trudged down the quiet path to the academy, with both hands holding the straps of his backpack.

His light-red hoodie made a return, while the gray track-pants and orange sneakers remained. The normal giant, green rucksack was replaced by a regular-sized, black backpack as it wasn't a workday. Oddly enough, Mori decided to equip the eye-mask once more since he found it rather comfortable, and to an extent, soothing.

"Sounds rough," said Issei in a near-identical tired tone, the two met up a little way back on a bridge over a road, and seeing that they were headed to the same destination, they decided to walk together.

"At least you didn't have to debate Dragon Ball with a super-otaku for four hours, then deal with an Olympic bodybuilder who doesn't know his...its? ...Gender…" Issei's mind wandered back to his first contracts as a newly revived Devil.

"Hey, what'd you get for Question 37 in Chapter 7?" Issei asked, changing the subject so he wouldn't get flashbacks from the incidents of last night.

"X=1263.9735...I think," Mori replied, who was now walking normally again.

"What?! That means either one of us is correct, or we both messed up,"

"Whaddya mean? What'd you get?" Mori raised an eyebrow. Surely Issei couldn't get this one wrong, they did the same formula over and over for two weeks straight. The azure-haired boy had checked his answers at the back of the textbook and found all of them to be right.

"I got X=3943.62,"

"How'd you get it so high?"

"How'd you get it so low?"

"Cause you're supposed to square-root the Y and then divide the cubed number by the amount of the total radius. Once you finish you have to place it on the G5 and E7.7 interception point on the axis,"

Issei's face paled as he heard his friend's thorough explanation, "W-Wait what?"

"Yeah, then you multiply the answer for that with all the flat surfaces of the icosahedron, and you'll end up with X = 1263.9735,"

"What the heck?!... I didn't think he was that smart?" Issei thought as he was at a loss for words. "Aahhhh….I definitely got it wrong,"

"I didn't know you paid that much attention in class," the brown-haired teen told him.

"Not exactly, I only focus on the necessities. When the teacher goes on his rambles I just draw in my book," Mori admitted, clasping his hands together behind his neck, "But then again I can remember the formulas rather easily, it's kinda like a...monkey see, monkey do kinda thing,"

When Issei opened his mouth to reply, a sudden, high-pitched cry cut him off and caught the attention of the two boys.

"HUUWAAAAA~!"

"Hmm?"

"What was that?"

Both males looked in the direction of the sound. Lying prone on the ground with her arms spread wide was a girl around their age with long, silky, golden hair that seemed to glow under the light of the sun. She wore a teal and white church robe and a veil of the same colors over her head. Beside her on the ground, was a large leather suitcase that looked like it was made two decades ago.

Mori and Issei quickly jogged over to the downed girl and the brown-haired teen's face morphed into a lecherous expression as they neared her. The back of her robe had flipped up enough for her white panties to become visible. The girl slowly pushed her upper body off the ground while rubbing her elbows to soothe the pain. Issei shook off his perversion as he went up to extend a hand.

"A-Are you okay?" he asked as the girl looked up at him. Her shiny, emerald orbs stared directly into his dark-brown eyes. Then with a cute smile and nod, she took his hand, allowing Issei to help her up. Mori, on the other hand, picked up her suitcase from the ground and walked over.

"Haau...Why do I keep tripping over...Oh, I'm sorry, thank you very much," her voice was soft but at the same time youthful.

The early-morning wind suddenly picked up and the girl's veil is sent flying off her head, she made an attempt to hold it still but failed. Instead, it soared directly into Mori's face.

"Aggh!" Was the only noise he made. 'Why is my face getting punished today? What did it ever do wrong?'

Instead of helping his friend, Issei couldn't take his eyes off of the girl whose appearance took his breath away and bright pink dusted his cheeks. Her long, straight hair fluttered with the wind and seemed to even sparkle. Her beautiful, innocent, green eyes along with her cute small face, gazed up at Issei.

…

Mori removed the veil from his face but didn't return it as he was trying to read the atmosphere. 'Why is he just staring at her? …Should I say something?' he mentally scratched his head.

…

"...U-Um, is there... something wrong?" the girl asked with a worried expression.

Issei snapped out of his trance, "Ah… S-Sorry about that...um,"

"I can't tell a stranger I'm already attracted to her, that'll be creepy. But… She looks exactly like my ideal girl! I feel like I gotta keep talking to her, like in all those dating sims I played,"

"...S-So...Are you traveling?" said Issei with a light, awkward chuckle.

"N-No, not exactly. I was appointed to the Church in this town," she replied.

"Here, these are yours aren't they?" At last, Mori stepped forward to return the girl's items.

"Ah, Yes, thank you very much," she bowed at Mori after retrieving her suitcase and veil. The azure-haired boy simply smiled waved a 'No Problem'.

"You two must be residents here, it's a pleasure to meet you," the blonde girl said as she bowed politely once again.

"Is it just me, or is her accent a bit...pronounced?" Mori whispered in Issei's ear. Before he could give him an answer, the blonde straightened up and continued to speak.

"I've been in trouble since I got here. Umm, I can't speak Japanese that well...I was lost and people couldn't understand what I was saying…" she nervously revealed.

"...What'd she say?" Mori whispered again, "She's a foreigner right?"

"Shh, you're a foreigner too," Issei nudged Mori with his elbow before turning back to the girl and gave her a friendly grin, "Well, I can understand you just fine,"

Unknown to the blue-haired boy, this happened to be one of the perks of being a devil. The ability to understand and communicate at a native level with any language in the world.

"Anyway, I think I know where the Church is," said Issei as he brought an index finger to his chin in a thinking pose.

"Y-You do?! T-Thank you~, this is all thanks to God," the girl beamed.

"It's still a bit early to go to school, s-so if you want...I, uh, I can take you the-," Issei looked away bashfully as he gave the blonde his offer to accompany her, but it seemed someone else beat him to it.

"You see, if you go straight down this road, turn right at the second street down from the oak tree with orange leaves, you'll go down a smaller side street and appear at a small crossing, from there you have to cross the bridge and head towards the intersection…,"

Issei whipped his head around. He sweatdropped and deadpanned at what he saw.

Mori was already doing his best to explain the directions. He had his phone pulled out with [MAPS] on his screen, as he tried to give the girl directions using a mixture of body movements, hand gestures, finger points, and sprinkles of every language he could think of. The girl was nodding and also tried to communicate to the best of her ability. The two of them couldn't quite understand each other very well...but it seemed like it was working and she got the gist of the directions

The brown-haired teen couldn't watch any longer and he wouldn't allow the Mori to embarrass both of them further, so he pulled him away by the back-collar while walking in the direction of the Church. He looked back at the girl.

"Come on, we have some time to kill so we'll take you there,"

"That's wonderful, thank you both so much~," she chirped as she followed the duo.

As they traveled, they passed by a small park designed as a play area for elementary and early junior-high children. Issei gazed at the plastic and wooden structures with a tinge of nostalgia on his face. Mori strolled behind the duo with his hands in his pockets, and his head was slightly tilted to the soft-blue sky as he daydreamed about fruit.

"UWAAAAAAH~!" A sudden high-pitched cry, for the second time in a day, shattered Mori's thoughts on creating hybrid peaches.

The group looked in the direction of the noise and saw a young boy who was sitting down, bawling his eyes out from a simple scraped knee.

"You think he tripped over?" Issei asked.

"Eh, he'll be fine," replied Mori with a shrug.

The moment the blonde saw the boy on the ground, she ran towards the child and crouched down by his side. Issei ran with her leaving Mori no choice but to follow behind at his own pace. The blue-haired teen watched as the girl gently patted the boy's head with an almost motherly expression on her face, as she said something to him that Mori still couldn't exactly understand.

The next moment Mori's eyes grew wide as an orb of green light cloaked the girl's hands and over the child's scrape. When he looked closer, he noticed that the injury was being healed by the light, and soon there wasn't a single trace of it, not even a speck of dirt. However, Mori had a strange feeling that this wasn't the most out-of-world thing he had ever seen, so he decided to not speak out about it.

He continued to watch as the little boy quickly thanked the blonde and ran off. Issei turned to the girl and started another short conversation again, Mori decided not to contribute to their discussion as he didn't have the language skills required, and simply lagged behind the duo on the route to the only church in Kuoh.

'Maybe I should start paying more attention during English class,' He thought to himself.

Soon, the building they were searching for came into view. Its spike-roof towers poked out of the treeline on a hill a little ways away from the path. Suddenly the brown-haired teen froze in his tracks, and sweat started to emit from his nape. Mori noticed the subtle twitching coming from his friend.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine," Issei gulped and tried to still himself, stuffing his nervous, rigid fingers into his pockets.

"Yes~! This is the place, I'm so glad," The girl chirped as she clasped her hands together in front of her chest, she was unaware of Issei's current condition.

"W-Well then, me and my buddy will be on our way now," Issei quickly bowed goodbye and spun around on his heels. Even though Mori couldn't understand what he was saying to the girl, he could still somewhat read the situation and turned to join his friend's retreat.

"Please wait!" the girl's words stopped both teens in their tracks, "I-I would like to make you some tea as gratitude for taking me here,"

"Oh, I'm in a rush, we have an exam today so we really need to get going," Issei gave a hasty excuse as the chill running down his spine started to become stronger.

"...But that's…" A troubled look appeared on her face.

Issei took notice of her expression and after a whispering sigh, he turned to face the blonde once more, "My name is Hyoudou Issei. My friends just call me Issei, so you can too if you want. What's your name?"

"My name is Asia," she happily replied with a smile, "Asia Argento,"

The brown-haired teen then nudged Mori, who was watching a pair of butterflies fluttering by a tree. The dark-eyed boy spun around.

"Good morning, I'm Dan Mori," he hoped that was what he had to say, he heard Issei saying his full name so he assumed that they were introducing themselves.

"Well, until we meet again, Asia," Issei waved as he began his trek to the Academy, with Mori mimicking his gesture and walking beside him.

"Yes Issei-san, I'll definitely come and see you," Asia chirped as she politely bowed a farewell before waving at the two friends until they disappeared from her sight.

As the duo passed rows of buildings and street lamps, silently hiking in the direction of Kuoh Academy, Mori decided to break the ice.

"She seemed like a nice person,"

"She is,"

"I never knew you could speak...that you were so international,"

"Haha, maybe it's from watching too much...have paid subscription TV,"

"But it's weird isn't it?" Mori suddenly asked.

"Hmm? What's weird?" Issei raised an eyebrow.

"The church she's going to, I've heard that it's been abandoned for nearly a full decade now," said Mori, the gates to the Academy started to appear in the distance, "Don't you think it's a bit weird for foreigners to be interested in it?"

"...Well," Issei started to go through different excuses he could give to Mori, so he wouldn't accidentally reveal the existence of the supernatural to him, "Maybe they've invested in its reconstruction...or something,"

"That's plausible, at least," Mori agreed, however, his mind flashback to when Asia healed the child's minor injury, 'What was that green light coming out her palms? ...I slept for 9 and a half hours last night so it shouldn't be a hallucination due to a lack of sleep… or, maybe since Issei and that kid didn't react to it too much, it's probably a normal thing in this world and I just...forgot,'

The duo started to approach the gates. Issei took off first to the Old School Building, telling Mori that his Club had a morning meeting he had to go to, which left the azure-haired boy walking by himself. It was also around that time that Mori couldn't shake off the feeling that he was being watched, by more than a hundred pairs of eyes.

He decided to ignore it, but as he walked through the gates, the feeling felt like a giant boulder dropping on his shoulders.

'Are they all looking at me?'

His eyes quickly flickered around, and just as he thought, several of his fellow students around him were trying to subtly glance at him.

'...Do I look weird today? Is it the eye-mask?'

Meanwhile, his ears picked up the many whispers from the students.

"That's him right?" a first-year boy asked his brother.

"Yeah,"

"Hey, over there," a third-year girl murmured to her friend.

"Hm? Oh my gosh~! It's him~," her friend quietly gushed.

"Where's his giant backpack?"

"Probably didn't bring it. I heard he doesn't work on Fridays and weekends,"

Mori started to pick up the pace, he was only halfway through the courtyard when an arm suddenly clasped around his neck.

"Who's this?!" a second-year boy, who looked a little familiar to Mori exclaimed as he ruffled his messy blue hair, "ISN'T THIS THE HERO, DAN MORI, FROM OUR LITTLE QUAINT CLASS 2-A?!"

A crowd quickly gathered around them from all the noise being made, and because they had heard Mori's name being yelled out. The enthusiastic banter of his new fans rang out through the courtyard and didn't pause for a moment as more and more students gathered around.

"That was awesome yesterday!"

"Bro I felt that elbow through the screen!"

"I didn't know you were that strong,"

"I've never seen Keita's little squad freaking out before! I was so impressed!"

"They used to bully anyone and got away with it but you sure showed them!"

"We don't have to walk around scared anymore!"

"I'm gonna work out starting this afternoon because of you!"

"We'll buy you lunch today!"

"You've seriously given us tons of hope!"

"Dan Mori, I respect you a lot now,"

"Moriii~ Come to karaoke with us after school, kay~,"

"Mori-kun, If you come with us, we'll treat you to dinner and dessert~"

The azure-haired boy couldn't see an end to this crazed attention anytime soon as he was being squished into the center of a giant human-penguin huddle. His "fight" from the day before had been recorded on numerous phones, and the tale of the "Exchange Student Unleashing his Hidden Power" spread like wildfire. The incident had rocketed his position at the bottom of Kuoh's unwritten ranking, all the way into the Top Ten, although he was still known as The Errand Runner. But there were some people, the more passionate of fans, started to create a second title for him, The Secret Fighter, Dan Mori.

The rest of the day was rather normal, or as normal as it gets for a new school idol. Mori didn't mind the attention he got, he honestly enjoyed it for the most part, even if he tried his best to keep the feeling hidden, though there were a few times where he let it the mask slip. Mori also had a group of students from each year level, following him the entire day, and surprisingly the gender ratio was perfectly balanced. Issei, although visibly jealous, was still happy for his friend and joked that he now had a fan-club. Well, it sounded like a joke to Mori, but it could've just been an observation.

He just hoped that his newfound popularity wouldn't affect his errand work too much. Sure, his "fan-club" did treat him to everything throughout the day, saving him some money in the process. This treatment could even last a while, but he still needed money for his life outside of school, the boy lived by himself after all and he had rent to pay among other things. At least he didn't need to go to gym class for a while anymore, he could try to make more money then.

The automated sliding doors of a convenience store opened and closed. Mori stepped out with a plastic bag filled with two bottles of milk, both flavored and normal, a couple of packets of instant ramen, and some pudding. His azure hair fluttered gently with the whistling of the night's wind, as he looked up at the full moon and the brightest stars in the sky. He had a recently unwrapped lollipop in his mouth, watermelon-flavored because Mori thought that the other flavors tasted too artificial and only the watermelon ones remained reasonably fruity, and as he used his tongue to fiddle with the lollipop, Mori took another glance at the darkened sky, before throwing on the hood of his light-red hoodie, and beginning his peaceful stroll back to his apartment.

Unbeknownst to him, he was being watched by a tall figure leaning against a lamp-post within the shadows.

Mori let out a loud yawn while walking down the empty road with his items in one hand, and his phone in the other. Kuoh wasn't a city, but it wasn't a countryside town either, it was more like a middle-tier town that was slowly transforming into a small city of sorts, due to this, aside from the busy Central Districts, the town was rather quiet at this time of day, and only the occasional cicada choir could be heard.

Mori's eyes flicked up to the top left of the screen.

'21:45...That means 9:45… At my current pace, I'll arrive home at ten, and if I sleep at 10:30, I should technically wake up before 8:30 tomorrow morning… It's a Saturday tomorrow anyway so it shouldn't matter if I sleep in a bit,'

Releasing another yawn, he turned a corner and continued down the path. He passed the front and main entrance of Kuoh's main park, instinctually, his head turned to look into it and could see the large fountain a little ways away, its never-ending water spout was illuminated by the ring of street-lamps around it, which gave it a nice sparkle that was visible from any distance.

Mori stopped and stared at the fountain. With his mind and body driven by curiosity, he started to make his way towards the water mechanism, and only the rhythmic echo of his steps accompanied him.

He stopped in front of the fountain and stared up at the tip for a few seconds. The soothing noise of the artificial waterfalls reached his ears, a couple of fireflies floated around nearby, and the serenity of the park became more imminent to him. Mori had started to like this park when he was hospitalized, it was the only place the doctors allowed him to go outside of the hospital, under supervision of course. There was just something about the forested areas with trees that bore fruit, and plants that grew flowers, that made him feel at home. At the time, he thought being here would spark his lost memories to return, but unfortunately, the only thing he received was waves of nostalgia and nothing else.

As much as he wanted to enjoy the nocturnal scenery, being so close to the fountain only caused recent memories to come flying forward, memories of the weird dream he had a few days ago about the girl with black wings and Issei dying. A part of Mori was still convinced that everything seemed too real to be just a dream, even if there was no visual evidence. There was also that weird coincidence that Issei had an almost identical dream, although Mori had read somewhere that two people having identical dreams were rare but did occur, the blue-haired boy still found it suspicious, it was almost...supernatural.

"It seems Raynare didn't do her job properly," a deep voice echoed around the fountain.

A startled Mori whipped around and his head darted in every direction, searching for where the mysterious voice came from.

"She told us that there was a witness whom she killed, a boy with hair the color of the midday sky, but it looks to me that she was too hasty to finish her mission and didn't confirm the kill… As a result, both of her victims are still breathing, one as a weak devil and the other as a...human...no," the voice growled the last word as he struggled to read Mori's aura, only to find out that there was none.

From the shadows of the trees, out walked a tall man wearing a dark-gray trenchcoat and fedora.

"...What are you?" he demanded while glaring at Mori with his dark purple eyes from under his hat.

Mori took two careful steps back, he didn't know what the strange man was talking about. Who was this Raynare? Who did she kill? What does he mean Devil? Then a dim lightbulb popped into his head.

"...Oh, I get it," He chuckled, albeit nervously, "W-Where are the cameras? You got me, I was honestly freaked out, and kinda still am… You guys can come out now,"

"You're supposed to be dead. You were hit through the chest. There was no one to revive you, so how do you still live? ...I'll ask one more time," the man ignored his words and slowly stalked towards Mori, "Who and what are you?"

Mori started to back up, "W-Wow mister, your acting is really great, the director should give you a bonus or something...um, speaking of the director, is he here? Can he call this off? I think this gameshow has gotten a little out of hand…"

Suddenly he felt the hard surface and shallow crevices of a tree trunk hit his back, he looked to his sides and saw that he was already off the pavement and on the edge of the forested section.

"It always ends up with me doing the cleaning up," the man hissed.

"Look I really need to get home now, if you tell me the name of this program I'll watch it and recommend it to my friends, so can you-?"

Without warning, a pair of black-feathered wings exploded out from the man's back. Mori's dark eyes stretched to the limit as his mouth parted a little from the shock. He tried to shuffle back but the tree was blocking his retreat, and the boy froze.

"T-T-T-T-That's...T-Those are…," a shaky armed was raised as he tried to point at the man's extra appendages. The memory of the girl with the same wings replayed over and over again in his mind.

Taking advantage of the boy's stunned state, the man held his hand out in front and a blue glow started to emit from his hand as the light quickly took shape and solidified into a spear. Once again, memories from his strange dream flashed past as he recalled a similar-looking object, being generated the exact same way, impaling his brown-haired friend.

"W-W-Wait...W-What's going-" he began but was abruptly cut off by the older man raising the spear above his head and launching at him.

"Die,"

Due to the short distance between them, the light projectile came speeding towards his head faster than a bullet. Mori wet into a panicked state as it neared, and ducked just in time for the spear to pierce through the tree behind him.

The man raised an eyebrow, "What?"

But Mori wasn't there to entertain him, he scrambled away on all fours as fast as he could. But that didn't stop the man launching another two spears into the ground in front of him to stop his escape. Mori fell onto his backside in surprise, he looked back and saw another pair of blue spears coming towards him.

That was when it happened again, just like the day before, everything around him started to go into slow-motion, the spears were still flying towards him rather quickly but they had slowed down by half the initial speed. Mori took this chance to dive out of the way and rolled across the ground as everything went back to normal.

"Tch, annoying little bug," the man spat, and without giving Mori a chance to stand, he shot forward with a larger than normal light spear in hand, his plan was if long-range attacks didn't work, then melee should.

As soon as he was close enough, he thrust the weapon forward, only for Mori to dodge it at the last minute by bending back a full ninety-degrees. The action caused the fallen angel to continue forward due to the momentum, a baffled expression glued on his face. But he wasn't the only one so surprised, Mori was also as equally confused and shocked from what he just did.

"Was I always that flexible?" He muttered to himself while looking down at his palms.

At the same time, the fallen angel twisted his body around used his wings to brake and turn around, hovering in place. With another annoyed roar, he charged again.

Mori didn't know if it was luck or instinct that allowed him to nimbly duck and tilt his body just in time to avoid the fallen angel's rage-filled stabbing barrage. Whatever it was, he was sure thankful for it. Suddenly, the fallen changed his attack pattern and instead of a stab, he pivoted his grip, grabbing hold of the spear, like a battleax.

"RRAAH!" he yelled as he swung it around in a circle, the light weapon cut through the air creating a loud, distinct, swooshing sound.

However, like all attacks from before, it was a failed attempt. As soon as his eyes caught the change in the fallen angel's stance, Mori swung his arms up, towards and behind his head, using the momentum of the action to jump back to perform a back-handspring to escape. His movements were fluid but sharp as he performed several more handsprings to create some distance between him and the attacker. If there was a normal person standing on the side watching his movements, they would most likely think that the blue-haired boy was an Olympic gymnast that trained for more than a decade.

After landing his last handspring, he staggered slightly as he tried to regain his balance, and the same shocked look had not disappeared, in fact, he looked even more confused.

"H-H-How did I do that?" said Mori, slightly shaken up.

To his surprise, the attacker didn't make a move, instead, he just stood there glaring at him. Then, the fallen angel spun the spear once before dispersing it. There was a few seconds of silence between them before the fallen spread his wings to the maximum reach, and launched himself into the air.

"We didn't consider someone like this in the plan...I must go and warn the others," he said to himself as he soared into the clouds and disappearing within the fluffy, dark-gray, blanket of water vapor, "Raynare, what type of creature have you dragged into our business?"

Meanwhile, on the ground, Mori stared up at the sky.

"What the heck just happened?" he whispered, then looked back down at his hands, "...How did I...? Everything slowed down, it was like they were allowing me to dodge...it happened yesterday too…"

His stunned expression quickly morphed into one of terror as he started to shake slightly, and as a response, slid his hands around his flank to hug himself.

"...W-What's happening to me?"

Freaked out, Mori turned on his heels and ran to grab his dropped groceries by the tree. Without wasting another second, the horrified boy sprinted home.

Mori fumbled with his keys as he unlocked the door to his apartment, and slammed it shut, locking it straight after. He didn't even unpack his groceries and instead threw them directly into the fridge. Mori dashed into his room, he didn't even bother to close the curtains of the window, allowing the moonlight to illuminate his room. The azure-haired boy curled up into a ball in the darkest corner of the bedroom, he considered taking a shower first, as it did cross his mind but it was pushed back by the swarm of other thoughts. He slowly brought in his legs and wrapped his arms around them, while burying his face behind his knees.

'What's going on?... Why is this happening to me?... How can I do all that? ...I don't know what's happening to me... I wanna know...'

Mori could feel his tears running down his cheeks as light hiccups echoed in his bedroom. For the first time since waking up in the hospital, he genuinely felt fear and helplessness. He wanted answers to the strange things occurring with him recently, and he was sure that almost all of it was locked up somewhere in his mind, he just couldn't access it. The boy had never let the memory-loss bother him too much, even the doctors admitted that he took the news of amnesia better than all of their patients, and because of a theory his caretaker in the hospital once told him about, Mori thought that if he just lived normally, his memories would slowly, but surely return to him, and if that didn't work out, he was rather optimistic about starting anew.

But right now, for the first time since his awakening, all he wanted, more than anything else in the world, was for his memories to come back.

"...I don't like this… I want it to stop," he whimpered while silently sobbing, "I want everything to go back to normal...the way it used to be,"

Mori's eyelids started to grow heavy and he struggled to keep himself awake. He could feel the temporary darkness overtaking him, and his mind was shutting off for the day, but he unconsciously murmured one last thing.

"...W-What...am I? ...I'm scared...Grandpa...I'm...scared...," He slumped onto his side, and soon light snores filled the room.

( Play WIN - CIX )

Thus ends Chapter 4. I will be honest, I didn't know how to progress this chapter for a whole week, so if the pacing feels a bit weird then please forgive me. I'll try to go back to normal pacing next chap and beyond.

Also, for now, the chapters will be around 6-7000 words, but as the story moves on it'll probably be bumped up to 9-10,000. (Mostly because fights alone might take up like 3-5000 words).

Regarding my update schedule… To be honest, it doesn't exist, a solid one anyway. I update when I feel like the chapter is finished and there's not much more I want to add to it, then edit it at least once when I'm done. Then there's also life and writer's block which does conflict with the schedule, but I'll try to update around three times a month… No promises though.

And one last thing before getting to reviews, for now, this story will remain in the T rating. But if one day it suddenly disappears from the default page, then simply change the rating to All and it should be there. Because that means I've changed the rating to M.

Now onto reviews:

KingAllen - Yes, but not in the near future.

ImNotAWeeb64101 - The no killing policy will still be here….for now.

Fallen into Despair - As you can see, I have not. :D

adislt - And I appreciate you reading this even though you don't read GOH. Hope you'll stick around for a bit longer.

Gen2324 - It actually was based on their first meeting, Chp3 had two references to the early days of GoH, the first was that one, and the second is when he gets beat up for a while, which is based on the failed acupuncture moment. As for why his reputation, it's mostly because of racism, which I didn't make too apparent… But they like him now, kinda. (Honestly, I just put him at the bottom initially because I didn't want to pull the old, crossover OP character is automatically popular with everyone cliche).

Baycon - Thank you for your praise, and I think I've mentioned somewhere before that if Mori gets a harem, it'll be really small, a maximum of 5.

Guest - Enlightenment… I honestly don't have an answer for that. Enlightened Supreme God Jin Mori sounds crazily broken.

Luke (Guest) - Thanks, hope you stick around. The chapter is somewhere within 303-305 I think.

KingJGamer - I won't lie, Ahan was in the original plan, but I scrapped it because Mori being a "criminal" doesn't exist in this world.

Now, regarding Yeoui and its whereabouts (because some people were asking about it). I'll just say that Yeoui plays a BIG part in this story, but, it is not with Mori right now.

Anyway! That's all for Chapter 4. Once again hope you enjoyed it, leave a review, and all that good stuff. PM me if you desperately want to know some of my plans for this.

Thank You For Reading, and Goodbye!