Greetings, Salutations, and Welcome to all. I am KingdomOfAsh or Koa for short, and I have come to present my first story idea ever published [Blows Party Horn].
But in all due seriousness, this is the first story idea I've ever published on so public a forum so I am pretty nervous. I will give some bits of information in advance on this as pointed out in the story description this story will have a way more serious set of dark themes and tones like social class, discrimination, physical, mental, and emotional abuse, racism, sexism, the struggles of growing up, dysfunctional families, censorship and living under an oppressive government/system, and more in this story.
However, at the same time, I am going to try and make it so that those themes don't entirely drown out the story, and in some cases may have to skirt around them as I would rather not risk this story being labeled MA (as I already am labeling it as M just for safety) due to the content discussed.
I specifically will also say that some characters may act and appear out of character here and that is both a case of artistic license and my desire to portray a more serious version of the DxD world. In terms of story content, I am focusing on the DxD content up to Trihexa as that is the portion that I am most familiar with and enjoyed the most, but I may cherry-pick some material based on events after that point. I will also say that media outside, yet connected to DxD like SLASHDØG and Denpachi will likely be ignored or be used on a basis of cherry-picking material. I will also go out of my way to say that due to both wanting to portray the idea of a whole world filled with the supernatural rather than just focus on the three factions and the more serious tone I can and will play fast and loose with canon sometimes even weaving my own ideas and themes in as well.
This is all to say that things will be different, some characters may be portrayed more sympathetically and some may be viewed as more villainous than in the other media. I may not exactly love the direction that DxD took, but I love the concept and the setting, and I aim to run wild with both of them here.
Beyond such while the main character Ren aka Genderbent Rias who also is a reincarnation of a normal human (although they lack any awareness of their prior life other than things feeling off or wrong and their suspicions about such) is an OC and does will undoubtedly share some similarities with me, I would also say that they are not an SI, as I do aim to write them as their own person with different life experiences and choices from myself.
But beyond such, I also aim to tell a story about different people, from different places, all of which have been burned by the world somehow coming together and finding strength in each other, and through this strength finding their place in the world.
As usual, I own nothing. DxD, SLASHDØG, Denpachi, and their related characters and settings are the property Ichiei Ishibumi and his team and associates. Please support the official release and products.
But I think I have spoken for long enough now.
Draw the curtains and let the show begin.
The World is on Fire
The World is on fire.
It has been burning for a while now, but now it burns too bright.
Viscous flames tear at our skin, leaving us charred and broken inside.
Some claim to enjoy the heat, and others say that it's just life, but I just can't ignore the pain I feel inside.
While cruel men sit in great content, the noble writhe in pain.
Ashes build up on our skin and start to coat the floor.
All the while the masses walk by and just pretend to ignore.
Day by day we all become husks of cold dead ash inside.
Trying to fill the holes inside with anything we can.
All trying just to survive the world that is on fire.
Ren put down the pencil. It was a little rough perhaps, maybe the theming was a bit too overt, but as things go it was a decent start to his English assignment. Mr. Watanabe had started the term in full swing almost eager to get back into teaching what was in Ren's opinion quite possibly one of the worst languages ever devised by humanity. Let it never be said that being a devil or having access to [Allspeach] or [The Silver Tongue] as some younger devils called it nowadays managed to make learning how to write in different languages any easier. Sure [Allspeach] helped in understanding most languages, save nonverbal cues or language-specific jokes or phases which may not translate properly, but in those cases, a bit of deductive reasoning or mind-reading could fix those. Granted the ladder raised serious ethical and moral quandaries and was considered "socially inappropriate" in most settings devils cared about. It was almost funny how high-class devils reasoned about these sorts of things, rather than point out that in most cases a young high-class devil would be trained to guard their mind, thus any attempts to read it would either fail or result in someone being rather obviously in pain or discomfort from either being deflected or breaking through mental barriers (appreciation for subtler ways of bypassing mental defenses wasn't traditionally something most devils cared to learn), they used of all reasons the idea of it being "improper" as the reasoning for saying it was not allowed.
It was almost funny if it weren't so depressingly common. But, that was how high-class devils and their world largely worked, bizarre backward and/or evasive solutions and explanations to practical problems. Thus problems like [Allspeach] and translation spells not working as well as they may have used to or it not being compatible with some languages?
' Well, unfortunately, Ajuka is busy on other projects and the Technology department really doesn't have the time or money to spare on fixing the issue. So just wait a little while and we will get to it eventually. Also please feel free to go to our next Technology Expo and support us through donations whenever you can. '
Riser once relayed how Ruval complained to him, back when he was in line to be Lord Phenex, that between all the formalities, discussions, evaluations, and other frivolities the Pillars have in their meeting the only things they ever seem to actually get done is the absolute minimum to keep the underworld afloat and as it is.
' Progress in the underworld is like a train with bad wheels. Slow, lumbering, and inconsistent. '
In all honesty, Ruval likely was being a bit too polite about it, the only pace that seems to exist in the underworld takes is "glacial" and that pace crawled to nonexistent when the discussion was about actually trying to improve or matters involving self-reflection. If it weren't for the boom of the human world and the sheer practicality of some of their invention's sheer usefulness outweighing the pillar's pride, then Ren wondered if the whole underworld might still be stuck in the Medieval era.
A sparrow flew through the open window prompting the end of Ren's thought process. He briefly sighed setting his incomplete English work on the coffee table before gently shooing the wayward Passer back out of the clubhouse back towards the treeline. While nice to look at it would be more trouble than it would be worth to let it roam and risk making a nest indoors, if it got into the rafters or other rooms they may not find it until days or weeks later. Honestly, the "clubhouse" was too big for its own good in Ren's opinion. The building itself, once the original site of the Kuoh academy had been created back in the late 1970s and was massively oversized for what it was. When he wanted a space to operate out of and live in, he expected Sona and his family to maybe source somewhere small, a local apartment or two. He already had spent several years too many in one mansion, setting up shop in another was fairly far from his mind. Still, it wasn't all bad, after some cajoling and discussion he managed to convince Sona that:
1) He did not have any idea what to do with an entire mansion's worth of space with a "club" only truly holding two real members outside Sona's peerage.
2) The building still technically belonged to the school and thus it would be appropriate to allow others to use it.
3) That it was more efficient from a budgeting and logistic perspective to allot space in the building for all the other clubs as well.
and 4) And even if he did get more peerage members, of which he had no plans to actively do so, he would deal with the living arrangements at a later date.
It was at moments like that where Ren had to remind herself that even Sona, for as much as she shared some of his viewpoints had also grown up among high-class devils and consequently had inherited their grossly ostentatious idea of what was "acceptable." Still, at the least, she was willing to learn, and at minimum, she seemed to understand, better than his family, and better than most of his peers.
Ren's phone began to beep, breaking his reflection. Deftly unlocking it he shut off the alarm. Noelle was late. Not too late, not late enough to be at least, and none of the systems he put in place mutually with her indicated there was anything wrong. Still, the worry remained.
"No, stop that," Ren said. "Those thoughts led nowhere, Noelle is her own person, she has can't go through life with you holding her hand, it wouldn't be fair to her, and it wouldn't be fair to you. Don't pull a Sirzechs. She will be fine and if she isn't, then she'll call. Noelle promised and Noelle never breaks her word."
Repeating the mantra to himself Ren sighed before settling back in his chair. While his mantra may help remind him to give Noelle her space, it still didn't do much to calm his mind. He glanced at his work lying still on the coffee table, he hardly felt like finishing it now. Sona may bug him later about it and he was certain that more would be assigned by the other teachers, but in the grander scheme of things, it seemed insignificant compared to everything else. In many ways coming to Kuoh had been a blessing and a curse. On one hand, there were the problems regarding the school having been made Co-ed recently a decision his father ... Zeoticus he corrected himself, supported alongside Serafall. While he supported the idea in theory, in practice it resulted in a few too many boys who simply wanted to be around girls trying to join the school. Thankfully most either failed to get in or couldn't keep up and some either seemingly were more concerned with academics or knew well enough to not be public with their intentions. Even in spite of all that it still made matters awkward for Noelle, then there were the issues with some of her former classmates, and the academy's attitude towards the whole matter. Ren loved Kuoh, it was a nice enough city and it let him get away from all the excess and awkwardness around the Gremory estate, but Japan was hardly known for having progressive ideas about gender or being accomodating for those who either "make a fuss" or prove to inconvenience others.
Noelle had herself fallen into the trap of checking both boxes of things Japanese culture didn't like and combined with rampant sexism, hormones, and a lack of oversight or desire to acknowledge or publicize that problems do exist, the issue had grown out of proportion and left to fester until she couldn't take it. Thankfully Sona had always been the more reasonable head when it came to matters like this and after apologizing for his blow-up regarding the incident, saw fit to do some housecleaning around the academy. Minus three students and one homeroom teacher, and plus a new set of rules imposing systems like detention, suspension, expulsion, and specifically regarding the treatment of both students and Noelle by students and staff and the matter had essentially been resolved. The teachers may have grumbled Sona and his arguments stood. Noelle wasn't a liability or an inconvenience, she was a person, a person with needs, and while those needs may be different from some others that shouldn't mean those needs should be ignored or cause her to be singled out.
Still, Kuoh had felt like more of a home to him than the cold, lifeless halls of the Gremory manor ever was. The Gremory Family may be slightly less out of touch than other devil families, but in many ways, they were all the same. Their "house" felt more like it had been decorated by a machine than a human, with countless rooms kept so spotless and so perfect they seemed like they never had been touched at all, although Ren mused, aside from the maids that might be the truth with some of the rooms in the estate. Just as bad was the decor, if their section of the old schoolhouse was quaint yet homely filled with nice photographs, some paintings the two liked, flower vases, and well made, yet modest and homely furniture, then the Gremory estate was extravagant and bombastic. Paintings fitted in custom trimmed frames with gems set in them, custom made or very high-quality furniture picked from only the choicest and most exclusive stores, pieces of art collected or made by only the most skilled of hands, a garden attended by an entire team of 6 staff. The Gremory estate was the end product of generations of lords, ladies, and high-class devils vanity, and it was beautiful, yet it was also empty and dark. There was a cruelty in that beauty, a cruelty only began to reveal itself as one entered the estate, before settling in as you went through the double doors of the estate. The Gremory manner was almost like another dimension, a place where those within would never know or understand the struggle of low-class devils or the poor, a place where modesty, or rather the notion of anything less than the finest anything was as alien as the concept of an Angel sitting down for dinner with them.
Ren knew the darkness of the Gremory household, as soon as his mind started hinting that things felt wrong, as soon as he started pulling at the threads holding the lie together. Japan was no utopia, but to Ren, anything was better than the underworld. Thus, in spite of all the schoolwork that Ren felt got in the way of spending time with Sona he stayed. In spite of having to work to revamp the school itself with Sona to ensure Noelle and anyone else wouldn't be mistreated by the system again, he refused to go give up. In spite of the pestering from his family about any number of things he hardly cared about, Ren smiled. Because here, he was free, free of the hands of the madness of the 72 pillars, free of his brother, free of his family, and free to live life as he wished with his friends and real family and that made him happy. Happier than he had ever felt in the underworld at the least, happier than he'd been around family ever since he started to scratch away the gold veneer plastered over every aspect of the world which birthed him. The only thing missing was Noelle, who was now ... around 24 minutes late going by his phone.
Ren's mental debate over the idea of going to check on her was interrupted by the door. A petite girl scarcely even 4' 11 walked through, her waifish figure clad in a modified Kuoh academy uniform a black button-down jacket with white trim, the red knife-pleated skirt which went down to her knees (a uniform overhaul he and Sona could never have conceived would even be necessary to address when they first enrolled, but considering the original length they agreed both on finding and firing the fool who proposed skirts that short and insisting on the change) before trailing into a second red skirt which covered trailed down to just above her ankles. Her pale white skin contrasted with her blueish black hair kept in a loose bob cut with her bangs loosely framing her face with the rest being side swept to the right all of which served only to highlight her chocolatey brown eyes. A nervous, yet earnest smile met his eyes.
"I-I'm back." Noelle had arrived.
So a lot of talking in inner monologuing this part as in a lot of inner monologuing. Depending on feedback and/or my personal feelings, I may end up changing that to have more, but regardless if I do end up changing it, I will keep the original chapters and posting them in a separate story, just for the sake of anyone who enjoyed or wants to have them around. I apologize for that and I also apologize for the lack of action in this part, but I felt it was important to set up some things about Ren, mainly some details regarding his relations with his family, his thought process, and a lot of things in general. Next time I do have plans to at the minimum get the ball rolling with what I dub Arc 1 which I am tentatively calling A Madness Called Logic. That should get a bit more into detail about Ren in a larger context than just him musing to himself, provide a chance to see some familiar faces, and even have some combat in it. For reference, Ren basically looks like a shorter Lindo Tachibana (~ 5' 7) from Dance with Devils and Noelle looks a lot like an even shorter Hotaru Shiragiku from THE iDOLMASTER Cinderella Girls.
I appreciate any comments, critiques, or otherwise. Also, I currently lack a beta reader so I apologize for any grammatical issues.
Thanks for reading and until we meet again.
