All right, deep breath and calm down. Screaming isn't going to help anybody. Break it down, what do I know?

First, I'm a baby. As near as I can figure only a few hours, at most days, old. I know this because I'm still in the hospital, currently being cradled by a woman who's very asleep and looking extremely tired anyway.

Second, based on this I'm apparently in a piece of fanfiction. Hopefully written by some alternate version of myself, otherwise this is probably going to get really uncomfortable.

Who am I kidding, it's going to be 'uncomfortable' at the very best anyway. Also, hello SB! I'd flip you all off on general principal (I'm absolutely positive that I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for everything I've read there, or here, what ever) but in spite of my clear thinking I still have a newborn's motor control. Now I'm going to do my absolute best to forget all about you so as to avoid an existential crisis.

Third, judging by the second, and the two impossibly beautiful women with improbably large breasts standing outside the room, talking about how the maternity ward had come up clear of Sacred Gears in the newborns, I was in High School DxD.

High School FUCKING DxD.

Land of impossibly overpowered bullshite and slavery, thinly excused as being okay because the person taking away your free will is a cute girl. I have opinions as it turns out.

The only upside to being a baby that I've found so far is that when I have a minor panic attack, I'm actually physically incapable of giving myself away. If I were a year or two older when I figured this out there's no way I would have been able to avoid giving myself away to what I'm pretty sure are two fallen angels right outside the hospital room door.

I think, anyway. I was never really into anime, and High School DxD hit pretty much all my hate buttons. So everything I know about it comes from fanfiction. Dubious at best. But as I recall, Azriel, or Azazel, or whatever the jackass in charge of the Grigori's name was, was the one who was really obsessed with sacred gears. Hardly mattered anyway.

Fourth, I am completely screwed. I'm human, and as the nice fallen angels just informed me, I have no sacred gear. Which means unless I've been reborn into some sort of spiritualist family I'm fodder. Chaff. Somebody who will die early just to show how powerful and serious the bad guys are.

So like I said, as things stand, completely screwed.

Fuck. That.

I'm starting over from scratch, the very beginning, with the mind of someone much older, and all the motivation in the world to do something about it.

So again, break it down. What are my goals? Given that I doubt I'll be able to avoid the plot entirely, that's just not what happens to people in my situation, I need to prepare to deal with it. Although I don't know much about DxD, never watched it myself and only knew what I could glean from second hand accounts and fanfiction. That said, I have a pretty clear idea of the main plot points, and who the major players are, up till the big peace conference. Which I don't think is actually much of what's going on. I'm not sure the major villain had even shown up by then.

So given that I don't really have much of an advantage from future knowledge, I can make one decision that immediately makes me feel much better. Fuck the plot. I am going to take as much advantage of what I know as quickly as possible and set loose all the butterflies I possibly can.

So... right, goals.

One, get powerful. I need some form of power to not just get run over. Making the top ten with Lucifer and Ophis might not be possible, especially since I'm starting with no advantages, but god damn if I'm not going to try for it anyway. I'm in a world filled with magic, if I don't at least try to squeeze everything I can out of it, I will never forgive myself.

Two, get skilled. All the power in the world won't matter if I can't use it worth a damn. More than just mystical skill, I'm going to need physical skill. I have no desire to be a glass cannon, which means I need to still be dangerous up close. In my past life I had wandered through a few martial arts. Aikido, boxing, krav maga, brazilian jiu jitsu, muay tai, escrima, kenjitsu, and HEMA, were all things I'd tried in my life. I'd never gotten very far into any of them, but I'd had solid basics in all of them.

Not that it means much now, as I'm sure that given my inability to even flop effectively, any muscle memory I'd had is long gone. On the other hand, I still remember all of it fairly clearly, so I can probably shortcut some training. On the other, other hand, what I really need is practical fighting ability, not sports fighting. That may be harder to find, but if it came down to it I could get at least a little bit of experience by getting mugged regularly.

Three, get tough. Eventually I'm going to get hit. By a gun, a light spear, or some rook's fist. No matter what it is, I'll die immediately if I don't do something about it. More than that, injury is also inevitable, and as a squishy human, injuries will never really go away. Every time I get hurt will add up and speed along the inevitable failure of my body. So I need as much damage reduction and regeneration as I can manage. Otherwise, I just won't have the time for the first two goals. And if I can manage a form of immortality out of all of this... well I'll be trying for that too.

Four, get allies. From what I recall, most of everything we learn about this world is about the Biblical factions. None of which I particularly like. The devils, if I pull any of the above off even a little bit, will never stop harassing me to join one peerage or another. Which is never going to happen, so just a lot of aggravation for everybody involved. The fallen angels, from what little I could tell, were both arrogant in the extreme, and almost universally more than a little mentally unstable. Not the sort of people anybody with any sense wants to spend a lot of time around. Lastly the Angels, and/or the church. I'm not a huge fan of organized religion in general and... well I'd make a terrible Christian, let's just leave it at that.

I think that the only group mentioned in canon that isn't biblical are the Yokai. They... actually I don't know much about them. Only that they were a diverse bunch, led by a nine tailed fox who is hooked straight into ley lines running under Tokyo, and she had a single kid who was most likely absolutely adorable (I think she got kidnapped at some point?). So I'll put the Yokai solidly in the 'maybe' category. More information is needed.

But other than the Yokai, the world is pretty much a blank slate. I have no idea what's out there, but I'm going to have to find out. Hopefully they'll be friendly. Or at least not hostile.

Five, get out. Highschool DxD is the kind of world which, if I pull off anything like what I'm hoping for, I'll never be left alone. Some power hungry maniac will pretty much always be after me once I start attracting attention, which I can't avoid forever. Eventually one of them will get lucky. So getting to another world would be nice. Failing that, a pocket dimension I can hide in and control access to. At the very least I need a place where nobody will be able to get to me, but ideally I'll find a way to a safer universe.

And Six, the reason I don't think I can do this without attracting attention, and never being left alone. Why devils will be crawling all over each other to entice, or force, me into their peerages. Get all of this, without losing my humanity, my freedom, or my soul.

That's it. Six goals to survive this place. Get powerful, get skilled, get tough, get allies, get out, and get all of it without giving up anything essential. Easy right?

God, I'm so fucked. I have no idea how I'm going to do any of this.

I let out a squeaky yawn as all the thinking and stress begins to catch up to my newborn body. I feel sleep begin to take me and one last sleepy thought occurs to me. For now at least, I have plenty of time to figure it out.