Chapter 2

Most people would have probably been out for a long time after they are suddenly brought back from the dead, but Issei was awake almost as soon as he was set on the couch in the Occult Research Clubroom. The boy gasped awake, sitting upright and, holding his chest where he had been stabbed with his right hand. He looked around and saw that his friends and sister were lying down near him, holes in their shirts, but otherwise there was no sign of their murder.

He also noticed the rather noticeable foreign red-head standing almost right next to him saying, "Welcome back to the land of the living."

He looked at her bewildered for only a second, and then comprehension settled in, "I was dead."

She noticed it was a statement, "And I resurrected you."

His look turned into a calculating look that he had inherited from the entity sealed within his Sacred Gear, whether he realized it or not, "So, am I your servant now?"

Rias nodded, "Yes, but you are different from all the rest of my servants."

He raised an eyebrow at her, "How would I be different?"

She smirked slightly, "You are still human."

He suddenly heard a voice come from his right hand, "You wouldn't be able to turn inhuman with me here."

He faintly heard a male voice off to the side say something that sounded like, "Longinus."

Before he could say anything, the voice within his hand snorted, "Not quite, Kiba Yuuto. I am far more powerful than any mere Longinus."

Rias was about to start speaking when she got another urgent summons similar to the first one she had today from Issei. Her eyebrow went up as she shrugged and stepped back into the circle, leaving her friends behind to deal with the situation and explain everything to Issei.

-SFD-

Yuuki Asuna's eyes widened as she saw a red circle form next to her and the poisoned and downed Kirigya Kazuto. A stunning foreigner with long crimson hair and bat-like wings appeared in the center, and she face-palmed upon seeing the state the two people were in.

The red-head sighed, "I am assuming that your wish is for me to save him, and that you will give anything for that to happen?"

Asuna nodded, wide-eyed and with tears streaming from her eyes, and said, "Can you help him? Even though I have no idea how you got here."

Rias sighed again, "I am Rias Gremory, and you somehow managed to summon me. I can save him, but if I do so, he will no longer be human, and…"

Asuna cut her off, "Do it, and take me as well."

Rias summoned her four remaining pawns to her hand and asked, "Are you sure about this? There is no going back once you have decided to do this."

Asuna nodded her head as Kazuto surprisingly managed to get out a small, "Do it."

Rias nodded as a pair of her remaining pawns floated over Kazuto and settled on his chest, "You will now live your life for my sake, and I for yours. You will be my servant and I your master. Arise as a servant of house Gremory."

Asuna's eyes widened even further when a pair of jet-black bat-like wings shot from her beloved boyfriend's back and the color and life returned to him. He sat up holding his chest where the needle had entered him, and said, "That almost felt like reviving in game."

All Asuna could do in response to that was a very audible face palm, and Rias raised an eyebrow and then motioned for Asuna to step in front of her while holding the remaining pawns in front of her. Asuna did so and closed her eyes as a sign of trust; after having seen that Kazuto was okay, she figured that Rias wouldn't renege on her word and that she would be fine. The pawns entered her as Rias said the same thing for the third time in the same night, and bat-like wings shot from her back as well.

Kazuto instantly was nearly on top of her, checking to make sure that she was okay and checking out her wings at the same time. Asuna ended up back-handing her boyfriend with her right wing when she was about to attempt to tell him to stop. This sight caused Rias to giggle, and it assuaged any fears she might have had about them being able to fit in with the rest of her Peerage. The two of them heard her, and realizing she was still there, they instantly gave her the very formal Japanese bow and said together, "Thank you, Miss Gremory."

She smiled slightly and waved her hand in the air, "Please do not bow to me, and please call me Rias or Buchou."

Asuna raised an eyebrow and asked, "Buchou?"

Rias nodded, "Yes, I am the president of the occult research club at Kuoh Academy."

Kazuto blinked and tilted his head sideways, "Isn't that the very prestigious school that was all-female until fairly recently?"

Asuna gave him the start of a stink-eye, "And why are you looking at all-girl schools, Kirito?"

He started waving his hands around in the air wildly, "I'm not; my mom was interested in sending me there if they were finally finished with us at the government school."

Rias dismissed the Kirito thing as some form of nickname and her eyebrow went up, "Why would you be at a government school?"

Both of them winced slightly, and Kazuto slowly asked, "Have you ever heard of SAO?"

Rias nodded, confused, "A number of people from the various supernatural factions got stuck inside it, including a good friend of mine that I haven't seen since she got out."

Asuna's eyes widened, and she said, "You just got the top two players from SAO as your servants."

Rias' eyes widened in astonishment, "How? The entire supernatural community has their eyes on you then, and it should have taken more than a couple pawns each to turn you into devils like me."

Kazuto shrugged, "Mysteries of the universe?"

Rias sighed as she slid her hand down her face, "You got that right."

It was silent for a couple seconds, then Asuna asked, "What now?"

Rias shook her head and said, "I will bring you with me to meet the rest of my servants."

The two of them watched as she formed another magic circle underneath the them all, and they were suddenly away from the street where Kazuto had been stabbed with a drug-filled needle and inside an old Victorian style building with a bunch of other people, most of whom were just standing around looking gob smacked, except for the little girl who was hugging and crying into the leg of the boy who was probably her big-brother.

Rias raised an eyebrow, "What has been happening here?"

Akeno was the one to answer after they all looked around for a second, "According to the being sealed within Issei, we aren't devils."

Rias blinked and asked, "What?"

They all heard a slight snort, "There is a reason why I called you dark-kin instead of the name your kind are commonly known as in this world. All of you, including you so-called high-class 'devils' are in fact descended from humans who were altered by the combined efforts of this universes aspects of creation and destruction. These two beings are commonly called 'God' and 'Trihexa,' but their true names are Primus and Unicron, and they also were once human, but they were modified by their father through the use of very very very highly advanced science that gave them powers unimaginable to most humans, and that power came to be called magic, which you all inherited and wield without any understanding of what it is you control."

Rias stumbled over to her chair and sat down, completely forgetting to introduce Asuna and Kazuto, "Are you sure?"

They all heard a dry chuckle, "Considering I have one of them trapped within me, and I know the basis for all the rules he put in place, which he deeply regrets and is sorry for, I would say that I have the basis for being quite certain of my rightness. Oh look, it seems you have brought us two very powerful Heroic Spirit Candidates."

They all looked at Kazuto and Asuna in slight astonishment, cause the rest had gotten his Heroic Spirit spiel while Rias was gone, and before either could say anything, Rias asked, "What do you mean by Heroic Spirit Candidates?"

The voice seemed contemplate it for a second, "I told all but those two how a Heroic Spirit is formed, and these two happen to be very famous and are considered heroes of the highest caliber. The Servant versions of Kirito in particular are not someone you want to take lightly, his skills with a blade, and the sheer number of blades he possesses as a Heroic Spirit is second only to me and Gilgamesh, and that includes a version of Excalibur that can shatter any blade or defensive armament that is lesser in rank than it and a sword that warps reality to the user's wishes with a single swing. The classes that Asuna can be summoned under are only Saber, Caster, and Ruler with an unusually high agility stat for her class. The classes that Kirito can be summoned under include Saber, Caster, Berserker, Rider, Assassin, Ruler, Avenger, Saver, Gunner, and Beast."

Everyone was astonished at the sheer volume of Servant classes that Kazuto could be summoned under, and even though the other two couldn't fully understand what was being talked about, they understood that the sheer number of classes that Kirito could be summoned under was ridiculously enormous.

Rias basically exploded at this point, "Then how the heck was he only worth two pawns?"

They all heard the snort, "Because your evil piece system can only quantify magic potential and physical skill potential. His magic potential is completely undetectable because of his natural Element and Origin, so his skills with a sword and his quick reaction speed are the only thing factored into the reincarnation process, which should be more properly called a body-transmutation-soul-modification-and-rebinding process."

Imagine all of them with swirls in their eyes and you will understand that their minds had just been blown. Kazuto asked, "What are an Element and Origin?"

The voice almost seemed to smirk while talking, "A lot of this is highly theoretical so I will give you the dumbed-down version. An Origin is the idea upon which your life revolves around and is the reason for your existence, but it can be changed. Case in point, the dark-kin's Evil Piece system adds the origin of darkness to those that it changes, along with their natural origin, and all natural born devils, with only a few exceptions, have that origin naturally. It is that Origin that make it so their weakness is light, because it is the natural opposite to their existence, and because light dispels and does away with darkness, being stabbed with it, or in a place surrounded by a bounded field made from the runes for light, is a natural acid-like poison that weakens them and eats away at their bodies. An Element is the natural process of the world that you are most adept with. The example of this would be Rias, whose natural Element is both Destruction and Darkness, then again, her Origin is also Destruction and Darkness, making her an Incarnation of Destruction and Darkness, which is the same as her brother."

Rias scowled slightly, "Then why am I not as powerful as my brother?"

The voice sighed, "You actually have an equal amount of potential as your brother, but you have not one, but two seals placed upon your power. One was placed before you were born so that there wouldn't be a repeat of what happened with your brother when he was born and growing up, and the other is a self-made one that you imposed on yourself when you were much younger and accidentally destroyed your favorite doll in a temper tantrum. You have access to maybe about five-percent of your actual power by this world's standards, and the reason for that is because the seals have only gotten stronger with time, and you have only really been using the power granted to you by your Gremory Seal in combination with maybe about one percent of your actual power, combined with the fact that the Gremory Seal really isn't designed to channel the destructive energy of the Bael Family, you are using less than a half-a-percent of your full destructive potential."

All the eyes of those who had met her brother were instantly popping out of their sockets, and Kazuto asked for the sake of those not in the know, "What is so special about her brother?"

Akeno was the one who answered, "He is the ruler of Hell, the strongest devil to ever live, and among the ranks of the top ten most powerful beings in the world."

"And if he utilized his power in the same manner that I do mine then he would be able to go toe-to-toe with his ancestor's mindless and conscienceless body that is called Trihexa and come out on top with only minor injuries."

Rias and Akeno both looked like they were about to pass out at that bit of information, and Kiba asked, "Could you show us how to utilize our power that way?"

"I was planning on doing so anyways, and part of that is undoing the seal Rias' father placed on her power and giving Kirito and Asuna access to their servant powers."

Issei blinked, "How would that work? You told us that being a Heroic Spirit and a dark-kin at the same time is impossible, and that I am weak by the reckoning of Heroic Spirits. Why would it be any different for them?"

The voice contemplated for a second, "When you are a Heroic Spirit, your power comes from the legends about you. There is actually a Heroic Spirit version of you that is also a devil, but in this timeline you were already technically a Heroic Spirit because of my influence. You are a Heroic Spirit that has no legend, and in your case, if you were to be given and use the power of the Heroic Spirit version of you, his couple thousand years, super-dark-kin-dragon-hybrid, and MAJORLY PERVERTED existence would either completely overwrite yours or your body would disintegrate from trying to handle that much power, either way this version of you is effectively dead. In comparison, the feats that these two are most remembered for as Heroic Spirits have already been accomplished, and in their case, because they are already dark-kin, adding their power as Heroic Spirits would instead be beneficial to them. Part of being supernaturally enhanced is a greater level of body adaptability, their power as Heroic Spirits would complement their existence as dark-kin, and their 'new' bodies would be able to adapt to that kind of power almost instantaneously. As you were a Heroic Spirit first, anything that becomes part of you will have to be because of the beliefs that others have about you, so your chances of growing bat-wings is slim to none.

"Heroic Spirits as a rule, with only one exception, gain their power because of their legends, and it does not matter where or how that legend comes about. For example, Siegfried is an easily recognizable name to most, but the name of the actual hero was Sigurd. The two have become two separate Heroic Spirits with Sigurd being the original and Siegfried being the copy that has become distinctly different and weaker than the original because of the differences in their legends, despite having come from the same source material. There is also a collection of very powerful Heroic Spirits that are purely fictional, having been made up in the minds of men and written down into very popular stories, but you, my host, have no legend to your name at all, making it so your power is essentially at the weakest it can possibly be for a Servant and still be considered a Servant."

Rias snapped out of it after this verbal beat-down and was about to get things going back towards the direction of getting everybody caught up on the who was who and what was what, when little Sakura latched on to something that had been said earlier, "You said big-brother's name."

The others looked at her in confusion, and Issei asked, "What do you mean, Sakura?"

She pointed at the back of her brother's wrist, "He mentioned Gilgamesh's name."

Issei's eyes widened as he heard the chuckle coming from the voice, "That must have been one of the surprises that Zelretch was planning for me. Gilgamesh is the second most powerful Heroic Spirit in existence after me, and it seems that my world's version of him got sent to this world, de-aged, and adopted into the Hyoudou family when he was in that very young state, and this new version of him isn't a true Heroic Spirit anymore, which is actually a good thing if you ever study his legend. He is ten times kinder and more loving in this reality then he ever was in mine. It will be interesting to see which timeline specifically that he is from."

Rias' eyes widened, "Does this mean…?"

"Yes, Issei's parents know about the existence of magic, me, and the overgrown lizard that is still asleep within Sakura."

Those who already knew about Sacred Gear's eyes widened considerably, and Rias asked, "Is she…"

"This generation's Red Dragon Emperor? Yes. Now, I think that you should get back to clearing up confusion with each other while I take a nap."

They all just stood there for a few seconds, dumbfounded, before they decided to listen to his words and do just that, with little more coming up that was life-changing, other than the obvious things, now that he seemed to be asleep, when he was in fact busy cursing out Zelretch and Great Red for their warped senses of humor.