Memory is a tricky thing for an angel. A function integral to humans and other sentients has limited use to the tools of the Most High, so angels generally had ant-like memories. When in doubt, they had the divine scrolls of eternity to guide them.

The higher angels were given a little bit more. Issei, for example, could remember the Sex thing happening while he was guarding Eden, but he couldn't quite remember what happened before that. His other jobs as angel of death slash Scourge of Humanity also blurred together such that he could only remember the places and what he did there. Ask him how many humans were there or who he talked to on the way down from Heaven and he'd grin nervously and change the subject.

He was ruminating this way because something in Rias Gremory's clubroom was trying to jog his memory. Or rather, it did when he felt something like water being dumped on him, when he didn't even see, nor less feel, said water—right as he entered the room.

He cocked his head like a confused pidgeon. It was strange. The sensation had definitely been there.

In the meantime, Rias Gremory was talking in low voices to the other people in the clubroom.

Issei Hyoudou, part-time human, did not have enhanced hearing anymore. Ddraig had advised against it in the body creation process. Had he still had it, he'd have heard the following conversation.

"... already triggered every trap! So what the heck is going on? Why is that guy still standing?"

"Were you slacking, big breast?"

"How rude, Koneko-chan~~ I gave it my best lightning shot~~ Particularly since he was very uncouth to proposition a young lady~~ He should have been minced meat by now."

"Perhaps a stronger attack...?"

"No, Yuuto. That guy's clearly something else. If he can shrug off Akeno's strongest spell, then he's not someone to mess with."

"He has a dumb look on his face, by the way. Does he really not notice the wound on his chest?"

"Yes, that's another thing I wanted to discuss, Koneko. He's kind of... not there."

"You mean dumb."

"Now now, Koneko, I'm sure he has his reasons."

"With that attitude of his, he does seem rather dim, Yuuto. He also seems quite immortal. His heart's actually better now—though I can still see it beating from here."

"So he's like Phenix immortal?"

"..."

"Alright, sorry geez."

"Rias, did you tell them about the 'sex'?"

"Precisely, Akeno. That's my point! If this lecher, if this admittedly impervious lecher can be turned to my purpose, then who knows how useful he ends up becoming...?"

"Oooh, I like that look on your face, Rias..."

"He could end up being a powerful pawn."

"Well, he'll technically not be a Pawn."

Again, he heard none of the above. Though, even if he had, it was perhaps a given that Issei wouldn't have understood the whole thing.

He did decide that the feeling was of no consequence. He set to business: first the payment, then an answer from the Akeno, who hadn't responded to his question at all.

Rias Gremory sat before a great table, while the others stood and bustled around.

"Here is my payment," he said, retrieving the last, unbloodied bill he had on hand.

Rias accepted it and flashed him a smile. "Thank you for your business."

Issei bowed. "No thank you. You do great work..." Here he searched around for a word to describe the girl. Magician? Mage? Witch? "...Rias-san."

Rias crossed her legs. "Child's play, really."

Issei now looked to Akeno eagerly. Rias continued, "Now as to your question regarding the... 'welcome mat'?"

"Huh? Oh yes. Shoddy work, that. Needs a few improvements." Issei returned his attention to the redhead. Rias crossed her fingers in front of her breasts.

"We were wondering about the... significance of your comments regarding the sigil. I assume you are familiar with the script?"

Issei allowed himself a soft chuckle. That seemed the polite thing to do with slow, inquiring humans. "If you can even call it that. But yes, I have more than a passing knowledge with the script."

"Are you a devil?" Rias asked bluntly.

He blinked. He was aware that there were now four sets of eyes looking silently at him. This confused him.

"No," he said slowly. "But I have read of them. Aren't they the ones who do the sex most times?"

Rias snorted. She immediately covered her mouth with her hand. Akeno let out a short burst of giggling. The other two stared at him, openmouthed. The shorter one also had a small frown to go with her expression.

Now he was frowning. Issei felt very much foolish, like he was on the receiving end of a prank and every other person in the room was in the know. He'd had such pranks happen before, and they were very unpleasant experiences, even if he wasn't seriously affected—would a human notice ants laughing at him? (Well, perhaps if they were forming the word "You stupid fuck" where it could be read)

"So what is a devil, then?"

"It's..." Rias breathed out. "Well, we're actually working for one. Devils are, look—what exactly are you, Issei?"

"I'm an angel." The other male in the room gasped. The others looked at each other. "So?" he pressed. "And a devil is...?"

"They're just like you. Only they're, well, not evil per se... You could call them 'being on the other side' of angels."

"Huh," said Issei, momentarily putting the question of sex aside. "And these so-called devils..." The memory came to him then. "Oh, Lucifer and his folk? Is that what they were?"

Rias snapped her fingers. "Yep. Exactly. The whole 'banished from heaven' thing."

"Well actually Michael just gave them a push and they all slipped... So you guys are working for one? And this is the one you're getting your powers from?"

Rias nodded slowly, glancing repeatedly at the other people in the room. "And that is why... we wouldn't know of... the 'sex'." Issei sagged from disappointment.

"But!" interjected Akeno. Something passed quickly between the two, after which Rias sighed and shook her wrist. "But... Issei-san, we could make inquiries."

"Wait a second. Don't you know? I mean, aren't you humans?"

The boy named Yuuto coughed. Rias sniffed audibly. "That is an over-generalization. Not all humans get to learn about sex." Issei's eyes widened in understanding. "And you have my assurance that none in the problem-solving club know. At present." She glanced at Yuuto. The latter shook his head, hands held up in surrender.

"Well alright then. I suppose I shall have to pursue my research elsewhere, as usual. Though I would appreciate a heads up."

"You'll pardon my asking, Issei," asked Rias, accepting a cup of tea from the short one. "But why are you so... curious about this sex?"

Issei shrugged. "Because I'm the only angel who hasn't had it." The redhead choked on her drink.

()()()

Sometimes, when he felt slightly tired of the sex research, Issei amused himself doing mundane human things. No matter how fundamentically mundane they were, he found himself enjoying some of them.

The fact that near most of the things he enjoyed—like playing at video-arcades, catching the latest idol livestreams, or watching anime—were things the average human teenager did also never crossed his angelic mind.

One of these mundane activities was bird-feeding. He liked taking big chunks of bread to the park and tossing them to the ground to feed a teeming horde of featherbrains. He liked to pretend he still understood the thoughts of birds. (yet another function Ddraig forbade, now he could only occasionally read human thoughts)

"Do you know it hurts to almost die?" he said, throwing down a new chunk. Two birds fought over that piece. "You living things have my sympathies. To be constantly living on the edge of a sword, totally unaware; and yet you all live your lives free of any sort of fear! Here you are, eating, chirping, without a care to sudden pain. Or death."

He picked up a bird. It protested, wriggling its wings. He put his face close to the bird's, directing his angelic will into its gaze.

"Oh that the Lord on High would have given you guys the intelligence thing. I'm sure you would've done better than these humans."

The bird pecked his eye.

Someone screamed near to him. That, and the sudden way he dropped the bird scattered every featherbrain to the winds, leaving nothing but half-eaten bread.

Issei, his damaged eye streaming blood down his cheeks, turned to the person who'd screamed. At first, he thought it an angel, but reminded himself that he could spot an angel when he'd see one, and this one was definitely no angel. It was just a human.

"A-are you okay?" said the human. Female. It was female. The long blonde hair had been what reminded him of angels. In Heaven, everyone was blonde, or was supposed to be. Come to think of it, he didn't recall the color of his own. There were no mirrors in Heaven.

He pointed to his eye. "No, this hurts a bit. But otherwise, I'm fine." He saw what the girl wore and resisted the urge to sigh. "Unfaithful nun" had been eliminated quite a while ago. He grimaced at the remembrance; that convent had called his mother, too.

"C-could you come closer please?" the nun cosplayer squeaked. "I—I think I can help you with that."

"Oh, there's no need for you to worry." Though, upon seeing the tears building up in the girl's eyes, he did as told and approached her. Issei disliked crying humans, and suffered them only when he couldn't escape the scene. Which, because of the lack of wings, happened most of the time.

"Ei!" When he'd neared, the girl suddenly threw her hand toward his face. There came a glow, and Issei felt a ticklish sensation stream through his eye-socket. When the girl withdrew her hand, he felt vision return to his other eye. He touched it tentatively and found that it had been healed.

"I appreciate that," he said, offering the human a smile. "How much do I owe you?"

The girl shook her head. "You don't need to pay me, sir."

The girl was being reticent. As most recently evidenced by that Rias Gremory, all humans had the innate sense of business. She was perhaps trying to get something more than money from him. "Surely such a service requires an equivalent price. Now I do insist on it, miss. Please allow me to do you a service in return. As a token of my... gratitude."

"I—It's fine sir, really..."

"Would you like some bread?" he asked, then remembered he'd thrown them all away. He looked at the remains on the ground, which some brave birds were now trying to eat. "Stop that, greedy dinosaurs! You," he pointed to one, who froze in fear from his pointing finger. "Give me your piece."

With grudging reluctance, the pidgeon flew up to drop off the piece on his palm.

The girl clapped softly. "Wow! Amazing... You can talk to birds?"

"Yes, I find them the most agreeable creatures. Did you know that Noah—" He stopped, remembering:

"—You dumbfuck! Do you know how long I've been trying to find you?" said a small dove.

"Why are you shouting?" he asked.

"You promised me you knew where Noah could land his boat! So where is it? All I can see around is blue, blue, blue!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. These dolphins were just telling me about the sex."

"Sex, shmex! Listen, when I get back you had better have some dry land all ready for the old man to dock. If you don't, I'll be sticking olives all up your ass!"

"Oh, so you prefer a place with olives then?"

He blinked, shaking the sudden recollection off. The girl stared at him in confusion. "Well, yes... most are agreeable birds..." He held out the dirty, battered piece of bread towards her. "Here you go."

"Er..." was all the girl could say, staring uneasily at the food. "It's very kind of you, but that bread's..."

"Oh, my apologies." He put his other hand over the bread, before revealing it to have grown back into the bun it had been. "Here you go."

The girl's eyes widened. "Wow. So you have a gift too... I mean, no—that's dirty bread, sir! It's got bacteria and stuff on it now-I think."

"Oh. That's a good point." Now it was his turn to look troubled. He didn't know what else to give a girl, except a hug or something. She must have sensed some of his discomfort, because she took the bread the next moment.

"Then... why don't you help me feed the birds, in return?" she said, pointing to the bread.

"I thought you said it was dirty."

The girl giggled. "I don't think birds mind."

"Oh, right. Another good point. The little screwballs won't care." He eyed the gathering birds suspiciously as the girl started picking off pieces to feed them.

"Earlier, I overheard you talking to them," the girl said. "Do you like feeding them?"

"I used to be able to hear their thoughts. Now I can't anymore, but they don't know that. Or don't you?" he asked the creatures. They said nothing.

The girl chuckled. "I would have liked to talk with one."

"That's a bad idea," he said. "Their thoughts aren't really friendly regarding humans."

"Really?"

"I can prove it to you." He pointed to the nearest pidgeon. "Come, bird." Thus commanded, the bird flew up to his palm. He held it up between the two of them.

The girl's face was a question mark. "Now you bird," he said, summoning up his best Gandalf impression. "In the name of God, speak to this one as she will understand best!"

After a pause, the bird opened its beak and started screaming something. The girl yelped, jumping back. Issei frowned. To his ears the bird was yelling out some unintelligible speech.

"Wh-why is it yelling?" the girl said, hands over ears.

"What on earth is it saying?"

"I—oh, of course! The bird's speaking Italian. He's yelling something about the..."

"Idiot bird. I command you be understandable!"

"Biteandspreadyourgutsandchewthemswallowyourbitswholefoolishmammalscumyouare—"

"He sounds really angry."

"Impudent animal. Be silent," he said. And the bird was silent. Gesturing, he let it head back down to join in the feast.

"Please excuse my presumption, mister miracle sir," said the girl, after the two watched the birds feed for a while. "But that speech sounded quite demonic."

"Well I did warn you. These birds have all sorts of grudges against the Chosen Species. They're descended from the dinosaurs, you see."

"But by what magic were you able to have that one speak, sir?"

"I just gave it the gift of tongues." He blinked, remembering something. "Temporarily. I'm not really authorized to grant it permanently yet."

"The gift of tongues? Like in Scripture?" the girl said, staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. She gasped. "Sir, are you an... an angel?"

"No, of course not," he said, offering a polite laugh. He resisted from "eye-rolling". It was obvious even to children that he didn't have wings nor halo, was not presently garbed in blinding white and did not wield his flaming sword.

After a beat, the girl giggled along hesitantly.

"I mean, not right now, obviously."

"Er...what?"

"Oh, all this time we've talked and I didn't introduce myself—I'm Hyoudou Issei, part-time human." He bowed.

"A—Asia Argento..." the girl replied, bowing in turn. "So, Issei-san, y-y-you are an angel?"

"As I said, not right now," he repeated good-humoredly.

"Holy shit!" The girl gasped, and slapped her mouth. She looked mortified. "Oh, milord forgive me my unworthy words..."

Issei looked at the girl, tilting his head like a thoughtful pigeon. "Relax. You're a human, remember? Just because you say it doesn't mean it'll come out of your mouth. And of course, excrement can never be holy."

AN: Drafted by Shurpuff, Edited by Honore (Merlin).

Thanks for reading.