AN: Alright, a little spoiler guys, angelic descriptions (and a little of devils) in this story from this point on is going to draw from Shin Megami Tensei IV. It's not a crossover, just the concept. It's all good if you haven't played it; nothing of that story or its characters will appear here.

And thus, the dragon woke.

()()()

The Honored Peerage of Rias Gremory had only just defeated a stray devil when Hyoudou Issei went splat like a dropped pumpkin near her.

"What the—?" Devils were quite used to blood and offal to be appropriately shocked. In her own time, Koneko had crushed tons of skulls, and Akeno was used to the sight of desiccated flesh. Kiba was a bit squeamish, but he kept his cool. Rias looked surprised, but only because it had been so sudden.

They stared at the corpse. It looked like it had been chewed up by and spat out by a rambunctious giant.

Then the corpse spoke.

"Why hello, Rias-san."

Rias swallowed. "I-Issei-san?"

"Yeah." Despite the lack of any distinguishable head within the mess, the so-called angel's voice was clear and audible, completely oblivious to the rest of its body. "Listen, I just finished that thing you had me do."

It took Rias a full moment before answering. "Sorry, what?"

"He means your job," Akeno supplied, staring with part fascination and disgust at the thing that had been Issei. It was like conversing with a puddle of goo.

"Oh? The church request? Are you— Is that why—" Rias put her hands together, in line with her mind putting the pieces in place. "Did anyone attack you, Issei-san?" she said, hushed.

"Just a rude angel," said Issei. "But it is no trouble, I did my job before she punched me."

"She punched you." That was Koneko, completely flat in voice and chest.

"Like I said, unreasonable." They could almost imagine Issei shaking his head. "Although, I do remember you kicking me in my groin a few hours ago, Koneko-san."

Everyone looked at Koneko. "What?" she asked the closest, Yuuto.

"Nothing," the boy replied. He was inching away from the short girl. "But remind me never to piss you off. Or at least get crotch-protectors..."

"What's so bad about—?"

"It's the balls," Akeno supplied. "The balls are like..."

"The weakness. Now, useful for enemies, but never do it on friends," said Yuuto.

"Like, say if you really want to disable a human—"

"Alright, everybody just stop talking about balls!" cried Rias, imposing order. Her Peerage apologized in chorus. Her eyes went back to the puddle formerly known as Issei. In her mind, she was already formulating a proposal. "We've far more important things to talk about."

"Like the intel you promised," Issei said.

"Exactly, like reviv—what." All thought in her mind ceased.

"The intel? The one Koneko-san promised you would give if I did your job. I already did my part. Even got into this mess, too, but that's part of the job. Well, it's your turn, Rias-san. Where's the repayment?"

Rias swallowed. "Well, Issei-san, this looks like a really messy situation you're in, doesn't it? I mean, you're practically..."

"In pieces," Yuuto said. Koneko slapped the boy up the head, murmuring "Don't interrupt".

"In pieces, thank you Yuuto. Now you might seem fine, but don't you need help—"

"It's good you're offering, Rias-san, but I'd just like the intel for now please. I can just wait some time to recover. Lord knows I waited eons just to get my first solid piece of info."

"That's understandable," said Rias, smiling to herself weakly. "S-so the intel..."

"I'm ready to take notes... well, mental notes."

"Right, um..." She whirled on her Peerage, her expression simultaneously expectant and thunderous. Koneko looked to Yuuto, Yuuto to Akeno and Akeno to the sky.

"Koneko!" she hissed.

"Rias-sama, I lived and died a virgin."

"Yuuto..."

"Rias-sama, despite what my reputation in school might say, I'm no more versed in sex, than er—"

"Oh, shut up. Akeno?"

Akeno looked less panicked than her fellow Peers. "Why don't you start with the Talk?" she whispered.

"The what?"

"'Birds and bees', 'when a man loves a woman', you know, the basics."

"Akeno, I'm pretty sure the angel knows about that," said Yuuto, doubtful.

"Or maybe not," Koneko pointed out.

"Right. Koneko's right. He is dim, Rias-sama. You could offer the Talk," said Akeno.

"The talk. Very good... The Talk." Rias licked her lips. She rubbed her hands together. Despite the easy solution, she still didn't look relaxed. "Akeno, how do I do the Talk?"

Yuuto looked surprised. "Rias-sama, you don't know the Talk?"

"I... learned the facts of making love by myself."

"I bet it was a doujinshi," muttered Koneko.

"As such, I am in no position to give the information to him," said Rias. "Akeno?"

Akeno huffed. "Must I do everything, Rias-sama?"

"Akeno."

"Oh, fine. I'll talk to him." She went up to the Issei puddle and began explaining.

A few minutes later, Issei seemed satisfied.

"Love..." Issei said, to himself.

"Yep," Akeno said, making a silent thumbs up behind her.

"So first I have to seek 'love'."

"Which, in some ways, is difficult," Akeno interjected gently.

"I'm familiar with the concept. And you're telling me the 'first love' scenario is the most likely course for me to be able to learn the sex."

Akeno didn't know what kind of scenario he was talking about, but nonetheless said "Yes."

Issei said nothing for a few moments. Then he said, "I need to think on this." Rias' shoulder visibly relaxed. "I thank you, Akeno-san, Rias-san."

"It's a pleasure doing business with you, Issei-san. And... are you sure you don't need any help with...?"

"I will be fine," said Issei. "As I said, I need to think. We shall speak again, Rias-san."

The Gremory heiress sighed. "I look forward to it." Turning, she gestured for them to leave. A massive magic circle engulfed them.

"Ensure you are ready," Rias Gremory told her Peerage, eyes steeled for battle. Hers were now the eyes of battle and carnage.

"That was most masterful, Rias-sama," said Akeno, a ghost of a smile on her face. "Now the church is quite desecrated."

At Akeno's words, Rias focused her senses on the faraway church. Its holy presence, toxic to devils, was now much diminished. Issei, for all his faults, had done his job well.

"We must be cautious, of course," said her Knight. "Though Fallen, they are still angels."

"Stop worrying, Yuuto," said Koneko. "It will take a Host of Fallen to bring down a Gremory. And me," she added.

Rias looked into each of her Peerage's eyes. "I expect only the best," she said. "Do not dare fail me." She glanced at Issei one more time, before snapping her fingers.

The magic circle glowed, and Gremory's Peerage disappeared.

()()()

Connections.

Everything relied on connections.

It was true in the physical, the mental, the spiritual, and all other related spheres.

It was very true here, in the quasi-imaginary soul of one Hyoudou Issei, where a dragon now also dwelled—via a series of connections the dragon itself thought impossible.

That angels had souls, that had been surprising to Ddraig, when the two had began Project: Hyoudou Issei. While the dragon did not hold much with the lore of the soul, he was well-learned with certain wisdoms; the fact that the angel immediately refuted the claim that angels were an existence wholly divided from the physical (and thus, lacked souls, being an existence close to souls themselves) had disturbed him, and it was only because he was gravely injured that he looked past that.

And then Ddraig saw deeper into the angel's soul, and discovered wisdom that shattered his entire world.

Those secrets were his to keep, perhaps until he recovered enough to attempt a separation from the Issei body. But that process was likely to take more years than the average human lifespan—another problem they had to troubleshoot down the road. The angel had been most impatient to turn into a human.

Ddraig could say this much: angels were quite compatible with dragons, more than the latter could be with humans or any other entities.

The dragon awoke then, alerted to a beeping in his bedroom. The status screens above were blaring a siren of woe. Ddraig went to the closest terminal, which he hadn't used in a long while.

The screen lit up as his claws flew over the keyboard. "Welcome to Windows. Press any key to begin installation" he read. Ddraig smashed a fist into the screen, cursing. He left the room in a hurried flutter.

Deep in their combined soulscapes, Ddraig flew, a tiny drakeling flitting through an endless corridor which might have belonged to a futuristic industrial factory. Pipes and wires criss-crossed the ceiling, and the walls were a uniform gray. Intermittently, the walls broke up into doors.

He went into one important-looking door that said "Management". Normally locked, it said something for the angel's trust in him that it would always open. It also said something for Ddraig that he didn't take advantage of the trust (not that he could, he did need the rest).

Inside, he found the angel, here a floating orb of light, lying motionless on the floor.

"Angel!"

No response. Sighing, Ddraig turned to the TV screens on the opposite wall, which confirmed the state of the Hyoudou Issei body.

All of them declared DANGER in red, desperate font. Thankfully the world wasn't crumbling around him, which meant that the soul was quite intact. But there was a danger of it falling into the wrong hands, which neither Ddraig nor the angel wanted but could do anything about-without control of the body.

Ddraig flew to the control panel below the screens, which was set there to perform operations on the Issei body. He peered around, then found the appropriate dial. He was about to set it to maximum, when the angel spoke behind him.

"Dragon?"

"Angel!" he turned around. The light orb now flitted upwards. "What's happened to the body?"

"Hm? Oh, it's in pieces at some park. I'm just waiting for it to regenerate."

"How the heck did that happen? You run into a body-chopping maniac?"

"There was a misunderstanding with an angel... Anyway, dragon, it is good you're here. I'd just like to complain about all this pain I'm having. It's quite uncomfortable. You didn't prepare me for this."

"It's called dying, angel. That's generally what happens when the body bleeds out because it's in pieces."

"Is it going to take quite long?"

Ddraig turned back to the control panel. He grunted. "It's going to take a lot longer. The body parts need to be connected to each other to heal, you see. If it's in pieces like that..." Actually, the chances were impossible. That was why Ddraig had been woken. It was panic time for the Issei body.

"Actually, angel," said Ddraig after a pause. "We're about to reboot the Issei body."

"Fantastic."

"But in the meantime, it will need to be... reconstituted first. To ensure the parts are fitted against each other, so connections vital to the regenerative process can be made."

"Like putting it in a cast?"

"Precisely. To do that, we have to activate a failsafe. I call it the 'Angelic Scale Mail'. The Issei body's going to look weird for a time."

"It's no trouble. Anything to get rid of the pain."

"...I understand. Well, I won't delay then." And then, Ddraig turned the dial beyond "Maximum" to "It's GO time".

The surroundings began to shake. Machinery shrieked from somewhere far away. Then came the sound of a thousand fans starting up.

()()()

It was unmistakable. Rias' peerage were closest, and even they had to avert their eyes. The pillar of light that erupted, connecting earth and sky, the ground and the heavens, was a neon-light proclaiming "hey, something holy's in here". It turned night to blinding day, evening to glorious morning.

"Rias..."

"It's fine," said the Gremory heiress. "Isn't it good that he recovered? For now we have those Fallen to destroy."

Then the light faded. Rias cast her eye upon the place where Issei had been, and shivered. Something holier than the church had been existed there. Even from a distance, Rias' head ached. She shook herself.

"Rias-sama, perhaps we should delay—"

"No," snapped Rias. "Issei gave us this opportunity. We dare not waste it."

Her Peerage glanced with differing apprehension at where the pillar of light had been. What the heck had happened to Hyoudou Issei?

And would he interfere, in a battle between Fallen Angels and Devils?

()()()

He could honestly say he was impressed. Even if, in a way, he'd helped engineer it. An armored form to fit over the Issei body, plus the angelic wings to emphasize the angel's true nature. Angel and dragon, perfectly intertwined, molded in the imperfect image of Man. Majestic.

A distant worry bugged him. They had been too compatible. He hadn't questioned it in Issei's designing, but his newfound wisdom now crept up to unsettle him. Ddraig would probably not be sleeping soundly in the days to come.

()()()

And so, quite suddenly, the pain was gone.

And then he felt something different. Or rather, everything felt different. He touched his cheek. Red gauntlet touching red helmet. He clenched his hand. Red, metallic everything.

Then he noticed it. His wings. His wings had returned.

Immediately, he flew. He flexed wings he hadn't felt in a while. The joy of having a body part return to him was incomparable. A bird healed fully from a broken wing could not have exulted more.

"Angel."

"Oh, dragon. Thank you very much for the wings. A nice touch, very awesome."

"I'm glad you like it. But uh, might be better if you start walking now. You look weird enough clad in the Scale Mail, add in the flying thing and—"

"Quite right. I do not want to meet Officer Kumagawa again."

"Hey how is that old pervert? He retired yet?"

"He's been divorced again."

"Hah!"

The angel descended. It planted its armored feet on the ground, took one tentative step, and then fell into a clattering metal heap.

There was silence.

"Did you seriously forget how to walk?"

AN: Drafted by Shurpuff, proofread and edited by Honore (Merlin)

Thanks for reading.