Jue Viole Grace had been a normal if not mediocre young man.
Born to a firmly middle class family to loving parents and annoying siblings in one of the wealthiest countries on Earth, he had never had to suffer through hunger or worry about having a roof atop his head. He had been allowed an education in a safe environment, being comfortable all the way through, until he finished his schooling and properly launched a career.
Even then, the world had been fair to him, considering it had taken him less than a couple of weeks to find employment that would allow him to sustain his existence, though not much opportunity for growth or thrival.
That hadn't meant he had been happy, however, as his life had always felt empty, the days flying by without much excitement, monotonously alternating between work, small gatherings with the few friends he had managed to keep through the years, as he felt himself slowly grow older and shrivel from the inside at the meaninglessness of his existence.
It was during one such rainy day, while rushing through his daily commute that things had forever changed, going from crossing the street one second, to lying on the ground and suffocating on his tongue as a result of a sudden heart attack.
Dying had been horrifying, from the long minutes that felt like hours as he could feel his breath, energy and light leave him, to the sad realization that this was all he had ever amounted to with the very finite time he had been allowed on Earth.
It was honestly a depressing thought to know he had achieved nothing of value nor left any long-term impact behind, aware that beyond his parents and immediate family, less than ten people would mourn him a week from his death.
It would have been a sobering if not a crushing realization had he not known this fact for a long time now, courtesy of long nights laying awake beating himself up over it in his last couple years.
What had broken him had been what had come after his death, rather than the event itself; he had found himself floating in the void, blind, deaf, anosmic, and unable to feel any kind of touch.
His horror had grown the longer he had remained in that state, terrified that this would be all the afterlife had in store for him, leaving him alone with his regrets and sense of inadequacy for the rest of eternity.
It had honestly been quite rough on his sanity, having gone dozen of times through the whole cycle of grief, alternating between his sorrow, rage, self-pity to pleading for anything or anyone to come at his rescue.
Of course nothing had come for him, no matter how many times he rehashed every memory he could recall, how much meditation on his situation and mistakes or how often he fantasized about what he would have done had he been offered another chance.
At some point he had completely broken, realizing the human psyche had not been made to survive million of years without any stimuli, need or want.
He had become a husk at that point, not even a being, barely above an object in the stream of his consciousness and autonomy, his thoughts having long turned into white noise, unmoving and devoid of any intelligence or sentience.
It was at that point, while he lay on the very edge of fading from existence that things had changed for him, an unknown warmth flooding his senses and jump starting his last brain cell.
It had been so long since he had ever felt something, but even then he could tell whatever was flowing through his soul was foreign, something he had never experienced while alive.
It did not matter to his barely functioning self what was happening or why, he had been starved of something, anything to focus his attention on that he had immediately latched on the sensation, fixating on it until it had engulfed his entire being in a comforting aura.
He was still completely frozen in the trauma of the new overstimulation when the world had exploded in a kaleidoscope of lights and sensations, overwhelming his senses all at once as for the first time since eons, he had a functioning body.
He didn't know how long it took for him to come back to his senses, nor did he care, so long as he was able to have senses again, regardless if it was a simple figment of his imagination, whether he had just been reincarnated or any other millions of possible scenarios, so long as he had even the illusion of life, he would jump on it with both hands and make something of himself no matter the cost.
When he had finally come back to his senses, it was to find himself staring down a group of five adults, three men and two women, each as beautiful and regal as each other, an aura of nobility to them as they returned his stare in curiosity and what seemed like awe.
The silence felt heavy, the moment full of gravitas, solemn and important, his newfound life suspended on a fateful coin flip, possibly coming to an end before it had even started as the group with the potential to end him observed his defenceless self in tension.
Only for the atmosphere to collapse on itself as the shorter of the two women, the one with black hair and beautiful pink eyes jumped him, cooing and flailing her arms as she squealed "You're so cute, Jue-tan!"
Viole's little brain almost had whiplash at the flip on its head the situation had taken, from the terrifying stare down where he had feared for his death to being manhandled or was it womanhandled by the weirdo that was now pinching his cheeks.
It was only his luck to get bullied by cosplayers that wear pink contact lenses and paint their hair green moments from regaining a body, but apparently the sight of his mistreatment was funny to the said bully's peers as one of them chuckled at his misfortune.
"Welcome among the living, Jue Viole Grace." The redheaded man said, earning himself the boy's entire attention, even as Viole himself was spooked by the fact he could understand the man's words, meaning he had probably been reborn in a world that spoke the same language as his former death.
"Can you understand us?" the man asked and Viole remained impassive, not willing to risk the crazy people taking offence to his brand new life.
"Everything is going to be alright. We will keep you safe." The man said to the boy's surprise, easing him a little bit in his fear. They might have been complete lunatics, but he was now starting to be hopeful that they were not child-murdering lunatics at the very least.
"Speaking of which, " the green haired man injected himself into the conversation, "You are a healthy Nephilim, the son of the Biblical God and Lucifer Morningstar."
This time, Viole almost gasped at what he had heard, the strange words having jogged back his memory from his previous life into a story he had read where such words would not have been as shocking as they were for him to hear and another dread settled into himself.
A group of five strangers, a silver haired maid, a pink haired magical girl, a redhead, green-haired and bald man speaking of Nephilims, the Biblical God and Lucifer Morningstar as if they were real people…
The pieces were starting to settle into a very scary scenario for him as he might have just found himself into the world of DxD.
The next babbling of whom he now assumed to be Serafall Leviathan pressuring him into doing an episode of her show before his supposed raise to stardom was the coffin in the nail to let him know for some reason or another he was indeed being thrust into the anime of titties.
And it was the anime, if only for the eye color of the Leviathan, having been blue in the light novels.
Part of him was exasperated at the thought, still struggling to believe he was feeling as if he were alive again, even if none of it was real, while the rest of him remembered the feeling of inadequacy, the impotence of his death and the numerous wishes he had made for a second chance.
It did not matter what, why, how, or where he was, all he could know was that he felt alive again, and that he would do all it took to avoid mediocrity again, no matter the circumstances.
The fact he was not having another mental breakdown was reassuring, however, his disassociation having made everything easier to compartilize.
That did not mean he appreciated the following conversation between the fictional characters as they informed him again that he was an abomination born from the union of the Grace of God and the original Lucifer, making him a Pure Devil, one the Satans seemed to be eager to enter into the Seventy-Two Pillars.
As far as ways to be thrown into the Draconic Deus, potentially having the advantages associated with being a half-divinity with possible access to the imagination-based magical system of the devils was an absolute top tier one, if only for the great number of possibilities it opened up for him.
By the time he found himself thrust into the maid's arms as she promised to care for him, Viole was barely paying any attention to his surroundings, far too lost in his thoughts, plan after plan forming in his mind on how to best leverage his newfound situation.
This might not have been the life he expected to have, but he would make sure it would be one he would milk for all of its opportunities.