...Uh, I'm alive.
So, been busy for the past...months? Yeah, months. Haven't touched writing in a while, and I was gonna go and continue Pilgrimage of Life. I really was! But then I played Blue Reflection: Tie, and then read some DxD fics, and this brainrot just wouldn't let go of me. It's not a crossover between the two, but it is inspired.
Now then, haven't done this in a while, but here are some notes. As always, spoilers below.
-No Sacred Gear. No Boosted Gear. No Ddraig. I mulled over including the big lizard in this and decided I will, just not with Issei. The reason will be clear in the future.
-No [Gamer Body] or [Gamer's Mind], because where's the fun in that?
-Note: This is a complete AU. Some parts will follow canon, but most of the things happening from this point onwards will be completely different. Don't be surprised if something happens out of order or if someone's completely OOC. I'll usually explain when that happens.
Anyways, enough from me. Enjoy this brainrot I just had to write!
Issei Hyoudou was destined to die. A Fallen would take interest in him and dress herself as a girl who'd fallen in love with him. Issei would be delighted, and unknowing of the world at large he didn't realize that there was something more sinister afoot. He would go on a date with her, and at the end, he would be killed. The Fallen would reveal herself, and with glee she would spear his chest through with a bolt of light.
He would die, and would be reborn. A lady of Gremory would come and revive him as her Pawn, and he would grow as a devil.
That world wasn't this one.
Issei gasped as scalding heat burnt through him, and he could only lay across the stone as he watched Yuuma fly away. He was dying, the place where his heart used to be now exchanged for a hole that was quickly leaking blood. He could see the edges of his vision growing dark, and he felt less and less of himself. I'm dying, he thought, and something about it felt morbidly laughable.
It's stupid, he silently cried. Why me? Why? He could remember how happy he felt. How relieving it was to be able to rub it in his friends that, yes, he did get a date. He felt so, so stupid now. Of course that was nothing but a lie. Why would anyone date him? A stupid pervert like him. He should've known better. Not that he would get the chance.
It was all so stupid that it was funny.
So, with what little breath he had left he laughed. Though his chest burnt and his body strung in pain he laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed, and with one last gurgle, he grinned at the darkening sky and died.
And that should've been it. In this world Rias Gremory took no interest in him. Raynare had sensed some sort of Sacred Gear inside him, but it was minor, odorless. Rias decided that he was not someone worth her interest, and so Raynare's interference with his life went unnoticed. This would be his end. He would die today.
Except he didn't. He would live another day.
Whether that's a good or a bad thing remains unknown.
Suddenly, he woke up. He was lying in his bed, laying under a familiar blanket and staring at a familiar ceiling. He slowly stood up and found himself in a familiar room. His room. He brought a hand to his chest. There was no hole, no heat, no blood. His chest was completely hole-free. It was as if he didn't just get stabbed by a bolt of light.
A dream, he quickly concluded. And he was so ready to laugh and do his best to move on when he noticed something…odd.
There was a porn magazine on his desk. Not unusual, but he remembered giving that magazine away to Matsuda a couple weeks ago. He wasn't supposed to have it anymore. Yet he could clearly see it on his desk, sitting next to a sticky note he was sure he'd changed quite a while ago. And next to the magazine was Motohama's PSP. But that couldn't be! He'd given it back a month ago!
Something cold settled in his stomach then, and he quickly reached over and grabbed his phone.
And he froze.
The date-, the date was all wrong. That-, his phone was showing that it was almost two months ago. That was impossible. He wasn't someone that changed his phone's date for no reason, and especially without knowing and remembering it. But he remembered dying. And now he saw things from a while ago that weren't supposed to be there.
"Oh." Realization came, and a shaky smile came onto his face. "Oh shit."
[You have deduced the odd situation. +1 Intelligence]
"...what?"
He stared at the floating words that suddenly appeared in front of him, glowing white against a floating blue panel. It…almost looked like some sort of notification, like the ones he'd get when he played an RPG or something.
Then more text appeared, and he definitely did not scream.
[Main Quest {Rigged Survival} has started!]
"Q-Quest?" He read out, and flinched when even more text suddenly appeared before his eyes.
-Quests-
{Rigged Survival}
Difficulty: Hard
You died, and yet you find yourself in the past. How is that possible? You don't know, but you've seen what happens in the future. You, as a completely sane person, would like to continue living and not get yourself stabbed a second time.
Win Condition: Defeat Raynare
His jaw fell wide open. Floating text? Quests? Difficulty? Win Conditions!? He compared the text to an RPG as a joke, but he was quickly beginning to wonder if he'd actually been right on target. Because this whole charade was exactly like something he'd see from an RPG, and that brought both terror and excitement in his chest.
Quests he needed to do? Getting his Intelligence increased for thinking things through? Floating panels with words on them?
A memory sparked in his mind, and his mouth spoke before he could think it through.
"Status."
Name: Issei Hyoudou | Age: 17
Race: Human | Class: -
Level: 1/15 | Exp: 0/5
HP: 10/10 (1 HP/hour) | MP: -
Stamina: 100% (1%/hour)
Strength: 1 | Vitality: 1
Dexterity: 1 | Intelligence: 2
Wisdom: 1 | Luck: 1
Stat Points: 0
He laughed. How could he not? It was hilarious! He got stabbed through the chest with a bolt of light, suddenly went back in time a couple months or so, and now he had the whole Gamer System with him!? What kind of insane crossover fanfiction did he end up in!?
But then the laughter stopped. Because this was real, wasn't it? Because he knew what followed this kind of thing. Yuuma-, no, Raynare. He didn't know what she was. He didn't know if she was actually strong or not. But she'd killed him so easily, tore his chest wide open with light and flew away with wings as dark as night.
"Fuck." He bit down on his nails. "Fuck, fuck. What the fuck." He grit his teeth, tapped his toes, gripped his thighs, anything to get the shivers wracking his body to stop. "Haha, what the hell…" He grinned shakily. "This isn't a joke, is it?" No one answered back. His grin turned manic. "Damn it. Skills."
-Skills-
[ID Localization]
Lvl - 1/200 | 0%
Allows you to enforce and dismiss an Instant Dungeon in the area around you.
Known IDs:
Zombie ID - UNLOCKED
Ghost ID - Lvl 5
Goblin ID - Lvl 15
"No Gamer's Body or Mind, huh." He idly rubbed his chin as he read the skill over again. "So no being careless. I don't want to get my arm bit off by accident." He nodded. "Right. Okay. No going feral. Not yet."
He took a breath. He remembered the quest. Defeat Raynare, it said. He needed to gain enough power to defeat someone who had killed him in a second. He needed to level up and train and gain skills and learn more. He needed to do all he could to gain the edge and turn the tables on his killer, and when that was over, become even stronger to face what was coming.
He grinned.
(He ignored the pit in his stomach. The fear and terror beating in his chest. I don't want to die, it said, whimpering and pitiful and desperate all at once. Mama, papa, help me, it said, knowing it wouldn't be heard. Why would anyone? He was, after all, just a lowly pervert. Why would anyone help him? Why would he matter?
He ignored it all and shoved it down.)
"Zombie ID."
The moment he said that, the world around him twisted and warped in a swirl of kaleidoscopic colors. For a moment he felt sick, his body not knowing where he was and what was happening all around him. Then it ended, the colors faded, and he found himself standing in his room. Except it also wasn't his room.
His room, usually disordered yet pristine, was now empty and ruined. It looked like he'd been displaced into an apocalyptic future some thousand years in the future, and he stood in his room that had been weathered by time.
He looked down to the wooden floor. It was torn and broken in some places, and the nails that kept them together had rusted and snapped. He reached down to one of the torn planks, and placing his foot on the other end, he tilted his body back and snapped the plank from the floor. The force sent a tremor up his arms, but he grinned as he lifted his new temporary weapon.
He glanced out the window, and he could immediately see he wasn't in his reality any longer. The ruined streets below were crawling with zombies. Decayed corpses of men and women, shambling aimlessly as they searched for their next meal, their skin tinged a disgusting gray and their eyes burning an eerie red.
He frowned. Now, what could he do? He couldn't go out into the streets—that was a one-way ticket to getting killed. He didn't have a ranged weapon, so no roof-surfing either. He hummed. Was there a way he could kill a bunch of zombies without needing to expose himself to all the danger?
…
…
Maybe…
He quickly went down to the first floor. It was as ruined and desolated as his room, but he didn't let it bother him. He looked out of the windows, and he saw the same undead-infested streets as he did from above. He took a moment to look through the many cupboards in the emptied kitchen, and he grinned once he saw the gas tank still hiding inside one of them. It was rusty as hell, and the tank was empty, but it'd do.
He went back to the second floor with the tank in his arms. He went back to his room, pulled up his window, and with all the strength his unathletic body could muster he threw the gas tank onto the streets below. He pulled the window back down and watched in silence.
Splat! He'd thrown the gas tank at random, but the streets were so full of zombies that one undead was unlucky enough to get hit. And thrown from his height, the zombie was fully crushed head to toe, splatting onto the street and leaving behind a mangled corpse and a lot of purple blood. It made him gag slightly, but the disgust was quickly driven away when he saw the notification that appeared.
[Killed x1 Zombie. Gained 10 Exp]
[Level Up!]
He felt a jolt of lightning run down his spine, and his grin grew as he silently whispered, "Status."
Name: Issei Hyoudou | Age: 17
Race: Human | Class: -
Level: 2/15 | Exp: 5/10
HP: 20/20 (2 HP/hour) | MP: -
Stamina: 97% (2%/hour)
Strength: 2 | Vitality: 2
Dexterity: 2 | Intelligence: 3
Wisdom: 2 | Luck: 1
Stat Points: 0
He smiled and gave his plank a test swing. He felt-, well, it was incredible really. The somewhat heavy plank had become much easier for him to lift. Which wasn't all that surprising if he thought about it. His Strength had literally doubled in number.
But it wasn't enough. He wasn't confident enough that he could smash a zombie's head in a single swing.
(Again, he ignored the disgust and horror he felt at the thought. He'd take all these feelings into consideration later. He'll do it later.)
He looked around his house for anything heavy. He found a sink in his parent's bedroom, unattached to the wall and partially crumbled. He brought it back to his room, pulled the window open, and flung it down to the streets below. He pulled the window down and watched as it smashed a zombie on its way down. The zombie died immediately.
[Killed x1 Zombie. Gained 10 Exp]
[Level Up!]
Not enough.
He looked around again. He found an old analog television hidden in one of the closets at the back of the living room. He easily carried it up to his room, and as he did before, he threw it out the window and watched as it crashed down. It smashed into two zombies on its way this time, and that jolt of electricity surged through his body as the two zombies died.
[Killed x2 Zombie. Gained 20 Exp]
[Level Up!]
[You have repeatedly carried heavy objects. +1 Strength]
[Gained [Throwing] Skill!]
He smiled wryly. He got a skill just from throwing. He really was an RPG character now. He'd check it later though.
He continued searching. Broken bed posts. Rusty metal objects. Emptied tanks. He searched for anything and everything that was heavy enough to crush skulls without much effort. He found them, gathered them to his room, and like some basketball athlete he threw them out his window and watched as the streets were dyed with more and more purple goop.
[Killed x7 Zombie. Gained 70 Exp]
[Level Up!]
[You have repeatedly carried heavy objects. +1 Strength]
He glanced at his Status. His Strength had risen up to 7. An increase of sevenfold from where he began, and he definitely felt it. Each object he carried were carried with less and less struggle, and he'd gone still and stared when he accidentally snapped a piece of ceramic in half, and didn't get himself cut.
Of course, just because his skin was suddenly sturdier didn't mean that those zombies wouldn't still chomp through his neck. It didn't mean that he could jump off a roof and not break his ankles. But,
Well, he could shatter tough ceramic by accident. He could probably smash a zombie's skull through with a plank of wood now.
He made his way down the steps of this decrepit house. He could still see the zombies ambling about from the windows, and he swallowed the building terror in his gut. This was it, he thought, hand hovering over the door's handle. If I go out, it's either do or die. No in-betweens, he took a breath. How did my life get to this?
The knob was twisted. The door was pushed open. He stepped out of the house.
All the zombies immediately turned to him, their noses twitching as drool fell from their snarling jaws. "Ah," He said, and a wry grin made it to his lips as his fingers wrapped around the plank of wood. "So they find things by smell."
His ears rang as the roars of several dozen zombies filled the air. They charged at him, fanged teeth open for the world to see. He grit his teeth, and with a deep breath, he took a step forward and swung.
Bam! His plank smashed into the heads of several zombies. Their heads carved into itself like putty. He heard the notifications appear, but he ignored them and swung again. And again more heads were caved in. He swung and swung and swung, purple blood coating the plank and his fingers and his arms as the undead corpses fell back onto the streets.
(He flinched every time he heard the bones crunch beneath the plank. He felt a little more sick every time blood landed on his fingers. But he'd leave this panic for future him. He was more worried about not getting bit.)
Then, minutes after, the last zombie fell, and the streets just outside his decrepit house finally fell silent. He could still hear more zombies in the distance, but they couldn't smell him from that far. For the moment, he was safe.
He let free the breath he'd been holding.
[Killed x71 Zombie. Gained 710 Exp]
[Level Up x3!]
[Gained [Blunt Weapon Mastery] Skill!]
He was panting, he realized belatedly. His chest felt like it was burning from all the electricity in his chest. He grit his teeth and pressed a fist into his chest, not noticing just how bright his usually dull brown eyes were. They burnt with life, and against the moonlight above, it almost looked orange.
"Sta…tus."
Name: Issei Hyoudou | Age: 17
Race: Human | Class: -
Level: 8/15 | Exp: 185/560
HP: 80/80 (8 HP/hour) | MP: -
Stamina: 22% (8%/hour)
Strength: 10 | Vitality: 8
Dexterity: 8 | Intelligence: 9
Wisdom: 8 | Luck: 4
Stat Points: 0
He grinned viciously. His Strength had already reached the double digits, and the rest of his Attributes were catching up. Luck still strayed far behind, but he had no idea what Luck actually did at the moment, so he was content to leave it alone. His low Stamina was a problem though. He probably wouldn't be able to fight any longer.
He was fine with that. He wanted to go and take a shower.
[Throwing]
Lvl - 1/50 | 12%
Increases skill and power of Thrown Weapons by 2%
[Blunt Weapon Mastery]
Lvl 1/50 | 45%
Increases skill and power of Blunt Weapons by 2%
He hummed. The two new Skills he had weren't all that surprising. But their level cap was lower compared to his ID Localization. Why was that? Did every Skill just have different maximum levels?
Or…would his Skills evolve once he reached that maximum threshold?
If it'd been possible, his grin would've widened even more. It couldn't though, and so all he could do was tap his foot across the street as he did his best not to explode into cheers. He wouldn't want to attract more zombies to him with his low Stamina.
He dropped the blood-soaked plank and ambled back to his house. The door shut behind him, and he grit his teeth as he climbed his way up the stairs. All that level ups hadn't done wonders for his body, and it felt like his heart was seconds away from exploding if he wasn't careful. He crept back to his decrepit room, and finally back, he muttered the words that appeared in his mind, "ID Release."
The world shifted once more, and suddenly he was back in his original room. His desk was back, all the things he owned returned to their rightful place, and the skies outside were bright and the streets were free from the undead. He stared at the tranquil sight for a good minute before he broke out a small laugh. "This is crazy." He muttered to himself as he made his way to the bathroom.
He walked to the sink, staring at the pristine white and the warped reflection it showed back to him. He leaned against it, breaths heaving, and-
-he remembered the fear he felt when he first realized he'd been flung back in time. Remembered the terror and panic once he realized he'd somehow become an RPG character and was saddled with the Quest to somehow survive a being that had killed him in seconds-
-he remembered the way the zombie's blood splattered all over his body. Remembered how sticky it was and the putrid smell it carried. Remembered the way it slipped through his fingers and clung to it, and he could still feel the murky weight on his fingers-
-he remembered the lightning he felt every time he gained a level. Remembered the shock of heat and strength that surged through his chest. Remembered the consecutive power ups he gained as he beat back that horde of zombies. Remembered how it felt like his chest was burning, like someone had planted a bomb in his chest and it was seconds from exploding-
-Issei wretched and puked out the contents of his stomach into the sink.
He stayed there for some time, just leaning over the sink and waiting for his stomach to finally settle. He stared listlessly as he turned the faucet on. He felt…terrible, in every sense of the way. Like someone had punched him repeatedly in the stomach before rubbing the spiciest pepper all across his eyes.
He stayed in the bathroom, waiting and waiting as the bile in his throat finally faded. And then-
"Issei! Wake up!" He heard his mom shout from below, and he groaned as he slumped down. Right. He'd completely forgotten to check what day it was. He had to attend school. Had to somehow go and sit in class and try not to faint because of how terrible he felt.
He pulled in a deep breath, and left the bathroom.