Chapter 5

Junichiro was wrong. So, so wrong. The school day thus far had been anything but good. Due to the life he'd lived before waking up last Saturday and his previous life, high school classes were boring! He'd hoped, just a little, that he could learn something new, something useful. He hadn't. He had dozens of years of real-world experience working in a world deep into the twenty-forties. He was essentially thirty years in the past with only minor things being different from what he knew. He tried to pay attention, he honestly did, he just found it so tedious!

Right now, he was trying to enjoy his lunch. He hadn't thought to bring a packed lunch, but he would be starting tomorrow. The school food was actually rather good, but it was still school food and it just couldn't compare to what his replicator could make. He kept an eye out for his target, Issei, but hadn't seen the pervert yet today. He was hoping to find him before he made his way home. He wanted to tag him as soon as possible. He half expected that chance to come after school let out and Issei received his customary beating for perving on the kendo club girls.

Unfortunately, Junichiro did end up having to wait until school ended for the day to spot the pervert he was seeking. Ironically, he didn't find Issei until he was beaten down by the girls of the kendo club, somewhat as expected. He didn't say or do anything to interfere with the likely justified beating that Issei and his two buddies were getting. He waited until the girls seemed finished before he began his approach with a fake look of curiosity on his face.

His approach was instantly noticed and all the girls of the kendo club seemed to tense up and hold their various wooden weapons, shinai mostly, ready. Murayama and Katase, the leaders of the club, speed forward to confront Junichiro. Murayama, the one with long brown hair, was the one to speak to him, her voice accusing, "Are you one of them?!"

Junichiro quickly held his hands up in a sigh of peace and surrender, "I apologize, I didn't mean to step into anything. I saw the commotion and wanted to know what was happening." He placed his hands at his side and gave a polite bow, "I'm Junichiro Arai the new student in class 3-B."

While giving his introduction and polite bow, he surreptitiously flicked the tiny tracker he had made the day before into Issei's hair. It quickly vanished from sight before anyone could even have a chance to spot it. As he straightened up, Katase, the pink-haired leader of the club, spoke up, "These three perverts were caught, once again, peeping on us as we were changing."

Junichiro looked at the three boys laying on the ground covered in bumps and forming bruises, "I see, then their beating is obviously justified. Though...," he focused back on the girls, "why not report them to the student council or teachers?"

All the girls scoffed, Murayama answered him though, "The teachers are useless, they just refer us to the student council. We complained for almost six straight months to the student council, last year, but all we got in return were empty platitudes. We finally understood that if those disgusting creeps were ever going to be punished it would have to be by our hands."

Junichiro frowned and nodded in understanding, "I see. I was unaware that the student council of this school cared more about the school's public reputation than about its student population." He gave the girls another polite bow, "Thank you for informing me. If there's ever anything I can do for any of you, please don't hesitate to ask."

All of the kendo club girls gave him a once over again though this time many of them had reserved smiles. They clearly thought that Junichiro was different from the perverted trio, but they were still reserving judgment until more time had passed. They figured he would show his true colors over time. With his task accomplished and some inroads made with some cute girls, Junichiro turned on his heels and walked away.

Thinking about the girls gave him a small realization that he just knew was going to bug the crap out of him. While his body was done with puberty, thank all the gods everywhere for that! His body was still flooded with hormones he'd gotten used to not dealing with in his later years. He did not miss getting erections at inopportune times! The state of his body also seemed to be affecting his mind since his brain was swimming in a ton of hormones and chemicals that were all driving his instinct to breed. It was even worse since he was a virgin still. Well, he was for now. He'd do something about that later. There was no need to rush and while his biological reactions couldn't be controlled very well, he could control his mind better than any other teenager on the planet.

He had a smile on his face for the entire walk home. He'd tagged his target and now he just needed to wait. He quickly arrived home and after letting himself in, he sat at his kitchen table and thought about what he might want to make. He wanted to make something that was more for fun than for survival or to make himself significantly stronger. He let his mind wander before an idea came to him that brought a smile to his face.

He dumped a fair amount of metal out of his storage ring onto his table and immediately engaged The Workshop to begin transforming it. He quickly had a very unique gun sitting on the table in front of him. The gun had a standard pistol grip but rapidly deviated from the norm from there. The whole gun looked more like a large high-tech pipe with a pistol grip than any kind of regular firearm. Along the extra wide barrel were two turbines with arcane-looking marks surrounding them. The very back of the gun looked like it was a large breach through which ammo the size of twelve gauge shotgun shells could be loaded.

Back when he was a child, for the first time, there was an anime he absolutely loved by the name of Outlaw Star. The main character used a weapon in the show known as a 'Caster Gun,' a weapon that used numbered shells for ammo that would fire specific spells based on the shell's number. His copy of the gun wasn't a one-to-one replica since he couldn't remember every last detail of it, but it was close enough for him!

With the gun made, he took some more scrap metal and quickly formed it into a properly shaped shell for the gun. Instead of numbering his shells, he instead had the name of the spell written on them in bold English lettering. The first shell had 'FIREBALL' written clearly on the side. That wasn't the only change he made either. In the Outlaw Star universe, mana was a scarce resource so the caster ammo had fixed amounts of mana stored within each shell.

Since he didn't have that restriction, the shells he made would instead only determine the spell he would fire. He would feed mana into the shell through the grip of the gun and could constantly fire off the spell each time he charged the shell. He could also vary the damage of the spell by applying different levels of charge to the shell before firing the spell. Not only did this save him effort when making the shells with The Workshop, but it also let him exercise his mana core at the same time. A wonderful win-win situation.

Though, he knew the caster gun wouldn't actually be all that powerful, relatively speaking. It would currently take him far too long to charge a shell to be dangerous to the true monsters in the world in a combat situation. He supposed he could make and then charge a few special nuke shells for giggles. He honestly didn't plan for the weapon to be a big deal though. Mostly, he expected to use it on grunts and giggle at their dismay that a gun could fire spells with such ease.

He spent a short while making 'standard' spell cartridges for his new caster gun. He'd made ICICLE, LIGHTNING BOLT, EARTH SPIKE, WIND BOMB, and ETHER. ICICLE would form and launch a large icicle. LIGHTNING BOLT would fire a stream of electricity. EARTH SPIKE would fire a sharp spike of stone similar to a stalactite in shape. WIND BOMB would fire a compressed ball of air that would detonate when it touched something. Lastly, ETHER was, essentially, a massive beam of pure energy only meant for pure destruction.

He contemplated making some truly dangerous ones, such as BLACK HOLE, DESTRUCTION, and even NUKE, but decided to hold off on them for now. Summoning black holes was always a dangerous thing to do, period. As for DESTRUCTION, he felt copying the Bael clan's most prominent trait would be a pretty bad idea, for now. It also seemed kind of in poor taste to create a shell that would fire off a nuclear explosion wherever it happened to hit. The last thing he would need is any of those somehow being reflected back at him, a distinct possibility with sacred gears like Mirror Alice out in the world. The last thing he needed was a NUKE bounced back into his own face.

He made two shells for each type of spell he had, for now. One shell he charged with a moderate amount of mana, in his opinion, and the other he spent a good minute just dumping mana into. With all of the mana he'd been spending to make things and charge them, his mana core had grown a massive amount from when he'd first arrived. He couldn't even estimate how many times bigger it was compared to before. He'd need to find a way to figure that out and compare it with the stronger beings around.

That actually concerned him. While he most definitely wished to become the most powerful being in existence, eventually; if he became too powerful now it would be impossible for Rias Gremory to reincarnate him into a devil. The Evil Pieces, the chess-shaped items that are used to turn other races into devils, have limits directly proportional to Rias's strength. Issei took all eight of Rias's pawn pieces in order to reincarnate. At the time Issei himself was nothing special, in fact, his potential for magic was even lower than an average human. It was solely because of the potential of his sacred gear that he cost so much to revive.

Junichiro thought about it for a while and eventually came up with a simple solution. He would seal his power before reincarnating into a devil. It shouldn't be hard at all to make an item that didn't simply restrict his power but made it appear as if that power didn't exist. Then after he was changed into a devil, he could release the seal. In fact, he knew that was the only option he was going to have once he had the Boosted Gear. Alone the Boosted Gear would cost Rias eight pawn pieces, add The Workshop on top of that and it was impossible for her to turn him. There was no way he wasn't going to steal and then get practice with the Boosted Gear, so it would have to be sealed for a short time.

Junichiro awoke from a nap as his alarm went off at three in the morning. He wanted to be sure that Issei would be deep asleep and didn't feel like losing sleep while waiting for it to happen. The current time should mean Issei is deep in his sleep cycle and easily robbed of his sacred gear. Though, just to be safe, he had his replicator create a strong sedative in a syringe. No need to take risks.

He checked the tracker for the bug he'd planted on Issei and had the coordinates locked. The device showed Issei hadn't moved much in hours. With the information in hand, Junichiro left his apartment and used short teleportation hops to move rapidly through the dark night toward Issei's home. Thanks to his rapid teleportations, he arrived at his destination in just a couple of minutes.

The tracker quickly determined Issei was on the second floor and helped Junichiro locate the window to Issei's bedroom. A short teleport up to look through the window, followed by a silent one into Issei's room deposited Junichiro right next to the bed. Not wanting to take even a small risk, Junichiro jabbed the needle of the syringe into Issei's neck and pushed the plunger down to pump the powerful sedative into the brown-haired pervert.

That taken care of, Junichiro retrieved the sacred gear extractor he'd created and placed it on Issei's chest. His device looked like a mini-keg with hoses going from a round opening on the 'bottom' to the top with a pistol grip and trigger on the side. With a pull of the trigger, the extractor gave a soft hum for a few seconds. When the humming of the device died down, the 'top' where all the tubes connected, popped open to reveal a red orb with swirls of green flowing around it.

As soon as the orb appeared, Junichiro opened a portal into his bedroom and stepped through. He finally felt safe as soon as the portal closed. Junichiro began to shake as he finally noticed his racing heart and the adrenaline pumping through his body. He'd been so utterly focused on his robbery that he hadn't even noticed the physical signs of his fear and excitement until he was safe.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"

Junichiro nearly leaped out of his skin at the sound of the deep male voice shouting at him. He most certainly did not squeak when he did so. He looked at the orb in his hand while the extractor vanished into his storage ring, "Ddraig?"

"YOU! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! WHY HAVE YOU STOLEN ME FROM MY DESTINED PARTNER?!"

Junichiro winced as Ddraig continued to shout, his every word making the orb in Junichiro's hand flash red, "There's no need to shout Ddraig, my hearing works just fine. Besides, I prefer to think that I rescued you from a very dangerous individual."

Ddraigs voice lowered in volume but his anger was still very clear as he spoke, "You murdered my destined partner, stole me from his very soul, and dare claim to be rescuing me?!"

"Whoa whoa! First, I didn't kill Issei. He's still sleeping in his bed. And yeah, I rescued you. What do you know of your partner this generation?"

Ddraig was silent for a short time before he reluctantly admitted, "Not much, I was not awakened within him. I would still be slumbering if you hadn't so rudely awoken me."

Junichiro nodded, "Well, he is an unrepentantly open pervert who should honestly be incarcerated for his many crimes against the female population. He is a pathetic weakling whose only aspirations seem to be screaming about oppai in public places and declaring he will become a harem king while doing nothing to pursue such a dream. I can guarantee you that if he awoke you, you would become known as the Red Breast Dragon Emperor within less than a year."

Junichiro could hear the grimace in Ddraig's voice when he spoke once more, "Still, that doesn't give you the right to steal me from him. He was my destined partner!"

Junichiro thought for a bit before sighing, "Okay, if having your reputation tarnished for all time isn't enough to show you that despite 'destiny' he's the worst possible partner, how about I tell you about your rival, Albion."

"What do you know of the white one?!"

"If we were to compare hosts between the two of you, I'm afraid that you lost. Even worse, you would continue to lose to Albion for the next few thousand years, most likely. In the random lottery of life, Albion got a jackpot while you owe the casino so much that your children's children will still be paying off the debt because you lost so badly."

"Stop waxing poetic and speak plainly!"

Junichiro huffed, "Fine. You got a pathetically weak pervert with lower-than-average magical potential as your host. Albion got the half-devil direct descendant of Lucifer himself, his great-grandson I think, and has been awake for years at this point. Even worse for you, Albion's host has already unlocked his balance breaker, trained with it for years, and is fully capable of using Juggernaut Drive with zero consequences due to his bloodline."

At least, that's what Junichiro thought he remembered from the anime. It might not be one hundred percent correct, but it was likely close enough to make his point. Silence reigned for a while before Ddraig spoke once again, his voice clearly showing his disbelief, "You're lying to me, trying to trick me!"

Junichiro shook his head, "There'd be no point in my lying to you. I swear what I have said is the truth, as far as I know it. The host of Albion is Vali Lucifer."

"Let's suppose what you said is the truth, what could possibly make me want you as my host?"

Junichiro grinned brightly, "What do you know of the sacred gear known as The Workshop?"

Ddraig scoffed, "That piece of junk? It's similar to others like Blade Blacksmith and Sword Birth. Yet, while those two specialize and can make decent weapons, The Workshop can make weapons and armor making it more versatile at the cost of strength. It's barely worth consideration. The times my host has fought someone wielding it, they lost with minimal effort."

Junichiro nodded along as Ddraig explained, "And yet, it's The Workshop that allowed me to rescue you."

"LIAR!"

"I can understand why many people would think that The Workshop is so weak. It requires a great imagination to use properly, or access to modern pop culture."

"What?"

Junichiro explained with a broad grin, "The Workshop can make weapons and armor, true. But that's not all it can make. Observe."

So saying, he set Ddraig's sphere down and extracted some metal from his storage ring. He thought for a bit before a grin split his face, "You're going to love this."

His hand glowed green while red sparks went to town on the metal and began reshaping it and changing its color. Ddraig grumbled something about The Workshop at least having proper colors. It took a short time but when Junichiro was done a small red mechanical dragon with green and gold highlights sat on the floor. He retrieved Ddraig's orb and carried it over to the dragon. When the orb got close a slot opened in the back of the dragon and revealed a round hole Ddraig's sphere would fit inside.

Without bothering to warn Ddraig, Junichiro shoved him into the mechanical dragon and closed the round hatch. The robo-dragon's eyes flashed green before it began to move awkwardly. It took a few moments before its maw opened and Ddraig's voice came out, "What is this?! I can move!"

"It's just something I whipped up to prove the limitless potential of The Workshop. You currently reside in an automaton that you can control as if it were your own body. It's not a real body so it can't grow or anything like that, but it will give you some mobility. You see, what no one before ever realized about The Workshop is that it can make anything the user imagines, with enough power. I could make weapons that make a fully functional Excalibur look like a cheap toothpick, with enough power. As long as it's not something purely conceptual or living, I can make just about anything."

Robo-Ddraig looked up at Junichiro from his spot on the floor as he addressed him, "Could you create a body for me with enough power?"

Junichiro wobbled his hand side to side in a so-so manner, "Kinda sorta. I could make something like what you're in now only bigger, better, stronger, and with a better idea behind it. What you have now is a rush job. I could make a body purely out of nano-machines or something that would let you make it look and act however you wanted. I don't know if it would be capable of handling your power and I definitely can't make you anything biological. I'm restricted to technological and magical creations."

He stroked his chin, "Though, if we could find your genetic information, somehow, it's possible I could clone you and find a way to put you into that cloned body."

Robo-Ddraig walked around Junichiro's bedroom flexing his new, temporary, body. He flapped his little wings, flexed his little claws, and seemed to be in deep thought, "Would you be willing to make me a new body if a piece of my old one was found?"

"I would be willing. However," He heard Ddraig grumbling but continued over him, "There are threats to this world I want to take care of to protect myself and those I care about. Threats like Trihexia that I want to deal with. But, I'd be willing to do it if I gained enough power to reach my goals on my own without your help or they've already been met, as unlikely as that is to happen anytime soon. I can do something as an in-between step though."

Ddraig studied him for a moment, "I'm listening."

"What I can do is make a better version of what you're in now that connects to myself. I'll make something that will allow you to remote control the body with your consciousness so it will be as if you're within the body. You can stay within it and do whatever you like as long as we're not in combat, but once a fight starts you'll be disconnected from it and back with me for the battle. It won't be a biological body, not as strong as a real dragon, or capable of using your power, but it would give you some semblance of freedom and allow you to move around."

Junichiro grinned, "Of course, as I get stronger I can upgrade it and make it more powerful over time. It still won't be as good as a flesh and blood body but it'd be something."

Ddraig remained silent for a while as he considered Junichiro's words. Eventually, he nodded, "I accept. I will allow you to use my power in exchange for you doing your best to revive me after either Trihexia is defeated or you are strong enough to do it on your own."

"Excellent! Let's get started then. I'm not sure how long it will take you to integrate with me, so we best start now."

Putting action to words, Junichiro retrieved the sphere containing Ddraig and held it against his chest. The sphere easily began to sink into his body until it vanished within. He didn't feel anything different until his mana core began to drain at a rapid pace and Ddraig shouted in his mind, "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"

AN

When I write, I generally feel like a chapter is done with around 3k words. I don't specifically aim for that many but that seems to be the average I hit when I feel a chapter is done. Sometimes it's a little less, sometimes and little more. This one hit 4k, excluding these authors' notes. I also wanted to answer some reviews here. I was going to reply to them but that only sends a private message, annoying.

Vercingetorix Rex: First, thanks for being my first review! Now onto said review. I never intended for it to come off as if Junichiro thought of the Boosted Gear as a bad Sacred Gear, it just wasn't his first choice since it's so... limited. Compared to his first choice, Annihilation Maker, Boosted Gear is extremely limited in what it can do, regardless of the imagination and desires of its wielder. Even weaker sacred gears such as Sword Birth have significantly more variety and utility built into them by their very nature. Even in the paragraph saying he didn't want Boosted Gear, he spoke about making a monster with Annhilation Maker to steal it. It was clearly something he wanted to do from the very beginning. As for replacing Issei, he will be taking Issei's place in Rias's peerage but will do things his own way. He will not be weak and constantly getting 'Plot Armor' boosts in strength from breasts. Junichiro is a completely different kind of character. At least, I hope I've portrayed him that way so far.

Trueopulance: I had hoped I portrayed Junichiro's mistake a bit better. The best way I thought of to describe it was that the item he made to hide his growing power was designed to make him look 'Perfectly Human' as HE understood normal humans to be in a world without magic. In other words, he was making himself look like a human from our world and lacked normal things that supernatural beings expect to sense.

Evzvs: Thanks for the comments! I just want to say, I totally have plans for Ddraig's ability to convert body parts into dragon parts as well as what to do with the Incursio-style armor that Junichiro made for himself. I think you will enjoy both things when they happen.

ArguableReader: I'm not 100% sure what you were getting at with your review. All I can say about it not being a crossover is, anything Junichiro makes might be inspired by another media but it won't be a one-to-one exact copy. Like the Incursio-style armor, it evolves like the armor from Akama-ga-kill but that's about it. It looks completely different and doesn't have any of the drawbacks that the original armor did. Same with the Esdeath-style Ice Magic gem. It's not some demonic blood and it can be used by anyone if they can get their hands on it. All the gem does is amplify the magic supplied to it and focus it into a specific type of magic. I'm not really sure what you were getting at with the rest of your review though. It's a Highschool DxD fanfic so having the main cast on display is kind of the point.

EyeofSoren: Bit of a spoiler, kinda, but Junichiro will be joining Rias's peerage. When it comes to becoming a devil, she seems like the best choice really. Considering how she treats her peerage, he could do pretty much whatever he wants, as long as it doesn't endanger the others or devils in general. Being her 'servant' also conveys a certain level of protection that being on his own wouldn't. Not only would he have the protection of House Gremory, one of the higher ranking 72 pillars, but also the siscon Sirzechs. There's also his knowledge to consider and how he could use his sacred gear to help the others to become stronger. While Rias will start out like her canon counterpart, she will be easily pushed to a different life path and become more than the boobs used to make Boosted Gear evolve or the damsel in need of saving.

I'd like everyone to keep in mind that while Junichiro has focused solely on making himself stronger so far, that doesn't preclude him from doing the same to others. He could very easily give Rias and every member of her peerage the same upgrades he gives himself. This story will also be moderately paced instead of a huge rush through. I don't even know how many chapters it will be before canon events like the introduction of Asia Argento will take. I just hope you all enjoy the journey with me!