Mysteries abound where most we seek answers.

-Ray Bradbury-

Location: Japan, Kuoh Academy

Akeno Himejima

The first thing that I noticed was his eyes.

His blood-red eyes.

They were stone cold and still, the eyes of a dead man. And yet they moved with a life and energy of the living. They were like an endless ocean of blood, that threatened to drown anything that dared wade into its waters. Yet within that ocean, deep within, was the emotion of loneliness, yet the shroud and confidence of inner strength and unfaltering will burned inside them.

They bore into her as if they were gazing into her very soul.

Then she noticed the scar that adorned his face, diamond in shape the scarred flesh appeared to have been ripped, yet in the end, it did nothing but give him a more rugged and handsome appearance, as well as a sense of mystery that she loved.

His hair was black like her own, but to say they were the same was like calling a light rain and a tornado the same. While her hair shone and reflected light, his hair was pitch black, it seemed to absorb all the light around his head like it was crafted from pure darkness. Honestly, she found it attractive.

He carried himself with disinterest as if the world around him was boring and plain, not worth his attention. It made him look weak, like easy prey. And yet, as she looked closer, her highly trained eyes could see the marks of training hiding behind his clothes, the definition of years of hard work and labour hidden beneath his skin, and an unconscious strength seemed to ooze from him, as he carried himself like a warrior. Not to mention he was one of the tallest people she had ever seen, much taller than her by around 8 inches.

But even with his handsome face, she knew it bore sadness. Like he was incomplete. His face was that of someone who had lost a piece of himself, yet didn't know what it was. It was tragic to see someone like this in his state. Perhaps she could help him?

And as the new kid, Hunter his name was according to Sona, walked in, the room fell silent as they all gazed upon him. A small frown developed on Hunter's face as he looked at us all, however, whatever was troubling him faded as the frown did. As Sensei coughed, Hunter glanced sideways at her his left eyebrow arching slightly. After Sensei had clapped several times to gain the attention of the remaining students, she spoke. "Okay, settle down class. As I'm sure you already know, we have a new transfer from across the sea, and I would like you all to be nice and welcoming to him. He's from Australia, so he might have some trouble with Japanese" at Sensei's words two things happened, a frown flickered across Hunter's face, so brief that she almost thought she imagined it, and the murmurs and whispers sprouted within the class. "Please Introduce yourself Mr Westerdyk," Sensei said in English. I nearly leaned forward in anticipation as Hunter seemed to consider something, before speaking quickly in English with an Australian, and slight American accent.

"Hello, there my fellow people. I am Hunter Westerdyk, and I am your new classmate. This is what someone speaking English actually sounds like. I am fully expecting all of you to have no fucking clue as to what I'm saying, and I will exploit this to hell and back. If none of you responds to me in English, I will assume you all admit my superiority and will bow down and kiss my pointy shoes"

Despite myself, I smiled in happiness. The translation spell had worked! I could understand him. Excitement and accomplishment no doubt showed themselves in my eyes, but I didn't care. Hunter, however, did care. And noticing my excitement, he frowned in confusion. However suddenly that confusion was replaced with surprise, shock and disbelief as he stared at her like she was a ghost. "Ok, uhh, does anyone here understand English?" Sensei asked awkwardly. But I didn't volunteer, as the translation spell wasn't permanent. This made Hunter even more confused. However, the silence of the classroom didn't last long, as murmurs and whispers once again grew in the class.

"Seriously? He doesn't know Japanese?" a girl whispered.

"I know right? What kind of idiot comes to Japan and doesn't learn Japanese?" another girl agreed.

"What's he expecting us to do? Drop everything and learn English? Jerk." a 3rd girl piped up.

I was barely able to keep an annoyed frown off my face as I looked at the three girls that were essentially insulting Hunter. I opened my mouth to tell them off, but Hunter suddenly coughed, and I stopped. "Oh No, I don't expect you to learn English, that'd make me a jerk. It's the most complex language in the world, so I'm afraid only 'idiots' have the brain space to learn it." I smirked at Hunter's fluent Japanese, which still had his Australian and slight American accent. However, part of my smirk was Hunter's expertly disguised undertone, the hostility, anger and even malice within Hunter's words. Imagining what he could do to me with that voice made me shiver with excitement. Then Hunter's smile vanished, and he dismissed any and all attempts at hiding his anger and annoyance from his voice, speaking in a tone so dark and evil that erotic thoughts began to plague my mind. "However, I would appreciate it if you all shut the fuck up, and consider your next words carefully, because next time, you should make sure your victim doesn't understand Japanese. And, for the record, I dropped everything to learn Japanese so show me some Goddamn respect."

For the next 3 minutes, shocked silence filled the room as Hunter glared at the 3 girls who had insulted him, all of which stared at him with expressions of shock, embarrassment, shame and even slight fear. Finally, Sensei recovered. "Well, I'm sorry for not asking you if you understood Japanese sooner, Mr Westerdyk, and as Impressed as I am by your Japanese, I must ask that you not threaten your fellow students in class. Now as a way to avoid a misunderstanding like this again, how about you tell us a bit about yourself, and answer any questions the others may still have about you afterwards."

Hunter sighed, before saying. "Fine. My name's Hunter Westerdyk, which means 'the Builder'. I moved here from a farm in Australia alongside my father, mother and older brother. While I understand a large portion of the spoken Japanese language and am justifiably fluent in the written language, I am still unfamiliar with a large portion of the Japanese customs, such as the adding of the word's like 'san' or 'chan' after one's name, and thing's like that." my eyebrows raised momentarily at Hunter's somewhat lengthy introduction. Soon though, the rest of the class was raising their hands and asking Hunter questions, which he answered simply and with little to no emotion at all, until finally, it was my turn.

"Do you wear contact lenses?" I asked, Hunter, frowned and turned to me. "Pardon me, Miss…?" I smiled warmly as I introduced myself, "Akeno, Akeno Himejima." Hunter nodded asking, "Miss Himejima, what did you say?" in response I pointed to my eyes, then to his. "You said you don't wear makeup, but your eyes are red, so you wear contacts right?" as his shoulders slumped slightly, Hunter sighed, shaking his head slowly. "No, they're red alright. I don't wear contact lenses, my eyes have always been this colour." at Hunter's words my eyes widened slightly. Blood-red eyes? I didn't know how or where, but it sounded familiar. Meanwhile, the other girls were openly concerned with Hunter. "Are you sick then? Is it some kind of disability?" the first girl asked, to which the second girl quickly responded, "It's probably genetic, we would've been told if he was sick."

But before it could get any further, Hunter held up a hand, silencing them. "No, it's not genetic or some kind of disability. And no I'm not sick. We honestly don't know why my eyes are red, but they've never hindered me before and several optic doctors can attest to that. Although we've never gotten a solid answer as to why my eyes are this way, I've never seen anyone else with red eyes.'' Unfortunately, however, that was the end of the questions as Sensei clapped her hands saying. "Alright, that's all the questions we have time for. Mr Westerdyk, why don't you go sit over there in the back by the window?" After a moment Hunter nodded, and walked up to the back where he would sit. And as he sat down, I couldn't help but think of who had sat there.

And the terrible fate that had fallen upon him.

Hunter mostly kept to himself for the rest of the day from what I could tell during my fleeting interactions with him, seeing as how we were in different classes.

Apparently, from our observations, he rarely talked, only speaking to make others stop annoying him, or voicing his disapproval with perverts. The latter action quickly earned him the approval of numerous girls, and already I could tell that he would be getting his own fan club like Kiba did.

However, it wasn't until lunch break that Hunter truly shocked me.

"Whatcha reading?" Looking up from my own meal, I saw a group of boys surrounding Hunter, who was currently ignoring them in favour of reading a book he had in his hands. I frowned as I realized the encounter would quickly escalate and went to stand up. When Hunter didn't respond the ringleader of the boys scowled, grabbed Hunter's book and attempted to tear it out of his hands "I said, whatcha reading punk!"

But the book never moved, and nor did I. The boy gasped, and my eyes widened with surprise as I saw Hunter's face. Usually, It was calm and bored, with the only other emotions appearing being annoyance and irritation. But none of those emotions was on Hunter's face now. Adorned on Hunter's face, was a death stare to end all death stares. His eyes had transformed from the calm endless ocean to a raging cold sea that promised death and destruction, and they didn't flinch or move even as 2 minutes passed by, and a dark aura seemed to appear around him, and a faint blue light seemed to shine from his right hand.

Finally, the boy gulped and let go, before stumbling back, hands in the air in surrender. Then once he was satisfied that there would be no further intrusions or distractions, the Aura vanished, and Hunter sat down blinking like nothing happened.

But out of all the onlookers, I was the most shocked. Not only because of what I had just witnessed but because of what I had just sensed. What I had sensed within Hunter.

A Sacred Gear.

Standing up, I turned around and left the area quickly.

Rias had to know about this.

Hunter Westerdyk

As the day passed, I couldn't help but feel like something was wrong. Very wrong.

I did my best to ignore the feeling, to focus on something else, anything else. But any and all efforts were in vain. The feeling was so powerful that it was almost unbearable during Sport's class while I decimated everyone in the class, and heightened after I put a rude boy in his place with a show of force and restraint.

By the time school ended, I was constantly on edge. My eyes were darting back and forth, searching for the cause of this feeling but I found nothing and no one. I tried dismissing it, but it refused to be silenced.

And as I walked towards the parking lot at the end of the school day, I nearly bumped into a black-haired stranger.

"Um, Mr Hunter," she said.

I immediately frowned at the stranger. She was only around 5'4 in height, with a slender body and a rather large bust. Her hair was silky and black as night, long enough that it went down to her hips. Her build was petite, and she had dark violet eyes. She seemed to be wearing some kind of uniform, which consisted of a dark red jacket with the letter P embroidered in gold, a white undershirt, a red bow and a short grin skirt with a thin white stripe around the lower end of it.

'What now?'

"Would you please be my boyfriend?"

'Say what?' I blinked in utter confusion and surprise at the girl. "Excuse me?" I asked. The girl held out a hand, "Could you please be my boyfriend?" she begged. My frown deepened, as suspiciously I looked around, however, I saw no one wearing the same uniform as this girl, or anyone looking at us while attempting to be unsuspecting. Turning back to look at the girl I sighed, "No." The girl's head shot up, confusion paired with surprise on her face. "Huh?" She asked. I rolled my eyes, "No, I am not going to be your boyfriend." I repeated. The girl stood up, "Wha? Why not?" I groaned in frustration, before holding up a finger with each reason I listed. "First, I've never seen you before, but you've seen me and know my name. Meaning you're likely a stalker. 2nd, I don't know your name, 3rd, I don't know your motivation to be asking me this, 4th, I don't know your personality, you're not even a friend. And finally, asking random people to go out on a date with you is strange, unusual and frankly weird." The girl blinked for a moment as if she was processing my reasoning. Until finally tears began to well up in her eyes as she started to cry.

Almost immediately, I could feel the mounting attention on my back beginning to be mixed with annoyance, anger, and even traces of hatred. No doubt wondering why I had just made this girl cry.

My right eye began to twitch, at this, and I growled. "Fine. If it makes you stop crying, I'll hang out with you tomorrow." Instantly the girl stopped crying and she looked up at me in hope, I held up a finger quickly, "But, it's not a Date. We will be hanging out, nothing more. Understand?" the girl nodded so quickly that her head seemed to blur. 'Bloody hell.' "Okay." She said happily. "Oh, and my name's Yuuma. Meet me at the bridge after school tomorrow. I'll be waiting. Okay?" I sighed in defeat. "Fine, I'll be there. Goodbye Yuuma." I said, before walking past her.

And as my Motorcycle roared to life, I waved goodbye to her and drove off.

Turning my back on the Girl, who would change my life forever.

And… there we go!

Chapter 3 is done!

Now I apologize if this chapter is on the shorter side, originally the Sports lesson was included, but I decided to cut it out to further the story.

Also, for my new readers, I propose a challenge.

If you can correctly guess the species of the animal that gave Hunter his scar, I'll give you a shoutout, and quite possibly make a pairing of your choosing between Hunter, and a Dxd character of your choice.

Spedyalarm out!