Becoming a Badass (High School DxD - Sacred Gearless Issei Hyoudou SI Chapter 4)

"How come there are leaves all over the stairs? It's not even autumn, and these are green." I just sat around while Miko went back to her task.

"Prank by the spirits." Miko deadpanned back.

Wow, you're just gonna come out and say something supernatural exist, or was responsible?

Well, she is being sarcastic so normally a kid wouldn't believe her form her tone.

Then again I am a kid so if I do believe her, it would just seem like she's tricking a child.

"Why are you using a mop and not a broom?" I ignored her answer and asked something else.

"I'm, uh, not allowed to use them." Miko suddenly sounded embarrassed.

"...Okay I actually wanna hear how you managed that one." I was interested in this noodle incident.

"Uh, look, they're just broken, that's why I'm using a mop, okay!" Said a flustered Miko. Wow, you really don't know how to lie.

"Why are you the one cleaning this place? Is this some kinda punishment?"

"Arrrgh!" Miko grabbed her head in annoyance before turning to me and my smiling face. She really had amusing expression. Mostly because they all look really exaggerated. That's an anime protagonist for you. "Look, why don't you explore the grounds some more? Don't you want to see what else the shrines have? I'll get one of the other miko-onee-chans to give you a tour."

"Nope~. You're the only Miko-onee-chan for me." I said genuinely and smiled sincerely.

"Unnng." Miko clenched a hand against her chest while looking away. "This kid is gonna be dangerous when he grows up."

"Oooor you're a budding shotacon." I said under my breath while looking away, an amused smirk on my face.

She suddenly looked at me suspiciously as if she heard me. I just kept smiling like an innocent child. Thinking about it, maybe she has some superhuman senses, and actually did hear me.

...This is gonna be more fun than I thought.

"What was that!?" She said quickly.

"What was what?" I tilted my head, playing innocent. "Onee-chan... are you already hearing things in your old age?" I asked in fake concern.

"I'm eighteen!" She cried out.

"Ah... You just look so mature." I grinned back.

"That's it you little shit, come here!" Miko ran at me with the mop.

I ran away laughing. Her angry face is seriously funny and cute.

...This better not awaken anything in me when I'm older.


"Well, shit... I'm lost."

Turns out being small means I can jump and weave through narrow spaces faster than the teen Miko can follow.

I went out into the forest that's part of the Naiku area, running and hiding between the thick trees. Miko was still following me, but her voice was distant.

Well, she is persistent, so I'll rest for a while then let her find me. While I'm sure she's just running after me out of sheer spite to want to give me a scare or scold me, it's also pretty responsible of her not to leave me alone.

I walked for a while, just taking in the forest scenery. The grass and dry dirt under my shoes. The air with slight humidity and that wood and... garden-like smell? It was the closest thing I could compare it to.

There was this odd quiet where I felt I could breath a bit easier. It really was a tranquil place.

...Is it me or is it too quiet?

Focusing on it now and looking around, I don't see or hear any birds around.

"...Nope." Weird shit is abound.

I turned around a walk back the way I came. I was always good at backtracking where I went. So when I found myself in front of a giant tree wrapped with shimenawa, sacred ropes, with a giant hollow in it's trunk and exposed roots at the bottom, I knew there was magic shit happening.

"Yeah, I'm not falling for this anime pilot bullshit." That is clearly the incident incident of whatever anime plot Miko was gonna get pulled into, and I want nothing to do with it.

So I turned around and walked away.

I walked for a good few minutes, trying to head out of the forest. It shouldn't be a long walk.

...And found myself right back at the shimenawa tree with the hollowed trunk.

I took a deep breath, sighed, then turned around one last time to walk away.

And ended up in front of the sacred tree where clearly something "evil" was sealed in it.

There was only one thing left to do.

I had a bag with me when I came to hang out with Miko today. It wasn't a big bag, just a small one to hold water and snacks. I put the bag down, sat on another tree overgrown root like it was a bench facing the hollowed tree, took out the filled water bottle and opened it.

Click.

The seal on the cap cracked, I opened the bottle and drank the whole thing.

While keeping my eyes on the sacred hollowed tree.

After I finished the water bottle, I closed it and put it back in the bag. Better not litter and all that.

"I don't know if you're sentient. Or maybe it's sapient?" I thought about which definition it's suppose to be. "Well, intelligent enough to understand me, is what I'm saying. Point is, I don't know if you're some being that's animalistic and driven by instincts, or something older and thus smart and plan and stuff, but regardless I'm gonna give you the same warning." I stood up, and carried my bag again. "Kids tend to be very active when they're young. Like me." I said, half turned away. "They tend to go through stuff very fast. Energy, food, water, etc... So now I'm going to turn around and walk away." I said fully turning around but leaving my head turned to still gaze at the tree. "And if I find myself back here again... I'm gonna do something we'll both regret."

I walked away.

I found the scenery a bit different, different trees, different markings. I think I might be heading to a different direction, which hopefully means a way out-

I found myself back at the sacred hollowed trunk tree. It took a little longer, I noticed, but I still ended up there.

"Okay." I continued walking until I got a few feet from the trunk hole. I could see some kind of box half-buried in there.

I found feel the amusement of the sealed being. And having the clarity of knowing that this emotion is from something else, is an odd thing to adjust to.

Ziiip.

I decided to carry out my threat.

And suddenly I felt disgust, horror and shock from whatever was sealed under the tree.

Prrrr!

"Hey look, I told you what I would do, and I'd like to grow into an adult that keeps their word. Buddha might say to forgive three times, but I'm only human and I'm not that kind. I warned you once, and now we both deal with the consequences."

Anger. Shock. Anger. Some feelings like vowing vengeance. Anger.

"That is probably not as helpful for you as you think."

It just made the water flow faster.

Prrrrrrrrrr!

"I mean making me terrified, really isn't a helpful combination with this."

Anger. Anger. Anger. Pleading for me to stop. Anger. Anger. Wondering how long this humiliation will go on. Anger. Anger.

"Well I'm a kid, you know. We store a lot of things, and lost it very quickly. ...Although I haven't gone since this morning soooo, just your luck."

I continued for a while, before I heard someone screech behind me.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING AT THE KAGUTSUCHI TREE!" Miko shouted from behind me, as she entered the grove, and I focused on not jumping or flinching.

"Woah! Don't scare me, I don't want to turn around and miss-aim." I called out, making Miko freeze in her march over towards me.

"You, just, why would you do t-that on the Kagutsuchi?!" Miko cried out but kept her distance.

"Weeeeell, the Kagutsuchi Tree here, I assume was a prison for some evil being, because it kept fucking with me, and making me end up here. I figured it wanted me to release what's ever was inside it, and I warned it if it didn't let me go, there would be consequences." I explained with a neutral tone and a nod. "These are the consequences."

"By pissing on it!" She shouted. "Oooooh, old hag Chiyo is gonna kill me." Miko held her head in worry of her future punishment.

"Y~e~p." I was finally done. Zipped up, took steps backwards a few times, before turning around to leave. Don't want to end up falling into my own pee, or trip and unseal the sealed being. Specially now, any anger it has toward me is now definitely personal. "So given that you're here, it let go of whatever barrier was closing this place, so I say we get out of here quickly."

"You, uh... how do you know about gods and spirits?"

"I watch anime." I plainly said back. "We have the sealed evil." I gestured to the hollow trunk. "We have the anime protagonist," I pointed at her. "And you have some super secret tournament you have today. It all just seemed so cliché."

"I have so many things to say about how reality isn't like anime, and its mainly a coincidence that you happen to land on some of them." Miko came closer and walked around the tree to inspect it while keeping a safe distance from the tree and the wet ground. "Also I'm not an anime protagonist." She said with a sigh. "That's more like Ayame, she's a genius one that worked hard, loved by everyone and is likely to win the Selection Tournament."

"Sounds like a rival character." I nodded at my wisdom.

Miko snorted. She went up on one of the roots of the other tree nearby to look closer at the sacred tree without getting close to it. Also she was to the right of the tree, and thus away from the front, where I, you know.

I immediately tensed at the possible cliche of this scenario were she trips and takes off the ropes and prepared to act.

"Yeah, she does have a haughtiness of one." Miko said. "Well you somehow didn't, err, touch the sealing, the ropes or Lord Kagutsuchi's heart so everything works out. ...Although you're likely to have a lot of bad karma now. Maybe some bad luck being around fire."

"So wait, the evil being sealed here really is Kagutsuchi?" I asked. Okay, maybe my 'consequences' was a bad idea.

"Oh?" Miko had a smug grin on her face. "Suddenly regretting being a devious little prankster? Well, maybe if you apologize profoundly then-Woah!"

I dashed forward. The moment Miko took a step down to come toward me, having finished her inspection, I suspected this would happen. She tripped, her hands going to the nearest object, as she fell away from the tree she was next to, and toward the Kagutsuchi Tree.

So I used my special technique.

"Anime Cliché Plot Interruption!" I dash-jumped at full force slamming into Miko's stomach and we both fell down and, more importantly, away from the Kagutsuchi Tree. We were actually on the opposite side of the trunk hole now.

"Ooof!" Miko hardly seemed hurt, just thrown off balance. "Dammit, Issei, why did you do that? I would have been fine!" Miko sat a bit up rubbing her head.

"Aaah, however!" I looked up from where my head was lying on her boobs. "You were falling toward the Kagutsuchi Tree, and the only thing to hold onto would have been the shimenawa. If you ended ripping that off it would have been bad." I said before nodded. "Specially for me. I'm pretty sure the remnant will of the god would have it out for me. Actually how does that work, isn't he suppose to be dead?"

Miko let out a sound of annoyance. As she sat up fully with me on her lap, she checked me for injuries while expositing.

"Your hands!"

"Don't worry! I didn't touch myself."

"Not that you idiot... but also good."

My hands were a bit scratched up from hitting the ground when I hugged Miko in my dash-jump. There was some blood. I think I hit of those large tree roots.

Miko tore some of her sleeve, tore it again into two, and took out some alcohol spray bottle she had on her.

I raised an eyebrow at her having that.

"It's good to be prepared when you live in a place where you can get injured in spars. Also its blessed." Miko explained.

"Huh. Mundane use for magic. Neat." I nodded. Miko chuckled.

She sprayed the cloth piece with the bottle, then cleaned my hands, and wrapped them with the cloths.

"That should fix them up." She said with a relieved sigh. "What were we talking about?" She furrowed her eyebrows in that cute when she's trying to remember something.

"Gods and death."

"Ah, right." She nodded. "Death doesn't mean the same thing to gods as it does for us mortals. Some times it's a big deal and they are gone for good. Sometimes it means being gone for a small while. Other times it's like sleeping." She said.

"And in the case of Kagutsuchi where he died in his origin story. Probably as an infant." I asked.

"Lord Kagutsuchi is part of the creation of Japan. Even his death ended up adding to our country's creation. Thus he deserves respect." She said pointedly while wiggling her finger at me. "But it's only natural that he would hold some resentment for how he died." She looked toward the Kagutsuchi Tree. "What is held here is his heart, his essence in a sense, and the emotions he held as he died. One of our duties in this shrine is to guard it, and to give him peace. Him, by not having a target for those emotions forgets them and sleep. By allowing him to stay sealed and away from others, it also gives us peace from any possible rampages of his emotions being released, wracking havoc or possessing others." She said and she stood up... while carrying me.

Huh. ...This doesn't feel bad. Also it's kinda surprising that she's so open about explaining all of this stuff to me. Maybe it's because I'm a kid so me knowing is inconsequential, or maybe she enjoying being a teacher.

...Miko-sensei in a pencil skirt? No! Bad imagination!

"Huh. Neat." I said. Miko stared to walk back out of the forest. "Okay now, make sure to avoid his tree, and certain spot on the ground."

"Yeah, obviously." Miko walked far away in the opposite direction of the tree and turned in the wide circle to make her way back the way we entered. "Also, you are... taking this way too well."

"Again, anime. You telling me what gods are real is not that surprising." I shrugged.

"You're a weird kid." Miko said before she smiled. "Good weird."

"Hehe," I smirked back. After walking for a while, I felt like we moved past this... film or something, and suddenly there was more background noise and the sounds of birds and people again. Huh. Guess we passed by a barrier. "Say, why does this shrine look after Kagutsuchi's heart? This is a shrine for Amaterasu, right?"

Miko nodded. "Yes, the Inner Shrine is dedicated to Lady Amaterasu. Due to her sibling relationship to Lord Kagutsuchi and the closeness of their domains, the Sun for her ladyship and Fire for Lord Kagutsuchi, she took the responsibility of watching over his heart."

"I see." I nodded. We now made it back to the roads of the Naiku. Miko... didn't put me down. Looking at her face, she probably forgot and because I'm like super light to her. I'm gonna take advantage of this. She's warm. "Say, if that is his heart, does that mean there are other body parts of him sealed in other shrines."

Miko groaned. "No and... kinda yes."

"How?"

"No, because the volcanos of Japan are his body. However some bites of him, like his eye, hand, bone, or lung didn't break down to form places or into other gods. Those..." She frowned. "Are being looked after by other supernaturally aware people. An Onmyoji Clan."

"...You have bad relationships with those people?" I tilted my head.

"Kinda. Let's just say they are... You know in anime how some people are really full of themselves because of their long history?" She asked with an amused look.

"Oh yeah, Young Master-types are the worst!" I said back.

Miko laughed out loud. I smiled at seeing her laugh.

"Yeah, it's kinda like that." Miko said. "Now where to take you so you don't get into anymore trouble." She said as she looked around at where to go.

Oh? Trying to get rid of me?

"Hey, didn't you have that super secret tournament thing today?" I said with an innocent grin.

"Oh shit!" Miko's eyes widened as she looked around, spotted a one of those large clocks in a store and saw the time. Quickly she moved me around to her back, where I latched onto her, and with me secured she began to run. "Crap, crap, crap! I can't be late! I can't be late!"

Time to watch a magic tournament battle? Woohoo!