-Rias-
(The day after "waking up")
I… I should be happy with this. This is a far better outcome than them just outright rejecting me or even being all sad.
"This is when we went to a beach for the first time!" says my sister "You were pulling my and Fia's hands, asking for us to hurry up so that you could enter the sea faster. It was one the most adorable moments in the whole trip! And then you deci–"
Is this one of those moments of "sacrificing yourself for others happiness"? I hate it.
"Oh! And this one was when we were at the restaurant, you found the menu and decided you wanted to eat food with the "funny name" " says mother. "Even though it was spicy. We warned you about it but you insisted on eating anyway. You were almost crying but we already had ice cream on the table for you."
Yknow, when you ask someone to talk about yourself, you normally expect them to just tell overall stories about you or your personality. In which they kind of did. They introduced themselves first, my parents, then my sister, my sister-in-law and then told me about my nephew whom I was going to meet later and about my cousin Sairaorg that I got along with. They told me about those people that left the room earlier, they are my "peerage", as in my slaves (what the fuck). After that they general things about our Gremory family, the Bael family and the devil nobility in general.
Up until that point it was ok. I discovered that I and my family were devils, that we are a part of the nobility in "hell". And that even though we were different species, we were still trying the same shit as humans. As in, most people only wanted their children marrying other nobles for the "purity" of "pure blood devils" and for the powers of different families to mix and to add up. Although has some logic now that I know that we devils actually have powers ,it still sounds fucked up that young devils serve only to breed or to be an boost to the family by marriage with another family.
I also learned that all other religions are not only a thing, but also most of them hate us, because in the past the nobles just straight up kidnap and enslave people from other religions and races with the reincarnation system without caring for the repercussions.
But when they finished the little history lesson, in which they told me that later I would learn everything in more detail, they started telling me about me. I expected for them to say just overall things, but they just pulled out a big and thick photo album that started when I was born. I expected them to just pass over everything quickly. But they stopped at almost EVERY SINGLE PICTURE telling a story about me.
Part of me feels like I'm just looking at pictures from another different person. But the other part of me knows that it's my family gushing over me.. to myself, it's horrible. I decided that I would just listen for a while. I didn't expect this to take HOURS. And from what I can understand they are still talking about when I was 4.
"This was when you had a nightmare and wanted to sleep with us–"
Okay that's enough.
" Hey…" I start. " Um.. What about my.. "peerage"?"
"oh…"My sister stops to look at a watch. "I guess we have been here a while huh? they must want to talk as well"
My family called for my peerage and they left us alone to talk.
It was… awkward at first, but we managed to keep talking. Well, they did most of the talking, they gave me more or less the story of how they've met me. All of them were dead or close to dying when I managed to reach them in time and "reincarnate" them into my peerage.
I don't think this old me was a super mastermind of getting everything the way she likes and everything was planned. So that only leaves the possibility that I was really lucky by being in the right place and at the right time. With the exception being the white haired girl, Koneko, that apparently the devils didn't know what to do with her due to something and my brother let her become part of my peerage.
They told me a little of how I was, what I liked, disliked, and some of the recent events that happened that led to… well, me losing my memory.
"Did I have some objective? something that I was aiming for?" I asked.
"...She was really proud of her family. So she was always thinking of ways that she could add to the Gremory name, with something like entering the rating games" Koneko says.
"Well… recently most of her worries were about the marriage with Riser. She thought that it would come later than high school, so she was planning on eventually finding a solution to that" Kiba added.
"But now that the marriage is well… taken care of. What do you want to do?" Akeno asked.
… How should I answer that? I think that just saying that I aim to become a "god" is really out of nowhere. But they should know that I am different from old me. And if they will continue to be by my side, then they should be prepared for the changes.
"I.. I will become strong" I start. " Not for making anyone proud or making people acknowledge me, but i want to become strong enough that can defeat everyone and everything that tries to hurt me or anyone i care"
And also never die again, because I don't know if Zack will give me another chance, send me to an afterlife or just end my existence. But that would also be more or less confusing to say to them and it sounds less brave.
"That is the main thing i will focus on" I continue " But I also want to learn magic not only for combat, but so that I can make my life and the life of those around me easier. I would like to… Live for myself. Not to do something like become the "number 1 noble" or replace my sister as a dependable or strong ruler. I don't want people to decide what I should do or what should be."
I wait a bit for them to understand my words. Probably they are comparing me to old me and trying to decide what to do.
After a while of just silence I ask them "... So, what would you like to do? I don't really know how this peerage thing works. But If anyone is… uncomfortable with this situation, I can ask my family to do something.
They all stayed silent for a while until Akeno spoke first "... You saved all of us. You might not remember, but we all do."
Issei continued " I don't think anyone here would abandon you before, much less now. We all would like to continue being your peerage."
"... If you would like to?" Asia says with a little hesitation.
"...I will probably be harsher than I was before… and I'm not sure about being responsible to people, but if you guys still decide to stay, then I look forward to being with all of you." I responded.
All of them were happy with my decision. And we spent the rest of the day just talking. Mostly about them, but about some things that I would like to do as well.
The next day Grayfia and some of the other maids of the house suggested that I wear some dresses that they told me that old me liked. I tried some of them, some were elegant and others felt more casual, but all of them were comfortable to wear. While I could see myself wearing them occasionally, I found some hoodies, shirts, shorts and skirts that I found nice and decided that I would probably wear them more on a daily basis.
While I was trying on some thigh high socks I stopped for a second and realized that one of the things that I forgot about my previous life is that I don't remember whenever I was a man or woman in my past life. I stood there for a few seconds until I looked at the mirror and decided that it didn't really matter and that I looked gorgeous. Damn, devil genes are wild.
After that I talked a little bit with everyone but I also met my nephew, Milicas. He was sad at first with the whole "memory loss" thing, but I assured him that I would be delighted to talk to him. I learned that he could use our family's power of destruction too and also that he liked studying and learning new things.
I also got my cellphone. Thankfully, old me must not really use it much because it didn't even need a password to unlock it. I changed that now. Apparently the supernatural world's technology is more advanced than most of the normal human world.
Later that day, mother decided to teach me, Asia and Issei about the history of devils, hell and things that were considered general studies because we will all need it at some point. Millicas was there as well but I think he just wanted some company.
I don't think I was really good with memorization so I didn't even bother to actually try to remember all of the devil houses. Issei and Asia were having difficulties as well. But since it's all new to us Mother just let it pass.
After class, the four of us went to the house's private library to just chill for a while.
"When I was told that I was a devil I never actually thought that I was gonna have to "study" for it." Issei speaks as he lays his head on a table.
"Yeah. but you and Asia will probably stay low class devils for a while and won't have to have a test soon. I am the one that will probably have to talk with other devil nobility and deal with their shi— politics" I say remembering that we have a child among us.
Oh yeah he probably would know about this. "Hey Millicas" I start to ask. " Do you know if we have any books on magic training? Like both from our kind of devil magic and from the other mythology?"
"Um.. i think that we have an overall view about what other races do, but books about how they do their magic i don't believe we have here " He says. "But if it's about learning the basics, I think that Akeno-nee-sama or Mother are excellent teachers for devil magic in general, and Father is the strongest power of destruction in history. And Sairaorg-nii-sama have learned to manipulate an energy called "touki" that is different from our magic"
Hm… I guess it's good to start with just one type of magic first then I will go look for others.
Probably we don't have any books about cultivation from Chinese novels as well. Cultivation sounds like a solid way to achieve godhood. The problem is that it takes way too long. But even some lower stages allow the person to somehow survive being without a body just by protecting a "core" that the cultivator puts his own soul inside.
I don't think i will start "cultivating" anytime soon, and i don't know when i will meet Sairaorg, So the next best thing is to learn "devil magic".
We stayed talking in the library for a while and ended up talking about our powers.
"Wait, you can "boost" anything?" I ask issei
"Yeah! I can boost my powers to release a very powerful attack. And can also transfer my boost to someone else, I made kiba's magical attack stronger back in the rating game"
"... Can you boost your mind?" Surely this is something overpowered and won't work
She makes a confused face before asking "What do you mean?"
"Like, if you are feeling tired, can you boost your energy like with an energy drink to make yourself awake? or boost your "tiredness" to make yourself fall asleep instantaneously?.. Can you make yourself smarter? Can you do this to someone else?"
"Can you boost Asia-onee-sama's healing powers? Or boost Rias-oba-sama's recovery directly to heal her wounds faster?"
It takes a while for her to realize how absurd this can be if it works like that "... Oh sh— wow. I never thought about that"
"Let's test it no—" I was suggesting we test it. But before I could finish I heard a knock.
We all looked at where he heard the knock and saw Grayfia waiting at the door.
She greeted us and said "Apologies for interrupting your time but Sirzechs-sama requested Rias-sama's presence."
"Did she say what was about it?"
"She wants you to meet Ajuka Beelzebub-sama to look into your powers"
Ah.. the Maou in charge of magic research and development wasn't it? I remember hearing from my sister that she would ask for help from her friend but I didn't think it would be this fast, nor her "friend" would be another Maou.
I said my goodbyes to the trio and went to join Grayfia. I thought that we were going to walk but she just teleported us to another room. Even though they told me that I am a devil and I was learning all of our story, it still feels weird seeing others just doing magical shit like it was nothing. I'm absolutely learning teletransport whenever I can.
When we finished teleporting, I looked around. It was a big dark room. It has some furniture but it's just so that it is not empty. I think it's still in our mansion, maybe. I saw my sister and a green haired guy.
Huh. He looks like a chill dude. I wouldn't think that he was one of the rules of hell. But I don't really know how to treat someone that is one of the rulers of hell (my sister doesn't count).
My sister speaks first "Hey Rias, this is my best friend that came to help us with your powers."
"Hello. You might not remember me but I'm Ajuka Beelzebub. Your sister asked me to look into your recent found powers. And please, here we don't really need to be overly formal" He says
Oh. That makes things easier " Hey, thanks but, I don't really remember how to "do" magic in general. How should I do the weird power of destruction?"
Ajuka says " Well, From what we could tell , your anger was the trigger. Can you make yourself angry again?" My sister interrupts "Tha if you're okay with it. You can stop at any time. And if you start hurting yourself we will stop you"
"Um… I guess I can try?" I don't know if it really works like that but then again, who am I to doubt the researcher maou's knowledge of magic.
I just stay there for a while, trying to get in the mood. I didn't really want to remember the fight, I'm mostly okay with it but in these 2 days I would sometimes panic for a moment, thinking that I would lose Issei for some reason. I asked if I could hold her hand from time to time. She wouldn't ask why but she just accepts it and seems happy with it.
But I guess that I can't really become strong by whining and chicken it out. So I try to mentally prepare myself. When I'm ready I try remembering the fight, but the only thing that I actually remember that annoys me is the fire guy running away from my attacks and teleporting away from the fight.
I guess I should try to imagine a worse scenario?I heard that the fire guy pretends to kill issei to screw with me, so I try imagining a similar scene. I try thinking about Him. Him grabbing issei by the throat , raising her in the air, bur ning her alive. Her skin slowly melting away. her head turns to me and Ï̷̫̹̹̘̙̘͍̱̆̄ ̥̩̓͗͟š̪̖̘̲̌̔ͪ͠ͅê̩̝̻̻̻͙̿̈͜é̆͏̪̜̻ ̮̙̤̙͕͖̩ͬ̐ͭͭ͢p̦̝̱͈̲̰͖̗ͨ͝a̦̮̖̝͑̅͞ṝ̣̪̼̠͖͕ͩ̅̃͝t͍̥̉̇͞ ̱̟̗͋͝o͍̺̯͓̩̜̤̗͂̓̿̀f̘͚̞̬͔̓͋ͨ̎͘ ̵̺͇̳̯̘̬̖̹̍̑̚h̶̳͕̠̭͊ẹ̝̳̹͕̩̘ͬͪ͗͠r̢̥͚̤ͮ ̶͎̗̤̪̟ͨ̈̏̇sͯ͏͔̩̞̹̩̜k͉̤̭͓̬͌̏͠ű̦̟̘͕ͨͧ̀l̙̥͓̩̟͎̗̑̈͜l̝̘̳̰ͭ̈́̄͘ ̠̳̠̺͎̐͘ͅw͖͍̰̯̦͇͖̔̆͘i̞̣͗ͩ́̀̚t̤̤̤̮͈̮ͫͮ̀͠ͅͅh̴͈̼̼̿o̗̱̯̥͓ͮ͗͠u͚̫͇̖̝̮ͧ͆́͝ṫ͕̪ͥ̾ͯ͝ ̸̮̘͚̪̞̹̦ͪa̴̮̳͙͕̣͍̟ͤ͊̓n̡̰̖̤̜͒ͮ̓̚ḓ̵͍̭̪̩̗̊͗̓ ͇̠̗̠̭̮̮ͯ͠ë̫͍͙͙͐́ẙ̷̮̫̤͎̙ͤ̚̚ȇ͔͎͚͢ ͨ̍̏ͣ͏̬̦̪̞͍͚-̨̦͖͕̝̞̜̔̈̀
-Ajuka-
"Rias STOP!" I hear Sirzechs scream at my side but I only pay attention to what I'm seeing.
At first she just stayed in place, but after a while we could see an aura around her, just like back at the rating game . We could feel her power slowly coming out. Although her power is inferior to us I can feel like her presence is trying to slowly drown us. Her face slowly turns into an angry expression. It's fascinating.
She turned her head to us and we could see that her iris was red like in the rating game but the white part of her eyes, the sclerae, were slowly turning black.
"Rias, it's fine! We are all fine. This is a test, remember?" Grayfia tries to placate her.
She doesn't move but I can see her sclerae have stopped changing. It appears that she can still understand us.
"We are not fighting." Sirzechs says . "This is a test to discover your powers, remember?"
"Try to remember this feeling but be aware that we are not your enemies" I tell her.
She stays still for a few seconds but we can see her aura is disappearing, her sclerae are back to normal but her iris is now yellow. Her face turns from anger into a tired looking deadpan expression.
What the hell? The red eyes were expected, Sirzechs does that when she uses her power. The black sclerae were uncommon but it could be just a more uncontrolled stage of the power of destruction. But yellow is completely out of nowhere.
We all stayed silent for a while, waiting for her. She starts releasing her Power of destruction, Sirzechs and Grayfia are about to say something but I stop them. Rias starts transforming her powers into different shapes. Ball, triangle, square, dog, cat, and some other simple constructs.
Then starts passing it between her fingers like someone that just found something with a new texture and is feeling around. Until she decides to envelop her index finger with it. When she removes it, her finger now is no longer bandaged. She looks at it for a while until she stops and turns her head at us again.
I wait a few seconds to see if she's going to react to us but she is just staring. "How are you feeling?" I ask
"... I… I thi nk I'm good?... Cal m… I guess?" She says with a voice that is changing between her normal voice and an altered and deep version of her voice.
She seems stable so I decided to see what she can do. "Can you make a sphere using your power?"
Rias raises her hand and does it. I raise my hand and encapsulate her sphere in a barrier to study it and move it away from her, but the moment I do, her sphere disappears. Oh?
"Are you capable of maintaining your sphere when I make a barrier?"
She nods.
"Please maintain it as long as you can"
We repeated the process but now I can analyze her power more. I feel like her power it's stable but.. alive. This is… wow, I need to check it more.
"Can you try to change what you're feeling again? We have anger and then calm. Try something else."
She closes her eyes for a while, and just stands there doing nothing until her face changes into a frown. I can feel and feel her sphere get more erratic inside my barrier.
It takes a few seconds until she stops frowning and opens her eyes, her iris is still yellow but now her sclerae are completely black.
"How do you feel now?"
"Du nno." She immediately responds. "I Was kind o f annoyed, but I remember it's a t est to help me sooooo it would be weir d for me to ge t pissed at you y'know? l also feel a little bit restless i think? Like I wanna do so mething that is not just standing up." she coughs a bit "Sorry. Also the finger that I touched with my power feels a little fragile? It didn't hurt as much when I first woke up after the phoenix guy fight…. no, it was Phenex right? I remember it was saying phoenix but wrong, maybe, I dunno" She says with a voice that now sounds a little hyperactive.
"...When I was taking care of your hands I didn't find anything wrong with it besides the skin being gray" Says Grayfia. " But then you told me that it was hurting you so i got something to make your hands numb until we found out what was happening"
The couple just start fussing over her, trying to see if she is in any pain. I just keep analyzing her power and taking notes of her behavior. When I'm done I interrupt them " Ok. now what is left is to check her power when her eyes are red like her battle, check her with red with black sclera and discover what exactly caused her skin to change"
She seems excited to test it but her Sirzechs gets worried "Maybe we should stop for today? Let her rest?"
"Nah sis, I wanna learn magic as soon as possible, and i'm feeling great! Better to get this over so that we know the extent of my Weird POD now so that I can train it too!" Rias reasons
Sirzechs seems reluctant for a few seconds before asking ".. POD?"
"Oh, I've been hearing and saying "Power of destruction" a lot and it's getting annoying , So POD!"
"Huh"
"... I also would like for her to rest…But the sooner we know what she could do to herself, the sooner we all can be prepared to help her" Grayfia Reasons
Sirzechs hesitates for a few seconds until she sighs. "Fine. But when i feel that it's enough, we,as in Fia, will stop you even if you have be knocked out"
"Yeah!" Rias shouts in glee.
Grayfia is glaring at her wife.
"What?" Sirzechs aks defensively "You are my queen, I trust you with this and I don't want to hurt my own sister"
Grayfia continues to glare at Sirzechs Until Rias says to her "Thanks Fia-nee! I'm counting on ya."
Grayfia stops her glare and pats Rias's head. "I will always try to be available to help you, Rias. But why are you so interested in magic?"
She's probably asking this because for all the years that I've been forced to hear Sirzechs brag about her sister, I've stopped hearing about her magic feats. Probably Rias, before her fight with Phenex, only learned the magics that she would use on a daily basis and stopped learning new ones.
"Because magic is cool as fuck and It will gimme the power to make reality my bitch!" Rias says with a smile that does not combine with the words she just said.
The couple is speechless.
I decide to move on before they try to stop our tests to deal with that can of worms "Then Rias, your red eyes are more likely related to Wrath, so get as angry as you can and then we will try to reduce your anger until you can manage it.
"Okay!"
(1 hour later)
-Grayfia-
It was far more chaotic than we expected to be. We should have been more careful
The test room is completely messed up. Her strange power is everywhere. Sirzechs had to step up to help me because her enraged state was more troublesome and stubborn than what we expected. We still managed to subdue Rias without hurting her and we didn't receive any damage, our clothes were ruined but that's fine. But the problem is that now the gray part in her hands reaches her elbows.
It's been a few minutes since I've started giving her a lap pillow and continuing to caress her head. She has a very cute and serene expression on her face, like she didn't stubbornly refuse to go down for a while in a fight against a maou and her queen, even if we were severely holding down our strength.
Ajuka tried to communicate with her "Rias, can you speak to us?"
She opens her mouth to speak but it came out a little distorted growl " ▄▄▄"
"Can you try to speak again more fluently?"
She stops for a few seconds before trying again "▄ᕼᗩᖇᗪ"
"Are you capable of understanding everything that I'm saying?"
She makes a "so-so" gesture.
"Ok. Can you undo your transformation? Not to the yellow eyes but to your normal state."
She closes her eyes then just stays quiet. She yawns from time to time and I speak a little to her to make sure she doesn't sleep. But at some point she opens her eyes and they are Blue again.
She looks at me in the eye and I see her getting upset "... sorry"
"It's fine, Rias" I try to placate her. "Nobody was hurt and this was necessary"
She still seems a little down.
Sirzechs sees the situation and says "... Rias, We will allow you to learn magic from Akeno."
Her eyes lit up.
"... It will be after at least 2 days of rest." I interrupt before she says anything. "And you will start simple and only after a few days of training normal devil magic will we start thinking about you training your power of destruction. But first we need to know about the gray part of your hands"
She still seems happy with it… We should probably be worried about what she said about magic… but not today. As I keep on caressing her head I realize that this probably calms me more than it does her.
Sirzechs decides to ask "So Ajuka, what did you find out?"
Ajuka pulls a white board and explains while writing "Well. Let's start with the eyes.
1.1 - Red eyes make her act more with her instincts, more wild. But she still has some semblance of consciousness. She still could communicate, although with some difficulty, it varies on her level of anger. She can recover on her own but it would be faster with help. If she is not with anyone hostile or in a hostile environment it's fine to stay in this state.
1.2 - Red eyes with black sclerae, she appears to let all semblance of reason go . She just wants to destroy or attack anything in sight like a wild and angry beast lashing out. This will probably continue until she is stopped by someone making her unconscious or if she just gets tired on her own. We did manage to get her out of this state but we don't have a really reliable way. This state is stronger than the Red eyes with white sclerae but very dangerous and reckless.
1.3 - Yellow eyes with white sclerae makes her more… neutral. She's not emotionless but her emotions are a little muted. I imagine that it could be useful if she is in a stressful situation. She can forcefully calm herself down. This is weaker than the red eyes state because we could feel that her power grows stronger with emotions.
1.4 - Yellow eyes with black sclera she becomes more expressive than her normal state. More happy, more restless and we could probably guess. more angry than her normal state too. It may be a little more reckless than her normal state but she has more control than any red eyes state. It may be as strong or a little weaker than her red eyes white sclerae state.
This is more or less all that we got from her eyes. It may be wrong, and have different or additional effects. It's up to her to see what else she could do.
2 - Now about the gray skin. It's not weaker, in fact it's stronger than her normal arm. But the problem is that it is very sensitive. The "pain" that she felt was the feeling of magic whe have in hell touching her arm.
Either she finds a way to make her arms go back to normal or get used to it until it doesn't bother her anymore. As we know we can make her hands go numb or lessen the sensitivity. I'm not sure if it's a transformation process that makes her attack stronger or a side effect of her power. Only she can truly tell if she decides to continue using it.
Now the real problem and the core of ALL of this is her actual Power of destruction.
3 - It seems more similar to a curse than the normal Power of Destruction, probably a we know from Riser Phenex's Report is that It was hurting him even when they were separated, probably aiming to corrode his being until there was nothing. It stopped about the same time she went unconscious.
We don't know if it went away because she slept, or if it was because before she slept she unconsciously undid all of her curse. The power itself It's either alive that responds to her will or she has a very good concentration and skill when she changes her eye color.
Even now after these tests it's still a mystery. Some of the furniture was slowly corroded into nothing. But even after she went to Red Eyes with black Sclerae to just Red Eyes and Grayfia was calming her down, The power still continued.
If she still wants to use the "normal" Power of Destruction she can just not change her eyes. But whenever she changes her eye color, then it will probably always become the mutated version."
-Rias-
I timidly raise my hand
"Yes?" Ajuka says
"... Can you put everything in writing and give it to me later?"
This was a lot and I'm sleepy because the test made me tired. Grayfia caressing my head also doesn't help.
"Yes, I will organize my notes and give it to you and your sisters later"
"Thank you"
Sirzechs decide to stay with Ajuka to talk so I say goodbye to them and Grayfia teleports us to the baths.
She said that I needed one. I'm going to believe that she is just nice and that she's not saying that I stink. I say goodbye to her as well. She offers to give me a bath. Maybe it was normal for old me. I consider for a moment before saying no. Not today.
I thought that a bath would calm me down after all of that, but it didn't. My peerage told me that I liked to sleep naked. I thought that they were fucking with me. But I tried and it's surprisingly more comfortable, to me at least.
But even though I feel more comfortable and tired. I still can't fall asleep immediately. I'm guessing that these transformations are my Buff that Zack told me he would give me. Each time I changed my eye color I could feel my personality shifting into another.
I said those brave sounding things to my peerage but I don't think I can fight or that I can become a battle junkie. I will probably just go with red eyes to help me in these situations. But… What if I change? What if I end up being able to activate the transformations without noticing that I was transformed or transforming and just staying like that without ever stopping, even when I'm asleep.
Will my personality change again like when I lost my memory? Will I notice the change or just become someone new again without even realizing? ... Would I even care at that point?... Would it even matter?
I kept having these kinds of thoughts until I finally managed to fall asleep
AN: Hey. I finally managed to get this chapter out. I wanted to do more interactions but I thought it would be better to get a general explanation of Rias power out of the way. Well, what I imagine that they could discover in this test. I imagine that Sirzechs would either try to discover what this power does as fast as possible or just straight up order Rias to not use her powers.
But the next chapter will have her interacting more with her peerage and the start of training.
I was going to add a little more to this chapter but I liked the little angst at the end.