The meditation while visiting various orphanages had allowed me to nail down a perfect variant of No Game No Life. Approaching Shiro when she had parents that cared about her or, more pertinently, parents she cared about, would make it very difficult to convince her to abandon her living condition to go with the strange boy that rocked up into her life from nowhere. Not even mentioning one who had Sora.

An Orphaned Shiro, one who had yet to meet Sora, however...

Easy pickings.

The girl in question was busy staring in mute shock at my finger, where my flashy display of magic had just ended. While the attention was somewhat gratifying, I did need to work on convincing her to come back with me.

To snap her out of it, I snatched up a brownie with my other hand, offering it to her, "Here you are, your prize for winning."

She jolted, before looking at the proffered confection with mild distrust. Quickly deciding that with all that she already had eaten, one more would not make much of a difference, she sullenly took it in hand with a muffled, "Thanks."

Nibbling on the corner of the chocolate treat, She regarded my me for a short time before asking, "Why are you here?"

I laughed, "I wish to adopt you as my little sister, Shiro." At her surprised face, I continued, "Before I get to that, I want to make sure you understand something."

Under her expectant gaze, I let out my wings. Taking in her shocked expression, I elaborated, "I am not of this world, Shiro. I have a unique power, one that allows me access to other dimensions, other worlds."

"I can go to countless worlds. An infinite amount of them. And out of all those worlds, all those differing possibilities, I chose to come here. For you. That's how special you are." Her face took on that adorable blush that my previous compliments summoned, but this time there was a hint of trepidation.

"Why me?" She asked softly looking down as she said that.

I reached out, gently ruffling her hair. She started as I did so, but eventually leaned into the action. I explained, "Magic requires a lot of intelligence, Shiro. Imagination and knowledge in equal measure. There is no one I could have reached, who has all your characteristics. You're perfect, and if you would have a non-human like me, I would be glad to take you into my family."

She looked down, nibbling her lip, as I took back my hand and moved in for the kill, "Besides, what do you have to lose by coming with me? If you refuse, I won't force you. But staying here, stagnating, bored, miserable. Is that really what you want?"

Taking out a white Bishop piece, I gently placed it on the table between us. "This is a tool, Shiro. It will make you like me and make you into a member of my family. If you accept, I swear to you, as your King and as your future Older Brother, I will do everything in my power to protect and care for you."

She turned my words over in her mind, my obvious manipulation likely bare to her, but the picture I painted was probably seductive regardless. "You want me to be good at magic. What if..." Her voice trailed off, the question however was easy to figure out.

I suppressed a snort, her not taking to Magic like a fish to water was a vanishingly small possibility. Regardless, this next statement required no embellishment on my part, "Of course not Shiro. You would be part of my Peerage, my adorable little sister. Even if the entire world banded together and told me to get rid of you, I would tell them to get lost. It would be us, you and me, together against world."

I wasn't lying. My Peerage would be full of powerful, skilled people, but first and foremost they were chosen for the simple reason that I liked them. Even if they turned out differently to what I planned, it didn't change the fact that I chose them for who they are, not what they could give me. Beyond the Catalogue perks, of course.

I stretched my hand out to her, pinky finger extended. "That will be our promise. You don't have to see me as a brother at first, or even at all, if you want. All I ask, is you trust me, just a little. I swear you wont regret it."

The girl looked around herself, taking in her surroundings. I don't know what was going through her head, so I decided to wait patiently. Calmly observing the girl as that brilliant mind is was so interested in carefully considered the situation. Eventually, hesitantly, timidly, she reached out her hand, pinky finger extended as well. Halfway to mine, she stopped, seeming to be reconsidering.

I did nothing to pressure her, merely smiling gently at her when she looked up at me. That seemed to seal the deal, as she nodded resolutely and entangled her pinky with mine. I smiled at her, received a small, shy smile in response, before slowly releasing the tiny digit.

"Do you want to get your piece now Shiro? I promise it will be quick, like a nice nap." She seemed to still be a bit hesitant, but after her display of agreement she seemed uncomfortable saying no.

I knelt down next to her, gently resting a hand on her shoulder, "I know it's scary. You don't have to do it right away if you don't want to."

She straightened up, her eyes turning resolute as they looked into mine, "I'll do it."

I smiled, slowly reaching my hand out and rubbing her head as she took in a breath and closed her eyes, "Good, well done for being so brave."

I informed her about the magical tattoo that I needed to put on her to allow her to travel back with me, and she surprised me by telling me where she wanted it placed.

"On my tummy." Shiro said calmly.

"Are you sure? I need to have skin contact to place it." I felt slightly awkward about this, especially considering what form the Stamp took.

"That's fine." Shiro replied.

I attempted to change her mind, but she seemed to be oddly stubborn about this and she would not tell me why. So, after placing the bishop into her chest and while she was asleep and recovering, I hesitantly placed my hand under her shirt and laid my palm flat on her warm, flat stomach. Feeling like an absolute creep all while.

As well as trying to ignore the fact that I was essentially giving an 8-year-old a womb tattoo.

The awkwardness was dispelled by the successful placing of the stamp, seeing that the world went grey and the window with the perks from the Catalog opened up in front of my eyes.

Now, here was the whole reason for this song and dance, beside Shiro herself. The perks chosen were as follows:

Martial talent was chosen so that I could become a capable combatant as soon as possible. I was pretty far off from canon at this point, but that doesn't change the fact that DxD is still a couple of horny boob jokes removed from a literal death world. I chose the setting for it's easy path to power, but that did not blind me to the dangers lurking in the wings.

For my next capture, I needed to pick up stress defence. She had an ability that could bypass my other defences, Mind and Information, while incapacitating me. I wasn't planning on the recruitment to turn combative, but it's better to be safe than sorry. It would also assist me with my ultimate goal of Ophis.

Now, for the final piece. The perfect perk for Shiro, one that would turn her into the perfect weapon to wield against the Satans, allowing me to strike directly at their weaknesses. Shiro is adorable, almost the personification of cuteness. Using the funds my vault in my manor holds, I can push through an official adoption for her into the Sagan family, as my little sister. Making her an exceptional target for Arlo.

As I confirmed my choices, the time stop stuttered, colour flickering back and forth in the world around me. This had never happened before, so I tensed, wondering what the hell was going on. Suddenly, the world righted itself as if nothing happened and a handwritten note appeared in a flash in front of me.

"We apologise for the inconvenience." Was all the note said. With a picture of Catharsis giving a thumbs up in the corner.

I instantly started worrying more, fretting over what the hell that meant, which was the state Shiro found me in when she woke up.

Tet straightened up from his place at the top of Disboard, wondering what had caused him to feel like something wrong had happened. Casting his attentions over the world in his dominion, he could not immediately spot what was out of place. Casting his attention even further out, to the souls connected to his own, he soon spotted the problem.

Someone had usurped the connection he had to the soul of Schwi's reincarnation.

Frantically zeroing in on the spot he last could feel her, he felt the effect of some unknown god fall upon her world. Being Divinity himself, he could manoeuvre around the causal suspension, helped by the fact that he wasn't present when time was stopped.

Soon, he found the mortal who dared to steal Schwi away, an existence like nothing else he ever knew, sitting in the centre of this mystery God's power. Focusing his own Authority, he attempted to strike at this being, trying to either disperse the time stop or drag him to Tet's location so that he could challenge him to relinquish his hold on Schwi's soul.

As his power accumulated, starting to interact with the monotone of the other God, he suddenly found himself cut off, staring in confusion into the eyes of a being who looked exactly like him, except for all the colours being drained away.

"No, no." The suddenly appearing God said, voice amused, "That's not how you play the Game."

Tet attempted to peer into the other young looking boy, finding a limitless well of power, easily dwarfing anything he had ever encountered. Even more concerning, this well of infinite energy seemed to be looking back.

Withdrawing quickly, he realized he had no reference for what to do in such a situation, and immediately tried to gain some much needed information, "Why are you...?"

"Boredom, mostly." The thing in front of him said, "It's the only reason I do anything these days."

Having no clue how to respond to that, Tet scrambled to find the words for the many things he wished to say.

Before he could, the Elder God stated, "Normally I wouldn't care, even if I did bless that guy. However, he has proven to be quite entertaining. On top of that, you aren't the God of the world he is in, you have no Authority to meddle over there. Didn't your parents ever teach you not to mess with other God's affairs, especially on a world not you own?"

"Wait!" Tet shouted, finally having enough of the insanity occurring in front of him, "Whose Authority did I infringe? That world has no Gods!"

"It doesn't." The other Divinity admitted, "But this was mostly to stop you from messing with my fun anyway. I just needed to have a good excuse for Fortune."

Tet was stunned at this thing not taking this interaction at all seriously, a rebellious part of him wondering if this was how others felt interacting with him.

The other God then proceeded, "That being said, you solve everything through games here, don't you? I'll challenge you for that girl, could be interesting. That's covered under Rule 7, isn't it? Conflicts between groups will be conducted by designated representatives with absolute authority, I believe it was."

"He has to agree to you representing him." Tet replied instinctively, still reeling from all that was occurring.

"Oh, don't worry about that." The Elder God smiled, "I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

After the weirdness with Shiro's stamping, I expected the transition from her reality back to DxD to be affected in some way, but it actually went off without a hitch. After introducing her to Kasane and Naomi, I hypnotized the receptionist at the orphanage I had teleported from to fabricate a fake record of her placement there.

After that, it was a simple trip to government office to make sure her records there matched the one in the orphanage and the cover her existence was complete. From there, we all took the train back to the Underworld to introduce Shiro to her new home.

While on the way, I tested all the perks that I had to ensure they still functioned correctly, but it seemed that whatever happened when I stamped Shiro didn't effect them at all. I still expected something to go wrong for some time after that, but eventually I managed to put it out of my mind.

I didn't spend all my time worrying, of course. The previous few weeks were spent putting affairs into order, not least of which was my official adoption of Shiro.

It was a calculated move, politically speaking. Although it alienated me even further from the hardliners in devil society, it would likely appear to the Satans that their ideas were working on me and that I would support their policies, seeing as Shiro was a Reincarnated Devil.

While that process was under way, I was not idle. I trained with my peerage, putting aside special time for Shiro to get her started on learning magic. As expected, she took to it like a fish to water, proving herself to be quite the bookworm as well, my library becoming one of her new favourite places to frequent. Her constant expression of wonder whenever she saw magic practiced or preformed it herself was always a joy to witness.

Her other favourite place, of course, was the Kitchen/Dining area. It seemed to be a universal constant that small girls had a weakness to sweets.

Both Naomi and Shiro had quickly moved on from the actualization of their Demonic Power and were ready to try actually casting spells. There was a slight issue, where Naomi appeared to have a decent well of Demonic power, while Shiro lagged behind in that respect. This allowed Naomi to practice spell casting for far longer than Shiro, meaning she got better than her at the spells I had assigned more often.

I wasn't worried, in fact I had expected this. Shiro was young and a normal human besides. Expecting her to have a large pool of Power right off the bat would be foolish. So, when she tired out and was no longer able to practice, I decided to sit with her and go over the theory of Magic and Spells, allowing her to work around her issue in combat.

For example, rather than brute forcing a massive blast of fire at someone, attempting to defeat them in a single shot, she could instead conjure flammable oil in the area, then use a smaller fire spell to light it up and direct her opponent into an advantageous position for her. I described the idea like a game to her, which seemed to get good results as she thought up various devious ways of combining different effects.

In our downtime, I prepared for the Function that had been organised to introduce me to the Devil Nobility. For that, I researched the various Noble Houses, their views on and agreements with my own House and looked up their public perception on the Devil Net, allowing me to prepare for the people that would be attending.

I had my own plans for the event, of course. It was tradition for a young Noble being introduced to prepare some form of entertainment of demonstration, showing off their prowess or their views on devil society as a whole. The most common form this took was a magical demonstration or a play of some sort, but I had a different plan.

To that end, I developed and practised a secret code with Shiro. The code could be used by us either holding hands or with her on my lap, and consisted of a simple series of taps and squeezes, corresponding to moves on a Chess board. I practised with her in using this code to play against Kasane and Naomi, and planned to play Blind Chess against the Nobles present with my very own Pocket Shiro-fish* to defeat them.

This whole plan was targeted at a specific person, of course.

I crafted it specifically so that she couldn't resist my trap.

Aside from that, the girls had been working very hard, so I decided to hit two birds with one stone and reward us all with a day out on the town next week, getting us tickets to an Anime Convention being held in the Devil Capitol.

It was time to put Arlo to work.

It was the night before Shiro's adoption was finalised, and I had just turned in to rest after staying up a bit late to revise my Glyphs, after realising the fighting style I was developing could use them in some interesting ways.

As I finished getting changed and made to go to bed, I was stopped by a timid knock on my door. Opening it, I was greeted with the adorable visage of Shiro, her messed up bed hair adding to her charm. The cuteness was blunted however, by the tears in the corner of her eyes, stubbornly refusing to fall.

"Shiro?" I asked, concerned, "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Slowly, she shook her head. She opened her mouth, a whisper coming through that I could only hear due to the silence of the manor, "Bad dream."

Ah. That explained things.

"Would you like to talk about it?" I offered.

The girl shook her head again, then stepped forward and bunched up the loose shirt I wore in her tiny fist, "Damocles... You won't make me go away, right?"

I knelt down, gently taking her hand in mine, "Silly. Of course I won't. I'm officially adopting you into my family tomorrow, why would you think I would want you to leave?"

She looked down, biting her lip, "Naomi's stronger than me."

One of the downsides, I reflected, of my obsession with Kuuderes, is that they very rarely share what's bothering them. Still, this was not hard to puzzle out. Shiro felt that with Naomi progressing so much more than her, I would give up on her and put my time and effort into Naomi instead.

To be fair, if I was after the maximum return of investment for the shortest time possible, that could work. To a logical mind like Shiro's, that is likely what she expected to happen.

I surprised the girl by hugging her to me. I had been a bit distant with physical affection, not wanting to creep her out or move faster than she was comfortable with, especially after the whole womb tattoo thing, but on reflection that might have been a mistake.

"Silly," I repeated, stroking her hair, "You're my precious little sister already. Tomorrow is just to make it official. You could be the weakest person in the world and I would still want you with me. I won't abandon you, ever. Like we promised, remember?"

I could feel her nod into my shoulder, her small arms wrapping around me, as my chest became mysteriously damp. I just tightened my arms her, letting her get through her emotions, as she vented in silence.

Eventually her grip slackened, and I loosened mine to allow her to pull back. Her face was red from all the tears and I could see a hint of embarrassment in her gaze. Still, she seemed to be doing much better after that.

"Do you want me to take you back to your room and tuck you in?" I asked gently.

He loose grip suddenly tightened, as she pulled herself back into my chest and shook her head. I was a bit uncomfortable, seeing as it looked like she wanted to sleep in my room, but decided not to try and change her mind in case she viewed it as a rejection of her entirely.

"Okay then, let's wash your face and get to bed." I picked her up and moved into the en suite bathroom, taking a fluffy towel and using it to wipe her face after wetting it, all while she simply stared at me with her large, innocent eyes.

After she was cleaned up, I scooped her back into my arms and moved to the bed, ensuring that she was comfortable under the covers before settling in myself. Suddenly, I was latched onto my a small body as she immediately went to hug me, seemingly craving for closeness.

Deciding to indulge her silent plea for affection, I wrapped my arm around her and started to stroke her head with my hand, lulling her to sleep.

As her tension slowly bled away and she relaxed into my chest, I heard her whisper, "Thank you, Nii..."

It was the first time she called me that. My heart swelled with warmth.

Sleep was hard to find after that, but certainly not at all troubled.

* A play on words for the current strongest commercial chess engine, Stockfish.

Perks obtained this chapter:

Martial Talent: Damocles has instinctive knowledge of how to fight. any mistakes or bad habits he develops while training have a much harder time sticking. He can more easily spot holes in other's guards and has a harder time falling for feints. His ability to fight in close combat is increased at a vastly improved rate through training and experience.

Stress Defense: Damocles can act calmly under pressure and is protected from degenerative mental effects. Should an effect work to erode his mental state, such as a fear or despair aura, Damocles can identify the effect similar to Information and Mind Defence and work to combat it. Should the effect be Magical in nature, he can gain an understanding of it while under it's effects due to Soul Talent.

Arlo (Shiro): Seeing Damocles interact with Shiro and be a good Older Brother to her stimulates the maternal instincts of targeted women. Seeing how good he is with children makes him look like a very attractive partner to girls and a suitable partner for their daughter's to mothers. Girls who are younger than Damocles are also effected, starting to wish that Damocles treat them like he does Shiro. Shiro can target people if she likes them with this trait, making them view her as a surrogate daughter or sibling. Should this happen, the attraction they feel towards Damocles is increased.

AN: Sorry for the lateness, several real life things got in the way. Not super happy with this chapter, the final two sections not coming easily at all. I'm still not confident in writing dialogue, hopefully I did well enough seems a bit rushed, unfortunately/

On Catharsis actually stopping Tet from interfering, he only did it because Tet was not an actual God of the world Shiro was in. Basically, it was Tet muscling in to something that was 'none of his business', as he gave up ownership of Schwi's soul by reincarnating her into a world he doesn't have Authority over.

If Damocles pisses off a terrestrial deity, Hades in DxD for example, he's on his own with that one.

Let me know how I did, I'm always glad to hear your opinions!

I will be mostly absent for a Week, I will still reply to posts but I probably won't be able to write much.