Chapter I


A week ago, Issei was the happiest man on earth.

Though not for a reason he had ever expected!

Frankly, the teenager was having a good year. His grades were up and he'd made enough of a climb that his parents let him buy all sorts of things as reward for the, at times, seemingly outlandish amount of effort he'd been putting in.

While it had cost him five afternoons a week and, on test days, the weekend before, he'd gone from a solidly B student to almost completely straight As! He'd even put in enough effort to at least go jogging regularly, pulling up his physical scores from the bottom half of his class to the top third!

So his collection had prospered. From visual novels, to a new console, and even a brand new display case for his… collectibles, his mom seemed adamant on bribing him into keeping up the high scores.

Not that she needed to.

In fact, there had been a few moments where Issei had felt guilty about everything. That his parents felt he needed to be bribed at all was a touch insulting, but their comments about him finally overcoming his perversions had been downright painful.

Yet that didn't matter!

Because, you see, Issei was a man on a mission.

He had aims. He had goals to conquer and obstacles to overcome.

And it all started when he'd heard that Kuoh Academy, the previously number one all-girl's institution of the country, was changing its policies and becoming a mixed class school.

Kuoh was everything you wanted in high school.

Prestigious.

Well maintained.

But for Issei in particular, the upside was less about where he went to class and more who he went to class with. Because they were only allowing guys to apply now, at the earlier years, it meant that the older classrooms would be filled with only last year's students.

Cute girls!

It was paradise.

Meaning that, even if Issei had to deal with guys in his class, so long as he made it through the gates, he would be surrounded by a veritable kaleidoscope of choices and flavors to feast his eyes on.

How could he not apply himself?!

So that's what he did.

He studied.

He dedicated himself, and he managed to graduate not only at the top of his class, but also aced the entrance exam for Kuoh in what he could only imagine must have been the proudest moment of his parent's lives. And as per their agreement, those were exactly the conditions they agreed on so they would let Issei get into his dream school.

The cruise?

That was just the cherry on top.

A way for them to commemorate it. And it wasn't like Issei was complaining.

He could see a bunch of gorgeous ladies by the pool every day for a whole week. How could he not be satisfied? As far as he was concerned this was only a taste of what his high school life was gonna be all about!

'Guess it was too good to be true, huh?'

Or maybe the world really did have it out for him, though the young man didn't like that kind of thinking. There was… too much at stake to simply lie down.

Regardless, the first few days of the cruise had been just as Issei envisioned. With all the playing, lazing around, and gawking he could fit into his routine. It was only on the night of the third day that it all went pear-shaped. Sailing through some sort of freak storm, all the lights on the ship going dark…

That was when the nightmare started.

People started disappearing.

Or rather, they'd go to their rooms and not leave.

Or they would go to the restrooms and not come back.

The staff downstairs were the first to go.

'Man… she caught this guy on his knees.' The teenager winced in sympathy walking past a statue of a man that had been turned while trying to crawl away from that terrifying lady. Taking up the middle of the hallway, Issei had to slowly tiptoe around him to avoid tripping.

There was a reason he avoided hallways like these.

One slip was all it took for that lady to get him.

When he escaped her the first go around, Issei wasn't exactly sure of what he was doing or where he was going. He'd tried finding a member of the staff to warn them about the maniac running around the ship, but found only statues. Then he tried to find a phone that he could use to call for help, surely someone had a phone that was working.

Only not at all.

Nobody had a signal and later on, trying to use the ship's phones, the doors had been locked or it had been too confusing to follow the directions with the precious few seconds of time he'd had.

But now? With time and flashlights and a few spare moments spent studying manuals on how to operate a satellite phone? In most cases they simply wouldn't even turn on. As if electronics had stopped working altogether.

At first Issei had been relieved to find out that the ship was still going despite the lack of anyone driving it… but that thought soon became negative when he realized that it was probably that lady's doing.

Was she planning to take them somewhere?

Did she want to escape to some other country after doing… whatever it is she was doing here?

Those questions made sleep difficult.

'Seems like she hasn't been down here yet.' All the small trinkets and strings he left lying around were still where they were, and the storage area door was still firmly closed.

Strangely, all of the mirrors were gone, though.

"Would she have just taken the small ones? Why leave the other traps?"

Issei looked down the hallway with his mirror just in case, muttering to himself and suddenly becoming a bit more worried.

You never knew if you were being followed.

'Coast is clear.' Nodding to himself, Issei slowly turned the handle on the door, cracking it just enough to slip into the room before just as carefully closing it behind him… the click of the lock always made his heart skip a beat… before the silence made him sigh in relief. Even if something was weird, everyone was ok.

Another successful day.

"Ok everybody, I'm back!"

Several small faces peeked out of cabinets, and the older kids slowly started leaving the other entrances.

"I bring candy!" Switching to English was difficult and the words were stilted and accented, but clear enough to coax a few more wary faces into the main area of the officer's mess. "Chocolate!"

While the chisel had torn a hole through one of the side pockets, Issei had still managed to bring back an entire packful of food, drinks, and, yes, sweets. And the two dozen kids, some of whom were babbling quietly, and one of whom actually hugged him, made him relax just a bit more.

The oldest of the kids, Joan, walked in carrying a baby and Issei pulled out a six pack of baby food.

"Here! Warm, then yum yum."

She smiled and murmured something in French, nodding at him before going to take care of the child.

"Big brother, big brother!" Shotaro, a Japanese boy tugged on his shirt. "Tota is sick!"

Nodding, and extricating himself from the others as they distributed the dry goods, he pulled a small insulin case out of his coat pocket and followed. And the poor boy, who had Type One diabetes, received his injection - the small plastic needle clicking to signify the meds would soon do their work.

Thinking about it, the fact he managed to find the kids before… the monster. No matter what she looked like… she was a monster.

But his escape turned out to be all but a miracle. With all adults turned into stone and nobody around to help take care of them, he'd taken to running around the ship to find whatever they needed to survive.

Baby food, medicine, random toys.

It wouldn't take much for him to hole himself up with food and a blanket. Wait out the storm until the ship reached… whatever place it was headed to.

But he couldn't abandon them.

He just… couldn't.

'I'm gonna have to think of something.' They were hidden for now, but there were just so many places they could stay at before they were found out. And even if he could explain to the kids that they couldn't look at the dangerous lady, she was still swinging around a hammer that nearly took his head off yesterday.

They wouldn't survive without him.

But he was barely surviving as it was.

He could find food, and there were clothes a plenty, but one of the kids needed medicine and that meant it was gonna run out eventually. There was just no way they could keep this up.

Especially when they were up against something clearly inhuman. Or at least supernatural.

Yes. Issei had put a great deal of thought into this problem and came to the conclusion that this wasn't a fever dream and it was actual reality… and that there was a woman aboard who was hunting down and turning people into stone. However impossible it was to believe it, there was no reasonable way he could think of explaining what happened the past three days.

No matter how you cut it, this wasn't normal.

So if the mundane was out of the picture, whatever was left had to be at least likely, right?

"Then the answer is obvious." Pulling out a notepad from his ruined backpack, Issei started noting down his thoughts. Drawing balloons around keywords as he linked them together.

Petrification.

Mirrors.

Pretty?

He crossed out the last word. Issei wasn't about to check her face, but the parts he did look at were very nice, yes. And it was her need to break mirrors, and the fact she could turn people into stone that allowed him to guess who this mysterious, otherworldly woman was.

It was obvious. Staring him right in the eye.

She was Dusa-chan, the main villainess from Doki Doki Monster Paradise 5!

How could he have been so blind? Not noticing it the first time around! The evil eyes that turn people into statues, the dislike of mirrors and downright shyness around them. Of course she was still missing the snake pets that would spy on people for her, but everything else fit.

It made complete sense!

What didn't make sense was how she ended up in the real world.

'Figures that rather than end up in another world like every other character, someone decided to drop a hardcore difficulty boss on me!' The world clearly had its favorites and Issei Hyoudou wasn't one of them!

But where did that leave him?

The only thing he could recall about the game was that you were supposed to help break her curse to land the secret ending. But if you didn't do a very detailed sequence of choices, you would only end up in the Friendzone and be forced to start over from scratch.

'Because she kills you on accident during the last battle.' Issei shuddered. Unfortunately it had been years since he played.

So what could he do?

They couldn't stay in the same place for long, not without risking being found. But they couldn't just try and leave either. They were just a bunch of kids, so putting them on a lifeboat wouldn't help. Even if he really wanted to run as far away from the scary monster lady as he could.

'I'd say its worth the risk, but what if she attacks from range? Could she smash the boat? Simply pick them off? How would they even get home?'

In the end, he couldn't choose to commit to that course of action out of fear.

'But is simply staying here any better?'

Maybe he could trigger her flags?

Convincing the hot villain girl not to kill you should be easier than romancing her like in the game… hopefully.

But how did the story go again?

Something about trespassing, her boyfriend, and an angry goddess? Issei never really cared about the backstory details for those games. What he did know was that her true ending had something to do with mirrors. In the game, Dusa-chan hated them and would steal and hide mirrors from other characters. Breaking them was kinda different, but if she was doing that maybe it was because there was more to it than just disliking them.

Maybe it had something to do with her powers?

"Man, I should have at least brought a console. At least then I could have tried to check." Who'd think that not being perverted for once would come back to bite him in the ass like that?

"You could just ask, you know?"

The teen sighed.

"Like that would work. I would get two words in before she splattered me against the wall." Leaning against the wall, Issei responded absentmindedly.

The was a hissing titter.

"Aww, you make me sound like an unreasonable brute."

Before startling awake.

A voice, a very familiar bone chilling voice, dragged him back from the verge of falling asleep. Looking around hurriedly, he couldn't see the lady anywhere, trying not to scare the kids as he steadied his breathing.

"Down here, boya."

Looking down, the teenager was faced with the terrifying sight of a snake as it slithered under the door, pitch black scales contrasting with strange glowing symbols that ran along its back. Golden eyes staring at him with a vague feeling of annoyance as it tasted the air.

"So this is where you've been hiding? And you didn't even invite me? For shame. Did your parents not teach you manners?"

Stepping back, Issei came to a chilling realization.

She found them.

"Run." His whisper was sharp, the children suddenly silent, frozen in place like a rabbit staring down a python. "Y-You followed me."

The snake tilted its head and the teenager managed to force himself to step closer, doing everything he could to physically interpose himself between the snake and the still frozen kids.

"Not at all. Skulking hallways, sniffing after a rat isn't dignified at all. As fun as cornering you would have been, I do have some pride. I just had to bring forth enough familiars to check every room."

"Why didn't you do this earlier?" He couldn't help but ask, sweat dripping down his back, oh so slowly trying to reach for what looked like a chef's cleaver left on a nearby table. "Why now?"

The serpent shrugged.

"It was fun, chasing you around the ship. It brought back nice memories. But if you keep getting away from me then it's only natural that I start taking the game seriously. Who do you think you are? Perseus?"

More squirming forms dragged themselves through the gaps around the door, hissing and spitting and rattling.

"Run, dammit!" This time one of them obeyed, a five year silently crying fat tears and with globs of snot dripping from his nose. He grabbed the hand of another child and started walking. Slowly, carefully, tip-toeing away. "E-every room." Issei's voice was weak even to his own ear. "That must have taken a lot… of snakes." He swallowed. "D-Dusa-Chan!"

His tone was accusatory and almost triumphant, a note of hysteria undercutting the declaration of the monster's name.

Pausing, the serpent tilted its head, Issei took the opportunity to glance behind him, seeing a tearful Joan slip away, baby sucking on a pacifier in her arms, and almost silently close a wooden door behind her as she did.

"Dusa? Is that another spelling of my name? Odd. But your language is hardly proper Greek - never mind the modern nonsense they must speak these days."

Greek?

Issei didn't really know a whole lot about other languages. But the monster lady didn't deny his accusation. More importantly, the fact that she was now using snakes to spy and find people was something that the Villainess Dusa-chan would do in the game.

Maybe other people would struggle to figure out her real identity, but for Issei Hyoudou the answer should have been obvious from the beginning.

This still didn't make things any easier.

In fact, the fact she could look for them with her pet snakes made things even worse.

"What's the matter, boya? Snake got your tongue? No more clever tricks to play? I suppose this is as far as a normal human can go." The serpent hissed out a mocking laugh.

Issei had no time to respond, seeing the serpent begin to wriggle through, so he dashed the two steps to the cleaver and snatched it up.

"Game over!"

Spinning round, he brought the knife up and felt his arm jolt as it smacked off the fangs of the serpent. Somehow the thing, not much bigger around than two of his fingers, sent his arm flying and knocked the blade from his hand. However, cringing back from having smacked its teeth against metal, the serpent didn't simply latch onto the human.

A human that, faced with certain death, made a high pitched whine in the back of his throat and tried to run.

The next strike was for his ankle, a dry bite, he thought, as there was only a sharp pain in his leg - no spreading fire or cold or numbness. Still, he stumbled and started to fall, able to grab a table and drag it down with him.

It came down easily, falling on the snake's head, and put something between Issei and his assailant.

"Ooh, boya, you're rather rude. Dropping things on a lady!"

Using its fangs, the serpent grabbed a hold of the edge of the table, reared back, and brought it down with an almighty crash. He, however, used the three seconds it gave him to run for an exit as fast as possible. And damn the pain in his foot!

"A lady doesn't kill people!"

Issei was sweating.

"A lady doesn't kill my mom and dad!"

Issei was crying angry tears.

"A lady doesn't torture kids just because her boyfriend dumped her!"

That got a roar of anger from all around the ship, Issei managing to just barely close a hatch behind him, as he hoped against hope his insult drew any attention away from the kids.

"And that my plan worked."

Muttering helped distract him from the pain and the wet feeling coming from his left shoe.

"Woah."

Stumbling, unsteady, light headed, he almost fell head first down a staircase.

"Gotta stay focused! Only got one shot at this."

Unsure it would help, he offered up a prayer to God for anything. Issei remembered going to church with some family friends back when he was younger. Some of the words were familiar, comforting, though he was probably horribly botching them.

Well, if He was watching, he'd at least make it a cool dramatic exit.

'Please, let the others make it out okay. Please, please, please. I don't want to die, but if I have to, please let it be worth it.'

Because he had a plan.

A bad plan.

But a plan nonetheless. And he'd need every little bit of help he could get pulling it off.

Limping, he checked over his shoulder every few steps - hoping there'd be nothing there. And so far there hadn't been. It was a small mercy, giving him time to actually try and get out from the guts of the crew section.

Which meant that getting to the upper deck was the first and biggest obstacle Issei had to deal with.

With the snakes on the prowl and Dusa-chan taking their game of hide and seek seriously, it was all he could do to try and avoid her on the way up the stairs or around the hallways. Because they would stay near the staircases and the elevator that the staff used to go back and forth to the lower end of the ship that meant his only shot was a food elevator.

Painfully cramped, but fortunately still working, as a small, localized battery had kept the thing whirring along.

Once he was out, the teenager paused and pulled stuffed paper towels into his sock. Not the greatest bandage in the world, but enough to soak up the blood.

'I should definitely do some yoga when I go home. Or at the very least do more stretches in the morning.'

His hands were unsteady but he managed a small laugh.

Perhaps, he considered, his escape had been possible because she wasn't aware that such a thing as a food elevator existed, or the closed doors meant that the snakes couldn't get inside, but that stroke of luck was what allowed Issei to escape to the upper floors. Still only just barely avoiding a large python that slept by the entrance to the nearby stairwell.

'Okay, step one is done.'

Step two… wasn't any easier.

If getting through the snakes was difficult the first time around, rummaging through the rooms and avoiding being seen while running back and forth between hallways was all but suicidal. Thankfully Issei seemed to have grabbed the devil's luck, because very few snakes were roaming around, mostly actually focusing on sunning themselves on windowsills and open patches of the deck.

'Does she think I'm still down in the lower levels?'

She could be hunting down the other kids. And wasn't that a morbid thought, for Issei to have drawn her attention and managed to escape, only for the monster lady to turn around and start hunting for the others.

No, she wouldn't do that!

Why was he so convinced of it?

Because she was a sore loser. Because she only started 'taking it seriously' after he kept escaping her. To the point she went several days without doing anything different just to see if she could catch him herself, give up, and started using those pets of hers to cheat.

Or so he hoped.

Either way, it took about another ten minutes to accomplish what he truly needed!

The rooms on the cruise ship had an electronic lock, though those were automatically disengaged with the power shut off, meaning he was dependent on a ring of keys pulled out of an open janitor's locker to get into places.

But that was all he really needed.

In the end, collecting this and that had proved to be simple, if time consuming. And Issei had definitely noticed that something was up - the air itself felt electric. So the teenager figured he'd only have a little bit longer. Success or failure, there was a single shot at defeating Dusa-Chan!

'I don't want to fail….'

So his actions were swift.

He stopped for a moment to chug down a bottle of water and relieve himself in a toilet that still had water. It was a silly thing, a stupid thing, even, but he didn't want to go into battle… uncomfortable.

And the pain meds Issei had swallowed weren't doing anything, but he didn't expect something labeled with the picture of a laughing baby to actually do much.

Still. It was the little things.

So he pulled out the compact mirror and checked his corners, he tugged his backpack closer and made sure nothing jingled, but most of all, he took a few, final deep breaths.

This was it.

The last moment.

"DUSA-CHAN! COME AND GET ME!"

Screaming at the absolute top of his lungs, the brown haired teenager felt a strange sort of acceptance and a surge of joy washed over him!

"I WAS THINKING ABOUT YOUR OPPAI!"

For a moment there was silence.

The serene lapping of waves in the distance along with the cawing of seagulls. Issei wondered if he had actually yelled loud enough to be heard and if he should repeat himself.

That was when he heard it.

The hissing. It wasn't particularly loud, but the amount of snakes he heard more than made up for it with a chorus of death. Then came the offended shriek off in the distance accompanied by a screech of tearing metal.

'Step three is a success.' He gulped nervously.

Assuming that was for him, the idiot rushed off, unable to keep a hysterical laugh from bubbling out of him as he ran pell mell towards his end.

Time for step four.

After that? Who knows!

He hadn't thought that far ahead!